An expert on ethical leadership analyzes the complicated history of business people who tried to marry the pursuit of profits with virtuous organizational practices-from British industrialist Robert Owen to American retailer John Cash Penney and jeans maker Levi Strauss to such modern-day entrepreneurs Anita Roddick and Tom Chappell. Today's business leaders are increasingly pressured by citizens, consumers, and government officials to address urgent...

VC tells the riveting story of how the venture capital industry arose from the United States' long-running orientation toward entrepreneurship. From nineteenth-century whaling to the multitude of firms pursuing entrepreneurial finance today, venture capital has been driven by the pull of low-probability but substantial financial rewards. Appreciating the history of venture capital, Tom Nicholas shows, is essential to understanding the industry's future...

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are the four most influential companies on the planet. Just about everyone thinks they know how they got there. Just about everyone is wrong. For all that's been written about the Four over the last two decades, no one has captured their power and staggering success as insightfully as Scott Galloway. Instead of buying the myths these compa-nies broadcast, Galloway asks fundamental questions. How did the Four...

In the 1960's and 70's, a diverse range of storefronts-including head shops, African American bookstores, feminist businesses, and organic grocers-countered corporate power by bringing the work of political movements (the New Left, Black Power, feminism, environmentalism, and more) into the marketplace. Through shared ownership, limited growth, and workplace democracy, these "activist entrepreneurs" offered alternatives to conventional profit-driven...

"Opening up a restaurant is not a walk in the park, or a walk in the kitchen. Instead, it takes strategy, grit, perseverance but, most of all, passion in your concept and vision." Food has become a vital part of life and there is a new, unique respect for the restaurant industry. From enjoying the presentation of a meal, caring about ingredients and where they come from, to curiosity about the decisions that go into a restaurant's creation, food...

Over the past decade, Israel has become known as a powerhouse of innovations, helping to improve people's everyday lives. Today, Israel's innovators are focusing their efforts where they are needed the most - attempting to tackle the number one problem confronting humanity - COVID-19. Reporting on more than 30 Israeli innovations, which were all developed between the outbreak of the coronavirus and early May 2020, this book charts how in that short...

On September 11, 2001, sixteen employees of Baseline Financial Services remained on the seventy-seventh and seventy-eighth floors of Two World Trade Center not knowing that a second plane targeting the towers was about to crash directly into their offices. Twelve would survive. These twelve would band together with all of Baseline's employees to heroically, rebuild the business in the ensuing weeks while simultaneously mourning the loss of four friends....

"Winner of the 2018 Ralph Gomory Prize, Business History Conference" "Edward J. Balleisen, Winner of the 2018 Harold F. Williamson Prize, Business History Conference" Edward J. Balleisen is professor of history and public policy and vice provost for Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University. He is the author of Navigating Failure: Bankruptcy and Commercial Society in Antebellum America. He lives in Durham, North Carolina. A comprehensive history...

The Great Recession threatened the well-being of tens of millions of Americans, dramatically weakened the working class, hollowed out the middle class, and strengthened the position of the very wealthy. Against this backdrop, the hit reality show Shark Tank premiered in 2009. Featuring ambitious entrepreneurs chasing support from celebrity investors, the show offered a version of the American Dream that still seemed possible to many, where a bright...

"Thriving While Black" sets out to explore the psychological and emotional consequences of being Black in corporate America. "Ain't I an American?" the famous words of Langston Hughes, is a question every Black person unwittingly, asks themselves. The playing field for Whites and Blacks is not equal, whether in education, science and technology, life expectancy, earning, or social strata. Blacks have been, discriminated against and excluded, based...