The Best Business Books of 2003

Tales of Enron, IBM Story on Magazine's List of Year's Top Books

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Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress by Douglas Brinkley.

The Support Economy: Why Corporations Are Failing Individuals and the Next Episode of Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff and James Maxmin.

Morning Edition, December 30, 2003 · Not surprisingly, books about scandals dominated the best-selling business books of 2003. "The number of Enron books alone would fill a small library," Randall Rothenberg, editor-in-chief of strategy+business magazine, tells NPR's Bob Edwards.

Rothenberg says the best of the Enron-related books is The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind. The book offers rich details about the scandal and insight about the energy company's dysfunctional management team, Rothenberg says.

He says the best of the current crop of CEO books is Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Inside IBM’s Historic Turnaround by Louis V. Gerstner Jr., IBM's former chief executive. The story of Big Blue's comeback offers good lessons for senior executives, the magazine editor says.

Below is strategy+business's list of the year's best business books:

• The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth by Clayton M. Christensen and Michael E. Raynor

• Beyond Budgeting: How Managers Can Break Free from the Annual Performance Trap by Jeremy Hope and Robin Fraser

• Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology by Henry Chesbrough

• The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind

• One World: The Ethics of Globalization by Peter Singer

• Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Inside IBM’s Historic Turnaround by Louis V. Gerstner Jr.

• The Support Economy: Why Corporations Are Failing Individuals and the Next Episode of Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff and James Maxmin

• Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis

• Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress, 1903–2003 by Douglas Brinkley

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