# MBA Reading List: [Your name, stage and target start date]

> A curated reading list for the whole MBA journey: classic and current books and landmark articles for each core
> area (strategy, finance, accounting, economics, marketing, operations, data and AI, leadership, negotiation, ethics,
> entrepreneurship, communication) and for the admissions and career stages, each with one line on why and when to
> read it, plus a 16-week reading plan, a reading log and a self-test. It is for people deciding whether to apply,
> applicants, admitted students before day one, current students and graduates moving into a new role.
> Source basis: the works listed, cited by author, year, title and publisher or journal (each checked against
> publisher, journal or library records), and the learning research of Dunlosky et al. (2013). The one-line
> descriptions are original. The list is independent and is not any school's official or required reading list.
> Replace every [bracketed] value and every row marked *Example*.

<!--
Guidance: How to use this template
- Do not try to read everything. Pick the stage you are in, then two or three core areas where you are weakest (use mba/mba-readiness-self-assessment if you have not done it).
- Read articles before books: a landmark article is the idea in 15 pages, the book is the idea with evidence and examples.
- For each work, write the one-sentence claim, one example from your own experience and one question you would ask the author in the reading log. That turns reading into retrieval practice.
- Pair each popular "classic" with its critique where one is listed. Your MBA classes will.
- Textbooks are named as further reading only. Your school will assign its own; check the syllabus before buying.
- Related templates: mba/mba-journey-roadmap, mba/mba-glossary, mba/mba-readiness-self-assessment, mba/pre-mba-roadmap-12-weeks, mba/mba-core-curriculum-map, mba/mba-case-reading-guide, mba/mba-learning-journal, mba/mba-concept-flashcards, mba/mba-recruiting-plan, academic/study-guide, education/cornell-notes
-->

## Document control

<!-- Guidance: Record your stage and the date of your next milestone (application deadline, first day, first recruiting event). The reading plan works backwards from it. -->

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Document ID | RL-[INITIALS]-001 |
| Reader | [Your name] |
| Current stage | [Deciding / applying / admitted, pre-MBA / first year / second year / graduate] |
| Next milestone and date | [Round 2 deadline / first day of orientation / internship start] on YYYY-MM-DD |
| Weakest core areas (from self-assessment) | [Accounting, operations] |
| Weekly reading budget | [4 hours] |
| Version | [0.1] |
| Last updated | YYYY-MM-DD |
| Reviewed by | [Mentor, coach or study partner] |

## Contents

1. How to use this list
2. Selection rules
3. Reading paths by stage (diagram)
4. Stage 1: deciding and applying
5. Stage 2: before day one, learning how to learn
6. Core area lists (strategy to communication)
7. Stage 3: recruiting, internship and the first role
8. Classics and their critiques
9. 16-week reading plan
10. Reading log
11. Common mistakes
12. Self-test, notes, sources, answer key

## How to use this list

<!-- Guidance: Read this once. It explains how each entry is built and how much time the plan really takes. -->

Every entry has an ID, the full reference and one line that says why the work matters and at which point in the
journey it pays off most. IDs use the pattern RL-AREA-NN, for example RL-STR-02 for the second strategy entry, so you
can refer to them in your reading log, your flashcards and your learning journal.

The list mixes three kinds of work:

- **Landmark articles.** The paper or magazine article where an idea was first stated in its sharpest form. Your
  courses will cite them and case discussions assume you know them. Most are 10 to 40 pages.
- **Classic books.** Books that shaped how managers and teachers think about a field. Some have aged, and the line says
  what to read for and what to read past.
- **Current works.** Books from roughly the last decade that update a field (decision making, AI, strategy practice).
  They are more likely to be superseded, so read them for the questions they raise.

Standard textbooks are named at the end of each area as further reading only. Your school will assign specific
textbooks, editions and chapters, and many programmes provide course packs instead of whole books. Always follow the
syllabus first.

Reading is most useful when it is active. The learning research reviewed by Dunlosky et al. (2013) rates practice
testing and spaced practice as high-utility techniques and rates highlighting and re-reading as low-utility. So the
plan below builds in a short recall exercise after each work and a review three or more weeks later, instead of a
second read.

## Selection rules

<!-- Guidance: Use these rules if you add your own works. A list that keeps growing without rules stops being a plan. -->

A work is on this list only when it meets all of these rules:

1. **Verifiable reference.** Author, year, title and publisher or journal confirmed against publisher, journal or
   library records. Where the volume, issue or page range could not be confirmed, it is left out rather than guessed.
2. **Originator first.** For a framework, the original statement is listed (for example Porter's 1979 article and
   1980 book for competitive forces), with later popular versions only where they add something.
3. **Useful at MBA depth.** The work either underpins a core course, shapes how case discussions run, or helps with a
   decision you will face in the journey (whether to apply, what to recruit for, how to start a new role).
4. **Balance.** Each area has at least one classic and, where a strong one exists, a current work. Widely cited
   popular books whose method has been questioned are paired with a critique (section "Classics and their critiques").
5. **No copying.** The one-line descriptions are written for this list; no publisher blurbs, abstracts or reviews are
   reproduced.

