Pioneering fleets reequip and change route in increasingly contested waters

In the early 1990s, some companies which had been the role model for the development of management were facing a profound crisis; among them General Motors (GM), Sears and IBM. “GM, at the end of the 1980s, set a new record for the amount of money lost by a corporation in one year, and then it broke its own record in the following year. While other factors contributed to this disaster, GM's long, painful decline through the 1980s was mostly due to the mismatch of its organizational design choices.” (Roberts, 2004: 40). Sears, which together with GM was one of the role models for America in the 1960s (Chandler, 1962), started divesting itself of many non-retail divisions, which were creating a burden on the company's bottom line. In 1993, it stopped producing its general merchandise catalog because of sinking sales and profits. In 1990, IBM, the “big blue”, also faced a financial turmoil. The turnaround required a sort of shock therapy, with an outsider coming from Nabisco, a biscuit and cracker manufacturer, assuming as new chief executive officer (CEO). He produced a successful revolution in the company's organizational culture, leading IBM toward a new global market positioning. In summary, the changes which had been occurring in the global context challenged the existing management models, demanding their restructuring.