Finance-History

"The 18 Immutable Laws of Corporate Reputation" (18 Laws) draws an up-to-date roadmap for (1)establishing a good corporate reputation, (2)maintaining that reputation and (3)repairing a damaged corporate reputation. Starting with the premise that a good reputation is a corporation's most priceless asset, writer Ronald Alsop presents mini case-studies of "lessons learned" from the crises faced by companies and organizations such as Johnson & Johnson, Merrill Lynch, Philip Morris (Altria), and the Roman Catholic Church to explore the benefits of a good reputation, the consequences of a bad reputation and ways to protect good reputations and fix bad ones.

While sticking mostly to the main highways of stategy development and avoiding the gritty back roads of tactical decision making, 18 Laws provides important insights into key principles and strategies for building, maintaining, and fixing corporate reputations. Though it lacks turn-by-turn directions and employs clichés with surprising frequency, this well-researched, well-organized and clearly-written business book is a worthwhile addition to the personal, corporate or PR agency library. C-level executives and corporate communications professionals can benefit in perusing the 18 laws in preparation for the next inevitable corporate crisis or as a strategic reference manual for use as the crisis unfolds.

Alsop is a senior reporter for the Wall Street Journal and I have read many of his stories over the years. I am glad that someone of his caliber has addressed the issue of corporate reputaion at a time when big business ranks about equal to politicians in public perception. Even the mafia is thought to be less sleazy!!

Alsop starts with a basic, uncontestable premise: A corporation's reputation is one of its most valuable assets. This determines how much slack a cynical public will cut it when things start to go wrong. Other assets - such as those that show up on the balance sheet - are carefully measured, tracked and managed. Reputations are not. Not even by so-called excellently managed companies.

Next Alsop lays out various 'laws' to help a company manage its reputation. The first two just talk about how important it is and how important it is to measure it. Then he becomes much more interesting as he starts laying out what a company should do build and maintain a sterling reputation.

He stresses how important it is for a company to 'live' its values and ethics and why being defensive is actually offensive. These could be bromides. What gives them value are Alsop's anecdotes drawn from a lifetime of reporting on business. These well selected stories not only illustrate his points, they also show the reader how to implement his ideas in their own situation. And there are hundreds os such stories.

For example, Alsop talks about how being socially responsible can be an important component of a sterling reputation. And he relates how Timberland does it with a range of initiatives from monitoring labor practices at its contractors' overseas factories to giving its employess the opportunity to do community service on company time. And he doesn't stop there. He tells what dozens of other companies do from Johnson & Johnson to Paul Newman's food company.

These stories and examples are, by far, the best part of the book. This is where the value resides and it is not at all difficult to take each of these examples and suitably modify it to use in your situation.

An excellent book. My one quibble is a philosophical one. I think Alsop is too easy on companies like Altria - the former Phillip Morris. Does having an exemplary ethics code with lots of employee input compensate for the fact that its core product kills when used as intended? You make up your mind on that one. Alsop shows how Altria does a lot of things right in terms of global cultural sensitivity but I would simply not have used such an example.

I found this book highly readable, balanced and full of useful information. It should become a textbook for people in the communications field and for senior executives.

The book is structured so well, with the best practices of companies clearly explained. The author is feisty in his assessment of reputation blunders and shortcomings, but he always turns them into instructive lessons.

Mr. Alsop vividly illustrates each law with detailed examples. I especially enjoyed learning about companies' tactics for dealing with Internet rumors, Merrill Lynch's crisis-management strategies, and the inside story of Philip Morris's name change.

There are also many rankings of companies with the best and worst reputations. And the author has written entertaining short pieces for some of the chapters about famous corporate apologies, the IBM Hall of Shame, and a corporate name change quiz.

Given the state of corporate America's reputation, this book should have a long shelf life.

