Meritocracy, monetary policy, deep-tech startups: the systems that organize effort and money.
43 books · 41 authors · across 6 lists · 2020–2026
Erin L. Scott · MIT Press · 2026
This edited volume introduces and explores the concept of Bayesian entrepreneurship, a novel framework for understanding entrepreneurial decision-making under uncertainty. It brings together contributions from leading scholars to examine how entrepreneurs form beliefs about opportunities, learn through experimentation, and make strategic decisions.
Lita Nelsen · MIT Press · 2026
"Launching from the Lab" provides a much-needed framework for new entrepreneurs who are founding companies based on "deep technology", groundbreaking innovations rising from new discoveries in fundamental research. Nelsen and Stancik Boyce cover the steps to launch and fund such companies, beginning with emergence from the laboratory and acquiring intellectual property through the intensive research of customer needs, building a team, and raising capital.
Kristin J. Forbes · MIT Press · 2026
Central banks are navigating a world of higher debt, tightly interconnected markets, and rising geopolitical tensions. How might they respond effectively? In "The Art of Monetary Policy," Forbes draws on the writings of Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu to suggest modern principles for central banks, including preparing for the next financial battle, establishing a strong tactical position, combining weapons and methods, and modifying and varying tactics to maintain flexibility.
Ben Soltoff · Wiley · 2025
Climate and energy entrepreneurs face challenges that traditional startup playbooks don't address. Their ventures can require massive capital and take years to reach market, all while striving to achieve a positive impact on people, planet, and profit. This book adapts the MIT-born "Disciplined Entrepreneurship" framework specifically for climate and energy ventures, recognizing that founders in this space need their own approach.
Emilio J. Castilla · Columbia University Press · 2025
Organizations often hail meritocracy as a fair and efficient way to identify, advance, and reward talent. But efforts to create a level playing field can be held back by talent management systems that confer rewards based on individual performance evaluations. In practice, these merit-based systems "may actually reinforce or create advantages for certain groups," Castilla contends.
Nelson Repenning · Hachette · 2025
The chaos of everyday business forces people into an exhausting, ineffective, seemingly never-ending cycle of work-arounds, firefighting, and Whac-a-Mole. The irritatingly urgent crowds out the lastingly important. In this book, Repenning and Kieffer describe the game-changing discipline of dynamic work design, which improves productivity, reduces costs, and increases efficiency, ensuring that all parts of a company can work in concert.
Phil Budden · MIT Press · 2025
Leaders in large organizations face continuous pressure to innovate, and few possess the internal resources needed to keep up with rapid advances in science and technology. But looking beyond their own organizations, most face a bewildering landscape of external resources. In "Accelerating Innovation," leaders will find a practical guide to this external landscape. Budden and Murray provide directions for navigating innovation ecosystems - those hotspots worldwide where researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors congregate.
Lotte Bailyn · Routledge · 2025
Whether they're one of the 73 million baby boomers reaching their full retirement benefit age or zoomers just entering the workforce, at some point most working Americans will retire. The optimal approach to retirement is unique to each person, but this book offers wisdom and anecdotes from more than 120 people and detailed interviews with 14 "stars" regarding their retirement transitions.
Erin L. Scott · Norton Economics · 2024
Building on more than two decades of academic research with thousands of companies and MIT students, Scott, Stern, and Gans have developed a systematic approach for startup leadership. They detail four key choices entrepreneurs must make, and "four strategic approaches to find and frame opportunities."
Georg Rilinger · University of Chicago · 2024
The California electricity crisis in 2000 caused billions in losses and led to bankruptcy for one of the state's largest utilities. More than 20 years later, the question remains: Why did the newly created electricity markets fail? In "Failure by Design," Rilinger explores practical obstacles to market design to offer a new explanation for the crisis - one that moves beyond previous interpretations that have primarily blamed incompetent politicians or corrupt energy sellers.
