ABSTRACT
The world of management is, by any definition of the term, a crazy place; a place where pools of common knowledge have a tendency to evaporate. During the 1960s and 1970s, for example, ‘common knowledge’ advised managers that success, size and efficiency went hand-in-hand. To succeed, organizations had to dominate. Hence, organizations all across Europe and America expanded and grew by conglomeration. ITT, for example, grew from being a telephone and telegraph company to become a complex holding company; the owner of a wide range of businesses, including a hotel chain, a car rental business and a bread-making process (Geneen and Moscow, 1986). Similarly, Ford, which had always been a vertically integrated company, expanded its operations during the 1960s and 1970s to acquire a diverse range of businesses including electronics companies, defence contractors and aeroplane manufacturers, in an attempt to become big and strong.
