Grow The Pie

“Alex Edmans’ superb book makes the case, compellingly and comprehensively, for a radical rethink of how companies operate and indeed why they exist. … It is a tour de force”

Andy Haldane

Grow the Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit

Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Financial Times Best Books of 2020
Financial Times / ISFFC Award for Excellence in Sustainable Finance Education, 2021
Chartered Management Institute Management Books of 2020
Axiom Business Book Awards, 2020

Grow the Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit

Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Financial Times Best Books of 2020
Financial Times / ISFFC Award for Excellence in Sustainable Finance Education, 2021
Chartered Management Institute Management Books of 2020
Axiom Business Book Awards, 2020

Order your copy from:

Amazon UK, Amazon US, Arabic, Chinese, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Turkish

Should companies be run for profit or purpose? In this ground-breaking book, acclaimed finance professor and TED speaker Alex Edmans shows it’s not an either-or choice. Drawing from real-life examples spanning industries and countries, Edmans demonstrates that purpose-driven businesses are consistently more successful in the long-term. But a purposeful company must navigate difficult trade-offs and take tough decisions. Edmans provides a roadmap for company leaders to put purpose into practice, and overcome the hurdles that hold many back. He explains how investors can discern which companies are truly purposeful and how to engage with them to unleash value for both shareholders and society. And he highlights the role that citizens can play in reshaping business to improve our world. This edition has been thoroughly updated to include the pandemic, the latest research, and new insights on how to make purpose a reality.

“Edmans’s arguments are a powerful and persuasive antidote to much of the conventional wisdom about the corporate world.”

Oliver Hart

2016 Nobel Laureate in Economics

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“This is a brilliant and timely book, taking the business case for responsible capitalism to a whole new level.”

Dame Helena Morrissey

Financier and founder of the 30% Club

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“This is a must-read book for anyone interested in reforming capitalism – particularly in its role of serving wider society. The book is grounded in academic evidence, but the ideas are highly practical, and recognize the need for business to be profitable as well as purposeful.”

Domonic Barton

Former Global Managing Partner of McKinsey

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“As someone who believes passionately in the power of business to contribute powerfully to the broader well-being of society, I’d thoroughly recommend this important, timely and evidence-rich book.”

Liv Garfield

CEO, Severn Trent

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“The implications are radical and far-reaching. Read it: it will challenge how you think.”

Will Hutton

Principal of Hertford College, Oxford and Observer columnist

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“His thought-provoking, often contrarian, ideas are rigorously logical, delving beneath the superficial analyses we often see, which assume correlation implies causation. And Alex’s engaging storytelling brings the principles of ‘Pieconomics’ to life.”

Sir James G M Wates

Chairman of Wates Group

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“This uplifting book provides powerful examples, as well as evidence, that socially responsible businesses generate even higher long term profits than corporations focused on short term profit maximisation.”

David Pyott

Former Chairman and CEO of Allergan

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“Edmans mobilizes evidence – not anecdotes – to make a case, both accessible and compelling, for policies and practices that increase the value available for all stakeholders versus simply and simplistically maximizing profit.”

Bill Janeway

Warburg Pincus

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“This is capitalism with a human face.”

Andrew Lo

Professor of Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management

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“Anyone interested in this important subject would find much to learn from, or wrestle with, in this book.”

Lucian Bebchuk

Harvard Law School

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“Alex Edmans provides robust evidence against the claim that businesses must choose between shareholder value and social responsibility. Although there are trade-offs, there is no single trade-off. What is good for shareholders can be good for society: evidence matters.”

Baroness Onora O’Neill

Philosopher

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“In this thoroughly readable book, Edmans debunks mythologies about corporate behavior and offers a new vocabulary by which we can have principled discussions about the role of business in society. A “must read” for leaders in government, business and the media that reports on both.”

Paula Rosput Reynolds

Director of GE, BP, and BAE

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“This book is a must-read for asset owners, fund managers and for the boards and executives who lead business enterprise. It provides evidence-based analysis and guidance on how the influence of well-designed stewardship can yield benefit in terms of both financial returns for savers and investors and returns for all stakeholders in a way that benefits society as a whole.”

Sir David Walker

Former Chairman of Barclays and Morgan Stanley International, author of the Walker Review

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“Alex Edmans has produced rigorous evidence that the choice between people and profits is a false dichotomy. Now he makes his work accessible to a broader audience and explains how it’s possible to overcome the tradeoffs that hold so many leaders and companies back.”

Adam Grant

Author of Originals and Give and Take and host of the TED podcast WorkLife

A short summary is in Edmans, Alex (2020): Company Purpose and Profit Need Not be in Conflict if We ‘Grow the Pie Economic Affairs 40(2), 287-294, June 2020.
A review by Christina Skinner (Wharton) is in Cancelling Capitalism? Notre Dame Law Review 97(1), 417-440, December 2021.
A review by Hamid Boustanifar (EDHEC) is in An Alternative to Shareholder Capitalism? Journal of International Financial Management and Accounting, 34(2), 378-383, June 2023.