Business thinking between the covers compiled by MICHAEL CASEYand CIARA O'BRIEN

What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets

by Michael Sandel

Allen Lane

The author, a professor of government at Harvard, is concerned about how the market is encroaching into so many different aspects of life. The book is essentially a list of these dubious transactions that have a price tag. Surrogate pregnancy, organ donation, hunting rare animals, betting on when people will die , selling advertising space on one’s body, prison-cell upgrades etc.

There is a scheme to pay drug-addicted women $300 if they will undergo sterilisation. Many companies insure their employees and the death benefits go to the companies, not the families.

Many of these transactions are bizarre and some seem appalling but the author is not entirely convincing in his analysis of why this is so. He disapproves of trading carbon emissions, for example, because it allows the polluter to buy his way out of trouble.

He also seems to forget that none of this is entirely new. What of bribery, prostitution, and the selling of relics and indulgences? What of Wall Street firms selling securities they know to be junk? We lack a universally accepted system of morality and this makes it difficult to condemn the more bizarre forms of market activity.

Generally speaking, this is an interesting and thoughtful book.

How Will You Measure Your Life?

by Clayton M. Christensen et al

Harper Collins

The shelves of bookshops are groaning with self-improvement books, and it is not obvious what this one adds to the general prescriptions on offer.

What is different about this book is that it is written by a professor at Harvard Business School (with two co-authors). The book applies business theories to issues of personal fulfilment. These theories are supposed to provide valuable insights, but in reality they provide little more than common sense.

For example, people, including children, should behave like well-managed companies and concentrate on “resources, processes and priorities”. The three terms in quotes can more simply be translated as, “what, how and why”.

The differences between motivation and incentives are well covered, as is the distinction between strategy and happenstance.

Business readers will benefit from the analyses of leading corporations but they may have some difficulty relating these to their personal lives or the lives of their children.

Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?

by William Poundstone

Hachette Book Group

Are you smart enough to work at Google? A quick glance through this book might put you off trying.

William Poundstone’s latest book looks at the recent trend among firms to mix things up a bit in the recruitment process. The result is that candidates are asked to describe a chicken using programming language. Or what is the most beautiful equation you’ve ever seen, and why?

The problem is that a lot of the time, there is no such things as a right or wrong answer. Tricky stuff.

Poundstone’s light-hearted take on running the gauntlet of modern job interviews has two functions. It prepares those who are planning on going for a job in one of these companies, and also makes the rest of us who have never come across such lines of questioning incredibly grateful for the reprieve.

Its not just Google that has adopted the more unconventional questions. There are plenty of companies – technology and otherwise – who have jumped on the bandwagon. With that in mind, this book could prove a useful tool for job hunters, or even just those who feel brave enough to pit their wits against some of the more difficult challenges, it presents from the safety of their armchairs.