When you add a work, apply the same rules and record the source you checked it against in the reading log.

## Reading paths by stage

<!-- Guidance: Find your stage in the diagram and start there. Every path ends in the core areas, because they are what the first year tests. -->

```mermaid
flowchart TD
  A["Stage 1: deciding and applying"] --> B["Stage 2: admitted, before day one"]
  B --> C["Core areas: weakest two first"]
  C --> D["Core areas: the rest, by term schedule"]
  D --> E["Stage 3: recruiting and internship"]
  E --> F["First role after the MBA"]
  A -.->|"short on time"| C
  C --> G["Classics paired with critiques"]
  G --> D
```

| Stage | Start with | Then | Time budget (example) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deciding (12 to 24 months before applying) | RL-APP-01, RL-APP-02, RL-APP-03 | RL-DEC-01, RL-DEC-02 | 2 hours a week |
| Applying (6 to 12 months before deadline) | RL-APP-04, RL-APP-05 | RL-COM-01 for essay logic | 1 hour a week; the essays take the rest |
| Admitted, before day one (8 to 16 weeks) | RL-LRN-01, weakest two core areas | the 16-week plan below | 4 hours a week |
| First year | the area of each term's core courses | classics and critiques | course reading first |
| Recruiting and internship | RL-CAR-01 to RL-CAR-05 | area lists for your target function | 1 to 2 hours a week |

## Stage 1: deciding and applying

<!-- Guidance: These works help you decide why you want the degree and what kind of career you are building. Use them with mba/mba-decision-roi and mba/mba-personal-narrative, not instead of them. -->

| ID | Work | Why and when |
|---|---|---|
| RL-APP-01 | Christensen, C. M. (2010). How will you measure your life? *Harvard Business Review*, 88(7/8). | Read while deciding: a short test of whether your career plan serves the life you want, which is the question behind most goals essays. |
| RL-APP-02 | Ibarra, H. (2003). *Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career*. Harvard Business School Press. | Read if you plan a career switch: it argues you find a new path by testing small experiments, not by planning it all in advance. |
| RL-APP-03 | Drucker, P. F. (1999). Managing oneself. *Harvard Business Review*, 77(2), 64-74. | Read before writing your story: a set of questions about strengths, working style and values that sharpens self-assessment. |
| RL-APP-04 | Burnett, B., and Evans, D. (2016). *Designing Your Life*. Knopf. | Read while choosing schools and goals: prototype conversations and "odyssey plans" give you material for the why-MBA and why-now answers. |
| RL-APP-05 | Newport, C. (2012). *So Good They Can't Ignore You*. Grand Central Publishing. | Read when you write about goals: a useful counterweight to "follow your passion", focused on building rare and valuable skills. |
| RL-DEC-01 | Kahneman, D. (2011). *Thinking, Fast and Slow*. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. | Read before big decisions (whether to apply, which offer to accept): the vocabulary of biases your decision course will use. |
| RL-DEC-02 | Duke, A. (2018). *Thinking in Bets*. Portfolio. | Read while deciding: separates the quality of a decision from the luck of its outcome, useful for the admissions gamble itself. |

## Stage 2: before day one, learning how to learn

<!-- Guidance: The first term is fast. These works change how you study, which pays off in every course. Read them in the first two weeks of the pre-MBA plan. -->

| ID | Work | Why and when |
|---|---|---|
| RL-LRN-01 | Brown, P. C., Roediger, H. L., and McDaniel, M. A. (2014). *Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning*. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. | Read first, before any subject: it explains why self-testing and spacing beat re-reading, which shapes how you use every other work. |
| RL-LRN-02 | Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., and Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques. *Psychological Science in the Public Interest*, 14(1), 4-58. | Read the summary tables before day one: the evidence base behind the study routines in mba/mba-concept-flashcards and mba/mba-error-log. |
| RL-LRN-03 | Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., and Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. *Psychological Review*, 100(3), 363-406. | Read when planning case-interview or Excel practice: the case for focused practice with feedback rather than repetition. |
| RL-LRN-04 | Zinsser, W. (1976). *On Writing Well*. Harper and Row. | Read before the first written case analysis: plain, clear writing is graded in every course, not only communication. |

## Core area lists

<!-- Guidance: Read the area of each upcoming core course one to four weeks before the course starts. Each area lists articles first, then books, then textbooks to name only. -->

