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Building castles from sand: Unlocking CEO mythopoetical behaviour in Hewlett Packard from 1978 to 2005

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  • Sotirios Paroutis
  • Max Mckeown
  • Simon Collinson

Abstract

How do successive CEOs use myths in an organization over time? While studies start to provide us with understanding of the discourse employed by particular organizational actors, we lack studies about the discourse used by successive strategic actors over long periods of time and the precise mechanisms of such use. To address this gap we theorise the components of mythopoetical behaviour of CEOs and apply critical discourse analysis to unpack the discursive mechanisms used by three CEOs at Hewlett Packard over a 27-year period. We offer two contributions: first, we elaborate on the concept of mythopoetical behaviour ( mythopoesis ) and show how it forms part of the four discursive mechanisms of authorization , moral evaluation , rationalization and mythopoesis that allow incoming CEOs to construct and legitimise their identity as strategic actors. Second, we develop the notion of mythopoetical distance to provide a method to examine how myths developed by CEOs are compared to the institutionalised myths in their firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Sotirios Paroutis & Max Mckeown & Simon Collinson, 2013. "Building castles from sand: Unlocking CEO mythopoetical behaviour in Hewlett Packard from 1978 to 2005," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(7), pages 1200-1227, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:bushst:v:55:y:2013:i:7:p:1200-1227
    DOI: 10.1080/00076791.2013.838038
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    Cited by:

    1. Eero Vaara & Juha-Antti Lamberg, 2016. "Taking historical embeddedness seriously : Three historical approaches to advance strategy process and practice research," Post-Print hal-02276732, HAL.

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