Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/62913
company, the media, and car manufacturers expected to revolution- ize the industry. But despite its clear advan- tages, the tire never caught on. Why? Service stations didn't want to invest in the equipment and training that would allow them to Don't Miss Yale professor Robert J. Shiller understands that a huge segment of the population is angry at the 1 percent with all the money, but he thinks they're wrong to blame the financial system. In FINANCE AND THE GOOD SOCIETY, he makes the case that traditional finance instruments can be used to "help us create a better, more prosperous, and more equi- table society"—but key reforms are needed. He's not talking about legis- lation that hobbles financial innovation, but investment safeguards that take "human quirks" into account and taxation structures that address economic inequality. It's a deeply intelligent and elegantly argued contri- bution. (Princeton University Press, US$24.95) Despite the powerful twin forces of technology and globalization, it's still true that ALL BUSINESS IS LOCAL, according to CEIBS dean John Quelch and consultant Katherine Jocz. "Place" might be the most important of the famous "4Ps" of marketing, they argue, partly because consumers "have strong mental associations with places and place images that carry over to product preferences." Place also matters in the very broad scope—as when Google faced challenges providing its ser- vices in China—and in the more narrow and immediate one—as when GPS-enabled mobile devices recommend nearby restaurants to users. In today's marketplace, the authors say, companies must consider both the global and the local context to survive. (Portfolio/Penguin, US$25.95) "Perhaps no business pursuit is messier than creating an organization from scratch," observes Harvard's Noam Wasserman in THE FOUNDER'S DILEMMA. He's most interested in the "people problems" inherent in any startup, including what motivates founders to start a business, why they choose their partners and investors, and why they bow out. He's also fascinated by the choices they make early on—such as hiring unqualified family members—that could have profound implications when the com- pany starts to grow. "At each fork in the road, the wrong decision can send the startup over a cliff. … Each outcome also heightens the startup's chances of success or failure." (Princeton University Press, US$35) repair the tires. According to Adner, a business profes- sor at Dartmouth, Michelin didn't understand that it had to manage its entire "innovation ecosystem" in order to get its creative new idea to market. His book offers the idea that any would-be innovator must consider "Co-Innovation Risk, the extent to which the success of your innovation depends on the suc- cessful commercialization of other innovations; and Adoption Chain Risk, the extent to which partners will need to adopt your innova- tion before end consumers have a chance to assess the full value proposition." Companies that view innovation supply chains with this wide lens will discover the blind spots where innovation could fail— and correct the problems before they roll out a costly disaster. THE STRATEGIST AUTHOR: Cynthia Montgomery PUBLISHER: Harper Business, US$27.99 TOO OFTEN TODAY a company's strategy is set by a specialist and only revisited once a year when the company rethinks its goals. But Montgomery believes that strategy can't be static and it can't be sepa- rated from leadership. "Strategy is not a des- tination or a solution. It's not a problem to be solved and settled. It's a journey. It needs continuous, not inter- mittent, leadership." She takes the reader through the cases she teaches at Harvard's Entrepreneur, Owner, President executive education pro- gram where she pounds home the lesson that there's no such thing as a "super-manager." She helps read- ers see that their companies are shaped by outside forces, includ- ing the realities of their industries, and insists that their purpose must drive their strategies, or they have no strategy at all. BizEd May/June 2012 77