### Strategy

| ID | Work | Why and when |
|---|---|---|
| RL-STR-01 | Porter, M. E. (1979). How competitive forces shape strategy. *Harvard Business Review*, 57(2). | Read before the first strategy case: the original statement of the forces analysis every industry discussion starts from. |
| RL-STR-02 | Porter, M. E. (1980). *Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors*. Free Press. | Read selectively for industry structure and generic strategies; use it as a reference during the course. |
| RL-STR-03 | Porter, M. E. (1985). *Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance*. Free Press. | Read the value chain chapters before you analyse a firm's activities (mba/mba-value-chain-card). |
| RL-STR-04 | Porter, M. E. (1996). What is strategy? *Harvard Business Review*, 74(6), 61-78. | Read mid-course: why operational effectiveness is not strategy, and how trade-offs and fit create advantage. |
| RL-STR-05 | Barney, J. (1991). Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. *Journal of Management*, 17(1), 99-120. | Read for the resource-based view: the academic root of the "valuable, rare, hard to imitate" test (mba/mba-resource-based-view-card). |
| RL-STR-06 | Prahalad, C. K., and Hamel, G. (1990). The core competence of the corporation. *Harvard Business Review*, 68(3), 79-91. | Read before diversification and corporate strategy sessions: the firm as a portfolio of competencies, not of businesses. |
| RL-STR-07 | Christensen, C. M. (1997). *The Innovator's Dilemma*. Harvard Business School Press. | Read before technology strategy sessions: why good management can lose to disruptive entrants. |
| RL-STR-08 | Kim, W. C., and Mauborgne, R. (2005). *Blue Ocean Strategy*. Harvard Business School Press. | Read when you study growth options: a structured way to look for uncontested market space; test its claims against the forces analysis. |
| RL-STR-09 | Rumelt, R. P. (2011). *Good Strategy Bad Strategy*. Crown Business. | Read early and reread before writing any strategy memo: diagnosis, guiding policy and coherent action as the kernel of a strategy. |
| RL-STR-10 | Brandenburger, A. M., and Nalebuff, B. J. (1996). *Co-opetition*. Currency Doubleday. | Read alongside game theory: complementors and the value net, which the forces analysis underplays. |
| RL-STR-11 | Lafley, A. G., and Martin, R. L. (2013). *Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works*. Harvard Business Review Press. | Current practice: the cascade of strategic choices as practitioners use it; good for the capstone and consulting recruiting. |
| RL-STR-12 | Rumelt, R. P. (2022). *The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists*. PublicAffairs. | Current work: finding the one problem that matters most; read in the second year or before a strategy role. |

Textbooks to name only: Grant, *Contemporary Strategy Analysis* (Wiley); Besanko, Dranove, Shanley and Schaefer,
*Economics of Strategy* (Wiley). Use the edition your course assigns.

### Finance and valuation

| ID | Work | Why and when |
|---|---|---|
| RL-FIN-01 | Modigliani, F., and Miller, M. H. (1958). The cost of capital, corporation finance and the theory of investment. *American Economic Review*, 48(3), 261-297. | Read the introduction and propositions when capital structure starts: the benchmark every later theory relaxes (mba/mba-capital-structure-card). |
| RL-FIN-02 | Jensen, M. C., and Meckling, W. H. (1976). Theory of the firm: managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure. *Journal of Financial Economics*, 3(4), 305-360. | Read for governance and capital structure: the agency-cost idea behind debt, incentives and boards. |
| RL-FIN-03 | Malkiel, B. G. (1973). *A Random Walk Down Wall Street*. W. W. Norton. | Read before the investments elective or finance recruiting: an accessible case for market efficiency and low-cost indexing (later editions update the data). |
| RL-FIN-04 | Graham, B. (1949). *The Intelligent Investor*. Harper and Brothers. | Read as a classic counterpoint to RL-FIN-03: margin of safety and the investor's temperament; use a later annotated edition. |
| RL-FIN-05 | Damodaran, A. (2017). *Narrative and Numbers: The Value of Stories in Business*. Columbia Business School Publishing. | Current work: linking a company's story to the inputs of a valuation; read before the DCF sessions (mba/mba-dcf-valuation-card). |
| RL-FIN-06 | Rosenbaum, J., and Pearl, J. (2009). *Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers and Acquisitions*. Wiley. | Read only if recruiting for banking or private equity: the practitioner mechanics behind comparables, DCF and LBO (mba/mba-paper-lbo). |
| RL-FIN-07 | Lewis, M. (1989). *Liar's Poker*. W. W. Norton. | Optional, for culture: a first-hand account of a 1980s trading floor; read before deciding on a markets career. |

Textbooks to name only: Berk and DeMarzo, *Corporate Finance* (Pearson); Brealey, Myers and Allen, *Principles of
Corporate Finance* (McGraw Hill); Koller, Goedhart and Wessels, *Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of
Companies* (Wiley).

### Financial and managerial accounting

| ID | Work | Why and when |
|---|---|---|
| RL-ACC-01 | Johnson, H. T., and Kaplan, R. S. (1987). *Relevance Lost: The Rise and Fall of Management Accounting*. Harvard Business School Press. | Read before managerial accounting: why traditional cost systems mislead decisions, the background for activity-based costing. |
| RL-ACC-02 | Cooper, R., and Kaplan, R. S. (1988). Measure costs right: make the right decisions. *Harvard Business Review*, 66(5), 96-103. | Read before the costing sessions: the practical argument for activity-based costing (mba/mba-activity-based-costing-card). |
| RL-ACC-03 | Kaplan, R. S., and Norton, D. P. (1992). The balanced scorecard: measures that drive performance. *Harvard Business Review*, 70(1), 71-79. | Read when performance measurement comes up: four linked perspectives instead of financial measures alone. |

Textbooks to name only: OpenStax, *Principles of Accounting, Volume 1: Financial Accounting* and *Volume 2: Managerial
Accounting* (free, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0); Penman, *Financial Statement Analysis and Security Valuation* (McGraw Hill). For the
accounting standards themselves, use the official IFRS and FASB pages, not a summary book.

