Daniel Esty and Andrew Winston’s Green To Gold is a detailed look at the link between environmental strategy and competitive advantage. It is an ambitious book, seeking to reframe green issues as a way for businesses to drive success. This contrasts with green choices being things that are done out of a sense of duty….
Lawyers Debating What Corporations Are For
Are you interested in lawyers debating what corporations are for? If so, I have just the historical reference for you. The Harvard Law Review in the early 1930s saw a series of debates about what firms are there to do. This was discussed by Joseph Weiner a generation later in the Columbia Law Review. It…
Are We Making Any Progress On Sustainability?
I recently discussed Christopher Marquis’s HBR article “In Defense of Degrowth”, see here. As seems to happen in work from a degrowth perspective, Marquis’ article spent some time implying that we aren’t making any progress on sustainability. It was pretty depressing stuff. The idea seems to be that to motivate radical change we need to…
An Ineffective Defense Of Degrowth
One of the most interesting divides in the sustainability field is around degrowth. The idea of degrowth is hard for many business people to embrace. I must confess, as you will see, I find that the logic of the degrowth people often eludes me. As such, I was interested to see what Christopher Marquis had…
Research Shows Not To Believe Claims That Science Shows
A second and final post on Alex Edmans’ May Contain Lies, looks at some advice he gives and highlights some of his useful stories. The key thing the general reader might want to take from the book is that claims such as ‘science shows’ are nonsense. Remember, research shows not to believe claims that science…
Understanding How We React To Evidence
We often like to see ourselves as objective observers of reality. This isn’t really how we see the world, nor is it how we describe the world to others. Alex Edmans has a book that helps us in understanding how we react to evidence. Evidence For The Benefits/Challenges Of Sustainable Business Alex Edmans is best…
Benefiting Owners And Much More
Ed Freeman is one of the most significant figures in the world of stakeholder business. (I had Ed as a professor when I did my MBA at Darden. This was more than 20 years ago and he was already a well-known figure). A few years ago he joined with a couple of colleagues to write…
Are Only Stupid People Positive?
Andrew McAfee has a positive view of where we are going as humans. This he outlines in his 2020 book, More from Less. It is worth emphasizing that the positive tone isn’t because McAfee doesn’t see the problems in the world. Indeed, he finishes with a list of seven issues he thinks should be prioritized…
Points Of Parity And Points Of Difference
Marketing theory contains the idea of points of parity and points of difference. In some ways, these are very logical. A point of difference is where you have an attribute of the product that is different from the competition. A point of parity is when you match the competition. Balancing Points Of Parity And Points…
You Can Differentiate Anything
A classic idea in marketing is differentiation. Underpinning this is the thinking that you don’t want to be selling the same thing as someone else in the same place at the same time. If everything is the same, the only thing a firm can compete on is price. When this happens price will drop —…
