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Week of December 3 - 9, 2007

As you start to get in the holiday spirit and begin your holiday shopping, NDE-news is here to help with our annual Holiday Books edition for followers of the innovation economy. All recommended volumes have been published within the last year and should be available from major book retailers.

Innovation and the State: Political Choice and Strategy for Growth in
Israel, Taiwan and Ireland

Dan Breznitz (Yale University Press, 2007)

If we looked back 15-20 years ago, few observers would list Ireland, Israel, and Taiwan as global information technology leaders. But, today, all three states have robust IT sectors. Breznitz’s book seeks to explain how this transformation took place. He places heavy emphasis on the role of state intervention in each national economy. Each state was aggressive in terms of supporting IT, but their approaches differed from past emphases on central planning and control. A more effective approach has public sector leaders focused on creating local capabilities, linking local producers to markets, and motivating the private sector to invest and support these activities. These three case studies show that smart state-led interventions can have a positive effect in stimulating technology-based economic development.

A Culture of Improvement: Technology and the Western Millennium

Robert Friedel (MIT Press, 2007)

What explains the development of technology over time? Friedel chalks it up to a “culture of improvement,” i.e., people’s belief that things can be done in a better way. Friedel takes this commonplace definition and uses it to explain the winners and losers in the history of Western technology. He contends that the culture of improvement is a major driver of the development of Western civilization, too. He offers chapters that trace the development of technologies, products, and processes as varied as cheesemaking, the transistor, the internal combustion engine, and the development of eyeglasses.

Redefining Global Strategy: Crossing Borders in a World Where
Differences Still Matter

Pankaj Ghemawat (Harvard Business School Press, 2007)

If someone tells you the world is flat, don’t believe them. That’s one message from Ghemawat’s Redefining Global Strategy. He argues that many businesses have taken global convergence too far. At this point, it’s more accurate to speak of “semi-globalization,” a situation where significant cross-border cultural differences still affect how to do business. Ghemawat recommends that corporations design strategies with these differences in mind. Instead of a one-size-fits all approach, effective global strategies recognize unique home markets. He points to Toyota as an example of a firm that has succeeded in altering its core business strategies to account for these cultural differences.

Innovation Nation: How America is Losing its Innovation Edge,
Why it Matters and What We Can Do to Get it Back

John Kao (Free Press, 2007)

Kao’s book is a call to arms about America’s eroding innovation capacity. As new global centers of innovation (such as India and China) have arisen, the US has failed to keep up and make needed investments in education, research, and other key innovation assets. Kao puts some meat on the bones of this basic story with interesting data, anecdotes, and examples. He recommends that the US embrace a new culture of innovation that is collaborative, open to global partnerships, is focused on the long-term, and that seeks to develop global solutions to global challenges such as climate change, energy depletion, and fighting disease and poverty.

From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession

Rakesh Khurana (Princeton University Press, 2007)

Harvard Business School professor Khurana’s history of US management education asks whether management can really be considered a profession. Khurana shows that business schools were originally established to create a credentialed professional cadre similar to lawyers or doctors. The original intention of management educators was to codify a body of knowledge and to promote ethical conduct by business leaders. Khurana believes that this original ethic has lost traction as business schools have simply become sellers of a product, the MBA degree. In the process, they have abandoned the early emphasis on professional ethics and creating new bodies of knowledge. He believes that business educators need to return to their beginnings by focusing on creating a new generation of professional and ethical business leaders.

The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China, and
What It Means for All of Us

Robyn Meredith (W.W. Norton, 2007)

There are many new volumes on the rise of India and China as major economic players. This book from Robyn Meredith, a Forbes foreign correspondent, is one of the better offerings. Meredith details the revolutionary changes occurring in both nations, but also notes that Americans have been the real beneficiaries of these changes. As she notes, “Made in China” really means “Made by America in China.” In her conclusions, she echoes some of the points raised in John Kao’s Innovation Nation. America’s most effective response to the rise of China and India is to re-invest at home and strengthen its competitive position in the world.

The Cleantech Revolution: The Next Big Growth and Investment Opportunity

Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder (Collins, 2007)

Alternative energy is widely touted to be “the next big thing” with investors and entrepreneurs from around the world jumping on the bandwagon. If you want to know what the fuss is all about, this is a good place to start. One way to describe this book would be “Cleantech 101.” While there are many magazine and journal articles on the industry, this is one of the few book-length treatments that offers a good basic introduction to the world of cleantech.

No Man's Land: What to Do When Your Company Is Too Big
to Be Small, and Too Small to Be Big

Doug Tatum (Portfolio Hardcover, 2007)

What is No Man’s Land? According to Doug Tatum, founder of Tatum CFO, it refers to a company’s period of adolescence. The firm has grown (it could have up to twenty employees), and can no longer rely solely on the charismatic leadership of its entrepreneurial founder(s). Many companies falter as they shift from an entrepreneurial leadership model to a more efficient and scalable management system. Tatum’s book is an excellent guide for surviving business adolescence. It contains a number of interesting “real-life” stories as well as some clear tips on how entrepreneurs can transform themselves and their companies.

The Inside Advantage: The Strategy That Unlocks the Hidden Growth in Your Business

Robert H. Bloom with Dave Conti (McGraw Hill, 2007)

The first three words of this book's introduction set the tone: "Grow or die!" Bob Bloom shares practical lessons from his years as CEO of global advertising firm Publicis Worldwide. Bloom lays out the basics of his Growth Discovery Process and shares the growth strategies of a few of his better-known clients such as Southwest Airlines, T-Mobile and BMW.

Other Suggestions

The following titles were profiled in the Summer Books issue.

Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity
William J. Baumol, Robert E. Litan, and Carl J. Schramm (Yale University Press, 2007)

The Entrepreneurial Society
David Audretsch (Oxford University Press, 2007)

The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics
Eric Beinhocker, (Harvard Business School Press, 2006)

My Start-Up Life: What a (Very) Young CEO Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley
Ben Casnocha, (Jossey-Bass, 2007)

Financing Innovation in the United States: 1870 to Present
Naomi R. Lamoreaux and Kenneth L. Sokoloff (eds.), (MIT Press, 2007)

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days
Jessica Livingston, (Apress, 2007)

Marketing that Works: How Entrepreneurial Marketing Can Add Sustainable
Value To Any Sized Company
Leonard M. Lodish, Howard L. Morgan, and Shellye Archambeau (Wharton School Publishing, 2007)

Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction
Thomas McCraw, (Belknap Press, 2007)

The Strategy Paradox: Why Committing to Success Leads to Failure (and what to do about it)
Michael E. Raynor, (Currency, 2007)

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, (Random House, 2007)

A Practical Guide to Business Incubator Marketing
Corinne Colbert, (NBIA Publications, 2007)

The National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship is an initiative of the Public Forum Institute made possible by a grant from the Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City. Through NDE-news, we bring you short summaries and analyses of various trends driving entrepreneurship around the world. Subscribe now to receive your weekly copy. Archived issues are available online.

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