Praise and Reviews
`Disturbing and deeply thought-provoking, this book challenges the relevance of much in the current `governance` debate. While we bicker over rearranging the deckchairs, is our industrial Titanic already slipping beneath the waves?`
Marcus Alexander, Adjunct Professor of Strategy, London Business School and Director, Ashridge Strategic Management Centre
`Written with sharp insight, wit and wisdom, this is a splendid and disturbing book. It urges us, with passion and carefully researched precision, to debate those issues which are crucial for the health of our society, in economic, political and human terms. It is both prophetic and practical.`
Professor Jim Hughes, Strathclyde University Business School
`This book makes a lot of points that are long overdue. The challenge is - how to make real changes effectively.`
Sir Austin Pearce CBE, former Chairman of Esso and British Aerospace
`Congratulations. Well targeted, highly topical and lively to read.`
John Monks, former General Secretary, Trades Union Congress
"A damning account of personal greed and incompetence and the selfish consumption of corporate Britain 's wealth ."
Derby Evening Telegraph, Jan 2004
" 'I have yet to read a more devastating analysis' of relationships between chief executives and investment banks, said Richard Donkin in the FT. 'Everyone concerned with the future health of corporations' should read this book.' "
-Money Week
"Convincingly argued, with an impressively moral centre"
Ink, March 2004
"The authors, themselves once industry insiders, write in a style that is short on sentiment and substantiate what they write with hard facts."
-Mortgage Finance Gazette
"This is not a typical socialist screed written by left-wing academics, since the authors, Don Young and Pat Scott, have both worked in senior roles in industry, and have experienced business from the inside."
Sunday Telegraph, Feb 2004
"A controversial new book that gives warning of the dangers to UK plc."
The Times, Jan 2004
In the last twenty years top managers of British companies have experienced an unprecedented boom in pay and perks, while their counterparts in the City have earned millions. Just reward for achieving high performance and superior shareholder value one might say. If indeed that was the outcome. The reality, though, is somewhat different as this hard-hitting book reveals.
Having their Cake... is a damning account of neglect, greed and incompetence, and the irresponsible destruction of corporate Britain's wealth. For the first time, the little publicized informal relationships between the City institutions and top management in UK's largest public companies is examined in great detail. While passionate in their quest to expose this destruction and propose positive changes, the authors provide us with cool and compelling evidence that:
financial markets are the dominant influence over the appointment and careers of top managers of public companies;
these symbiotic relationships represents a seismic shift in the balance of power between the stakeholders in industry and the economy;
many high-profile corporate deals are made at the expense of company performance or even survival;
the combination of City pressures and management practices are having an increasingly corrosive effect on British businesses.
And the consequences are alarming:
there is now little or no larger British presence in many key industrial sectors that require consistent investment in innovation and technology;
Some 40% of British-based exporting companies are now foreign owned;
Approaching 50% of gross exports are made by foreign owned companies;
there are now no larger British owned international investment banks;
the productivity of American owned manufacturing companies in Britain vastly exceeds that of British owned ones.
Having their Cake... is a wake-up call for everyone who cares about the future of corporate Britain.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Part I About the book and the values behind it
Introduction to Part I
1. Something's happening! Changes in the industrial landscape
Part II The financial markets and top managers
Introduction to Part II
2. Who are the actors in the business--City nexus?
3. Management
4. Dancing partners: the relationships between managers and markets
Part III Why do some companies get into difficulties?
Introduction to Part III
5. Factors causing failure: mergers and acquisitions (and disposals)
6. Other 'failure' factors
7. The rise and fall of Redland plc: a case study
8. So, what is good?
Part IV The three propositions
Introduction to Part IV
9. Managers and markets
10. Organizational and behavioural impacts of management--market relationships
11. Industrial, economic and social consequences of management--market relationships
Interlude: 'time out' for reflection
12. So, where do we go from here?
End thought: why is the 'system' so hard to change?
References
Having Their Cake Website
(Following content by the authors)
Having Their Cake was a result of two full careers in industry and a lot of research. In it, we sought to explore and describe the nature of relationships between top managers and the financial markets, and through them, the unnecessary damage being caused to industrial enterprise.
The book was published at the end of January 2004 and was generally very positively reviewed.
As our main reason for writing was to throw light on some very serious problems for the industrial economy, we have decided to launch a website, www.havingtheircake.com. Our aim is to make a small contribution to generating insights and debate about the roles of managers and investors in supporting or undermining the industrial economy.
We hope that visitors will find the site stimulating and entertaining - with a serious underlying intent to inform and help.
It should be of interest to all senior managers, the banking and investment community and those with an intelligent interest in the long-term success of the industrial economy.
