the system'. I would love to see some of the methodology in this book applied to some basic business ethics cases - of course, the prerequisite is to get the accurate source data in the first place. But in the meantime I recommend this book to anyone who would like to get a sense of how you move beyond the obvious. If you're not challenging your preconceptions about how things work at least once a month, you're in danger of getting complacent. This is the book I am reading at the moment, and it's absolutely fascinating stuff. The central proposition is that a lot of experts post-rationalise why successful companies have succeeded, or failed, and that these rationalisations although the claim to be based on analysis are flaky at best. In some ways, this plays to my existing beliefs - I have been banging on for years about dodgy arguments made in support of the business case for CSR - anything that pretends you can draw a line of cause and effect between responsible business practice and superior financial results. This book is a much better articulated version - not specific to CSR in any way, but no less directly relevant for that. In other ways, it delights me by challenging my beliefs. I am a great fan, for instance, of the Collins & Porras 'Built to Last' book - which is one of the most influential pieces of research about what makes an enduringly successful company. The assumptions behind