Accelerating Energy Innovation: Insights from Multiple Sectors

edited by Rebecca M. Henderson and Richard G. Newell
(University of Chicago Press for the National Bureau of Economic Research)

Studies have suggested that significantly increasing the rate of innovation in energy is critical to cost-effective responses to climate change. The studies are part of a discussion of how such acceleration might best be accomplished and the role that public policy and government might play in supporting innovation. Henderson, the John and Natty McArthur University Professor, notes that in this volume leading specialists explore the history of innovation in four particularly innovative sectors of the US economy: agriculture, chemicals, life sciences, and IT.

The Culture Cycle: How to Shape the Unseen Force that Transforms Performance

by James Heskett
(FT Press)

Culture’s contribution to organizational performance is substantial and quantifiable. An effective business culture can account for up to half of the performance differential between organizations in the same business. Drawing on field research and case studies, Professor Emeritus Heskett introduces a conceptual framework for managing culture and shows it at work in real-world settings. His “culture cycle” identifies policies, practices, and behaviors crucial to moving cultures forward and demonstrates how to calculate culture’s economic value through referrals, retention, returns to labor, and relationships with customers.

I Moved Your Cheese: For Those Who Refuse to Live as Mice in Someone Else’s Maze

by Deepak Malhotra
(Berrett-Koehler Publishers)

A different take on the 1998 business fable Who Moved My Cheese?, this slim volume is motivated by a simple observation: success in the areas of leadership, innovation, entrepreneurship, creativity, problem solving, business growth, and even personal development almost always depends on the ability to challenge accepted notions, reshape the environment, and play by a different set of rules: our own. To succeed in these endeavors, managers need to understand the ways in which they unwittingly limit themselves.

Joining a Nonprofit Board: What You Need to Know

by Marc J. Epstein and F. Warren McFarlan
(Jossey-Bass)

Baker Foundation Professor McFarlan and his coauthor provide a guide to how board members can work with a nonprofit to achieve its mission, attain financial sustainability, and develop and execute the systems needed to accomplish both. Based on more than 10 years of research and filled with examples, this book explores the basic structure of a nonprofit. It explains how to build, monitor, and realize a nonprofit’s mission; identifies how boards perform effective assessments of nonprofits; and includes a explanation of a “board member’s life cycle.”

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