Statecraft,Strategy,and Corporate Leadership

Elsewhere, Bower has developed the distinction between “technocratic” systems designed to help managers use resources selectively so as to achieve high levels of efficiency and effectiveness, and “political” systems designed to insure legitimacy and accountability. See Bower Joseph , The Two Faces of Management (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1983). For the purpose of this article, it is sufficient to recognize that modern organizations of any size require a high degree of sophistication in the way goals are developed, budgets set, capital invested, managers recruited, trained, and compensated, and organization designed and built. Desirable as well is a degree of continuity almost unimaginable in democratic political process. Generally speaking, we will refer to these as administrative and operating systems of organizations, but where it seems convenient, we may call them technocratic.

This is true despite the fact that leading students and practitioners of management such as Barnard Chester Selznick Philip Cyert Richard March James Sloan Alfred Riboud Jean have emphasized the political work of the executive. See Barnard Chester , The Functions of the Executive (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938); Selznick Philip , Leadership in Administration (Evanston, IL: Row Peterson and Company, 1957); Cyert Richard March James , A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (Englewood Cliffs, NY: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1983); and Sloan Alfred , My Years with General Motors (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1969). For descriptions of Sloan's work, see Chandler Alfred , Strategy and Structure (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1962). For a description of Riboud's work, see Auletta Ken , The Art of Corporate Success (New York, NY: Putnam, 1984).

For excellent discussions of the symbolic role of the chief executive, see Pfeffer Jeffrey Salancik Gerald , The External Control of Organizations (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1976), and Edelman Murray , The Symbolic Uses of Politics (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1964).

For a more detailed description of this period, see Continental Airlines (A), Harvard Business School case 9-385-006.

Donaldson Gordon Lorsch Jay , Decision Making at the Top (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1983).

Interview with Clark Onstad, April 10, 1984.

For a more detailed description of EG&G and an analysis of O'Keefe's career there, see Weinberg Martha , “The Private Sector Political Entrepreneur: Bernard O'Keefe at EG&G,” in Doig Jameson Hargrove Erwin , eds., Leadership and Innovation (Baltimore, MD: Hopkins University Press, 1987).

Forbes, January 3, 1983.

Weinberg , op. cit., p. 351.

O'Keefe Bernard , Nuclear Hostages (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1983).

Weinberg , op. cit., p. 361.

Ibid., p. 357.

Ibid., p. 362.

In 1969, during a period of very rapid growth, EG&G experienced a cost overrun on one of its major contracts and the profitability of the company deteriorated badly.

Interview with William Pounds, June 18, 1984.

Wise Thomas , “IBM's $5 Billion Gamble: The Rocky Road to the Marketplace,” Fortune, September 1966.

Auletta Ken , op. cit., p. 123.

Pennsylvania Power and Light Company, Harvard Business School case #9-384-082.

Ibid.

Interview with William Sneath, CEO, Union Carbide Corporation, 1972.

Wise , op. cit.

Power Pennsylvania Light , op. cit.

Interview with Michael Sachar, joint managing director, Marks and Spencer, 1975.

Interview with Dr. Mario Schinberni, April 25, 1984.

Jones Reginald , as quoted in Harry Levinson and Stuart Rosenthal, CEO: Corporate Leadership in Action (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1984), p. 49.