The rising cost of textbooks has triggered a growing debate, and an increasing range of proposals on what to do about it. Several states have enacted "textbook transparency" laws mandating that publishers specify how revised editions of a text are different from the previous version. Congress jumped on the issue with a provision that went into effect in 2010 requiring that, "to the maximum extent practicable," colleges give students information about textbooks at the time they register for a class. This has already produced groaning by faculty on some campuses, including concerns that they’ll be prematurely locked into to a text decision.

Some argue that the textbook is becoming a relic, soon to be supplanted by digital media. Others argue that textbooks should be free. Paul Delespenasse writes that the use of a Wikipedia model (on-line, and multiple volunteer contributors) could eliminate most or all of the costs of putting a text together.¹ Flat World Knowledge offers digital texts that can be read on-line for free, or printed on demand for a fee. The organizational behavior entry, by Talya Bauer (Purdue) and Berrin Erdogan (Oregon State), is at http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/printed-book/122833. It includes a mix of text, cases and experiences, with chapters on many of the topics that you might expect, including diversity, individual differences, leadership, politics, etc. Reading on-line, though free, is a little awkward, and I suspect many students would choose to pay the $25 fee to print the whole book rather than be tethered to the website. (There’s also an option to print individual chapters at a lower fee. And the book is available new or used on Amazon for a little more than $25.)

Another model that is becoming increasingly popular is textbook rental. There are now several rental firms on-line (such as Chegg.com, CollegeBookRenter.com, and BookRenter.com), and college bookstores are adding rental options.

As an author of an organizations text, I’ve been interested in this issue for a long time and, of course, I have a stake in it. One of the complexities of writing a text is that the primary consumer is the student, but instructors, not students, usually choose the text. Co-author Terry Deal and I have often wondered how much instructors weigh price into their adoption decisions? We both remember being struggling students who liked books but couldn’t always afford to buy them, so we’ve wanted to keep our price "reasonable."

As an instructor, I want the best material I can find to advance my teaching objectives. I wouldn’t buy a text that doesn’t work for me simply because it’s less expensive.  But that doesn't mean it's something that instructors should ignore.

Certainly, the price differences are substantial. A survey using data from Amazon.com (with assistance from salesrankexpress.com) produced interesting results. I tried to identify all the significant books aimed at courses in organizational behavior or organization theory, defining significant to mean any book that ranked above 200,000 on Amazon. Nineteen books made the cut. Below are data for the three books that anchored the two scales.

Book	Sales Rank	Price
Bolman & Deal, Reframing Organizations	7,100	$36
Most expensive book	87,000	$206
Lowest ranked book	185,000	$147

　

Naturally I’m happy with Reframing’s position: highest sales rank and lowest price. Across the 19 books, there is a very small correlation between sales rank and price: less expensive books tend to sell a bit more, but the correlation coefficient of .21 suggests that price explains less than 5% of the sales variance. (A caveat: although prices are fairly stable over time, sales ranks bounce all over the place depending on time of day, day of week, season of the year, etc., so these results may not be reliable.)

So why there is so much variation in price? One explanation is the cost of "ancillary materials"– the extras that publishers offer to professors who adopt a text – coupled with economies of scale (how many books can the ancillary costs be spread over). Our book, Reframing Organizations, offers some of the ancillaries that everyone does: instructor’s manual, Powerpoint slides, and a test bank. But all are on-line, which keeps costs down, and we don’t offer pricier items like video, DVD’s or toasters.

Even factoring in ancillaries doesn’t seem to me to fully explain the big differences in price. I’m convinced that some of those prices are too high. It’s a disservice to students, and encourages them to look for shortcuts. It also invites intervention from legislatures and other external constituents that may create more problems than it solves.

Textbooks are not about to die, even though more of them will be delivered in non-traditional formats, and we’re likely to see increasing amounts of the peer-to-peer sharing and piracy that has hit the software and music business. It takes substantial time and effort to produce a good text, and the quality of a text (its coherence, readability, coverage, etc.) does make an important difference to the student experience. But there’s no doubt we all need to take the issue of price seriously. In particular:

1. Those of us who write texts need to push ourselves and our publishers to find ways to keep prices down.

2. Instructors need to factor in overall cost to students when they choose required materials. If we take the issue seriously, we’re more likely to seek out other texts or readings (or the same material in alternative formats) that achieve our educational goals while reducing students’ outlay.

Let’s help our students and, ultimately, ourselves by taking this issue seriously.  (I'd welcome comments and feedback on these issues.  Write me at lee@bolman.com.)

1.  Delespinasse, P. F. "One Way to Rein In Textbook Costs: Make Them Free." Chronicle of Higher Education, February 1, 2008. http://chronicle.com/article/One-Way-to-Rein-In-Textbook/460/