...Jack Welch is undoubtedly one of America’s most controversial and influential business leaders of the 20th century. During Welch’s 20-year reign as CEO of General Electric, from 1981 to 2001, the company underwent great change and saw immense growth and profitability, becoming one the most valuable companies in the world. Fortune magazine even hailed that under Welch, GE was “the best-managed, best-regarded company in America.” However, despite Welch’s strong leadership, the frequently debated question is, did GE fulfill its corporate social responsibility during his tenure. According to chapter 5 in the text, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is defined as, “the corporate duty to create wealth by using means that avoid harm to, protect, or enhance societal assets,” and by this definition GE under Welch failed to fulfill its duty of corporate social responsibility. While during the Welch era GE was successful in achieving a corporation’s primary economic responsibilities, generating immense profits, sharing the wealth with shareholders, and paying taxes, it did so in a way that did not protect societal assets, or avoid harm to the environment. GE failed to fulfill its duty of CSR by causing environmental damage in areas where the company manufactured its products. The prime example of this is GE’s 35-year pollution of the Hudson River in New York. Between 1945 and 1977, GE is accused of releasing approximately 1.5 million pounds of a toxic substance known as polychlorinated...
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...Situation General Electric is a highly successful U.S. conglomerate that was founded when Thompson-Houston Electric and Edison General Electric merged in 1892. One of its most ambitious leaders, Jack Welch, became CEO in April of 1981. He immediately restructured the company and invested $75 million in an upgrade at the management development center. He became known as the “toughest boss in America” who was known to systematically fire the ten percent of his work force who were deemed least useful by their managers. Creating the Best Practice movement and Work Out (meetings that aided in brainstorming solutions to company problems) were innovative programs that helped him catapult GE toward success. He retired after two decades as GE’s CEO and nominated Jeffrey Immelt as his successor. Jeffrey Immelt became the ninth man to lead General Electric in 2001. He abandoned Welsh’s leadership approach and was said to be “less a commander than a commanding presence” (Rowe and Guerrero, 2013, p. 190). He focused on long term strategies rather than setting pinpoint earning targets, as his predecessor had. By aiding service growth in some of the company’s divisions and investing strategically, Immelt achieved unprecedented revenue growth in key foreign markets. This situation is best described as an evaluation case, rather than a decision or problem. Questions Some of the key questions in this case are: 1. What parts of Jack Welch’s leadership strategy were effective? 2. What...
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...MGT430 Business Government & Society Mr. Burt Case Study 2 Please read Case Study: The Jack Welch Era at General Electric in Chapter 5 and answer questions 1 & 3. Please submit the answers by the end of week #3. At least one page is required. Answer Did GE in the Welch era fulfill its social responsibility duty? Could it have done better? What should it have done? Chapter 5 in the text, Business, Government, and Society by John F. Steiner and George A. Steiner, corporate social responsibility is defined as the corporate duty to create wealth by using means that avoid harm to, protect, or enhance social assets. General Electric in the Jack Welch Era fulfilled its corporate social responsibility but by marginal measures. Yes, GE fulfilled its economic responsibilities to society but it is a corporation’s duty to go beyond the lawful execution of their economic functions. Thus, in my opinion, GE could have done better, much better considering its huge financial successes from 1981 through 2001. According to the text, in spite of GE’s financial net earnings of $12.7 billion in 2000, it only donated less then 0.003% of its earnings towards grants for colleges, universities, and nonprofit groups. Additionally, GE won political campaigns to lower taxes in the states in which they operated; this ultimately lowered school budgets, negatively impacting resources available for education. This is further illustration that GE could have made more contributions to society...
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...I choose to do my research paper on General Electric. General Electric is a very successful conglomerate company. I looked at how General Electric manages to be so successful in this area. In this class I have learned that to be a successful company there is another area of concern that is structure of management and how it affects the company. When looking at General Electric Company and why this company is successful conglomerate company. I had to find out what a conglomerate really details. In Order to be a successful conglomerate Company the company must spread resources into this many unrelated businesses gives great stability even in the event of a complete collapse of one of the market, but it also makes many of the decisions the upper management must make incredibly complex. According to The Financial Times, General Electric (GE) is today the “World’s Most Respected Company” (“Facts”). Most of this admiration is due to the variety of operating segments that the company provides. For example, GE businesses are classified into ten categories: Commercial Finance, Consumer Finance, Consumer and Industrial, Energy, Equipment Services, Healthcare, Infrastructure, Insurance, NBC, and Transportation (“Company”). The conglomerate design is put into use when an entity has holdings in many unrelated businesses. This form is also known has the H-form because it is basically a holding company that comes about from unrelated diversification. This holding company form of organization...
