Book review Stealing Time
Book review Abstract Although it wasn't written as a business management book per se, AlecKlein's popular work, Stealing Time: Steve Case, Jerry Levin and theCollapse of AOL Time Warner, is a primer in corporate bad behavior andgreed with financial disaster-for some-as the result. The lessons thatemerge from the book, while not based on in-depth survey research, arenonetheless valuable as a study in contrasts between the old and newparadigms in American business. Both companies had been successful in itsown field, Time Warner in entertainment and AOL in the new, accessibletechnologies. Time Warner's success had stood the test of time; AOL'shadn't, but its success over a short period was extreme. The agreement tomerge the two companies was kept secret; the obvious question is why: whowas embarrassed' And why' These are questions that might profitably beanswered by a researcher with after-the-fact access to people involved anddocuments pertinent to the merger. But even shortly after the collapse ofthe merged company, a single researcher concluded that the merger-and theresulting collapse-was attributable to the slipshod
Or, to be more accurate, the behaviors underlyingthese books is what has caused the American public to distrust the Americancorporation. Just as this is not a good basis for a marriage,Klein seems to say, it is a terrible reason for a corporate merger. The first lesson a reader might get from this book is this: don't tryto cross apples with oranges. In itself, it is an object lesson to those going intocorporate life about how not to behave. Other criticism from the same source notes that Klein doesnot consider larger questions concerning "what was once billed as atransforming merger of the world's biggest online service with the OldMedia giant. Klein did a lot of anecdotal research, arriving at the conclusionthat it is counterproductive, in business, to act as merger maven DavidColburn did by "jetting to topless bars in San Francisco for ostensibleteam-building exercises and snorting cocaine in the open during a post-football-game traffic jam. Thesedays, the art of the merger and the buyout have become, in great measure,the basis of business management. ) Those involved in the merger, particularly those at Time Warner,arguably the more wisdom-laden company (to excuse a possible contradictionin terms) should have noticed that the culture of their intended mergerpartner was a shambles. " (Young, 2003) The lessons in this book must begleaned from the anecdotes, but they are instructive. Perhaps the only conclusion tocome to about this book is that it could be considered light reading formost serious students of business, but it also opens a Pandora's box. Klein makes it clear that itwas the families (or perhaps more specifically, the heads of the families,and more specifically still the head of AOL that caused this blending to bedysfunctional. Rather, it seems that what Klein might havehad in mind was holding the personalities to account, and that he has donerather well. "Almost from the moment the $175 billioncombination was announced in January 2000, skeptics attacked the rationalebehind the deal, a takeover of a fabled media giant by Case's AOL right atthe peak of dot-com frenzy," according to a Boston Globe review of thebook. And yet, unlike the abundant tomeswritten about blended families, there are very few-except accountingstandards-written about blended corporations.
Common topics in this essay:
AOL Warner,
Boston Globe,
San Francisco,
Critics Klein's,
Globe Klein,
Mad Max,
Steve Case/AOL,
,
Washington Post,
Exchange Commission,
american public distrust,
distrust american,
books caused american,
families specifically,
media giant,
american corporation,
corporate life,
public distrust,
distrust american corporation,
american public,
public distrust american,
caused american,
caused american public,
business management,
books caused,
|
Acceptance Essays
