About the Book
Knowledge building and value creation are opposite sides of the same coin.
Value Creation Insights lays out profoundly important yet remarkably simple ideas for surviving and prospering in the modern economy. Experienced investment researcher Bartley J. Madden provides a foundational understanding of how firms build knowledge and create value in a capitalist society. In the process, Madden clarifies the purpose of the firm and explains why, over the long term, some firms succeed while others fail in achieving their purpose.
Madden's Pragmatic Theory of the Firm is rooted in systems thinking and clarifies the firm's four-part purpose. The theory demonstrates why a firm's culture of knowledge-building proficiency is the critical determinant of its long-term performance. It also spotlights life-cycle track records for providing an economically sound and intuitive connection between a firm's financial performance and its stock market valuation.
The Knowledge-Building Loop is presented as a practical mental model for how new knowledge is created that reinforces cognitive science findings, embraces the role of imagination, and improves problem-solving and decision-making for managers, boards of directors, investors, and those who seek to earn more responsibility in their firms. In addition, Value Creation Insights is a rewarding read for those individuals who are intellectually curious about business firms and, more broadly, capitalism.
Significant challenges with high potential for value creation are much easier to tackle with foundational knowledge. This is demonstrated by the challenges of flattening command-and-control pyramid organizational structures and transitioning to the New Economy accounting, which effectively handles intangible assets. Value Creation Insights is both an educational and problem-solving tool that helps those who want to live the life of a value creator.
About the Author :
Bartley J. Madden is an independent researcher, author, and innovator in investment research, the theory of the firm, and public policy. He was a cofounder of Callard, Madden & Associates and a managing director of Credit Suisse (now UBS) HOLT. He has published a series of journal articles and books related to knowledge building, value creation, the Pragmatic Theory of the Firm, and FDA reform.
Currently, he is actively involved with the Madden Center for Value Creation at Florida Atlantic University.
You can discover more of Madden's work at LearningWhatWorks.com.
Review :
"Bartley Madden's book provides a compelling and powerful account of a systems approach to business. It demonstrates how shareholder value is derivative of a purpose of business that places knowledge creation at its core. The book draws on the immense amount of practical experience as well as academic knowledge that Bartley brings to the subject. It deserves to be widely read and highly influential on business thinking and practice."
--Colin Mayer CBE, Professor Emeritus, University of Oxford
"Madden's systems perspective provides a great framework for corporations to leverage their Balanced Scorecard for rapid strategy adaptation in a fast-changing world. The ideas in Value Creation Insights enable a firm to embed the key variables for long-term value creation within the causal linkages of its strategy map and scorecard. The pragmatic theory's emphasis on knowledge-building proficiency shows that long-term, sustainable performance starts by motivating and enhancing specific capabilities of those closest to the firm's value-creating work."
--Robert S. Kaplan, Professor Emeritus, Harvard Business School; coauthor, The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action
"I have been waiting for a book that successfully translates the insights of systems thinking into a theory of the firm. Bartley Madden's book outlining his Pragmatic Theory of the Firm successfully achieves this. Starting with the idea that a firm is a holistic system seeking to create value, the book is suffused with systems ideas. It argues that firms should serve a fourfold purpose, emphasizes knowledge building, foregrounds interrelationships, and challenges command-and-control thinking. It advocates taking multiple perspectives to encourage constructive skepticism. The book is a provocation to systems thinkers to contribute to the further development of Bart Madden's Pragmatic Theory of the Firm."
--Michael C. Jackson OBE, Professor Emeritus, University of Hull
"On first impression, Bartley Madden's book, Value Creation Insights, appears to be yet another book about how companies can create value. But it's actually something much simpler, yet more profound: A series of insights by a shrewd analyst, gained over a half a century of examining what works, what doesn't, and why. Madden's system-based analysis makes you wish you had read this book earlier in your career, no matter where in your career you are now."
