Upper Saddle River, NJ/Philadelphia, PA - February 18, 2004 Pearson Education, the world's leading education company, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, one of the world's premier business schools, today announced the launch of Wharton School Publishing, an innovative new player in global business publishing. Wharton School Publishing will provide practical knowledge that can be applied by business leaders to make real change in their professional lives. 

Wharton School Publishing will publish a select group of the world foremost business thinkers in print, audio and interactive formats. All titles will receive the Wharton seal of approval, ensuring that each is timely, important, conceptually sound, empirically based and implementable. They will include books, audio books, e-documents, CD-ROMs, and videos. Wharton School Publishing editorial focus on applicable knowledge, along with multi-media publishing, will enable readers to gain new insights into the issues shaping the future of business, and plan and take action to achieve their goals. 

Through Pearson's extensive distribution channels, Wharton School Publishing aims to become the world's leading imprint for applied business knowledge, publishing in multiple languages and reaching all corners of the world.

Wharton School Publishing represents distinguished authors from the world leading business schools and corporations, including CK Prahalad, co-author of the breakthrough bestseller, Competing For the Future; management guru Kenichi Ohmae; former Citigroup Chief Technical Officer Colin Crook; leading members of the Wharton School faculty, such as Marketing Professor Jerry Wind; and other academics. 

The imprint first two titles are Wind and Crook The Power of Impossible Thinking: How to Transform the Business of Your Life and the Life of Your Business, and Prahalad The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits. Other forthcoming titles include Will Your Next Mistake Be Fatal? Avoiding the Mistake Chain That Can Destroy Your Organization; The Enthusiastic Employee: What Workers Want, And Why Employers Should Give It To Them; and Conflict and Consensus: Why Great Leaders Don Take Yes For An Answer.

(Complete author information and title descriptions can be found in the attached document). 

Ahead of the imprint first release in July 2004, Wharton School Publishing is showcasing book content and other materials free of charge at www.whartonsp.com. Visitors will be able to read and download book excerpts from March 1 through the imprint official launch in summer 2004. New texts will appear on a regular basis each month.  The first books to be available online will be The Power of Impossible Thinking: How to Transform the Business of Your Life and the Life of Your Business and The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits.

Marjorie Scardino, Chief Executive of Pearson, said, the world's best companies and business people keep investing in learning throughout their lives. Our partnership with Wharton will turn the latest academic ideas into practical learning that business people can apply to make their companies more valuable.

Wharton Dean Pat Harker commented, Wharton School Publishing is really an extension of the School longstanding commitment to excellence in business education, thought leadership, and to the creation and dissemination of knowledge. This initiative also reinforces our belief that people learn in multiple ways whether it be books, audio or interactive tools. Wharton School Publishing variety of offerings will meet those needs, and, perhaps most important, will come with the Wharton seal of approval.

"Today's business readers are bombarded with many new ideas," said Jerry Wind, Wharton Marketing Professor and Co-Editor of Wharton School Publishing, "We are helping to cut through the clutter with ideas that are rigorous, timely and implementable."

Fifteen leading Wharton faculty members sit on the Wharton School Publishing editorial board. The board responsibilities include identifying topics for books and ensuring the consistent quality of the imprint portfolio. Wharton School Publishing co-editors are Jerry Wind and Pearson Education Tim Moore.

About The Wharton School

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is recognized around the world for its academic strengths across every major discipline and at every level of business education. Founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school in the nation, Wharton has approximately 4,600 undergraduate, MBA, and doctoral students, more than 8,000 participants in its executive education programs annually, and an alumni network of more than 77,000 worldwide. It is a leader in the creation and dissemination of business knowledge, through innovative resources such as Knowledge@Wharton, the school's online journal of research and business analysis, which has more than 313,000 registered users in 189 countries.

About Pearson

Pearson Education is part of Pearson (NYSE: PSO), the international media company with market leading businesses in education, business information and consumer publishing. Best-selling titles from Pearson Penguin Group include Re-Imagine!, by Tom Peters (DK Publishing); Who Moved My Cheese?, by Spencer Johnson and The One Minute Manager, by Johnson and Kenneth Blanchard (Berkley Books). Titles from Portfolio, Penguin business book imprint, include The Smartest Guys In The Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind; and Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, by Seth Godin.

Best-selling business authors from Pearson Prentice Hall, the college imprint, include marketing guru Philip Kotler, who authors every leading book in the field; accounting icon Charles Horngren, one of the most influential teachers of his generation; preeminent economics writers Robin Bade & Michael Parkin; and management experts Stephen Robbins & Mary Coulter. Pearson Education business publishing includes Pearson Prentice Hall (PH-PTR), Financial Times/Prentice Hall and Reuters imprints. Pearson Education academic imprints, including Pearson Addison Wesley, are also market share leaders in business, finance and economics disciplines.