Jovi R. S. Nazareno · Teachers College Press · 2024
Writing is the highest form of thinking, as evidenced by neuroimaging that shows how more neural networks are activated simultaneously during writing than during any other cognitive activity. This book will help teachers understand how the brain learns to write by unveiling 15 stages of thinking that underpin the writing process, along with targeted ways to stimulate them to maximize each individual's writing potential.
Paul Cheek · Wiley · 2024
Cheek provides a hands-on, practical roadmap to get from great idea to successful company with his actionable field guide to transforming your one great idea into a functional, funded, and staffed startup. Readers will find ground-level, down-and-dirty entrepreneurial tactics - like how to conduct advanced primary market research, market and sell to your first customers, and take a scrappy approach to building your first products - that keep young firms growing. These tactics maximize impact with limited resources.
Malia Lazu · MIT Press · 2024
In her new book, Lazu draws on her background as a community organizer, her corporate career as a bank president, and now her experience as a leading consultant to explain what has been holding organizations back and what they can do to become more inclusive and equitable. "From Intention to Impact" goes beyond "feel good" PR-centric actions to showcase the real work that must be done to create true and lasting change.
Annie Thompson · Oxford University Press · 2024
In their chapter, "What Causes Residential Mortgage Defaults?" the authors assess the voluminous research investigating why households default on their residential mortgages. A particular focus is oriented towards critically evaluating the recent application of causal statistical inference to residential defaults on mortgages.
James Rhee · HarperCollins · 2024
Is it possible to be successful and kind? To lead a company or organization with precision and compassion? To honor who we are in all areas of our lives? While eloquently sharing a story of personal and professional success, Rhee presents a comforting yet bold solution to the dissatisfaction and worry we all feel in a chaotic and sometimes terrifying world.
Ben Ross Schneider · Oxford University Press · 2024
In "Routes to Reform," Ben Ross Schneider examines education policy throughout Latin America to show that reforms to improve learning - especially making teacher careers more meritocratic and less political - are possible. He demonstrates that contrary to much established theory, reform outcomes in Latin America depended less on institutions and broad coalitions, and more on micro-level factors like civil society organizations, teacher unions, policy networks, and technocrats.
Jacques Gordon · Afire and McGraw Hill · 2024
In his chapter, "The Broker and the Investment Advisor: A wide range of options," Gordon discusses important financial topics including information for lenders and borrowers, joint ventures, loans and debt, comingled funds, bankruptcy, and Islamic finance.
Barbara H. Wixom · MIT Press · 2023
In "Data Is Everybody's Business," the authors offer a clear and engaging way for people across the entire organization to understand data monetization and make it happen. The authors identify three viable ways to convert data into money - improving work with data, wrapping products with data, and selling information offerings - and explain when to pursue each and how to succeed.
Justin Reich · Teaching Systems Lab · 2023
In "Iterate, " Reich delivers an insightful bridge between contemporary educational research and classroom teaching, showing readers how to leverage the cycle of experiment and experience to create a compelling and engaging learning environment. Readers learn how to employ a process of continuous improvement and tinkering to develop exciting new programs, activities, processes, and designs.
Jenny Li Fowler · KoganPage · 2023
In "Organic Social Media," Fowler outlines the important steps that social media managers need to take to enhance an organization's broader growth objectives. Fowler breaks down the key questions to help readers determine the best platforms to invest in, how they can streamline approval processes, and other essential strategic steps to create an organic following on social platforms.
Andrew McAfee · Hachette Book Group · 2023
The geek way of management delivers excellent performance while offering employees a work environment that features high levels of autonomy and empowerment. In what Eric Schmidt calls a "handbook for disruptors," "The Geek Way" reveals a new way to get big things done. It will change the way readers think about work, teams, projects, and culture, and give them the insight and tools to harness our human superpowers of learning and cooperation.
