Since its founding in 1923, the Walt Disney Company has become an American institution and one of the most successful businesses in history. This book takes an in-depth look at the evolution of this iconic and sometimes controversial corporation. It's hard to imagine a childhood without the ubiquitous presence of Disney. From classics like Cinderella and Bambi to such modern blockbusters as Mulan and Frozen, Disney's animated features have captivated audiences for decades. Visiting CaliforniA's Disneyland or FloridA's Disney World has become the quintessential family vacation. Children dress as their favorite Disney characters for Halloween, while young-at-heart adults collect all manner of Disney memorabilia. But how much do you really know about this integral piece of Americana? Part of Greenwood's Corporations That Changed the World series, this book provides readers with a richly detailed history of a company that has become synonymous with what it means to grow up as an American. It chronicles Walt Disney's early years and the evolution of the Walt Disney Company from animation studio to entertainment powerhouse. It also explores how Disney changed the landscape of animation and movie making forever. An unbiased look at the controversies that have surrounded Disney over the years will help readers better understand these contentious issues and how the company has responded. Provides readers with a better understanding of the impact of Disney on American life, from movie making techniques to how modern-day Florida is governed Explores Walt Disney's early life and career, helping readers understand how they influenced his later success Traces Disney's enduring influence on animation and how the art form has evolved over the decades Examines the many controversies that have emerged over the years, from accusations that Walt Disney was anti-Semitic to concerns about sexist portrayals of women and girls

"The most interesting book ever written about Google" (The Washington Post) delivers the inside story behind the most successful and admired technology company of our time, now updated with a new Afterword. Google is arguably the most important company in the world today, with such pervasive influence that its name is a verb. The company founded by two Stanford graduate students-Larry Page and Sergey Brin-has become a tech giant known the world over. Since starting with its search engine, Google has moved into mobile phones, computer operating systems, power utilities, self-driving cars, all while remaining the most powerful company in the advertising business. Granted unprecedented access to the company, Levy disclosed that the key to Google's success in all these businesses lay in its engineering mindset and adoption of certain internet values such as speed, openness, experimentation, and risk-taking. Levy discloses details behind Google's relationship with China, including how Brin disagreed with his colleagues on the China strategy-and why its social networking initiative failed; the first time Google tried chasing a successful competitor. He examines Google's rocky relationship with government regulators, particularly in the EU, and how it has responded when employees left the company for smaller, nimbler start-ups. In the Plex is the "most authoritative...and in many ways the most entertaining" (James Gleick, The New York Book Review) account of Google to date and offers "an instructive primer on how the minds behind the world's most influential internet company function" (Richard Waters, The Wall Street Journal).

This book charts the history of Australian retail developments as well as examining the social and cultural dimensions of shopping in Australia. In the second half of the twentieth century, the shopping centre spread from America around the world. Australia was a very early adopter, and produced a unique shopping centre model. Situating Australian retail developments within a broader international and historical context, Managing the Marketplace demonstrates the ways that local conditions shape global retail forms. Knowledge transfer from Europe and America to Australia was a consistent feature of the Australian retail industry across the twentieth century. By critically examining the strengths and weaknesses of Australian retail firms' strategies across time, and drawing on the voices of both business elites and ordinary people, the book not only unearths the forgotten stories of Australian retail, it offers new insights into the opportunities and challenges that confront the sector today, both nationally and internationally. This book will be of interest to all scholars and practitioners of retail, marketing, business history and economic geography, as well as social and cultural history.

Copper King in Central Africa offers a detailed account of the corporate history of the Rhokana/Rokana Corporation and its Nkana mine. Thematically and chronologically organised, it explores the discovery of viable ores on the Northern Rhodesian/Zambian Copperbelt in the late 1920s, which attracted foreign capital from South Africa, Britain and the USA, prompting the development of the Nkana mine and the formation of the Rhokana Corporation in the early 1930s. It follows through the evolution of the copper mining industry up to the re-privatisation of the Zambian mining sector in 1991. The book ties into a single narrative the disparate themes of corporate organisation, labour relations, and profitability of Rhokana, demonstrating how the firm was, for a time, the most important mining entity in the Northern Rhodesian/Zambian mining industry. Rhokana was both an investment firm on the Copperbelt and a mining company through Nkana mine. Thus, the Corporation was central to the development and profitability of the copper industry in Zambia. Its corporate and labour policies influenced the Copperbelt as a whole. Employing the largest labour force in the mining sector, Rhokana spearheaded the labour movement on the Copperbelt. Its Nkana mine was also the largest producer of copper in the Northern Rhodesian mining industry between 1940 and 1953, and contributed hugely to the war economies of Britain and the USA. Throughout its history, Nkana was also a major source of cobalt. After nationalisation of the mining sector in 1970, Rhokana surrendered its investments in the wider copper industry, but remained central to the Copperbelt's smelting and refining operations, owning the biggest metallurgical facilities in the industry.

