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Journal of Economic Geography 1:277-298 (2001)
Copyright © 2001 Oxford University Press

Article

Corporate autobiographies: the narrative strategies of corporate strategists

Erica Schoenberger

Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University, 313 Ames Hall, Baltimore, MD 21218–2686, USA. eschoenberger{at}juno.com

Abstract

The autobiographies of people who run large corporations have become a distinctive literary genre. This paper analyzes the narrative structures of three such texts to understand what they tell us about their authors as individuals and as members of a social class, and about how firms are run in real life. The texts relate to the histories of IBM, Apple Computer, and Xerox. The analysis centers on how the narrative is structure to present the person and his story and how the self is fashioned through this narrative approach. In these three cases, the autobiographical stories are not about self-transformation, although the corporations are transformed. Instead, they are narratives of self-realization through passionate engagement in which the realized self becomes a catalyst for corporate change. The paper also considers the role of the autobiography in underwriting the social position of high-level corporate executives.

Keywords: autobiography, corporate history, corporate strategy, management

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