Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/302559
60 May/June 2014 BizEd bookshelf CR EATI NG SOCIAL VALU E AUTHORS: Cheryl Kiser, Deborah Leipziger, and J. Janelle Shubert PUBLISHER: Greenleaf Publishing, US$40 OBESITY AND POOR NUTRITION are problems in Camden, New Jersey, home of Camp- bell Soup Company. As part of its ambitious ten-year "destination goal" of creating social value by nourishing its community, the company recently partnered with local farmers and a major food bank. Taking thousands of pounds of blemished peaches that otherwise would have been discarded, Campbell's employees cooked 54,000 jars of peach salsa, which were sold to generate $100,000 for the food bank. Campell Soup's story is just one of many tales of social value cre- ation described by the authors—Kiser and Shubert of Babson, and Leipziger, a consultant. While they spend time defining corporate social innovation and how it differs from traditional CSR, they devote most of their pages to describing the actions of a new breed of leaders. These leaders have "a different world-view of business and soci- ety, where the simultaneous creation of social, environmental, and economic value is the order of the day." MOM E NTS OF I M PACT AUTHORS: Chris Ertel and Lisa Kay Solomon PUBLISHER: Simon & Schuster, US$28 WHEN A COMPANY must figure out how to adapt to a volatile and uncertain future, it needs a strategic conversation, which brings together key people when "the stakes are high, the answers unclear, and the participants are expected to create real insights together," say Ertel and Solo- mon. In these conversations, meeting leaders hope to develop shared under- standing among participants, shape potential choices, and come to final deci- sions; like designers, they seek to develop deep empathy with users and rapidly prototype solutions. Solomon of the California College of the Arts and Ertel, a consultant, pepper their book with accounts of wildly successful strategic meet- ings. For instance, there's the baby food CEO who took his advisory board through wargaming exer- cises where they pretended to be competitors bent on bringing down his firm. Such a meeting requires "a dash of creativity and cour- age," the authors write, "and most important, a shift in mind-set." N ETWOR K ADVANTAG E AUTHORS: Henrich Greve, Tim Rowley, and Andrew Shipilov PUBLISHER: Jossey-Bass, US$50 SUCCESS DEPENDS not only on the people you know, but also where you fit within your network of business partners. Business net- works can be likened to the roads in ancient England, write Greve and Shipilov of INSEAD and Row- ley of the University of Toronto. "Just as the prosperity of indi- vidual cities in Roman Britannia depended on their position in the network of roads, your firm's pros- perity depends on its position in an alliance network." Business leaders must look beyond their immediate partnerships to take full advan- tage of the informa- tion power the entire network can deliver, they write. Case in point: When Jack Northrop first built the Stealth Bomber in the 1940s, the project failed, in part because major suppliers didn't communicate. Thirty years later, when Boeing, GE, and Vought Aircraft joined Northrop to design an updated model, their col- lective work produced "a technical marvel"—and illustrated the power of a strong network. TH E TOP 50 MANAG E M E NT D I LE M MAS AUTHORS: Sona Sherrat and Roger Delves PUBLISHER: Pearson, US$34.99 IN THIS FORTHRIGHT little book, Ashridge professors Sherrat and Delves offer real solutions to com- mon management problems. They divide the book into categories of challenges so they can address problems relating to individuals, teams, change management, office Ertel and Solo mon. In these conversations, meeting leaders come to final deci CR EATI NG SOCIAL VALU E AUTHORS: