Alumni Books

The Boat House Café: Book One of First Light
by Linda Cardillo (MBA 1978)
(Bellastoria Press LLP)

A novel set on Martha’s Vineyard.

Buffoonery on Woodhouse Avenue
by Bob Garland (PMD 20, 1970)
(Gabbrolandbooks)

The fourth in a series of humorous novels.

Customer Experience 3.0: High-Profit Strategies in the Age of Techno Service
by John A. Goodman (MBA 1971)
(AMACOM)

These days businesses have more opportunities to enhance the customer experience than ever before. Goodman explains how businesses can design and deliver flawless services and products while setting honest customer expectations; create and implement an effective customer-access strategy; capture and leverage the customer’s voice to set priorities and improve products, services, and marketing; and use customer-relationship- management systems, cutting-edge metrics, and other tools to deliver customer satisfaction.

The Raw Milk Answer Book: What You Really Need to Know about Our Most Controversial Food
by David E. Gumpert (OPM 5, 1981)
(Lauson Publishing Inc.)

This book raises more than 200 of the most common questions that come up about raw milk, the most important being the risk of getting seriously ill, whether it should be fed to children, and the credibility of European research indicating raw milk has important healing powers. It answers them in nonideological terms by focusing on real-world data and taking issue with wild claims on both sides of the raw milk controversy.

Rambles into Sacred Realms: Journeys in Pen & Paint
by Krish V. Krishnan (AMP 184, 2013)
(Shanti Arts LLC)

This is the written and artistic chronicle of Krishnan’s travels around the globe as he explores and portrays places of awe-inspiring holiness, including the rocky red desert of Petra, Jordan; the ancient holy city of Varanasi, India; and the ruins of Sukhothai, Thailand.

The Engaged Leader: A Strategy for Your Digital Transformation
by Charlene Li (MBA 1993)
(Wharton Digital Press)

Technology has revolutionized the nature of relationships between leaders and their followers, yet many leaders remain stuck at arm’s length, aloof from those they lead. Li discusses why leaders need to master a new way of developing relationships, which begins by stepping out of traditional hierarchies and connecting directly with their followers by listening, sharing, and engaging them using digital technologies.

The Blameless Victim: Our Ten-Year Legal Battle against Zurich American Insurance and American International Group
by Harold S. Rhodes (MBA 1980)
(CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)

This is the detailed story of the Rhodes family’s long struggle against the consequences of the crash of a tractor-tanker into Marcia Rhodes’s stopped car: horrible medical traumas, an unending financial struggle, a daughter’s deep depression and alienation, and endless battles against insurance companies and an uncaring legal system.

Spinoza in Love
by Martin Skogsbeck (the nom de plume of Martin Waldenstrom, MBA 1973)
(CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)

The Self-Made Billionaire Effect: How Extreme Producers Create Massive Value
by John Sviokla (MBA 1983) and Mitch Cohen
(Portfolio)

Looking at self-made billionaires like Steve Jobs and Michael Bloomberg, many of whom had worked at established corporations before striking out on their own, the authors wondered why the billionaires’ former employers couldn’t hang on to them and why most big companies are unable to create as much new value as the billionaires. The key is what the authors call the “Producer” mind-set, in contrast to the “Performer” mind-set. Performers can excel in well-defined areas and are rewarded by big companies, but Producers think up entirely new products, services, strategies, and business models and trust their insights enough to make game-changing bets.

From Silicon Valley to Swaziland: How One Couple Found Purpose and Adventure in an Encore Career
by Rick Walleigh (MBA 1974) and Wendy Walleigh
(Wheatmark)

Like many baby boomers reaching retirement, the Walleighs were too healthy, motivated, and interested in giving back to play golf for the rest of their lives. This book describes their experiences, from the challenges of daily existence in an unfamiliar culture to the joys of helping people in poverty grow their own businesses.

The Open Organization: Igniting Passion and Performance
by Jim Whitehurst (MBA 1994)
(Harvard Business Review Press)

Whitehurst, the president and CEO of Red Hat, tells of his journey from traditional manager to head of one of the most open organizational environments he’d ever encountered. Based on open-source principles of transparency, participation, and collaboration, he provides a blueprint for putting the principles into practice, applying open-source methods to everything from structure, management, and strategy to a firm’s customer and partner relationships.

Faculty Books

The Integrated Reporting Movement: Meaning, Momentum, Motives, and Materiality
by Robert G. Eccles and Michael P. Krzus
(John Wiley & Sons)

This book explores the meaning of the idea of integrated reporting, explains the forces that give momentum to the associated movement, and examines the motives of the actors involved. It posits integrated reporting as a key mechanism by which companies can ensure their own long-term sustainability by contributing to a sustainable society. Considering integrated reporting’s current state of play, Professor of Management Practice Eccles and his coauthor provide guidance to ensure wider adoption of the practice and success of the movement, starting with how companies can improve their own reporting processes.

Strong Brands, Strong Relationships
edited by Susan Fournier, Michael Breazeale, and Jill Avery
(Routledge)

Senior Lecturer Jill Avery and her coeditors have produced a successor to their groundbreaking Consumer-Brand Relationships: Theory and Practice. It is a collection of innovative research and management insights that takes the study of brand relationships outside of traditional areas by applying new theoretical frameworks and considering new contexts (online digital spaces, consumer collectives, global brands, luxury brands, and branding in terrorist organizations). The result is an expanded and better-informed account of people’s relationships with brands and a demonstration of the important and timely implications of this evolving subdiscipline.