Steven J. Spear · IT Revolution · 2023
Organizations succeed when they design their processes, routines, and procedures to encourage employees to problem-solve and contribute to a common purpose. DevOps, Lean, and Agile got us part of the way. Now with "Wiring the Winning Organization," Spear and Kim introduce a new theory of organizational management: Organizations win by using three mechanisms to slowify, simplify, and amplify, which systematically moves problem-solving from high-risk danger zones to low-risk winning zones.
Olivier Blanchard · MIT Press · 2023
Policy makers in advanced economies find themselves in an unusual fiscal environment: debt ratios are historically high, and - once the fight against inflation is won - real interest rates will likely be very low again. This combination calls for a rethinking of the role of fiscal and monetary policy - and this is just what Blanchard proposes in this work. His conclusions hold practical implications for economic and fiscal policymakers, bankers, and politicians around the world.
Zeynep Ton · Harvard Business Review Press · 2023
This book serves as a leadership guide for choosing excellence and providing good jobs that offer a living wage, dignity, and opportunities for growth. From health care facilities to call centers, fulfillment centers to factories, and restaurants to retail stores, companies are struggling to find or keep workers, because the jobs they offer are low-paying, stressful, and provide little chance for growth and success. Ton outlines the importance of investing in employees, and the four operational choices managers must make if they want to prioritize customers and maximize employees' productivity, motivation, and contributions.
Yossi Sheffi · MIT CTL Media · 2023
In this book, Sheffi takes a close look at "the underlying structure, unavoidable complexity, and massive scale of modern supply chains." He also explores how automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence are changing and augmenting jobs held by workers and how they will change supply chains of the future.
William F. Pounds · Self-published · 2023
In this collection of short essays on management and corporate governance, Pounds shares practical, down-to-Earth wisdom and insight on topics rarely touched on in the typical MBA curriculum, gleaned from his decades of experience across a wide variety of boards. CEOs, corporate directors, and anyone interested in how organizations function and perform in the mysterious realm beyond the executive suite will find these timeless ideas a thought-provoking and sometimes irreverent complement to more traditional academic and legal treatments of these important subjects.
David Kiron · MIT Press · 2023
MIT Sloan Management Review ; Elizabeth J. Altman; Jeff Schwartz; and Robin Jones "Workforce Ecosystems" is a research-driven framework for leading complex, interconnected workforces. Drawing on case studies, worldwide surveys, and extensive interviews with C-suite executives and senior leaders from Amazon, IBM, Mayo Clinic, NASA, Nike, Roche, Unilever, the US Army, Walmart, and others, the authors explore what workforce ecosystems are and how to navigate their unique challenges and opportunities.
Stephanie L. Woerner · Harvard Business Review · 2022
Companies that undergo digital transformation have significantly higher financial performance. In "Future Ready," the authors offer a playbook for leaders who want to help their companies leverage digital capabilities to innovate, satisfy customers, and reduce costs. The book provides board members and top management teams leading a digital transformation journey with a coherent framework and a common language to guide, motivate, and focus employees. It is based on more than 50 interviews with executives and surveys with over 2,000 respondents, and was field-tested in multiple workshops with boards and senior management teams in firms around the world.
Amy Finkelstein · Yale University Press · 2022
Why is dental insurance so crummy? Why is pet insurance so expensive? Why does your auto insurer ask for your credit score? The answer to these questions lies in understanding how insurance works. Unraveling the mysteries of insurance markets, the authors explore such issues as why insurers want to know so much about us and whether we should let them obtain this information; why insurance entrepreneurs often fail (and some tricks that may help them succeed); and whether we'd be better off with government-mandated health insurance instead of letting businesses, customers, and markets decide who gets coverage and at what price.
Harold Abelson · MIT Press · 2022
This book offers an overview of computational thinking and its importance in K-12 education. Topics include the rationale for teaching computational thinking, programming as a general problem-solving skill, the "phenomenon-based learning" approach, and the educational implications of the explosion in artificial intelligence research, discussing, among other things, the importance of teaching children to be conscientious designers and consumers of AI.
