New York Times Management Reader: Hot Ideas and Best Practices from the New World of Business

The New York Times has long been acknowledged as America's newspaper of record because of the complete and authoritative way it chronicles events on a day-to-day basis. Its business coverage has proven no exception, and in The New York Times Management Reader, editors Brent Bowers and Deidre Leipziger of the newspaper's "Business Day" section assemble more than 65 highly illuminating and perceptive stories published over the past few years to show precisely how some of today's most cutting-edge companies are tackling the top issues. Following chapter introductions by David Leonhardt that highlight common themes--managing entrepreneurially, recruiting and retaining successfully, thriving after mergers and acquisitions, surviving when things go wrong--the original Times stories are presented (with updates at the end, when necessary) to put things into an even more useful perspective. There are articles on leadership succession at S.C. Johnson, the Martha Graham Dance Company, and TV's Nickelodeon, for example, and tales of movement from old economy thinking to new at places such as Bertelsmann, Hughes Electronics, and Harvard Business School. And while most examine the way the business world's Goliaths have reacted to 21st-century challenges, a few focus on interesting Davids, such as the independent California coffee shop that stared down a Starbucks in its neighborhood. The varied content and the way it has been grouped according to theme might just make these stories even more pertinent and instructive than when they first appeared. --Howard Rothman