Wealth Creation: A Systems Mindset for Building and Investing in Businesses for the Long Term

Wealth Creation is for investors, but public policy makers take note. Its message for both is that wealth is created from within, not top down or outside in. For investors there are practical guidelines to identify firms early in their life cycle that demonstrate a high capacity for innovation and integrity, and that listen to and serve their customers. Policy makers must nurture this business environment for all to prosper.

Bartley J. Madden is not only a successful entrepreneur with a proven record of developing investment tools, but also a deep thinker intent on understanding the key principles for entrepreneurial success. In Wealth Creation, he shares his insights for a systems approach to creating and transforming knowledge into things people value. Madden recognizes that wealth is not a fixed pie, the distribution of which produces winners and losers. Rather it is something that is created—through ideas, knowledge, and action—providing benefits not only to the entrepreneur, but for consumers and employees as well.

The book brings together insights from a range of disciplines, from finance and accounting to behavioral economics and management efficiency, and will intrigue several different audiences, from budding entrepreneurs to investors, managers, and boards of directors wanting to fundamentally improve corporate governance. It should be required reading for government officials in order to help them meet their respon-sibilities to protect investors and consumers while not hampering innovation and economic growth. Madden presents compelling arguments that appropriate regulation—which provides for feedback and learning and respects the efficiencies that emerge when people are free to act to meet their needs—can help stave off future financial crises.

Contents:

• A Systems Mindset
• The Wealth-Creation System
• The Ideal Free-Market System
• The Competitive Life-Cycle View of the Firm
• The Life-Cycle Valuation Model as a Total System
• Business Firms as Lean, Value-Added Systems
• Corporate Governance
• Concluding Thoughts

Wealth Creation: A Systems Mindset for Building and Investing in Businesses for the Long Term By Bartley J. Madden pdf