### Economics

| ID | Work | Why and when |
|---|---|---|
| RL-ECO-01 | Coase, R. H. (1937). The nature of the firm. *Economica*, 4(16), 386-405. | Read before make-or-buy and vertical integration: why firms exist at all, in a short and readable paper. |
| RL-ECO-02 | Hayek, F. A. (1945). The use of knowledge in society. *American Economic Review*, 35(4), 519-530. | Read in the first micro weeks: prices as carriers of dispersed information, a good frame for markets and for decentralised organisations. |
| RL-ECO-03 | Akerlof, G. A. (1970). The market for "lemons": quality uncertainty and the market mechanism. *Quarterly Journal of Economics*, 84(3), 488-500. | Read before information economics, signalling and pricing: why asymmetric information can unravel a market. |
| RL-ECO-04 | Dixit, A. K., and Nalebuff, B. J. (1991). *Thinking Strategically*. W. W. Norton. | Read before the game theory sessions: commitment, credibility and sequential moves with business examples (mba/mba-game-theory-card). |

Textbooks to name only: Mankiw, *Principles of Economics* (Cengage); OpenStax, *Principles of Economics* (free, CC BY-NC-SA
4.0); Besanko and Braeutigam, *Microeconomics* (Wiley).

### Marketing

| ID | Work | Why and when |
|---|---|---|
| RL-MKT-01 | Levitt, T. (1960). Marketing myopia. *Harvard Business Review*, 38(4), 45-56. | Read before the first marketing class: define the business by the customer need, not the product. |
| RL-MKT-02 | Ries, A., and Trout, J. (1981). *Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind*. McGraw-Hill. | Read before positioning sessions: the original practitioner case for owning a place in the customer's mind (mba/mba-stp-positioning-card). |
| RL-MKT-03 | Moore, G. A. (1991). *Crossing the Chasm*. HarperBusiness. | Read for technology marketing and go-to-market: the gap between early adopters and the mainstream. |
| RL-MKT-04 | Cialdini, R. B. (1984). *Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion*. William Morrow. | Read before consumer behaviour: six principles of persuasion; also useful for ethics discussions on manipulation. |
| RL-MKT-05 | Gupta, S., Lehmann, D. R., and Stuart, J. A. (2004). Valuing customers. *Journal of Marketing Research*, 41(1), 7-18. | Read before customer analytics: valuing a firm from its customer base (mba/mba-customer-lifetime-value-card). |
| RL-MKT-06 | Sharp, B. (2010). *How Brands Grow*. Oxford University Press. | Current-era classic: evidence-based claims on penetration and mental availability that challenge loyalty-first marketing. |

Textbooks to name only: Kotler and Keller, *Marketing Management* (Pearson).

### Operations

| ID | Work | Why and when |
|---|---|---|
| RL-OPS-01 | Little, J. D. C. (1961). A proof for the queuing formula L = λW. *Operations Research*, 9(3), 383-387. | Read when process analysis starts: the one law that links inventory, throughput and flow time (mba/mba-process-analysis-card). |
| RL-OPS-02 | Goldratt, E. M., and Cox, J. (1984). *The Goal*. North River Press. | Read before the operations core: a novel that teaches bottlenecks and throughput faster than a chapter. |
| RL-OPS-03 | Womack, J. P., Jones, D. T., and Roos, D. (1990). *The Machine That Changed the World*. Rawson Associates. | Read for lean production: the study that brought the term into wide use. |
| RL-OPS-04 | Spear, S., and Bowen, H. K. (1999). Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System. *Harvard Business Review*, 77(5), 96-106. | Read with RL-OPS-03: the rules behind the tools, which matter for quality and improvement cases (mba/mba-quality-card). |

Textbooks to name only: Cachon and Terwiesch, *Matching Supply with Demand* (McGraw Hill).

