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Control the Construction of Your Legend or Someone Else will

An Analysis of Texts on Jack Welch

Harvard Business manager

Alfred Kieser

University of Mannheim

Jack Welch, the CEO of General Electric, has been upheld by many as the incarnation of a corporate chieftain. Countless publications praise his astonishing achievements. The authors demonstrate that these texts are modern legends, that they adopt similar forms and serve similar functions as medieval legends, and that they also incorporate patterns of the frontier legend. They also point out that a critical text on Welch can be compared with counterlegends that were launched during the Reformation to fight the impact that traditional legends had on people's faith. They then try to explain why managers read texts that praise the uniqueness of a manager like Welch and yet do not contain precise and detailed recipes for effective management. Finally, the authors discuss whether the shareholder value of a company can be increased by an effective communication policy as it is practiced by Welch.

Journal of Management Inquiry, Vol. 10, No. 4, 298-309 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/1056492601104003


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