انتقال به یک صنعت در بحران: از کاریزما، عادت، و رهبری فرهنگی حمایتی

This article narrates the saga of how leaders in the highly competitive U.S. semiconductor manufacturing industry framed their future as a struggle for survival against an unprincipled adversary and thus generated an industry-wide strategy for battling the competition. Their strategy amounted to a social experiment in that it required unprecedented cooperation from members of the industry. Our account and analysis focus on four remarkable, interrelated aspects of this saga: (1) how these leaders linked their actions to support the charisma of their central leader—Robert Noyce—who became the first CEO of the resultant consortium; (2) how the participation they shared in the saga of the founding and growth of the U.S. semiconductor industry, especially at Fairchild Industries, provided a basis for their later cooperation; (3) how they created an unusual participative and democratic culture at Sematech; and (4) how Noyce's vision persisted after his death through various forms of routinization established earlier. Five bodies of qualitative data generated in two independent series of investigations inform this study. They include two sets of in-depth interviews with participants at various levels, extensive archival data, ethographic observations, informal conversations and interviews, and information supplied by a key informant.

Over the last two decades, a considerable literature has accumulated on charismatic leadership (e.g., Bryman 1992, Bryman 1996, Conger & Kanungo 1988, Conger & Kanungo 1998, House 1977 and House, Spangler, & Woycke 1991) and its cousin, transformational leadership (e.g. Burns 1978, Bass 1985 and Bass & Avolio 1994). In addition, two special issues of The Leadership Quarterly ( vol. 4, no. 3, 1993 and vol. 10, nos. 2 and 3, 1999) have been devoted, respectively, to an examination of neo-Weberian perspectives on charisma and a review of the state of the art on this “new paradigm” of research on leadership. Much of this research has been based on the collection of quantitative data. Relatively few studies have employed qualitative or multiple methods to study charismatic leadership in organizations over a period of time Bradley 1987, House, Spangler, & Woycke 1991, Roberts & Bradley 1988, Ropo & Hunt 1999 and Trice & Beyer 1986, and there have been recent calls for more qualitative research Bryman 1996, Conger 1998 and Parry 1998.