### Data, decisions and AI

| ID | Work | Why and when |
|---|---|---|
| RL-DAT-01 | Tversky, A., and Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases. *Science*, 185(4157), 1124-1131. | Read before decision analytics: the original anchoring, availability and representativeness paper. |
| RL-DAT-02 | Silver, N. (2012). *The Signal and the Noise*. Penguin Press. | Read before forecasting and regression: why most predictions fail and how probabilistic thinking helps. |
| RL-DAT-03 | Tetlock, P. E., and Gardner, D. (2015). *Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction*. Crown. | Read for judgment under uncertainty: what the best forecasters in long-run tournaments do differently. |
| RL-DAT-04 | Kahneman, D., Sibony, O., and Sunstein, C. R. (2021). *Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment*. Little, Brown Spark. | Current work: unwanted variability in professional judgments and how to audit it; read before hiring and evaluation topics. |
| RL-DAT-05 | Agrawal, A., Gans, J., and Goldfarb, A. (2018). *Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence*. Harvard Business Review Press. | Read before the AI for managers course: AI as cheaper prediction, and what becomes more valuable as a result. |
| RL-DAT-06 | Agrawal, A., Gans, J., and Goldfarb, A. (2022). *Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence*. Harvard Business Review Press. | Read after RL-DAT-05: why system-level change, not point solutions, decides who gains from AI (mba/mba-ai-strategy-card). |
| RL-DAT-07 | Iansiti, M., and Lakhani, K. R. (2020). *Competing in the Age of AI*. Harvard Business Review Press. | Read for operating-model questions: firms built around data and algorithms scale differently. |
| RL-DAT-08 | Mollick, E. (2024). *Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI*. Portfolio. | Current and fast-moving: practical habits for working with generative AI; read early, then check your school's AI policy for coursework. |

Textbooks and open resources to name only: OpenStax, *Introductory Statistics 2e* (free, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0); the
academic/stats-learning-roadmap in this library for a structured route through statistics.

### Leadership and organisational behaviour

| ID | Work | Why and when |
|---|---|---|
| RL-LDR-01 | Hackman, J. R., and Oldham, G. R. (1976). Motivation through the design of work: test of a theory. *Organizational Behavior and Human Performance*, 16(2), 250-279. | Read before motivation sessions: the job characteristics model in its original tested form (mba/mba-motivation-card). |
| RL-LDR-02 | Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. *Administrative Science Quarterly*, 44(2), 350-383. | Read before your learning team forms: the study behind the psychological safety concept (mba/mba-team-dynamics-card). |
| RL-LDR-03 | Kotter, J. P. (1995). Leading change: why transformation efforts fail. *Harvard Business Review*, 73(2), 59-67. | Read before change management: eight common errors that became a widely used process model (mba/mba-change-management-card). |
| RL-LDR-04 | Heifetz, R. A., and Laurie, D. L. (1997). The work of leadership. *Harvard Business Review*, 75(1). | Read for the difference between technical and adaptive problems, a recurring theme in leadership cases. |
| RL-LDR-05 | Goleman, D. (1998). What makes a leader? *Harvard Business Review*, 76(6), 93-102. | Read before the 360 feedback exercise: emotional intelligence as a leadership skill; discuss the strength of the evidence in class. |
| RL-LDR-06 | Drucker, P. F. (1967). *The Effective Executive*. Harper and Row. | Read before any internship: time, contribution and decisions as the basics of knowledge-work effectiveness. |
| RL-LDR-07 | Grove, A. S. (1983). *High Output Management*. Random House. | Read before your first management role: output-based management, meetings and one-to-ones from an operator. |
| RL-LDR-08 | Edmondson, A. C. (2018). *The Fearless Organization*. Wiley. | Current work: applying psychological safety in organisations; read in the second year. |

Textbooks to name only: Robbins and Judge, *Organizational Behavior* (Pearson); OpenStax, *Principles of Management*
(free, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

### Negotiation

| ID | Work | Why and when |
|---|---|---|
| RL-NEG-01 | Fisher, R., and Ury, W. (1981). *Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In*. Houghton Mifflin. | Read before the first negotiation exercise: interests, options, criteria and the BATNA (mba/mba-negotiation-planner). |
| RL-NEG-02 | Raiffa, H. (1982). *The Art and Science of Negotiation*. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. | Read for the analytical side: reservation prices, the zone of possible agreement and multi-issue trades. |
| RL-NEG-03 | Lax, D. A., and Sebenius, J. K. (1986). *The Manager as Negotiator*. Free Press. | Read for the tension between creating and claiming value inside organisations. |
| RL-NEG-04 | Malhotra, D., and Bazerman, M. H. (2007). *Negotiation Genius*. Bantam. | Read before job-offer and scholarship negotiations: research-based tactics, including when not to negotiate (mba/mba-offer-negotiation). |

Textbooks to name only: Lewicki, Barry and Saunders, *Negotiation* (McGraw Hill).

### Ethics, ESG and stakeholders

| ID | Work | Why and when |
|---|---|---|
| RL-ETH-01 | Friedman, M. (1970, 13 September). The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. *The New York Times Magazine*. | Read before the first ethics session: the shareholder view in its best-known form; know it well enough to argue for and against it. |
| RL-ETH-02 | Freeman, R. E. (1984). *Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach*. Pitman. | Read with RL-ETH-01: the founding text of stakeholder theory (mba/mba-stakeholder-esg-card). |
| RL-ETH-03 | Porter, M. E., and Kramer, M. R. (2011). Creating shared value. *Harvard Business Review*, 89(1/2), 62-77. | Read for the strategy view of social issues; compare its claims with the critiques your course assigns. |
| RL-ETH-04 | Badaracco, J. L. (1997). *Defining Moments: When Managers Must Choose Between Right and Right*. Harvard Business School Press. | Read before ethics cases where both options are defensible, which is most of them. |

For current sustainability reporting rules (ISSB standards, EU rules), read the official texts on ifrs.org and
eur-lex.europa.eu rather than a book, because they changed in 2025 and 2026; see mba/mba-stakeholder-esg-card.