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...Erica Walker Jack Welch Dr. Kim 6 February 2014 Jack Welch: Icon of Leadership Jack Welch has been named the “Manger of the Century” and has made innovative changes to management practices. He was born as John Francis Jr. on November 19, 1935 in Salem, Massachusetts. He attended Salem High School and then after graduating went to the University of Massachusetts. At the University of Massachusetts, Jack Welch received Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering. After getting his bachelor degree he went to the University of Illinois and received his Masters and Doctorate. Jack Welch became a member of General Electrics in 1960. While working at GE, Jack Welch made a significant impact, but his start at GE was shaky. Jack Welch after being at GE for a year was going to leave. He felt under appreciated and the paid was not enough. An executive thought Jack would be important aspect of GE future and convinced him to stay. The executive was right about Jack. In 1972 he was announced vice president of GE. Then five years later Jack Welch rose to senior vice president and in 1981 he took the proclaimed title of CEO of General Electrics. Jack Welch has increased value of General Electrics from $13 billion to several hundred billion. He was able to have such success because of management practices. His lessons that he created on how to run a success business has influence many. Some key lessons taken from Jack Welch especially from his video “Jack Welch: Icon of Leadership”...
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...CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR) Corporate social responsibility (CSR, also called corporate conscience, corporate citizenship, social performance, or sustainable responsible business/ Responsible Business) is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model. CSR policy functions as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby a business monitors and ensures its active compliance with the spirit of the law, ethical standards, and international norms. The goal of CSR is to embrace responsibility for the company's actions and encourage a positive impact through its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere who may also be considered as stakeholders. The term "corporate social responsibility" came into common use in the late 1960s and early 1970s after many multinational corporations formed the term stakeholder, meaning those on whom an organization's activities have an impact. It was used to describe corporate owners beyond shareholders as a result of an influential book by R. Edward Freeman, Strategic management: a stakeholder approach in 1984. Proponents argue that corporations make more long term profits by operating with a perspective, while critics argue that CSR distracts from the economic role of businesses. Others argue CSR is merely window-dressing, or an attempt to pre-empt the role of governments as a watchdog over powerful multinational corporations. CSR is...
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...Entrepreneurial School of Thought This school sees strategy formation as a visionary process and is fell under the descriptive school of strategic management. The chief architect of the strategy is the CEO of a company. This school took formal leadership seriously and CEO is responsible for strategy formulation. It stressed on mental state and processes such as instinctive knowledge, belief, wisdom, experience and insight of a single leader. The leader should be visionary in formulating strategy. The entrepreneurial school promotes strategy as a process which has a clear image and sense of direction which can be termed as a vision. Entrepreneurial strategy often occurs in startup companies and organizations in trouble and needing a turnaround. For any organization to sustain success it must engage in some form of entrepreneurial activity in order to effectively compete in the marketplace and continue to increase stakeholder value. In this school the organization becomes responsive to only one person, the CEO and vision is the central concept of this school. Vision is the mental representation of a leader and it outlines what the organization wants to be or how it wants the world in which it operates to be. It is a long term view and concentrates on the future. It can be emotive and source of inspiration. It serves as a guiding idea and often tends to be a kind of image than a fully clear plan. Visions are often flexible so that the leaders can change them as they like. Visionary...
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...John Francis Welch, Jr., also know as Jack Welch, was born November 19, 1935 (Jack Welch). He was born in Peabody, Massachusetts (Jack Welch). He attended Salem High School and the University of Massachusetts Amherst (Jack Welch). He graduated from Amherst in 1957 with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering (Jack Welch). In 1960 he received a MS and PhD at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Jack Welch). After receiving his MS and PhD, that same year Welch joined General Electric (Jack Welch). At a salary of $10,500, he worked as a junior chemical engineer in Pittsfield, Massachusetts (Jack Welch). A year later he planned to leave GE because of a raise that he was offered (Jack Welch). He was persuaded to remain working there by Reuben Gutoff (Jack Welch). Gutoff promised him that he would create an atmosphere Welch wanted (Jack Welch). In 1972 Jack Welch became a vice president of GE (Jack Welch). Nine years later, Welch moved his way up to GE’s chairman, becoming the youngest chairman and CEO (Jack Welch). Welch was forty-five when he took control of GE (Jack Welch (GE)-FamousCEOs). He was a no-nonsense executive who believed that every single component of the company had to produce a profit (Jack Welch (GE)-FamousCEOs). “Each person, each piece of equipment, each division, and each manager had to contribute to the bottom line in a positive manner. Those that could not or would not were summarily relieved of their duties (Jack Welch (GE)-FamousCEOs)...
