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Rating: 
Summary: Corporate Centres
Review: I have used this book many times in designing the corporate headquarters compnent of organizations. It is one of a very few references available on this particular issue to consultants in organization design. As a Value Based Design consultant, analyst, researcher and advisor on value creating systems I must take issue with the previous reviewer and strongly recommend this book to actual practitioners.Goold happily steers us away from mathematical reductionism and provides some great examples of how economic value can be leveraged as diverse means of generating it are discovered in the corporate portfolio. Like Jaques caution not to throw the hierachical baby out with the bathwater,Goold provides an antidote to the view that corporate centres add no value. As companies become more process based and self organizing, insights such as those provided by the author into managing such complexity will be invaluable.
Rating:
Summary: Parenting Advantage: academic case studies - no formulas
Review: This books title should be: "Parenting Advantage: Non-quantifiable benefits of british conglomerates in the 1980's".I ordered this book because I excpected to find an advanced mathematical textbook on strategic analysis, shareholder value and real options. Therefore I was disappointed to find out, that it does not contain a single formula and ignores all the progress made by shareholder valuation techniques and real option theory. It is based on verbal organizational theory and sociology, not on microeconomic theory and transaction cost theory.
It is based on an INTERNAL point of view, not an EXTERNAL point of view, and fails to analyze quantitative competetive advantages. Its framework is very academic and descriptive, no step-by-step-imlementation plans, no mathematics. Just interviews with british conglomerates and quotations from academic papers. However, the book taught a valuable lesson, it did not intend to teach at all: The popular EVA/Economic-Profit-Models for Share-holder-Valuation-Management were first applied by british cong-lomerates like BTR back in the late 1960's. The misapplication of EVA/economic-profit-models in british companies and their resulting loss of competetive advantage is a cautionary tale against the abuse of simplified shareholder-Valuation-techniques. With all due respect towards the authors, I see few hands-on-applications for their work. Sure, I do not question Goolds integrity or experience. He must have invested months of work in his book. His book was stimulating to read, but how can it help a consultant, who sits face-to-face in front of an angry customer, who wants to see quantifiable results for his money ?.
I share Mr Goolds scepticism aginst an aggressive 'financial control style', but to falsify EVA/Economic-Profit-Models
it takes more than anecdotal evidence, it takes stochastic data.
Rating:
Summary: Excelent for world of today business
Review: This is an excelent book based on practical knowledege and very clever tools to evaluate different strategies in a multibusiness company.
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