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How can the lessons from literature be used in business?

How can the lessons from literature be used in business? The worlds of literature and business are as different as they get. While literature often revels in the artistic and abstract aspects, business focuses on the more practical and realistic facets of life. Literature talks ideas, business speaks money. Writers express themselves with words, business men prove themselves through numbers. Former US President Calvin Coolidge once exclaimed, “The business of America is business. Not Art!” (West brook, 1980:1). However, this difference is, at most, on the surface. Literature and business intertwine on more perspectives than one might think. For example, there are traces of corporate capitalism in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle in which workers are portrayed as “slaves to the economic system” (Watts, 1982:77). Or Joseph Heller’s Something Happened depicts the harsh rules of business by which any one who is not contributing efficiently to the success of a company will be discarded, also known as corporate Darwinism (Horner, 1992:27). Or in Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, with a humourous tone, medieval England is modernised with various economic measures, such as new currency, stock exchange in the court, and full‐time employment for the knights, and hence saved from financial ruins (West brook, 1980:49). In other words, literature has been drawing inspirations from the financial market. Therefore, it might not be surprising if there are major themes in literature than can be applied to the corporate world. In fact, managers at all levels can learn valuable lessons for the many areas of business from literature. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Management Research News Emerald Publishing

How can the lessons from literature be used in business?

Aimee Bui; Brian H. Kleiner
Management Research News , Volume 28 (11/12): 8 – Nov 1, 2005
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Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.
ISSN
0140-9174
DOI
10.1108/01409170510785318
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The worlds of literature and business are as different as they get. While literature often revels in the artistic and abstract aspects, business focuses on the more practical and realistic facets of life. Literature talks ideas, business speaks money. Writers express themselves with words, business men prove themselves through numbers. Former US President Calvin Coolidge once exclaimed, “The business of America is business. Not Art!” (West brook, 1980:1). However, this difference is, at most, on the surface. Literature and business intertwine on more perspectives than one might think. For example, there are traces of corporate capitalism in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle in which workers are portrayed as “slaves to the economic system” (Watts, 1982:77). Or Joseph Heller’s Something Happened depicts the harsh rules of business by which any one who is not contributing efficiently to the success of a company will be discarded, also known as corporate Darwinism (Horner, 1992:27). Or in Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, with a humourous tone, medieval England is modernised with various economic measures, such as new currency, stock exchange in the court, and full‐time employment for the knights, and hence saved from financial ruins (West brook, 1980:49). In other words, literature has been drawing inspirations from the financial market. Therefore, it might not be surprising if there are major themes in literature than can be applied to the corporate world. In fact, managers at all levels can learn valuable lessons for the many areas of business from literature.

Journal

Management Research News – Emerald Publishing

Published: Nov 1, 2005

Keywords: Literature; Business; Corporate capitalism; Economic measures

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