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...GE’s Two-decade Transformation: Jack Welch’s Leadership « We Bring Good Things To Life ». This is how General Electric (GE) defined its activity, in general terms, between 1979 and 2003. During this period, and more precisely from 1981 to 2001, Jack Welch was the company’s CEO. This previous advertising slogan, designed by the advertising firm BBDO, largely contributed to GE corporate identity; indeed, according to Baer Performance Marketing, “When you hear the name General Electric, […] “We Bring Good Things to Life” is also brought to mind” (baerpm.com). Furthermore, it didn’t have for only purpose to promote the firm’s products and services, but it also emphasized their high quality, and as a result, it highlighted GE’s will to improve consumers’ lives. In other words, the slogan had more than communication purposes: it would lead the entire process of value creation; it summed GE’s strategy up. General Electric was created by a merge between two electricity-related companies – Edison General Electric Company and Thomson-Houston Electric Company, in 1892, from Thomas Edison and Charles Coffin initiative. Widely considered as one of the most successful corporations of the 20th century, recognized by Fortune to be the “Most Admired Company in the United States” and named Financial Times’ “Most Admired Company in the World” in 2001, the firm has dramatically grown from a merge between two electricity enterprises to an American multinational conglomerate corporation...
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...to the Classroom Jon Williams University of Phoenix From Corporate America to the Classroom Leadership by definition is a person who guides or inspires others. In corporate America, we can consider Jack Welch a true pioneer in defining leadership. Jack Welch was able to lead and make General Electric a very competitive enterprise in the world (100 Ventures) during the 1980s. Jack Welch is bringing his lifelong management skills to a new online university program (Glader, 2009). Biography Jack Welch was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1935. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering. In 1960, Jack Welch joined General Electric and worked his way through the ranks to become the Chairman and CEO of GE, making him the eighth and youngest leader (Woopidoo- Biographies- Business Leaders). During his 20 year reign of General Electric, one of Americas largest and most well known companies Jack Welch's management skills became almost legendary (Woopidoo- Biographies- Business Leaders). His no nonsense leadership style gave him a reputation of being hard, but fair when making business decisions and his style of leadership has been used a model in corporate America. His techniques have been studied and implemented in the U.S. Army (Day, 2001). Jack Welch’s success was the ability to effectively communicating keys ideas, and constantly repeating them to ensure all employees shared the organization’s goals. Goals In order to become a leader, people should...
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...Cultural Assessment of General Electric Learning Team A Human Relations and Organizational Behavior March 14, 2005 Cultural Assessment of General Electric The corporate culture of General Electric (GE) is a composite of its people, leadership, organization, structure, and processes from past to present. This paper will provide an assessment of the corporate culture of GE, and provide an insight into the dynamics, which have made it one of the world’s premier companies. The aspects of General Electric’s culture begin with its leadership, and progress through its management, workforce, policies, and objectives. GE leadership provides corporate direction with a formalized set of values and action verbs, which guide the organization (GE, 2005). In lieu of a corporate mission statement, GE identifies its key strategies and initiatives in its annual Letter to Stakeholders (GE, 2004). The corporate office maintains a distinct presence among its sprawling empire. This empire is composed of a worldwide workforce, which is involved in a myriad of activities. To lead this powerful organization, management is trained and indoctrinated into the GE culture. The myths, and legends, surrounding General Electric, lend to the cultural identity shared by the entire workforce. Training, organization, and structure are established and maintained through several processes, and programs, which contribute to GE’s cultural identity. General Electric’s leadership...
