Life After Death: The Routinisation of Charismatic Leadership at Apple and Hewlett-Packard

Abstract

This thesis focuses on a neglected aspect of charismatic leadership theory and practice: the ‘routinisation of charisma.’ Its concept stems from the late-19th century German sociologist, Max Weber, who postulated that the routinisation of charisma was a process by which charismatic groups transformed into sustainable organisations, governed by the principles of traditional and/or bureaucratic authority. While recognising its potential to effect radical social change, Weber (1947) viewed charisma as an irrational, informal, and volatile force, with uncertain long-term prospects. His fascination with how charisma might be ‘tamed’ in the long-term therefore raised a quixotic paradox: to survive, charismatic groups must renounce their essentially revolutionary character, and embrace the mundanities of organisational life. Inspired by this paradox, I seek to enhance empirical and theoretical understandings about the long-term effects of the routinisation of charisma in contemporary organisations. This thesis presents a review of the extant literatures on charisma, leadership, and organisational culture in order to develop a dramaturgical model, which crucially re-frames the routinisation of charisma as a socially constructed process. Through a multi-modal, discourse-analytic study of publicly available texts and other sources of information, the thesis investigates the routinisation of charisma across time at two US technology firms: (i) Apple, Inc., which was co-founded by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs in 1976; and, (ii) Hewlett-Packard, Inc. (HP), which was co-founded by William Hewlett and David Packard in 1939. Drawing a selection of key ‘performance’ vignettes in both case studies, I analyse how the transformation of charisma into routine is negotiated between organisational actors and audiences. In the short-term, the significance imputed to the succession of the foundational leader was found to have been mitigated by other, already-underway routinising activities at Apple and HP, such as the preservation of original charismatic teachings, rites, and traditions. By contrast, in the long-term, the routinisation of charisma was found to manifest as a discursive and political structure within organisations. Amid ongoing environmental change, Apple and HP’s stakeholders frequently invoked the original charismatic missions of their respective co-founders as framing devices in disputes about various organisational change issues. As such, this thesis concludes that the routinisation of charisma is never settled, given its social negotiation between organisational actors and audiences on a reciprocal, ongoing, and contingent basis.