--Jon Lukomnik, Managing Partner, Sinclair Capital; coauthor, Adapt or Fail!: A 5x5 Governance Framework for Boards of Directors
" Bartley Madden's latest book encapsulates a lifetime of insights gleaned from a successful career providing investment research to money managers. Madden challenges traditional thinking in accounting and finance by questioning the usefulness of the underlying economic theory of the firm in these two disciplines. Based on narrow self-interest and conflicts of interest between principals and agents throughout the firm, agency theory focuses on controlling activities and opportunistic behavior in order to control costs. Madden convincingly argues that agency theory is unable to capture value creation in the modern economy driven by innovation, rapidly evolving technologies, and intangible assets. He presents a new Pragmatic Theory of the Firm based on knowledge building and valuation creation being inextricably linked. The chapter on the New Economy Accounting is based on a paper he and I co authored that presents a workable plan to finally integrate intangible assets into our accounting system. The pragmatic result would be more accurate accounting return metrics for a firm's business units and improved resource allocation decisions."
--Douglas E. Stevens, Professor and Copeland/Deloitte Chair of Accountancy, Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University
"Investment theories to date have largely been mathematical propositions, connecting risk and return quantitatively. What have been missing are verbal propositions that logically and intuitively connect investment returns to the drivers of those returns. Bartley Madden's new book offers such a tangible proposition with his Pragmatic Theory of the Firm . The theory proposes a four-dimensional firm purpose, whereby maximizing shareholder value is best positioned not as the purpose of the firm but as the result of a firm successfully achieving its purpose. This integrated framework is indeed pragmatically logical and intuitive. Even better, its insights and action implications are equally powerful for academics and students, for corporate board members and executives, and for institutional investors and their clients."
--Keith Ambachtsheer, Executive-in-Residence, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto; Director Emeritus, International Centre for Pension Management; author of four books on pension design, governance, and investing; advisor to major pension funds around the world
"Madden brings forward essential guidance on how organizations can thrive for the long term, bringing value to those who depend on them and creating sustainable entities that innovate over many lifetimes. I often cite Madden's work in my presentations and writing because his ideas change people's perspectives for the better. His redefinition of 'firm risk' is critical, especially as he integrates it with his Life-Cycle of the Firm and the Knowledge-Building Loop. You and any organization you serve will be better off by reading and adopting Bart's ideas."
--David R. Koenig, Author, Governance Reimagined: Organizational Design, Risk, and
Value Creation, The Board Member's Guide to Risk, and Life at the Nexus: Understanding Ourselves and the Power of Interconnectedness
"Bartley Madden's Pragmatic Theory of the Firm uniquely combines knowledge building and value creation to deliver a theoretically sound and practical theory of the firm that deserves to be taught in business schools. I highly recommend this book to my students, alumni, fellow faculty members, and to the business leaders and entrepreneurs I advise. Over many years, Madden has presented key ideas in Value Creation Insights to my MBA students that complemented my teaching. This joint effort helped students integrate traditional siloed business courses, which include finance, accounting, economics, strategy, marketing, production processes, leadership/ethics/corporate governance, and business history."
--Dr. Mark L. Frigo, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Director of the Center for Strategy, Execution, and Valuation, Kellstadt Graduate School of Business, DePaul University; coauthor with Joel Litman, DRIVEN: Business Strategy, Human Actions, and the Creation of Wealth
"Bartley Madden's Pragmatic Theory of the Firm is aligned with how we believe great companies are built. As long-term active investors, we are committed to understanding how companies focus on these critical attributes of culture and innovation regardless of how difficult they can be to measure. We believe deep research and analysis of how a company operates and is managed provides long-term investors unique economic opportunities because they aren't always obvious to see. We also are encouraged by Bartley's ability to articulate 'what it takes ' to be a great company. It is an excellent piece of work that helps demonstrate why we do the homework to identify these core principles and how we think about creating long-term value in client portfolios. The investment world has become so short-term and has unappreciated the importance of accountability to stewardship. This book helps bring it to life, and we applaud Bartley for making it so clear!"
--Carol W. Geremia, President, Co-Head of Global Distribution, MFS Investments
