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The Formation of Top Managers: a Discourse Analysis of Five Managerial Autobiographies
Author(s) -
Sims David B. P.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
british journal of management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.407
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1467-8551
pISSN - 1045-3172
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8551.1993.tb00162.x
Subject(s) - business , sociology
SUMMARY What do top managers see as the root of their success? This paper reports on a discourse analysis of five autobiographies from major industrial figures. Those chosen all had some disruption (war, being a refugee, or immigrant status) between the culture of their childhood and the culture in which they undertook their careers. This makes them more aware than most of their upbringing. Their accounts of their first 20 years are examined, and themes are drawn out for each of them. These themes are tabulated and some of the differences between them are discussed. Common themes are conspicuous by their absence. The paper discusses why this should not surprise us; top management is not one activity in one culture, and an upbringing that might have led one of these managers to success might have been disadvantageous to another. The paper concludes that the common factor between the accounts of the managers is that they all regard their upbringing as having fitted them particularly well for the company, industry and culture in which they were eventually successful.