Center for Global Business and the Economy

William P. Barnett. Princeton: Princeton University Press, (2008), The Red Queen Among Organizations: How Competitiveness Evolves
Professor William Barnett studies competition among organizations and how organizations and industries evolve over time. He has studied how strategic differences and strategic change among organizations affect their growth, performance, and survival. This research includes empirical studies of technical, regulatory, and ideological changes among organizations, and how these changes affect competitiveness over time and across markets. His studies span a range of industries and contexts, including organizations in computers, telecommunications, research and development, software, semiconductors, disk drives, newspaper publishing, beer brewing, banking, and concerning the environment. Details

Rowen, Henry, Marguerite G. Hancock, and William F. Miller editors (2007), Making IT: The Rise of Asia in High Tech. California: Stanford University Press
The editors build the case that Asian players, including China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, are poised to become innovators in information technology, not merely consumers. Details

Lee, Hau L. and Chung-Yee Lee, Editors (2006). Building Supply Chain Excellence in Emerging Economies. New York: Springer
Given the physical, social and cultural characteristics of emerging economies, managing supply chains there could be even more challenging than in developed economies. Editors Hau L. Lee and Chung-Yee Lee explore overall global supply frameworks, infrastructure constraints, logistics inefficiencies and use illustrative industrial cases to assist practitioners in gaining insights to the challenges of operating supply chains in emerging economies. Details

Flanagan, Robert J., (2006). Globalization and Labor Conditions. Oxford: Oxford University Press
As a labor economist, Business School Professor Robert Flanagan stays tuned to debates about whether globalization harms workers—their wages, working conditions, and rights. In a new book, Globalization and Labor Conditions (Oxford University Press), he reports evidence that the three major mechanisms of globalization—international trade, migration, and capital flows—benefit workers in general, especially the poorest workers in the poorest countries. While these trends also cause some short-term pain for the least skilled workers in rich countries, Flanagan argues that policies to promote opportunities for low-skilled workers are far better than current efforts to limit immigration. Given the recent controversies surrounding immigration in the United States and Europe, Stanford Business asked Flanagan to summarize the evidence that immigration is important to improving global working conditions and standards of living. Article

Meier, Gerald M. (2004). Biography of a Subject—An Evolution of Development Economics. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Gerald Meier focuses on the evolution of development thought and policy in three periods: early development economics of the 1950s-60s; orthodox reaction of the 1970s-80s; and the new development economics of the 1980s-90s. Meier highlights the influence of development theory on policymaking and on the mixed record of successes and failures in promoting development efforts, interpreting the past treatment of development problems with the present and future in mind. Article on Gerald Meier, "Biographer of Development Economics"

Roberts, D. John (2004). The Modern Firm: Organizational Design for Performance and Growth. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Professor Robert's book was selected by The Economist on December 16th as the best book about business published in 2004:

"The Modern Firm", written by John Roberts, an economics professor at Stanford Business School, lays out in wonderfully lucid and jargon-free language a framework for thinking about corporate structure, given that "any organisation is multifaceted, and the range of organisational variables is mind-boggling". With an economist's discipline, the author introduces the reader as gently as possible to some demanding and stimulating ideas, ones that have already been tested by the likes of BP. Nobody, it can now be said, is fully fit to run a modern firm until they have read "The Modern Firm." Article

McKern, Bruce (2003). Managing the Global Network Corporation. London: Routledge. The increasing importance of changing structures, organization and management within multinational corporations is considered in this book edited by Bruce McKern. The autonomy of subsidiaries, lateral communication flow and the cross-border generation and transmission of knowledge are identified as characteristics of multinational corporations. These issues are considered under four key themes: innovation and knowledge transfer; integrative processes and socialization; adaptation of strategy and firm evolution; and network roles, competencies and organizational forms. Article

McMillan, John (2002). Reinventing the Bazaar: A Natural History of Markets. New York: Norton.
In this book, economics professor John McMillan explored markets ranging from ancient bazaars to eBay and explained what makes or breaks a marketplace. Article