'Early in my research, a friend with excellent knowledge of the United Auto Workers internal operations told me, "Don't give up. They are hiding something"...' It's 1990, and US labour is being outsourced to Mexico. Rumours of a violent confrontation at the Mexican Ford Assembly plant on January 8 reach the United Auto Workers (UAW) union in the US: nine employees had been shot by a group of drunken thugs and gangsters, in an act of political repression which changed the course of Mexican and US workers' rights forever. Rob McKenzie was working at the Ford Twin Cities Assembly plant in Minnesota when he heard of the attack. He didn't believe the official story, and began a years-long investigation to uncover the truth. His findings took him further than he expected - all the way to the doors of the CIA. Virtually unknown outside of Mexico, the full story of 'El Golpe', or 'The Coup', is a dark tale of political intrigue that still resonates today.

Is your investment in that new Internet stock a sign of stock market savvy or an act of peculiarly American speculative folly? How has the psychology of investing changed--and not changed--over the last five hundred years? Edward Chancellor examines the nature of speculation--from medieval Europe to the Tulip mania of the 1630s to today's Internet stock craze. A contributing writer to The Financial Times and The Economist, looks at both the psychological and economic forces that drive people to "bet" their money in markets; how markets are made, unmade, and manipulated; and who wins when speculation runs rampant. Drawing colorfully on the words of such speculators as Sir Isaac Newton, Daniel Defoe, Ivan Boesky, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, Devil Take the Hindmost is part history, part social science, and purely illuminating: an erudite and hugely entertaining book that is more timely today than ever before.

The disciplines of strategic intelligence at the governmental level and competitive business intelligence constitute accepted methods of decision-supporting to prevent mistakes and strategic surprise. This research discovered that many researchers in the intelligence field feel that intelligence methodology in both contexts has reached a "glass ceiling." Thus far, research has focused separately on national intelligence and intelligence in business, without any attempt to benchmark from one field to the other. This book shows that it is possible to use experience gained in the business field to improve intelligence practices in national security, and vice versa through mutual learning. The book's main innovation is its proposition that mutual learning can be employed in the context of a model distinguishes between concentrated and diffused surprises to provide a breakthrough in the intelligence field, thereby facilitating better prediction of the surprise development. We Never Expected That: A Comparative Study of Failures in National and Business Intelligence focuses on a comparison between how states, through their intelligence organizations, cope with strategic surprises and how business organizations deal with unexpected movement in their field. Based on this comparison, the author proposes a new model which can better address the challenge of avoiding strategic surprises. This book can contribute significantly to the study of intelligence, which will become more influential in the coming years.

This book offers a thoroughly researched and accessibly written account of the John Lewis Partnership. It describes what the JLP is, how it works, and what other businesses can learn from it. The US/UK model of the firm, with its emphasis on shareholder value and its openness to the market in the buying and selling of businesses, is prone to a number of problematic consequences for employees, suppliers, and sometimes share-holders. The JLP represents a contrast to this model - one that has implications beyond the small niche of mutually-owned firms. The JLP has lessons for organizations that are unlikely to move towards the Partnership's distinctive shared ownership. This book identifies these lessons. The key questions addressed include: how does the JLP work in practice? What is the link between co-ownership, the JLP employment model, and the performance of the businesses? What is the role of management in the success of John Lewis and Waitrose? Are mutuality, co-ownership and business performance at odds? What is the significance of democracy within the JLP? And probably most significantly: what are the implications, for policy-makers and for economic agents of the JLP? This book is based on detailed knowledge of the JLP and its constituent business gathered by the authors over a fifteen year period. Their conclusion: that the JLP is more complex, even more impressive, and more interesting than its admirers realise.

A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST ECONOMICS BOOK OF THE YEAR A THE ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Brilliantly conceived and enlightening at every turn' Lawrence Wright We have long been suspicious of corporations recklessly pursuing profit and amassing wealth and power. But the story of the corporation didn't have to be like this. For most of history, they were not amoral entities, but public institutions designed to promote the societies that granted them charter. Magnuson reveals how the corporation has evolved since its beginnings in the ancient world. What happens in this next chapter of the global economy depends on whether we can return to their public-minded spirit, or whether we have sunk irrevocably into the swamp of high profit at all costs. Epic and compelling in scope, For Profit illuminates the roles corporations played, for good and evil, in the making of the modern world.

This study analyzes the influence of big business on the economic, political, and social structure of twentieth-century America. The author examines the development of a mass production and consumption economy and argues that the corporation became a key institutional force in the United States.