### Entrepreneurship

| ID | Work | Why and when |
|---|---|---|
| RL-ENT-01 | Sahlman, W. A. (1997). How to write a great business plan. *Harvard Business Review*, 75(4), 98-108. | Read before the entrepreneurship core: people, opportunity, context and the deal as the four parts investors weigh. |
| RL-ENT-02 | Sarasvathy, S. D. (2001). Causation and effectuation: toward a theoretical shift from economic inevitability to entrepreneurial contingency. *Academy of Management Review*, 26(2), 243-263. | Read for how experienced founders reason from available means rather than fixed goals (mba/mba-opportunity-assessment-card). |
| RL-ENT-03 | Ries, E. (2011). *The Lean Startup*. Crown Business. | Read before the venture project: build, measure, learn and the minimum viable product. |
| RL-ENT-04 | Blank, S. (2013). Why the lean start-up changes everything. *Harvard Business Review*, 91(5), 63-72. | Read as the short version of the lean method and customer development. |
| RL-ENT-05 | Feld, B., and Mendelson, J. (2011). *Venture Deals*. Wiley. | Read before term sheets and cap tables; later editions update market terms (mba/mba-venture-finance-cap-table-card). |

### Communication

| ID | Work | Why and when |
|---|---|---|
| RL-COM-01 | Minto, B. (2009). *The Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing and Thinking* (3rd ed.). FT Prentice Hall. | Read before essays, case write-ups and consulting recruiting: answer first, then grouped support. Earlier editions date back to the 1970s and 1980s; catalogues give different first-edition dates, so cite the edition you read. |
| RL-COM-02 | Zinsser (RL-LRN-04) and Strunk, W., and White, E. B. (1959). *The Elements of Style*. Macmillan. | Keep beside you for every written deliverable: short rules on clarity and concision (mba/mba-business-communication-card). |

## Stage 3: recruiting, internship and the first role

<!-- Guidance: Start this stage in the first term, not after it. Recruiting for summer internships begins early in many programmes; check your career centre's calendar. -->

| ID | Work | Why and when |
|---|---|---|
| RL-CAR-01 | Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The strength of weak ties. *American Journal of Sociology*, 78(6), 1360-1380. | Read before networking: why acquaintances bring more new information than close friends (mba/mba-networking-tracker). |
| RL-CAR-02 | Grant, A. (2013). *Give and Take*. Viking. | Read before coffee chats and alumni outreach: giving, taking and matching styles and how they play out over a career. |
| RL-CAR-03 | Bolles, R. N. *What Color Is Your Parachute?* Ten Speed Press (revised regularly; first published, self-published, in 1970). | Read a current edition if you are unsure what function to recruit for: a long-running guide to self-inventory and job search. |
| RL-CAR-04 | Watkins, M. D. (2003). *The First 90 Days*. Harvard Business School Press. | Read the month before your internship and again before your first post-MBA role (mba/mba-internship-plan, career/ninety-day-plan). |
| RL-CAR-05 | Voss, C., and Raz, T. (2016). *Never Split the Difference*. HarperBusiness. | Optional, before offer negotiations: tactical empathy from hostage negotiation; contrast with RL-NEG-04. |
| RL-CAR-06 | Christensen, C. M., Allworth, J., and Dillon, K. (2012). *How Will You Measure Your Life?* Harper Business. | Read near graduation: the book-length version of RL-APP-01, useful when choosing between offers. |

For function-specific preparation (consulting cases, banking technicals, product interviews) use the recruiting
templates in this library (mba/mba-case-interview-prep, mba/mba-banking-technical-prep,
mba/mba-product-interview-prep) and the material your career centre and clubs provide.

## Classics and their critiques

<!-- Guidance: Reading a classic with its critique is the fastest way to develop the judgment case discussions reward. Write one sentence on which side convinced you and why. -->

| Classic | Critique or counterweight | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
| Collins, J. (2001). *Good to Great*. HarperBusiness. | Rosenzweig, P. (2007). *The Halo Effect*. Free Press. | Selecting firms on outcomes and then explaining the outcome; survivor and halo bias in business books. |
| RL-STR-08 Blue Ocean Strategy | RL-STR-01 and RL-STR-04 | Whether a "new market" claim survives an analysis of entry and imitation. |
| RL-FIN-04 The Intelligent Investor | RL-FIN-03 A Random Walk Down Wall Street | Whether skilled stock picking can beat low-cost indexing after costs. |
| RL-ETH-01 Friedman (1970) | RL-ETH-02 Freeman (1984) and RL-ETH-03 Porter and Kramer (2011) | Who the firm is run for, and whether the answer changes the decision in a given case. |
| RL-MKT-02 Positioning | RL-MKT-06 How Brands Grow | Differentiation in the mind versus distinctiveness and reach. |
| RL-LDR-05 Goleman (1998) | your OB course's readings on measurement of emotional intelligence | How strong the evidence is behind a popular leadership idea. |

