The New GE: How Jack Welch Revived an American Institution [Hardcover]

Robert Slater (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1992

Through rare and exclusive interviews with Jack Welch and dozens of GE insiders, internationally renowned Time Magazine reporter Robert Slater gives readers an inside look into General Electric and the bold leader responsible for GE's magic.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a laudatory business portrait of General Electric CEO Jack Welch, Time reporter Slater asserts that in 1981 Welch was one of the few people in the U.S. who recognized the challenge that inexpensive, high-quality imported goods would present to American industry. Slater recounts how Welch met it. While restructuring the company by laying off workers and eliminating management jobs, he redirected the productive thrust of GE from electrical manufacturing to high technology, eliminating or selling businesses such as housewares, developing such others as plastics, medical imaging and financial services, and seeking "integrated diversity" by acquiring companies, notably RCA in 1985 for $6.28 billion in cash. Single-minded, more than once named CEO of the year, Welch also instituted much-admired employee-participation and "Quick Response" consumer service programs. Although at the end of the 1980s, GE's $58 billion market value ranked second among U.S. companies, Welch here predicts that the global culture of the century's end will require further definition of a "boundaryless" company. Author tour.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Welch, once voted America's toughest boss, is credited with restructuring industrial giant General Electric, making it smaller but better armed for global competition. The title, however, implies that Welch, GE's chief executive officer, saved the company from death. Perhaps a more appropriate title would have been GE: New and Improved . Slater patterns this book after his This Is CBS: A Chronicle of 60 Years ( LJ 6/15/88) by composing a narrative that delves into GE's history but focuses on the 1980s. He uses mainly secondary sources for research but derives some of the material from interviews with former and cur rent GE employees, including Welch. Slater occasionally confuses the reader with injections of first-person narrative, and his chapters are long-winded. Nonetheless, businesspeople and academics will probably want to read it. Weakly recom mended.
- Rebecca A. Smith, Harvard Business Sch. Lib.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 295 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (August 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556236700
• ISBN-13: 978-1556236709
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,535,563 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good book, August 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The New GE: How Jack Welch Revived an American Institution (Hardcover)

I'v read its Chinese edition 4 times since 1996