Mickens names University of Chicago as one of the best work environments for gays. Let the records show that in the early 1990s, people were going around sending death threats to gay students on that campus, particularly gay students of color. I have a friend who transferred from Chicago to Brown specifically for that reason. Therefore, if Chicago does have a gay-friendly policy now, it is only because they were embarrassed into it. This book is written in a rambling personal narrative style. There are several superior books out there about gay men and lesbians in the workplace.

What a great way to make public the companies that really care about their gay employees. It's fun to see which companies are really doing something. However, this book is quite out of date, I wish a new edition was published

Since coming out as queer I have been looking for something olike this, and now I have it. One thing that hasn't happened even though there is a lot more acceptance of the gay lifestyle at the grassroots is more acceptance by institutions. This is a step in the right direction, and gives lots of good info on where to get serviced and so on.

Excellent and informative book! Lots of small pictures of pretty much every tractor and farm implement IH made from their beginning until about 1979. This book also covers war production,refrigeration equipment,and trucks.I didn't find anything on construction equipment. There is a brief mention and a couple of picures of the Cub Cadet original. A must have for any IH library.

This book will open your mind to various aspects of the global economy. Any serious investor would be doing him/herself a great favor by picking up this book...it is written in a very organized manner wherein coverage of each topic is short, concise, and each has it's own accompanying graphs/charts/statistics page. A perfect reference.

I can't tell you how many times I have referred to this book for my investment descisions. It's an accurate and clear portrayal of what goes on in the global market. My returns are increasing more and more everyday!

Brian Quinlan, son of Joeseph P. Quinlan, is a funny boy who gives interesting speeches and has the best basement and television set in the world. We like to call him TW for terrific warrior. He is a big fan of Doug Flutie and Zack Debolt and you should beware of the "elbow".

This book, rich with wonderful old photos, gives a concise history of the last 100 years of the financial culture that has come to be known as Wall Street. A good blend of text, photos, and charts make this book interesting to the non-financial reader.

The author divided the book into decades and each chapter outlined the changes that occurred over those years.

At the beginning of the last century, Wall Street was known for its lack of financial regulation regarding trades. Scandals and outright swindles abounded. Four years after the Crash of 1929, FDR's administration passed nationwide banking and securities laws to make sure that this kind of disaster did not happen again.

Unfortunately, the real and distasteful inner workings of Wall Street were revealed in the Senate hearings. An SEC commissioner called investment bankers "financial termites". This knowledge scared investors away for the next 20 years.

In the early 50s, investing became popular with middle class investors for the first time in a generation, and mutual funds were developed after being gone for 30 years.

The 60s brought the birth of the modern mergers and acquisitions business in the U.S, and the days of small brokerage firms were coming to an end.

The 70s brought extensive reforms concerning commissions while the 80s were the years of junk bonds, insider trading scandals, and the savings and loan crisis.

The author called the 80s the decade of greed and the 90s the decade of boom. The Internet has brought about a totally new way of trading stocks and has made up-to-the-minute financial news available to everyone.

The changes in the last 100 years on Wall Street have been phenomenal, mirroring the technological changes in our society.

Charles R. Geisst's enjoyable book chronicles Wall Street in the twentieth century. He effectively captures the feel of the various boom and bust periods. The clear, informative text is supplemented with incredible black and white photographs of each period's key events and people, making it very evocative and intriguing. We at ... recommend this book to anyone - not only someone in business - who wants to learn about Wall Street's history. It would make a great gift for anyone who works in the financial industry or for a young person who is interested in how money works.

I enjoyed looking at the pictures and reading the headlines. Very educational and informative.

The American public is unaware about how the U.S. government conducts its foreign policy through the IMF and World Bank. The U.S. media has failed to explain to the American public how exactly the World Bank and IMF operate to economically control thrid-world countries. These two organizations actually promote the economic colonization of the third-world. Programs like CNN Pinnacle with Willow Bay provide misleading portrayals of World Bank leaders (i.e. JAMES WOLFENSOHN, PRESIDENT, WORLD BANK). This book fills the gap left by the news media. A very interesting and short read!