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...General Electric Company Report Introduction General Electric is a massive conglomerate with power that extends through every sector of the economy. The company was formed in 1892 when the company of Thomas Edison, Edison General Electric Company, merged with the other successful manufacturer of electric light, Thomas-Houston Company. “From the invention of the first practical incandescent light bulb to building America’s first Central Power Station, the GE tradition of life-changing innovations was underway. With power and light, GE provided the basis of modern life, quickly redefining everything from the length of the day to our knowledge of the human body through the development of the first X-ray machine” (History) [citation should refer to GE]. This company is so expansive that every part of our lives involves a product or service by General Electric and this brings up a very vital question: what is the external environment and strategy of a company so large? How are they so successful at what they do? In our analysis, we have determined that if companies want to emulate General Electric's success, they must be willing to change their management approach in accordance to changes in the external business environment. General Electric's overall management of its company has changed several times, but most notably from the time Jack Welch was CEO to the time Jeff Immelt became CEO. The backbone of any company is their mission statement, as it is what keeps a company...
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...Leadership Talents of Jack Welch Jack Welch was a successful Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of General Electric Co. (GE) for twenty years (1981 – 2001). He was admired and feared for the “new vision” that was implemented at GE. Jacks talented strategies were based on how he saw the hierarchy layers of management, how he analyzed the 42 strategic business units, and how he implemented the culture of GE to have the feel and the passion that he had been striving for. These strategies received a lot of positive and negative attention and as a result the company’s value increased by 4,000% during his tenure at GE. Jack Welch was born John Francis Welch, Jr. on November 19, 1935. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from the University of Massachusetts in 1957. Then he went on to earn a M.S. and Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois in 1960. He was introduced to Carolyn Osburn through a mutual friend, and then approximately six months later they were engaged. By November, 1959 they married two days after Welch’s 24th birthday. In 1960, Dr. Dan Fox offered Welch a chemical engineering position to work on a new project on a new thermoplastic called polyphenylene oxide (PPO) at GE. PPO was described to withstand high temperatures, which could replace hot water copper piping and stainless-steel medical instruments. Welch realized after his first year at GE that he disliked GE’s bureaucracy, which nearly drove him to leave...
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...Executive summary In this assignment I was able to use relevant leadership theories to critically analyse and evaluate the leadership of Jack Welch. I first provided a brief insight into Jack’s background, outlining what made John F. Welch into the man we know today as Jack Welch. Secondly, shed some light on the financial position and the culture of General Electric (GE) in the early 80’s when Jack assumed the mantle as its Chairman and CEO. Thirdly, I discussed his changing leadership styles over the years. Finally, I give my opinions on how I would have lead differently if I was faced with the same situations. Table of Contents 1. Introduction 5 2. Welch’s Background 5 3. The situation – GE before Jack Welch 7 4. Jack Welch the leader 7 5. Discussion – How I would lead differently 10 6. Conclusion 11 Reference List 12 1. Introduction Leadership is a complex concept and there are different ways of becoming a leader. Leadership is the process of influencing an organized group toward achieving its goals. (Hughes, Ginnett and Curphy, 2012). Leadership is about influencing and not dominating others, leadership occurs when other people happily accept the goals of as organization as their own (Hogan, 1994). Because the behavioural patterns of employees vary depending on their individual circumstances, it is important that leaders to develop an empathetic approach towards resolving the issues of employees. Leadership theorists associate this ability...
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...Management Principles and Practices MGT101 Case Study – GE Electric Motivation Gemma Blandford Word count 1315 (excluding references) Introduction General Electric (GE) was founded in 1878 by Thomas Edison. Since then GE have developed businesses in the areas of Appliances, Aviation, Consumer Electronics, Electrical Distribution, Health Care, Lighting, Oil and Gas, Energy, Finance for both Business and Consumers, Rail, Software Services and Water. They are now one of the most diversified companies in the world. Findings In 1960 Jack Welch joined General Electrics in the plastics division in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, USA, where he developed his leadership skills and ideas. In 1968 Jack Welch was made the company’s General Manager; for GE in 1981 he was elected Chief Executive Officer. His vision was to become one of the most competitive business enterprises in the world. Shortly after Jack was elected he identified the organisation was bureaucratic - the environment was controlling, upper management made the rules and the juniors followed. The lower level in the hierarchy is controlled by the upper ones, and the planning and decision making is done in one place. The higher levels in the hierarchy have more freedom in doing their work as compared to the lower levels. In this case GE was represented by 9 layers of management from the shop floor to the CEO. Unfortunately in a bureaucratic environment people are afraid to speak out; employees find it difficult...
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