WHARTON SCHOOL PUBLISHING TITLES 2004 - 2005 List

1. THE POWER OF IMPOSSIBLE THINKING: HOW TO TRANSFORM THE BUSINESS OF YOUR LIFE AND THE LIFE OF YOUR BUSINESS, Yoram (Jerry) Wind, The Wharton School, and Colin Crook, former CTO of Citigroup.

To change almost anything in organizations, our careers or our personal lives, we first need to change the way we think. This book offers a framework for challenging our mental mindsets, improving our skills in making sense of the world around us, and acting quickly on those new insights.

2. THE FORTUNE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PYRAMID: ERADICATING POVERTY THROUGH PROFITS, CK Prahalad, University of Michigan Business School.

Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid represents a unique idea and a genuine opportunity for companies to commit their energy and resources to a higher goal: a more inclusive capitalism that in a very real sense can help the disadvantaged of our world. The book will be endorsed by the UN Commission Private Development and Poverty, heads of state and CEOs around the world.

3. WILL YOUR NEXT MISTAKE BE FATAL? AVOIDING THE MISTAKE CHAIN THAT CAN DESTROY YOUR ORGANIZATION, Robert Mittelstaedt, The Wharton School.

An in-depth analysis of the phenomenon of multiple mistakes; whether it is a physical disaster, a political blunder, or a serious corporate mishap, readers discover the unique set of compounding errors which, if unchecked could bring down companies, and tools to keep this from happening.

4. THE ENTHUSIASTIC EMPLOYEE: WHAT WORKERS WANT, AND WHY EMPLOYERS SHOULD GIVE IT TO THEM, David Sirota, Chairman Emeritus, Sirota Consulting.

Utilizing data from over 30 years of employee attitude research, comprehensive interviews and case studies, David Sirota puts theory into practical action and defines the specific management practices that create an environment in which employees can flourish and businesses excel.  

5. MAKING STRATEGY WORK: A GUIDE TO EFFECTIVE EXECUTION THROUGHOUT YOUR ORGANIZATION, Larry Hrebiniak, The Wharton School.

An essential work on strategy implementation.  It raises the level of our understanding of what is required to apply a strategic view across large organizations.

6. MANAGING YOUR CUSTOMERS AS INVESTMENTS: ARE YOU SPENDING MORE ON YOUR CUSTOMERS THAN THEY ARE WORTH? Sunil Gupta and Donald Lehmann, Columbia Business School of Business.

A fresh approach to the study of valuing customer relationships by examining the cost to acquire, retain, and grow your customer base, just like a company or a stock, over the long term, and presents the reader with strategies that develop from this methodology.

7. FINDING FERTILE GROUND: A GUIDE TO IDENTIFYING EXTRAORDINARY OPPORTUNITIES FOR NEW VENTURES, Scott Shane, The University of Maryland.

An essential book that provides the framework for assessing the potential of new age, cutting edge business ventures.  It provides the entrepreneur with the understanding and tools for starting the next big thing and the concepts and key issues that will make or break these projects.

8. LOW RISK, HIGH RETURNS: A MANIFESTO FOR THE 21ST CENTURY COMPANY, Sayan Chatterjee, Case Western Reserve University.

Today technologies and issues pose distinctive challenges and require unique solutions. Chatterjee helps the reader think through the risks of a business model as it is being designed along one of two tracks: a commitment to a deliberate approach to strategy vs. an opportunistic, first mover approach.   

9. CONFLICT AND CONSENSUS: WHY GREAT LEADERS DON TAKE YES FOR AN ANSWER, Michael Roberto, Harvard Business School.

Drawing on case studies and interviews of participants of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bush Administration during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and the infamous failed expedition to the top of Mt. Everest that spawned the book, Into Thin Air, this distinctive work shows how great leaders cultivate constructive conflict to improve their decision-making.

10. THE CHINESE CENTURY: THE RISE OF CHINESE BUSINESS AND ITS EFFECT ON THE WORLD ECONOMY, THE BALANCE OF POWER, AND YOUR JOB, Oded Shenkar, The Ohio State University.

A far-reaching examination of the rise of the Chinese economy to super-power status, and what it means for businesses and people throughout the world and the implications for the balance of political power in the world to come.

11. THE REAL NEW WORLD ORDER, Kenichi Ohmae, former Managing Director, McKinsey and Company.

This analysis of the economic, social and political changes we have experienced since the pivotal mid 1980s helps us determine the proper course of action required to operate a successful business in the 21st. Century global economy.

12. CAPITALISM AT THE CROSSROADS, Stuart L. Hart, Cornell University.

An optimistic assessment about how to build shareholder value by creating competitive strategies that solves social and environmental problems. It envisions a central and expanding role for commerce, particularly multinational corporations, in moving toward a more sustainable world in the coming decade.

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