Business: A Changing World

Rating:
Summary: You Get What You Pay For!
Review: Faculty, students and anyone else shopping for a basic introduction to business textbook, be warned - this book is cheap and readily demonstrates why if you critically assess what it offers (or does not). McGraw Hill Irwin should be ashamed for ever allowing it to be published in its available form. One does not have to look far to find factual errors of every kind. Some are no-brainers such as the page 149 reference to defense contractor "Lockheed Martin" with the name reversed to "Martin Lockheed" (were the writers disgruntled former shareholders of Martin Marietta?). But perhaps even more egregious are technical inaccuracies such as a notation but two pages earlier that an S Corporation restricts shareholders to 35, rather than the correct membership number of 75. Such errors in a textbook designed for beginning students of the business discipline are unpardonable.

The publisher must take responsiblity not only for the disastrous outcome of the basic text but also the weak supplements including a poorly retreaded video series that includes several out-of-date experiences that do little if anything to engage students in the exciting world of contemporary business.

All in all, a fairly poor effort on the part of authors O.C. Ferrell and Geoffrey Hirt. The book is one of the least expensive of its type on the market and certainly argues that instructor and student get what is paid for, at least in this case. For the serious business student, consider the Boone and Kurtz authored "Contemporary Business." The Thompson Publishing firm will produce customized softcover verions of the latter for just a bit more in price and the results will far exceed anything offered in the disappointing "Business: A Changing World."