New Books in Business, Management, and Marketing

Nicolas Rasmussen‘s new book maps the intersection of biotechnology and the business world in the last decades of the twentieth century. Gene Jockeys: Life Science and the Rise of Biotech Enterprise (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014) takes readers into the fascinating world of entrepreneur-biologists as they developed five of the first products of genetic engineering. Based on a documentary archive that includes oral history interviews and corporate documents resulting from patent litigation, Rasmussen’s book emphasizes the agency of the biologists in in driving the development of first-generation recombinant DNA drugs like insulin, human growth hormone, and interferon. After an introduction to the development of basic molecular biology in a Cold War context – and paying special attention to the ways that Kuhn’s notion of “normal science” helped shape the discipline – the ensuing chapters each present a case study that illustrates an important aspect of the history of biotech’s rise as manifest in laboratories, courtrooms, universities, freezers, markets, and the public arena. Gene Jockeys closes with a chapter that considers the policy lessons that can be taken from this story.

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Rita Denny and Patricia Sunderland‘s bookHandbook of Anthropology in Business (Left Coast Press, 2014) isa groundbreaking collection of essays all related to Business Anthropology. As with all interdisciplinary subjects, business anthropology has been infiltrated by other social scientists, designers and marketers. Denny and Sunderland made sure to also include those perspectives among the 60 plus authors that are featured in the handbook. This is a great reference for any anthropologist in practice, and an interesting read about the ways in which anthropology is adapting and changing. Questions about how to present anthropological findings and conduct fieldwork in a business setting are analyzed through the lenses of the academic discipline and the industry, If you have any interest in practicing anthropology, conducting ethnography, or anthropological research methods in business, this is a must have reference for your shelf.

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Energy Law: A Context and Practice Casebook (Carolina Academic Press, 2014) by Joshua Fershee is a new casebook designed to better prepare students for practice than traditional methods of legal education. In this interview we discuss a brief history of energy law and delve into some of the topics covered in the book including: economic regulations and market structures, climate change law, and the business of energy law.

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The conversation about the Web and social media skews toward a discussion of the potential for connections, and how both individuals and organizations are using the media to communicate, to form communities, and to conduct business. Lacking, for the most part, is an investigation of the design of these spaces and how design, both good and bad, encourages or provokes certain kinds of interactions. In her new book, The Social Machine: Designs for Living Online (MIT Press, 2014), Judith Donath, Faculty Fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center, explores the theory and practice of interface design, and analyzes how design influences online interaction. With a view toward inspiring designers, and others, “to be more radical and thoughtful in their creations,” Donath provides a detailed examination of topics to be considered for beneficial design.

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Emery Roe is the author of Making the Most of Mess: Reliability and Policy in Today’s Management Challenges (Duke UP 2014). Roe is senior associate with the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management at the University of California, Berkeley.

Roe’s book navigates between economics, ecology, and public policy. He challenges the notion that all messes are bad, and points to how public administrations can learn from messes and turn them into good messes. In doing so, public administrators can better design regulatory and administrative regimes to deal with future financial, environmental, and related messes.

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The “cloud” and “cloud computing” have been buzzwords over the past few years, with businesses and even governments praising the ability to save information remotely and access that information from anywhere. And an increasing number of organizations and individuals are using the cloud almost exclusively for their computing and storage purposes. The question remains, however, whether there is an actual understanding of what the cloud is, and the issues and implications that surround the growth in cloud storage and computing. In To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World, Vincent Mosco, a Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Queen’s University, where he was the Canada Research Chair in Communication and Society, describes the political, social, and cultural issues surrounding cloud computing. According to Mosco, “cloud computing serves as a prism that reflects and refracts every major issue in the field of information technology and society.” In To The Cloud, Mosco examines this prism and considers the historic, present day, and future implications of cloud computing.

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Much of the progress in technology today has come about as a result of innovators who did not seek prior approval from regulatory bodies and such. Yet, even with the beneficial results from innovations like the commercial Internet, mobile technologies, and social networks, a disposition exists to be overly cautious with respect to new things. Adam Thierer calls this the “precautionary principle” in his new book Permissionless Innovation: The Continuing Case for Comprehensive Technological Freedom (Mercatus Center, 2014). The “precautionary principle”–which, Thierer argues, is based on fear and concern about loss of control–limits the creativity inherent in unfettered tinkering. In contrast, Thierer advocates “permissionless innovation,” an attitude that would allow experimentation to continue without hinderance. Of course does not mean that there is no use for policies for new technology, as some developments require regulation. Policymakers should, however, take a “wait and see” approach to setting rules for innovative products.

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Pedro Oliveira provides a fascinating glimpse into his transition from academia into consultancy, with a guide for those like minded to boot. People-Centered Innovation: Becoming a Practitioner in Innovation Research (Biblio Publishing, 2013) chronicles Oliveira’s journey from his work as a clinical psychologist in Portugal, to becoming an anthropologist in the UK, and moving into the world of business and innovation. Written for a general audience, this book is a mix of case studies, theory for practitioners, and autobiographical information that shows how to apply work in the social sciences to the problems facing businesses today. This is a great read for anyone interested in psychology and anthropology, as well as how business and innovation is changing due to the influence of the humanistic sciences.

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George Brock approached his book about newspapers and journalism in the digital age unwilling to write another gloom-and-doom narrative about the death or decline of the industry. When he studied the historical development of journalism and current trends, he found the industry is what is always has been: volatile, evolving, and vital to society’s well being.

Out of Print: Newspapers, Journalism and the Business of News in the Digital Age (Kogan Page, 2013) is an important look at the industrial, economic, and pragmatic realities of a shifting industry. Using modern case studies, including the phone-hacking scandal that brought down Great Britain’s News of the World, as well as historical research and recent data, Brock examines where journalism was, is and will be.

Brock, head of City University London’s prestigious graduate school of journalism, has produced a work that transcends academia without sacrificing methodology or theory.

“Because journalism lives on the frontier between democratic purposes and the commercial market,” Brock writes, “it is constantly being reorganized and renegotiated.”

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In Authentic: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture (NYU Press, 2013), Sarah Banet-Weiser scrutinizes the spread of brand culture into other spheres of social life that the market–at least in our imaginations–had left untouched: politics, religion, creativity, and the self. Banet-Weiser observes that the authenticity concept seems to carry more weight in a culture of selling: We have come to expect, and to some extent accept, that authenticity, like everything else, can be trademarked. Through rich case studies–Dove ad campaigns, Facebook self-performance, street art, green activism, and New Age spirituality among them–Authentic identifies the pervasive (and often troubling) ambivalence of branded living.

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