Top 11 business books for your summer reading list
We compiled a nifty list of the best business books recommended by Warrington faculty for you to read this summer. Do you have any top business books to add to this list?
“It provides useful insights in terms of how emergent or small players can effectively compete and win when taking on larger firms, which is key for many entrepreneurial startups.”
– Dr. Michael H. Morris, George and Lisa Etheridge Professor of Entrepreneurship, Program Director, Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation
“An oldie but a goodie. While most business books are boastful biographies or cheesy, repetitive concepts like ‘how to channel your inner leader,’ Liar’s Poker is a refreshing, irreverent look at investment banking during the booming bond markets of the 1980’s. While that specific context has passed, it’s really a timeless tale as the same story repeats itself in different contexts, fueling the boom and bust cycle.”
– Dr. Luke Watson, Assistant Professor, Fisher School of Accounting
“Flash Boys is well-written and explains the micro-timing trading phenomenon in simple non-technical language, weaving it into interesting and informative stories that provide context.”
– Virginia G. Maurer, M.A., J.D., Darden Restaurants Professor; Director, Poe Center for Business Ethics
“Being the CEO of a Fortune 500 is glamorous: dinners, parties, speaking panels and strategic plans. Being a startup CEO is not. Growing a company from the ground up can be gritty, unpleasant and down right hard. This book is for managers at fast-growing startups where hard choices have to be made. Horowitz, an influential blogger and venture capitalist, dispenses his own practical advice on how to fire friends, how to instantiate culture, and poaching talent from other companies based on his experience as the CEO of LoudCloud and now CEO of Andreessen Horowitz, a fast growing VC fund that specializes in coaching entrepreneurs as well as funding them. He’s got a mouth, but he’s got substance.”
– Dr. Richard J. Gentry, Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Management
“A thoughtful book both pessimistic and optimistic. Diamond draws parallels through time that connect to the problems of today and offer glimpses into how a long-run viewpoint can help businesses navigate risks.”
– Dr. Marcus Kirk, Luciano Prida, Sr. Term Assistant Professor of Accounting, Fisher School of Accounting
“This is a 2002 book (updated by Collins Business Essentials in paperback), but still has some great lessons. The subtitle is ‘Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers.’ It has a strategic perspective with tactical implications. As technology innovations proliferate and create fundamental change in how we communicate, relate, do business, etc., this is a good read.”
– Dr. Steven P. Kirn, Executive Director, David F. Miller Center for Retailing Education and Research
“An intriguing look at outsourcing to China with insights into how Chinese firms can sell at rock-bottom prices to American retailers (exporters to the USA can charge more on sales to other countries).”
– Jonathan Hamilton, R. Perry Frankland Professor, Department of Economics
– Subhajyoti Bandyopadhyay, Associate Professor, Susan Cameron Professor, Department of Information Systems and Operations Management
“This book, by a Wall Street strategist turned institutional investor, is a funny and highly-readable guide to the new field of behavior finance. It should help individual and institutional investors alike identify and avoid many all-too-common investing errors.”
– Brian Gendreau, Department of Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate, Hough Graduate School of Business
“It addresses areas where people often make errors, namely developing a brand that is valuable and unassailable, and defending the brand against its worst enemy, namely ourselves.”
– Mark A. Jamison, Director, Public Utility Research Center
“No matter who you are, no matter where you are in the world, you are now directly impacted by world events that heretofore, you may have had the luxury to ignore. It’s a circle, a globe, and we are on it. When the tsunami destroyed atom reactors in Japan, we could think it did not affect us. Travel to the coast of California and talk to the fishermen who are catching the fish laden with mercury that are swimming from Japan to the west coast. We are all connected and we are one. To be a practicing professional who is sophisticated enough to be successful in today’s global environment, you must be really educated to more than what comes out of the classes you are talking. You must know the world. Kaplan’s book Revenge of Geography is a place to begin the journey to understanding how geography influences world events and helps guide us in a geopolitical understanding of the world. You cannot do business with best practices unless you are armed with this type of understanding.”
– Dr. Priscilla Berry, Lecturer, Hough Graduate School of Business
