Just Do It: The Nike Spirit in the Corporate World [Paperback]

Donald Katz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1995

An award-winning author penetrates Nike--a company of the future, a dream machine that seeks to redefine culture through the power of sports--to provide this portrait of Phil Knight, who pioneered the company from a two-man operation into a four billion-dollar corporation.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

YA-The rise of Phil Knight and his Nike empire began with his trip to a Japanese shoe factory in 1963. Joined by Bill Bowerman, his old track coach and an inveterate seeker of a better running shoe, he began to import Tiger running shoes and sell them at high-school track meets. In 1966, Bowerman designed his own product, which was made by the Japanese firm, and in 1972 the first Nikes were introduced. Katz examines the enterprise historically, as a cultural phenomenon and as a multimillion-dollar company. Students seeking information about successful businesses in our global economy, marketing, research and development, or retailing will be profitably engaged by this text.
Barbara Hawkins, Oakton High School, Fairfax, VA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Katz (Home Fires, LJ 5/15/92), who spent 17 months among Nike's senior management during a tumultuous period in the company's history, offers a meticulous, well-written report about the high-pressure decision-making behind Nike's famous marketing campaigns. Lamentably, however, he glosses over controversial issues like the substandard wages paid by the company's Third World manufacturing operations. And he declines to draw interpretive conclusions about Nike's domineering influence over college and professional sports management. This lack of critical perspective constitutes a serious flaw in an otherwise diligent work of corporate reportage. Still, readers will find this a more balanced and up-to-date treatment than J.B. Strasser's Swoosh (LJ 1/92). Recommended for general business collections.
A.G. Wright, Harvard Coll. Lib., Cambridge, Mass.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Adams Media Corporation (April 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558504796
• ISBN-13: 978-1558504790
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #389,159 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Corporate Anthropology, July 4, 2001

By 

Z. Blume (St. Louis, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Just Do It: The Nike Spirit in the Corporate World (Paperback)

Just Do It, does a wonderful job of describing and promoting the corporate culture at Nike--in fact it did such a good job I can think of nowhere I would rather work. That aspect of the book bothers me though, because it sometimes becomes such a glowing portrait of the company that the story can not be taken at face value... That being said, I think Katz's unprecedented access to Phil Knight and many of Nike's other top executives and athletes allows him to tell the story of Nike's growth and continuous battle for market share from a unique perspective. I have also read Swoosh, cowritten by the wife of a former Nike executive, and it tells a similar tale, but is so biased against Nike that it's analysis is even less believable then Katz'z. I think this is an interesting portrait of a great American company and has an insider perpective you will not find else where, but I only give it three stars because it is a bit of a PR job and is surely not as even handed as I would like.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Mystique Behind the Nike Culture, March 19, 2000

By 

Jonathan T. Sabo (Joplin, Missouri) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Just Do It: The Nike Spirit in the Corporate World (Paperback)

Just Do It digs under the skin of the Nike corporation and gives a behind-the-scenes look at the company that has grown to be the number one shoe marketer in the U.S. The author details every aspect from Nike's involvement in the Dream Team awards ceremony fiasco in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona to the sweat shops of Asia where the shoes are actually produced. The author taps into the psyche behind what Nike is about and what makes a typical Nike employee: love of sports combined with a rebellious, headstrong nature to think outside the box. For example, one prospective employee with a PhD and a law degree was dismissed by the selection committee for not knowing who Deion Sanders was. The book opens with the 1993 retirement of Michael Jordan and ends with some "small" layoffs by Nike in September of the same year and the effects that the layoffs have on chairman, Phil Knight. The prose is well-chosen and the reader is shown the business side of superstars such as Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan that you won't find in Sports Illustrated. There are two minor weaknesses to Just Do It. There is definitely an inevitable pro-Phil Knight slant to everthing written. Also, an extraordinary amount of pages are devoted strictly to the quagmire that is the Asian economy. The author may find this topic interesting, but the average reader won't and it strayed from the central theme of Nike's corporate culture.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Just Do It....This book really didnt do it, December 17, 2001

By 

ramez (los angeles, CA usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Just Do It: The Nike Spirit in the Corporate World (Paperback)

Just Do It by Donald Katz wasnt the one of the best books I have read, it didnt even make my top ten list. This book is full of uninteresting, and tedious specifics which did not make me want to read the book any more than I had to. On the back of the book U.S News & World Report says "Engrossing....a corporation fueled by the MTV corporation. Engrossing?..it really wasnt. It was grossingly boring by the time i started read the 30th page. The back of the book also says it was a riveting biography. The things are said by popular sources like People Magazine. This book was so boring to the point where I am starting to beleive that the author payed these people to say the things that they said. : "never judge a book by its cover",I learned my lesson. This book cover looked so nice, attractive, it made me want to pick it up right away. Id have to say the best part of the book was the cover. The frist few pages were okay only because it talked about Michael Jordan, then the book just hit rock bottom. I was reading the book with the same emotion when i have to choke down bitter medicine. If u have insomnia, read this book. I promise it will be ur cure.