Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T11:06:51.849Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Narcissism Project and Corporate Decay: The Case of General Motors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Howard S. Schwartz
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Organizational participants learn that “getting ahead” in organizational life comes from dramatizing a fantasy about the organization's perfection. The fantasy is the return to narcissism, in which the organization and its highest participants are seen as the center of a loving world. Since the return to narcissism is impossible, orienting the organization to the dramatization of this fantasy means that the organization loses touch with reality. The result is organizational decay—a condition of systemic ineffectiveness. Organizational decay is illustrated through the case of General Motors. Specific dimensions considered are: commitment to bad decisions; advancement of participants who detach themselves from reality and discouragement of reality-oriented participants who are committed to their work; creation of the organizational jungle; isolation of management; development of a hostile orientation to the environment; transposition of work and ritual; loss of creativity; dominance of the financial staff; development of cynicism or the loss of reality; and overcentralization. Organizational decay may be compared with the consequences of hubris.

Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , July 1991 , pp. 249 - 268
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arendt, H. (1966) The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.Google Scholar
Argyris, C. & Schon, D.A. (1974) Theory in Practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Becker, E. (1973). The Denial of Death. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Burns, J.M. (1978) Leadership, New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Chasseguet-Smirgel, J. (1985) The Ego Ideal: A Psychoanalytic Essay on the Malady of the Ideal. (First American edition, Barrows, P., translator) New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Chasseguet-Smirgel, J. (1986) Sexuality and Mind: The Role of the Father and the Mother in the Psyche. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Freud, S. (1955a) Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. (Standardedition, Volume 18) London: Hogarth.Google Scholar
Freud, S. (1957) On Narcissism: An Introduction. (Standard edition, Volume 14) London: Hogarth.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday Anchor.Google Scholar
Halberstam, D. (1986) The Reckoning. New York: William Morrow.Google Scholar
Hummel, R.P.The Bureaucratic Experience, Third Edition. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Ingrassia, P. and White, J.B., (1989) “Losing the Race: With Its Market Share Sliding, GM Scrambles to Avoid a Calamity,” Wall Street Journal, December 14, 1989, 1.Google Scholar
Katz, D. and Kahn, R.L. (1966) The Social Psychology of Organizations. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Keller, Maryann. Rude Awakening: The Rise, Fall, and Struggle for Recovery of General Motors. New York: William Morrow, 1989.Google Scholar
Klein, Stuart M. and Richard Ritti, R., Understanding Organizational Behavior, Second Edition. Boston: Kent, 1984.Google Scholar
Luthans, F., Hodgetts, R.M., and Rosenkrantz, S.A.. (1988) Real Managers. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.Google Scholar
Maslow, A.H.Motivation and Personality, Second Edition. New York: Harper and Row, 1970.Google Scholar
Nader, Ralph. Unsafe At Any Speed. New York: Grossman, 1965.Google Scholar
Nader, R. and Taylor, W.. (1986) The Big Boys: Power and Position in American Business. New York Pantheon.Google Scholar
Schein, E.H. “Organizational Socalization and the Profession of Management,” in Psychological Fundations of Organizational Behavior, Second Edition, edited by Staw, B.M.. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman.Google Scholar
Schwartz, H.S. “Maslow and the Hierarchical Enactment of Organizational Reality,” Human Relations, 36 (10), 1983.Google Scholar
Schwartz, H.S. “On the Psychodynamics of Organizational Totalitarianism” Journal of Management, 13 (1), 38–51, 1987a.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, H.S. “Antisocial Actions of Committed Organizatinal Participants: An Existential Psychoanalytic Perspective,” Organization Studies, 8 (4), 327–340, 1987b.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, H.S. “On the Psychodynamics of Organizational Disaster: The Case of the Space Shuttle Challenger,” The Columbia Journal of World Business, XXII (1), 59–67, 1987c.Google Scholar
Schwartz, H.S. “Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality Revisited: Psychology of Work at the Public Esteem Stage of Maslow's Hierarchy,” International Journal of Management, 4 (2), 180–193, 1987d.Google Scholar
Schwartz, H.S. “The Symbol of the Space Shuttle and the Degeneration of the American Dream,” Journal of Organizational Change Management, 1 (2), 5–20, 1988.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, J.P.Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. London: Cambridge University Prsss, 1969.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sennett, R. and Cobb, J.. The Hidden Injuries of Class. New York: Vintage, 1973.Google Scholar
Shorris, E. (1981). The Oppressed Middle: Politics of Middle Management/Scenes from Corporate Life Garden City, New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday.Google Scholar
Sievers, B. “Beyond the Surrogate of Motivation,” Organization Studies, 1 (4), 335–351, 1986.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Staw, B.M. (1980). Rationality and Justification in Organization Life. In Staw, B.M. & Cummings, L.L. (Eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior (Vol. 2). (pp. 45–80). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Wright, J. Patrick, On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors: John Z. De Loreans Look Inside the Automotive Giant. New York: Avon, 1979.Google Scholar