Bloomberg Businessweek recently asked professors at top business schools to share their recommendations for reading materials that will help undergraduate business and MBA students prepare for the school year – and beyond. The lists professors wrote included everything from literature to grammar manuals, all with the purpose of broadening the student’s horizons and better understanding the world they will enter after graduation. There were too many titles to mention in the feature story, so this blog highlights some of the other books that sounded too interesting or practical to pass up. Here’s a roundup of other books on the summer reading list for business students and the reasons professors included them, according to their e-mailed responses:
LEARNING FROM OTHERS
Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust (Times Books, April 2011) by Diana B. Henriques
“[It] is a cautionary tale about the ease of stepping over the line. It reinforces the need for effective regulation of securities markets,” writes Stephen J. Kobrin, publisher of the Wharton Digital Press at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School (Wharton Full-Time MBA Profile).
Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India are Reshaping their Futures and Yours (Harvard Business Press, March 2011) by Tarun Khanna
“This book is a must read for anyone interested in how the world of business is going to be transformed by India and China during this century. The book describes the complementary strengths of India and China, and how ‘mutualism’ between both nations can facilitate each other’s weaknesses. Khanna reinforces the notion that the government is the entrepreneur in China. Indian entrepreneurs have little faith in the Indian government and try to avoid it at all costs. In addition, Billions of Entrepreneurs examines the similarities in both Chinese and Indian history,” writes G. “Anand” Anandalingam, dean of the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business (Smith Full-Time MBA Profile).
-by Francesca Di Meglio
Read the full article: More Summer Reading for Business Students