Emerging from what was a somewhat staid sub-discipline, there is currently a battle for the soul of Management and Organizational History (MOH), at the centre of which is a widespread concern that much recent work has been more about how one should or might do history rather than actually doing historical work. If ever there was a time for a new volume on MOH, this is certainly it. This Handbook affords space to both these perspectives, as well as uncovering unorthodox and unconventional topics and approaches to more familiar territory with an emphasis on new and revisionist viewpoints. MOH researchers, doctoral and other students and instructors working in this sub-discipline will discover cutting-edge work with novel treatments of familiar terrain in the Handbook. Contributors include: A. Barros, F. Bastien, A. Booth, T. Bridgman, K. Bruce, D. Coraiola, N. Cornelius, S. Cummings, G. Durepos, W.M. Foster, A.G. Gillett, M. Maclean, R. Marens, P.G. McLaren, A.J. Mills, J.H. Mills, J. Muldoon, E.S. O Connor, E. Pezet, R. Pistol, C. Quinn-Trank, H.L. Schachter, G. Shaw, K.D. Tennent, S. Wanderley, K.S. Williams, M. Witzel, T. Yu, Y. Zoller

A remarkable fifteen Nordic family businesses are among the 500 biggest companies in the world and the Nordic countries have more dynasties than most others per capita and in GDP terms. The willingness, often reluctant, of both the political system and labour movement to accept asset accumulation has helped these Nordic businesses survive. The top 1% of Swedes own close to 25% of the country's wealth, as opposed to 16.5% of Spaniards, where dynasties are also abundant. The pattern has held a firm grip on the Nordic countries since the Industrial Revolution and emergence of free enterprise. The trend is particularly pronounced in comparison with the Anglo-Saxon countries - somewhat less so relative to places like Italy, Japan, Germany and South-Asian countries. This book describes the factors and dynamics behind the ability of Nordic businesses to grow and thrive from one generation to the next in the process of becoming dynasties. Far from being commercial enterprises, they are a venue for power, philanthropy, passion, conflict, freedom and captivity. Like many other dynasties, the Nordic ones are a witch's brew of Machiavelli's Prince, Marx's belief in the potential of the meritocracy and Smith's baker who works to sustain his family. Topped by a spoonful of Weber's Protestant Ethic. This book will be key readings for students and scholars of entrepreneurship, corporate governance, business history, Scandinavian history, family business and enterprises and the related disciplines.

After the Berlin Wall tells the inside story of an international financial institution, the European Bank for Development and Reconstruction (EBRD), created in the aftermath of communism to help the countries of central and eastern Europe transition towards open market-oriented democratic economies. The first volume of a history in two parts, After the Berlin Wall charts the EBRD's life from a fledgling high-risk, start-up investing in former socialist countries from 1991 to become an established member of the international financial community, which (as of April 2020) operates in almost 40 countries across three continents. This volume describes the multilateral negotiations that created this cosmopolitan institution with a 'European character' and the emergence of the EBRD's unique business model: a focus on the private sector and a mission to deliver development impact with sustainable financial returns. The author recounts the challenges that 'transition' countries faced in moving from a defunct to a better economic system and maps the EBRD's response to critical events, from the dissolution of the Soviet Union, to the safe confinement of the Chernobyl disaster site, the debt default in Russia and the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008.

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard invented the model of the Silicon Valley start-up and set in motion a process of corporate becoming that made it possible for HP to transform itself six times over the 77 years since its founding in the face of sweeping technological changes that felled most of its competitors over the years. Today, HP is in the throes of a seventh transformation to secure its continued survival by splitting in two independent companies: HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Based on extensive primary research conducted over more than 15 years, this book documents the differential contribution of HP's successive CEOs in sustaining the company's integral process of becoming. It uses a comprehensive strategic leadership framework to examine and explain the role of the CEO: (1) defining and executing the key tasks of strategic leadership, and (2) developing four key elements of the company's strategic leadership capability. The study of the strategic leadership of HP's successive CEOs revealed the paradox of corporate becoming, the existential situation facing successive CEOs (that justifies the book's empathic approach), and the importance of the CEO's ability to harness the company's past while also driving its future. Building on these novel insights, the book shows how the frameworks used to conceptualize the tasks of strategic leadership and the development of strategic leadership capability can serve as steps toward a dynamic theory of strategic leadership that animates an evolutionary framework of corporate becoming. This framework will be helpful for further theory development about strategic leadership and also offers practical tools for founders of new companies and CEOs and boards of directors of existing companies who intend to create, run or oversee companies built for continued relevance, longevity and greatness.

