A Better Way of Doing Business?

John Lewis is repeatedly upheld as a model of how good businesses should be run. In this fascinating and exceptionally insightful analysis, Graeme Salaman and John Storey dispel the myths and reveal the truths of what lies behind the success of this remarkable British institution. - Colin Mayer, Peter Moores Professor of Management Studies, Said Business School, University of Oxford Salaman and Storey, by offering an intensive case study of the John Lewis Partnership (JLP), offer guidance and hope for todays modern organization. Their deep insights from JLP will enable thoughtful leaders to be both compassionate and competitive and to create a sustainable organization. - Dave Ulrich, Rensis Likert Professor of Business, University of Michigan Partner, The RBL Group A rare study combining depth and breadth. The authors have a thorough knowledge of the Partnership, both academic and practical, over many years; and they are able to view it in the context of criticisms of capitalist ownership and the experiences of other cooperative businesses across the industrial world. The research is nuanced, careful, balanced, genuinely inquiring. The conclusions greatly advance the understanding of both the strengths and challenges of cooperative governance. - Charles Heckscher, Professor, Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations With the John Lewis Partnership being one of Britains truly flagship enterprises, it is amazing that they have not been duly scrutinized. This has just changed, as this most informative and penetrating work by Graeme Salaman and John Storey strongly highlights how we could all learn from the John Lewis Partnership. Perhaps if this book had been available earlier, we may, as a nation, not find ourselves with such debt. - Andrew Kakabadse, Professor of Governance and Leadership at Henley Business School, University of Reading and Emeritus Professor at Cranfield University School of Management. The modern corporation faces unprecedented challenges. If left unaddressed they threaten its own existence and wider social wellbeing. Rising to this challenge, Graeme Salaman and John Storey undertake a systematic scrutiny of the prime example of an alternative, stakeholder, perspective - the John Lewis Partnership. They do not advocate a simple replication of this model, rather, their analysis reveals the rich insights that are required in order to build an alternative workable response. - Huainan Zhao, Professor of Corporate Finance, School Of Management Cranfield University For the first time, the workings of the John Lewis Partnership are instructively examined by academics who have had high level and sustained access to the organisation. This book is a must read' for anyone wishing to understand what lies behind the partnership model of corporate governance and the lessons that it may offer to business and society. - Hugh Willmott, Professor of Management, Cass Business School, City University London A penetrating discussion of a business that is so admired yet so little understood. The authors show what a delicate and complex organisation it is, where management have to balance commercial pressures against the happiness of the staff who own it. Throughout, the book also helpfully tries to draw conclusions about how far the John Lewis model can be replicated or used to influence how business works more generally. - Sir David Norgrove, Chair of the Low Pay Commission and former Executive Director of Marks & Spencer