## 16-week reading plan

<!-- Guidance: Use this plan in the 16 weeks before day one, or adapt it to a term. Swap areas to put your two weakest first. The load figures come from the example calculation below. -->

The plan assumes four books and eight articles in 16 weeks, a typical pre-MBA load next to a job. Load estimate
(*Example*, fictional page counts, computed in `calc/mba-reading-list.py`):

| Item | Pages | Reading speed | Hours | Excel formula |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 books of about 350 pages | 1,400 | 30 pages per hour | 46.7 | `=4*350/30` |
| 8 articles of about 12 pages | 96 | 15 pages per hour (with notes) | 6.4 | `=8*12/15` |
| Total | 1,496 | | 53.1 | `=SUM(D2:D3)` |
| Per week over 16 weeks | | | 3.3 | `=D4/16` |
| Per week with 1 hour of notes and recall | | | 4.3 | `=D5+1` |

| Week | New reading | Recall task | Spaced review (3 or more weeks back) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | RL-LRN-01 (first half) | write 5 study rules you will follow | none |
| 2 | RL-LRN-01 (second half), RL-LRN-02 summary | build 10 flashcards on learning techniques | none |
| 3 | RL-STR-01, RL-STR-04 | sketch the forces for an industry you know | none |
| 4 | RL-STR-09 (first half) | one-paragraph diagnosis of your employer's strategy | RL-LRN-01 rules |
| 5 | RL-STR-09 (second half), RL-STR-05 | VRIO check on one firm | RL-LRN-02 cards |
| 6 | RL-ACC-02, RL-ACC-03 | explain one cost driver from your job | RL-STR-01 forces sketch |
| 7 | RL-OPS-02 (first half) | find the bottleneck in a process you use daily | RL-STR-04 claims |
| 8 | RL-OPS-02 (second half), RL-OPS-01 | compute L, λ or W for a queue you observe | RL-STR-09 kernel |
| 9 | RL-MKT-01, RL-MKT-05 | define the need behind one product you buy | RL-STR-05 VRIO |
| 10 | RL-DEC-01 (Part 1 and 2) | log three biases you saw this week | RL-ACC-02 and RL-ACC-03 |
| 11 | RL-DEC-01 (Part 3 to 5) | find one past decision you judged by its outcome rather than by how it was made | RL-OPS-02 bottleneck |
| 12 | RL-FIN-01 (introduction and propositions), RL-ECO-01 | explain MM's irrelevance result in three sentences | RL-OPS-01 Little's law |
| 13 | RL-NEG-01 | prepare a BATNA for a real negotiation | RL-MKT-01 and RL-MKT-05 |
| 14 | RL-LDR-02, RL-LDR-03 | draft two norms for your future learning team | RL-DEC-01 biases |
| 15 | catch-up week | re-take the self-test below | RL-FIN-01 and RL-ECO-01 |
| 16 | RL-CAR-01 | list 10 weak ties to contact | RL-NEG-01 BATNA |

## Reading log

<!-- Guidance: One row per work. The "claim" column is the most important: if you cannot write it in one sentence without looking, you have not finished reading. -->

| Log ID | Work ID | Dates | One-sentence claim (from memory) | My example | Question for the author | Review due | Checked against |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LOG-001 *(Example)* | RL-OPS-01 | 2026-11-02 to 2026-11-02 | Average items in a stable system equal the arrival rate times the average time in the system. | Coffee queue at work: about 12 customers an hour, 10 minutes each, so about 2 in line and being served. | Does it hold when the system is not stable? | 2026-11-23 | Journal record (Operations Research) |
| LOG-002 *(Example)* | RL-STR-09 | 2026-10-05 to 2026-10-12 | A good strategy has a diagnosis, a guiding policy and coherent actions, and much "strategy" is only goals. | Our team's annual plan lists targets but no diagnosis. | How do you test a diagnosis before acting on it? | 2026-11-02 | Publisher record |
| [LOG-003] | [ID] | YYYY-MM-DD to YYYY-MM-DD | [claim] | [example] | [question] | YYYY-MM-DD | [source] |

In LOG-001, 12 customers an hour is 0.2 customers a minute, and 0.2 times 10 minutes is 2 (`=12/60*10`).