'One of the best business books I've read in years.' BILL GATES THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019 _____________________________ The CEO of Disney, one of Time's most influential people of 2019, shares the ideas and values he embraced to reinvent one of the most beloved companies in the world and inspire the people who bring the magic to life. Robert Iger became CEO of The Walt Disney Company in 2005, during a difficult time. Morale had deteriorated, competition was intense, and technology was changing faster than at any time in the company's history. His vision came down to three clear ideas: Recommit to the concept that quality matters, embrace technology instead of fighting it, and think bigger-think global-and turn Disney into a stronger brand in international markets. Fourteen years later, Disney is the largest, most respected media company in the world, counting Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and 21st Century Fox among its properties. Its value is nearly five times what it was when Iger took over, and he is recognized as one of the most innovative and successful CEOs of our era. In The Ride of a Lifetime, Robert Iger shares the lessons he's learned while running Disney and leading its 200,000 employees, and he explores the principles that are necessary for true leadership, including: Optimism. Even in the face of difficulty, an optimistic leader will find the path toward the best possible outcome and focus on that, rather than give in to pessimism and blaming. Courage. Leaders have to be willing to take risks and place big bets. Fear of failure destroys creativity. Decisiveness. All decisions, no matter how difficult, can be made on a timely basis. Indecisiveness is both wasteful and destructive to morale. Fairness. Treat people decently, with empathy, and be accessible to them. 'Bob Iger has not only lived up to ninety-six years of groundbreaking history but has moved the Disney brand far beyond anyone's expectations, and he has done it with grace and audacity. This books shows you how that happened.' STEVEN SPIELBERG

An in-depth and nuanced look at the complex relationship between two dynamic fields of study.

While today we are experiencing a revival of world art and the so-called global turn of art history, encounters between art historians and anthropologists remain rare. Even after a century and a half of interactions between these epistemologies, a skeptical distance prevails with respect to the disciplinary other. This volume is a timely exploration of the roots of this complex dialogue, as it emerged worldwide in the colonial and early postcolonial periods, between 1870 and 1970.

Exploring case studies from Australia, Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, and the United States, this volume addresses connections and rejections between art historians and anthropologists—often in the contested arena of “primitive art.” It examines the roles of a range of figures, including the art historian–anthropologist Aby Warburg, the modernist artist Tarsila do Amaral, the curator-impresario Leo Frobenius, and museum directors such as Alfred Barr and René d’Harnoncourt. Entering the current debates on decolonizing the past, this collection of essays prompts reflection on future relations between these two fields.

* Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year * Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize * 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year * A New York Times Notable Book * A Washington Post Notable Book * An NPR Best Book of 2017 * A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2017 * An Economist Best Book of 2017 * A Business Insider Best Book of 2017 * "A gripping story of psychological defeat and resilience" (Bob Woodward, The Washington Post)-an intimate account of the fallout from the closing of a General Motors assembly plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, and a larger story of the hollowing of the American middle class. This is the story of what happens to an industrial town in the American heartland when its main factory shuts down-but it's not the familiar tale. Most observers record the immediate shock of vanished jobs, but few stay around long enough to notice what happens next when a community with a can-do spirit tries to pick itself up. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Amy Goldstein spent years immersed in Janesville, Wisconsin, where the nation's oldest operating General Motors assembly plant shut down in the midst of the Great Recession. Now, with intelligence, sympathy, and insight into what connects and divides people in an era of economic upheaval, Goldstein shows the consequences of one of America's biggest political issues. Her reporting takes the reader deep into the lives of autoworkers, educators, bankers, politicians, and job re-trainers to show why it's so hard in the twenty-first century to recreate a healthy, prosperous working class. "Moving and magnificently well-researched...Janesville joins a growing family of books about the evisceration of the working class in the United States. What sets it apart is the sophistication of its storytelling and analysis" (Jennifer Senior, The New York Times). "Anyone tempted to generalize about the American working class ought to meet the people in Janesville. The reporting behind this book is extraordinary and the story-a stark, heartbreaking reminder that political ideologies have real consequences-is told with rare sympathy and insight" (Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Soul of a New Machine).

Though Amazon.com started off delivering books through the mail, its visionary founder, Jeff Bezos, was never content with being just a bookseller. He wanted Amazon to become `the everything store', offering limitless selection and seductive convenience at disruptively low prices. To achieve that end, he developed a corporate culture of relentless ambition and secrecy that's never been cracked. Until now...

Jeff Bezos stands out for his relentless pursuit of new markets, leading Amazon into risky new ventures like the Kindle and cloud computing, and transforming retail in the same way that Henry Ford revolutionized manufacturing.

The fascinating journey from humble start-up to the web's biggest retailer demonstrates how Bezos's determination to make his dream a reality has also, for better or for worse, changed the way we live our lives today.

Land Rover Freelander - The Complete Story recounts the history of the Land Rover Freelander, and its popular successor, the Freelander 2. This new book covers the original Freelander, from its design and development to its launch and reception in 1997. In 2006 , the innovative Freelander 2 was launched, with its pioneering technology in fuel efficiency. Also covered are the Freelander variants from across the world, and its use in UK law enforcement. This is an indispensable guide to the history of both generations of Freelander.