The Timid Corporation: Why Business is Terrified of Taking Risk (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Part One of this book examines the enormous rise of self-regulation in the business world..." (more)
Key Phrases: timid corporation, more regulated approach, obsession with the customer, United States, Brent Spar, Financial Times (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"…Hunt’s book is recommended – and his rallying cry against risk aversion is attractively original…" (IT Week, 21 March 2003)

"…a penetrating new book…" (Morningstar, 17 April 2003)

"…Hunt does a good job of taking apart many of the assumptions that inform current business practice…" (Spiked-risk, 29 May 2003)

"…remarkable…contains some thought-provoking moments…" (Supply Management, 3 July 2003)

"…this book aims to provide reassurance…" (Gulf Business, August 2003)

"…Hunt has made a provocative case that business today is quite timid…" (Wall Street Journal, 27 August 2003)

"…Hunt is on to something: Most companies are shrinking back from bold moves…" (www.conference-board.org, September 2003)

"…Hunt has hit on a highly provocative theme.." (European Business Forum, Autum 2003)

"…Hunt is absolutely right…" (Ethical Consumer Magazine, October 2003)

Product Description

'This book provides a much needed critical intervention in the governance and risk management mania that has characterised corporate regulation in the past ten years. Benjamin Hunt challenges us to reinterpret the mantras of brand management, customer focus, stakeholder dialogue, shareholder value and many more as products of an anxious society populated by defensive corporations, fearful of markets and led by empty political systems. The Timid Corporation is refreshingly provocative, and offers a timely reminder of the paradox of corporate regulation in the post-Enron world which can never restore trust. This book is essential reading for managers, politicians and academics concerned with the consequences of a culture of corporate risk aversion for genuine innovation."
Michael Power, P.D. Leake Professor of Accounting, and Co-Director, ESRC Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation, London School of Economics

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 264 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (May 6, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470843683
• ISBN-13: 978-0470843680
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,640,860 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Insightful!, June 8, 2004

By	Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract.com" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This book offers a passionate and stupendously irreverent slap in the face to virtually every management orthodoxy and business shibboleth. Nothing escapes the scathing criticism of this corporate Jeremiad. Managing for shareholder value? Woe to you, sinner! Think the brand is important? Out with you, infidel! There's plenty to find fault with in author Benjamin Hurt's presentation of his case. He's vengefully biased, and never lets a silly fixation like "balance" get in the way of a good zinger. He's set himself to dig holes in the dikes that hold the wild waters of skepticism at bay. This book will make you mad, make you protest, may even make you throw it against the wall in disgust. But any book that makes you react that way has something going for it. At least, it's a bracingly different perspective from anything else you'll read about management, marketing or finance. With that caveat about balance firmly in mind,
We suggest reading this decidedly eccentric, provocative original, if you dare to take the risk.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A contrarian view, November 2, 2003

By	Bill Godfrey (Mt Stuart, TAS Australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A contrarian view of risk management that has overtones of 'the emperor has no clothes'. The author argues that business has become obsessed with risk and self-regulates to the point that genuine (and risky) innovation is stifled. He offers a lot of evidence that undue concern with risk, coupled with a desire (largely for safety) to 'offer customers what they want' and 'build customer loyalty' actually works against the best interest of customers and the business.

While it is clear that the author is against undue caution, he believes that this is affecting most business and makes a good case for his arguments, it is less clear what he is for. There is a risk (!) that the book will simply be used by those who are interested in preventing government regulation and ridiculing self-regulation. It is usefully provocative but ignores or ridicules some real risks that require careful management. The author's cavalier dismissal of environmental concerns is a good example of this.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This book needs a foundation of Ellsberg,Keynes,and Mandelbrot , July 14, 2005

By	Michael Emmett Brady "mandmbrady" (Bellflower, California ,United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Hunt could have easily written a 5 star book by basing its major conclusions,the current dearth of both long run investment and innovation by most major corporations,on a foundation composed of the theoretical work of D.Ellsberg,J.M.Keynes, B.Mandelbrot ,and the mathematical modeling of Dixit and Pindyck's"real options"approach(see their 1993 book "Investment under Uncertainty") as a replacement for the badly flawed neoclassical EVA(economic value added) approach that essentially degenerates into a purely short run,short sighted,pennywise,poundfoolish labor cost cutting(a la "chainsaw"Al Dunlop)policy that ignores revenue generation through innovation in new products,services,technologies,industrial processes and/or improvements in current products,etc.The crucial distinction that Hunt tries to make between risk and REAL risk[ risk(mild risk) versus uncertainty , ambiguity,or wild risk] was made by Keynes in his A Treatise on Probability(1921)and in Chapter 12 of his 1936 General Theory,by Ellsberg in a 1961 Quarterly Journal of Economics article and his (2001) book,Risk,Ambiguity and Decision,and by Mandelbrot in a series of books and articles written since 1955[see his (2004)The (Mis)Behavior of Markets,with Hudson].Hunt is certaintly correct that the EVA rule"...is a frenzied attempt to formalize things that cannot easily be formalized..."(Hunt,p.116).Hunt needs to integrate the work of the thinkers pointed out in this review into the corpus of his book in a revised edition,probably an extended appendix.