## Common mistakes

<!-- Guidance: Check this list at the end of each month of the plan. -->

1. **Reading instead of preparing.** Reading is not a substitute for the readiness work (quant, accounting, Excel)
   in mba/pre-mba-roadmap-12-weeks. Keep the reading budget to what is left after that.
2. **Collecting books.** Buying ten books and finishing none. Finish one work before starting the next in the same
   area.
3. **Highlighting and re-reading.** Both feel productive and show little benefit in the research. Close the book and
   write the claim from memory.
4. **Taking a popular book as settled science.** Business books often select on outcomes. Use the critiques table.
5. **Skipping the original.** Knowing a framework from slides but not from its source makes you weak in discussion
   when someone asks what the author actually claimed.
6. **Buying textbooks before the syllabus.** Schools assign specific editions, chapters or course packs.
7. **Quoting long passages in essays or write-ups.** Use your own words and cite the work; schools treat unattributed
   text as plagiarism and many have AI and integrity rules for written work.
8. **Ignoring dates.** Works on AI, regulation and markets age fast. Check the official source for anything that can
   change (accounting standards, reporting rules, visa and loan rules).
9. **Reading only in your comfort zone.** A finance professional reading more finance. Start with your two weakest
   areas.
10. **Never reviewing.** Without the spaced review column most of the reading fades before the course starts.

## Self-test questions

<!-- Guidance: Answer from memory, then check the Answer key. Re-take in week 15 of the plan. -->

1. Which two learning techniques did Dunlosky et al. (2013) rate as high utility, and which two common habits as low
   utility?
2. Name the original article and year for the competitive forces analysis, and the later Porter article that
   distinguishes strategy from operational effectiveness.
3. What does Little's law state, and in which journal and year was the proof published?
4. What are the three parts of the "kernel" of a strategy in Rumelt (2011)?
5. Which 1958 paper is the benchmark for capital structure theory, and what does its first proposition say in one
   sentence?
6. Why is *Good to Great* paired with *The Halo Effect* on this list?
7. Which paper introduced the "lemons" problem, and what market failure does it describe?
8. What is a BATNA and which book made the term widely known?
9. Name the 1937 paper that asks why firms exist.
10. Why are textbooks named only by title on this list, without editions or chapters to read?

## My notes and next steps

<!-- Guidance: After each month, write what changed in how you think, and what you will read next. -->

- Two areas I will read first: [area 1], [area 2]
- Works I finished this month: [IDs]
- One idea I used at work or in an essay: [idea and where]
- Works I added, with the record I checked them against: [work, source]
- Next review date: YYYY-MM-DD

## Sources and further reading

<!-- Guidance: All works in the tables are the primary list. This section lists the sources for the method of the list itself. -->

- Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., and Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students'
  learning with effective learning techniques. *Psychological Science in the Public Interest*, 14(1), 4-58.
- Brown, P. C., Roediger, H. L., and McDaniel, M. A. (2014). *Make It Stick*. Belknap Press of Harvard University
  Press.
- OpenStax (Rice University), free textbooks (CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 by title): *Principles of Accounting*, *Principles of Economics*,
  *Principles of Management*, *Introductory Statistics*, at openstax.org.
- Library records and publisher pages for each listed work; check your school library for access to the journal
  articles, many of which are behind a paywall.

## Answer key

1. High utility: practice testing and distributed (spaced) practice. Low utility: highlighting and re-reading (also
   summarisation, the keyword mnemonic and imagery for text in that review).
2. Porter (1979), "How competitive forces shape strategy", *Harvard Business Review*; Porter (1996), "What is
   strategy?".
3. In a stable system, the average number of items equals the average arrival rate times the average time each item
   spends in the system, L = λW. Little (1961), *Operations Research*, 9(3).
4. A diagnosis, a guiding policy and coherent action.
5. Modigliani and Miller (1958), *American Economic Review*. Proposition I: in perfect capital markets without taxes,
   the value of a firm does not depend on how it is financed.
6. *Good to Great* chooses firms by their later success and then explains that success; *The Halo Effect* shows how
   outcome-based selection and halo bias can make such explanations unreliable.
7. Akerlof (1970), *Quarterly Journal of Economics*. When buyers cannot observe quality, they pay an average price,
   high-quality sellers withdraw and the market can shrink or unravel (adverse selection).
8. Best alternative to a negotiated agreement: what you do if the talks fail. Fisher and Ury (1981), *Getting to Yes*.
9. Coase (1937), "The nature of the firm", *Economica*.
10. Schools assign specific textbooks, editions and chapters (or course packs), editions change often, and textbook
    content is copyrighted, so the list names them as further reading only.

## Revision history

<!-- Guidance: Record each re-plan and every work you add or drop. -->

| Version | Date | Author | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | YYYY-MM-DD | [Name] | First version from template |
| [0.2] | YYYY-MM-DD | [Name] | [Re-ordered areas after self-assessment; added two works] |

## Standard and licence note

Based on the published works listed, cited by author, year, title and publisher or journal as recorded by publishers,
journals and library catalogues, and on the learning research of Dunlosky et al. (2013). All descriptions and the
reading plan are original text written for this template; no publisher descriptions, abstracts or book text are
reproduced. This list is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or the official reading list of any
business school, publisher or author. Check current editions and your own syllabus before you buy. Template licence:
MIT.