The enlightened capitalists : cautionary tales of business pioneers who tried to do well by doing good

Summary: James O'Toole, an expert on ethical leadership, analyzes the complicated history of businesspeople who attempted to marry the pursuit of profits with virtuous organization practices. He tells the largely forgotten stories of men and women who adopted forward-thinking business practices designed to serve the needs of their employees, customers, communities, and the natural environment.

Record details

ISBN: 9780062880246
ISBN: 0062880241
Physical Description: print
xliv, 545 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: New York : Harper Business, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2019]
Copyright: ©2019

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

The pioneers -- The first business reformer : Robert Owen (1771-1858) -- Man with a thousand partners : James Cash Penney (1875-1971) -- The businessman who "cleaned up the world" : William Lever (1851-1925) -- Kisses sweeter than wine : Milton Snavely Hershey (1857-1945) -- Creating an enduring enterprise : James Lincoln (1883-1965) -- New forms of incorporation and governance : John Spedan Lewis (1885-1963), and John Joseph Eagan (1870-1924) -- Johnson & Johnson's rollercoaster ride : Robert Wood Johnson (1893-1968) and James Burke (1925-2012) -- Great genes : Levi Strauss (1829-1902) and his heirs -- Marks & Sparks : Michael Marks (1863-1900) and the Marks and Sieff families -- The golden era -- Leadership as an art : Max de Pree (1924- 2017) -- Too much of a good thing : William C. Norris (1911-2006) -- Business mavericks : Ken Iverson (1925-2002); Robert Townsend (1920-1998); Herb Kelleher (1931-); Bill Gore (1912-1986) and Terri Kelly (1963-) -- The patricians : Thornton Bradshaw (1917-1988), J. Irwin Miller (1909-2004), Edwin Land (1909-1991), John Whitehead (1922-2015), and Roy Vagelos (1929- ) -- Environmentalists, or capitalists? : Anita Perella Roddick (1942-2007) and Tom Chappell (1943-) -- Lever Redux : Ben Cohen (1951- ) -- Capitalists of a different stripe: Yvon Chouinard (1938- ), Jack Stack (1949- ), Robert Beyster (1924-2014), and others -- Yesterday, today, and tomorrow -- Looking back : what we have learned -- Looking forward : the prospects for enlightened corporate leadership -- Conclusion: difficile est bonum esse -- Endnotes.