An earnest exercise wherein all the right people say all the right things.
A corporate CEO and longtime champion of “enlightened finance” gathers essays from prominent academics, executives, regulators and politicians on reforming the financial services industry, making it “a consistent and positive force for social good.”
Editor Taft (Stewardship: Lessons Learned from the Lost Culture of Wall Street, 2012) charges his contributors, 25 industry heavyweights whose names are likely unknown to common readers (exceptions include Nobel-winning economist Robert Shiller, former Sen. Judd Gregg and possibly Vanguard founder John Bogle), to concentrate not on the errors that precipitated the Great Recession but on what can be done to repair the damage. Accordingly, this collection takes on the tone of a revival meeting, where congregants urge a return to first principles and a renewal of the faith. In nine sections, each gracefully introduced by the editor, Taft’s authors address topics germane to the future of finance: re-examining the contract between finance and society (with a special emphasis on the moral component of the compact); taking up the unfinished work of regulatory reform; re-establishing trust, integrity and client focus; restoring confidence in the stock market; achieving fiscal and monetary policy equilibrium; ensuring retirement savings and maximizing access to housing; encouraging a long-term investment strategy; and advocating for a “more responsible form of capitalism” that takes sustainability into account. Addressing issues like sustainability and “income inequality” perhaps necessarily accompanies any modern-day discussion of capitalism, lest we suppose a financier is in business solely for profit, but it’s somewhat surprising to find throughout this collection a repeated invocation of words and phrases like “ethical leadership,” “stewardship,” “the good society,” “fiduciary duty,” “core values,” “leadership,” “integrity,” “transparency,” “disclosure” and “authenticity”—all virtues we might have hoped informed standard operations well before the 2008 meltdown. It seems they did not.
An earnest exercise wherein all the right people say all the right things.Pub Date: March 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-1137279729
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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