Business school academics produce a steady stream of books, but which of the most recent batch are worth reading and which will shape the MBA programmes of the future?

“Books are wonderful for informing business school teaching because, unlike scholarly articles that involve a tightly focused response to a technical academic question, they are aimed at a more general audience and involve broad answers to big questions that have taken several years to research,” says Christopher McKenna, of Saïd Business School.

“The underlying ideas for books are often discussed and debated within classrooms – you will notice in the preface to many academic books that the authors thank their students for helping them to shape their books. In some cases, books are the basis for a new academic class, as people use their research to design a new course. In other cases a class may be the inspiration for a book, once academics realise that the existing books are dated or do not cover what they want to say.

“Finally, it is helpful to write books, since many students want to get a sense of their teachers by picking up a book and reading it. A book represents a substantial piece of work that they can enjoy reading and that they will remember long after scholarly articles are forgotten.”

The last year has seen an impressive stream of business school-produced books. Perhaps the most eye-catching was Lynda Gratton’s book, Hot Spots. Gratton is now developing the ideas in the book further through the “Hot Spots Movement”. Elsewhere, Andrew and Nada Kakabadse, from Cranfield School of Management, continued their productive ways. This time, in Leading the Board, they focus on the unsung, yet critical, role of the chairman: “The chairman is the leader of the board and ultimately responsible for what the company does.

“It is to the chairman that shareholders, regulators, employees and customers look for reassurance that all is as it should be. He or she must be the conscience of the corporation. Even in the US, technically, the chief executive reports to the chairman. ”

Also out is Fast Strategy, by Yves Doz and Mikko Kosonen, which argues the case for what they call “strategic agility”. Meanwhile, in Giant Steps In Management, Michael Mol and Julian Birkinshaw say: “We have looked at what key management innovators such as Henry Ford, Alfred Sloan, Pierre Wack did and said, why these innovations proved to have lasting value and what they mean for to-day’s practice. Our conclusion is that you discount history at your peril. We would much rather learn from it.”

What new ideas will emerge in books this year? Among those leading the charge is Syd Finkelstein, the Steven Roth Professor of Management at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. His new book – co-written with the UK’s Andrew Campbell – comes out in the autumn and is tentatively entitled Believing You’re Right When You’ re Really Wrong: Why Leaders Fail. Also on the way is Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones’s follow-up to Why Should Anyone Be Led By You?

And the next big idea? Abby Ghobadian, academic dean at Henley Management College, predicts: “In the knowledge economy, a key issues is the ability of organisations to learn and put that learning into practice. Therefore, theories that guide companies in this area will be of significant importance. Theories on corporate social responsibility and international management are also important.

“One of the key issues for more enlightened businesses is sustainability and the legacy costs of doing business. Organisations in the vanguard of the sustainability debate are grappling with a number of key questions – from developing a sustainability strategy to the suitability of traditional appraisal techniques.” Read on.

The World's Newest Profession, by Christopher McKenna, is published by Cambridge Studies in the Emergence of Global Enterprise.
Hot Spots, by Lynda Gratton. Financial Times Prentice Hall.
Leading the Board, by Andrew and Nada Kakabadse. Palgrave Macmillan.
Fast Strategy, by Yves Dozand Mikko Kosonen. Wharton School Publishing.
Giant Steps In Management, by Michael Mol and Julian Birkinshaw. Financial Times Prentice Hall.

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