Unlocking the Ivory Tower

Management is a discipline that can be learned from study. A large and diverse set of academic management research, often accessible only to academics, has practical, actionable implications to help in managing an organization today.


Unlocking the Ivory Tower addresses the major components of academic business literature: strategy, leadership, entrepreneurship, organizational theory, international business, innovation, and finance. Doctors Ball and LiPuma act as field guides and interpreters, bridging the divide between scholarship and practice, and distilling each research contribution into a brief outline while preserving the message of that thinker. They also provide context regarding how the particular contribution fits into the rest of the field, and how it can be applied in the real world. The result is a rich book that covers a lot of ground and provides a basis for understanding the major schools of thought in primary management fields.


Today’s managers are faced with responsibilities for functional and staff management, as well as developing strategies for growth, leading teams, and staying competitive in evolving industries and markets globally—the range of knowledge and skills required by corporate managers requires the breadth of readily applicable concepts present in this book.


Eric and Joe have helped create, develop, and run organizations. They both have executive experience in finance, mergers and acquisitions, and entrepreneurship in international contexts. Each also has invested time publishing in academic journals and teaching business school students in different countries. These authors live in the middle ground as practical academics.


Unlocking the Ivory Tower is light on anecdotes and heavy on actionable research results, making it an essential reference for both managers and students. This book can serve as an education for those who did not pursue a management degree, a refresher course for those who did, or a way to expand beyond the concepts taught in many MBA programs. In particular, Eric and Joe provide a means for managers to reassess and extend their academic knowledge in the context of their professional experience, and for management students to review the major concepts and put them into context with each other.


Edited by Anna F. Doherty and Leslie F. Peters of Together Editing & Design, www.togetherediting.com.