Alumni Book Briefs

01 Dec 2012

Alumni Book Briefs

Re: Tim Calkins (MBA 1991); Yves Doz (DBA 1976); Tony Griffiths (MBA 1956); Bob Haywood (MBA 1977); Marc Prensky (MBA 1980); John Quelch (DBA 1977); Michael Silverstein (MBA 1980); Alex Dyer (MBA 1959)

Topics: Information-Books Information-Books Globalization-Global Strategy Ethics-General Governance-Corporate Governance Law-Crime and Corruption Marketing-Brands and Branding Technology-Information Technology

Defending Your Brand: How Smart Companies Use Defensive Strategy to Deal with Competitive Attacks

by Tim Calkins (MBA 1991)
(Palgrave Macmillan)
Calkins, a professor at the Kellogg School of Management, shows business leaders how to create and maintain a defensive strategy, how to understand and get competitive intelligence, how to determine if their brand or company is at risk, how to blunt competitors' efforts, and much more.

Managing Global Innovation: Frameworks for Integrating Capabilities around the World

by Yves L. Doz (DBA 1976) and Keeley Wilson
(Harvard Business Review Press)
In today's global economy, knowledge and other resources critical to innovation may lie far outside a company's home territory. This distance makes it harder to obtain and integrate these resources, eating away at a firm's competitive edge. How to surmount this challenge? Drawing on extensive research and a wealth of real-company examples, the authors demonstrate a set of practical frameworks for managing a global innovation network.

Corporate Catalyst: A Chronicle of the (Mis)Management of Canadian Business from a Veteran Insider

by Tony Griffiths (MBA 1956)
(Wiley)
Griffiths recounts the boardroom and corporate battles that he witnessed in the nearly six decades of his career. He replays his two stints—in the late 1980s and the early 1990s—as the CEO of Canada's darling of the telecom industry, Mitel Corporation, and offers many cautionary tales, warning against mixing the roles of governance and management and citing examples of executives' tendency to avoid reality when times get tough.

Maritime Piracy

by Robert Haywood (MBA 1977, DBA 1979) and Roberta Spivak
(Routledge)
After summarizing the historical development of piracy and the relevant maritime governance structures, the authors examine how 20th-century shifts in global governance norms and structures eventually left the high seas open for predatory attacks. Reviewing contemporary debates about how best to combat piracy, they conclude that the solution requires a long-term, holistic, and inclusive approach involving military, legal, and humanitarian strategies.

Brain Gain: Technology and the Quest for Digital Wisdom

by Marc Prensky (MBA 1980)
(Palgrave Macmillan)
Both the human brain and technology have strengths: cognitive function for sense-making and complex reasoning, and technology for the ability to store and process large amounts of data. But how can the strengths of each be combined for maximum benefit? Citing the latest neuroscience and his research with experts in mind-machine combination, Prensky shows how smart people are learning to improve their thinking power by using technology wisely without losing their humanity.

All Business Is Local: Why Place Matters More Than Ever in a Global, Virtual World

by John A. Quelch (DBA 1977) and Katherine E. Jocz
(Portfolio/Penguin)
Now that businesses can be everywhere at once, they need to focus on what it means to be one specific place at a time. The best global brands are by design also the leading local brands. The authors offer a new way to think about place in every strategic decision, from where to place products on the shelf to how to leverage consumer associations with locations.

The $10 Trillion Dollar Prize: Captivating the Newly Affluent in China and India

by Michael J. Silverstein (MBA 1980), Abheek Singhi, Carol Liao, and David Michael
(Harvard Business Review Press)
Silverstein and his BCG colleagues in China and India provide the first comprehensive profile of the emerging middle-class households that will change the global marketplace. Using BCG's proprietary market segmentation of the two nations, the authors dissect the markets based on wealth, education, attitude, geography, age, and gender and tell how to reach these important emerging consumers through segmentation and innovation.

Hardball in the Boardroom

by Alexander P. Dyer (MBA 1959)
(ShiresPress)
This memoir deals with the issues of ethics and leadership in business at all levels, from the salesman to the boardroom. Dyer served as a director, CEO, deputy chairman, and chairman of several major international corporations and uses real names and situations to take the reader into meeting rooms and boardrooms to experience management challenges and solutions.