HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company

Library Journal

Hewlett-Packard is a high-tech company with over $25 billion in sales; the Hewlett-Packard way has obviously been quite successful. Here, one of the company's founders tells the story of its growth. Packard frequently becomes nostalgic, such as when talking about his first vacuum tube. He explains why Hewlett-Packard follows strong management practices: management by objectives, educational subsidies for employees, profit sharing, and giving authority to employees closest to the customers. Packard also served as a Defense Department official and in doing so chose to give $20 million to charity to avoid ethical conflicts. The company history Packard relates is, however, an uncritical review. The cassettes, narrated by Martin Bookspan, are of limited use because they offer little discussion of ideas that a person in business might adopt. Not an important purchase.-Mark Guyer, Stark Cty. Dist. Lib., Canton, Ohio