ABB the Dancing Giant : Creating the Globally Connected Corporation Book

ABB is a highly celebrated corporation which has become somewhat of a cult case. Built from, at the time, a surprising merger between ASEA of Sweden and BBC (Brown Boveri and Company) of Switzerland, the success story is well documented. Described by the authors as "the world's favourite case study" and lead by Percy and Barnevik--"the most influential manager in the world"--ABB is a $31 billion power engineering corporation employing 222,000 in more than 50 countries. Its fame is associated with a rather unique organisation which, if we are to believe the management gurus, is one which at the same time is global and local, big and small, and centralised and decentralised. Quite an achievement! How is this oxymoronic cocktail brought off? Barham and Heimer have done their best to make sense of it. Nevertheless it is difficult to disentangle the role of a rather remarkable CEO and the actual organisational form. The book is based upon extensive interviews, often quoted at length, and is written by gurus for gurus so we are assailed by a rich array of management speak. Nevertheless, a good read, though I doubt we are in a position to know why ABB has experienced the success it has. --Peter AbellRead More