Abstract
Why should we, as Management scholars and educators, care about a book on political
diagnosis? The answer is twofold. First, the calibre of the author (Paul Starr), an awardee of
both Bancroft and Pulitzer Prizes, a former policy advisor to the Clinton administration, and
the author of The Transformation of American Medicine (1982), a book with a profound impact
on American policy circles. Second, the core concept (entrenchment) of the book, and its
potential to advance the process of institutional development, and the ways in which we can
reform and change our institutions to better meet the current and pressing needs of the many,
rather than preserve the unequal privileges of a few. In light of the geopolitical, social, and
environmental pressures we see currently rising across the world (George, Howard-Grenville,
Joshi & Tihanyi, 2016; Howard-Grenville, Buckle, Hoskins & George, 2014) there is no better
time to examine whether and how we can address some of these grand challenges by reforming
and improving our institutions