Alex Amouyel · Mango · 2022
In "The Answer is You," Amouyel describes how being a change agent starts with doing good deeds and being a community helper. Everyone can do something with the skills and resources they already have - they just need ideas for how, she argues. "The Answer is You" attempts to inspire every person to think critically about the problems we face and the solutions they might be able to offer to enact change.
David Autor · MIT Press · 2022
"The Work of the Future" describes why the U.S. trails other industrialized countries in sharing the benefits of innovation with workers, and explores how we can remedy the problem. Building on the multiyear MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, the authors argue that to create better jobs, we must foster institutional innovations that complement technological change.
Andrew W. Lo · Princeton University Press · 2021
Is there an ideal portfolio of investment assets, one that perfectly balances risk and reward? "In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio" examines this question by profiling and interviewing 10 of the most prominent figures in finance. In the process, readers come to understand how the science of modern investing came to be.
Diana E. Henderson · Bloomsbury · 2021
This international collection of fresh digital approaches for teaching Shakespeare describes 15 methodologies, resources, and tools recently developed, updated, and used by a diverse range of contributors in Great Britain, Australia, Asia, and the United States. Contributors explore how these digital resources meet classroom needs and help facilitate conversations about academic literacy, race and identity, local and global cultures, performance, and interdisciplinary thought.
Patrick Henry Winston · MIT Press · 2021
Effective communication can be life-changing. This book from the late MIT professor and former director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory helps readers understand how writing and speaking tools can help you get a job, make a sale, convince a boss, inspire a student, or even start a revolution.
Robert Pozen · Harper Business · 2021
You can thrive and excel when you're working remotely, if you adopt the mindset, habits, and tech tools of professionals who are even more productive outside the office. Learn to think like a "business of one," and that entrepreneurial mindset will transform your experience of remote work.
Peter B. Kaufman · Seven Stories Press · 2021
How do we create a universe of truthful and verifiable information, available to everyone? In this book, Kaufman describes the powerful forces that have purposely damaged our efforts to share knowledge widely and freely, drawing up a progressive agenda for how today's free thinkers can band together to fight them - and win.
William Bonvillian · MIT Press · 2021
Bonvillian and Sarma offer a roadmap for rebuilding America's working class. They argue that we need to train more workers more quickly, and they describe innovative methods of workforce education that are being developed across the country.
Justin Reich · Harvard University Press · 2020
Reich describes how learning technologies - even those that are free to access - often provide the greatest benefit to affluent students and do little to combat growing inequality in education. We still need new teaching tools, and classroom experimentation should be encouraged, he asserts. But successful reform efforts will focus on incremental improvements, not the next killer app.
Sanjay Sarma · Doubleday · 2020
Sarma and Yoquinto summarize the history of pedagogy and offer a vision for a different future, asking important questions about the efficacy of exams, the notion of innate ability, and new scholarship on how learners understand, absorb, and utilize information and skills. They argue for a more accessible, flexible, and engaging learning ecosystem.
Erin L. Kelly · Princeton University Press · 2020
Years of research shows how organizational change and work redesign strategies can address burnout, overload, and turnover - especially timely as many professionals in the past year have been asked to do more with less in extremely challenging circumstances.
Tom Kochan · Routledge · 2020
This book provides a clear roadmap for the roles workers and leaders in business, labor, education, and government must play in building a new social contract for all to prosper. It is a call to action for a collaborative effort to develop both high-quality jobs and strong, successful businesses while overcoming the deep social and economic divisions that are all too apparent in society today.
Elsbeth Johnson · Bloomsbury · 2020
Johnson challenges some of our most fundamental beliefs about how to lead change - and about what we consider "leadership." She suggests leaders need to do more in early stages of the change, in specific ways and at specific times, and do less in later stages of the change.