Word: sampsons
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...ANTHONY SAMPSON...
...sure, ITT's German equipment was under Nazi control, though, as Anthony Sampson argues, the company tried to conduct business as usual for as long as possible. In Sampson's view, ITT is not merely a multinational giant but a state within states, a moral chameleon that will do business with any complaisant regime and try to prevent the election of politicians who threaten the corporate interests...
Behn believed he could contribute to international understanding by constructing global telephone links. Central to ITT's European operations was a German holding company established in 1930. It was inevitable that Behn would have to do business with Hitler. "In trying to hold his system together," writes Sampson, "Behn gradually wove a web of corruption and compromise which left the idealism in ruins." From documents he found in U.S. archives, Sampson concludes that Behn cooperated willingly with the Nazis, choosing not to repatriate his German profits and agreeing to his German subsidiary's purchase of an interest...
...executives at meetings for up to ten days a month. The system is designed to avoid surprises. Ironically but predictably, the vaunted "no surprise" system produced shocks on the political front. Predictably, because most men who are trained to think in quantitative terms are insensitive to nuance and subtlety. Sampson fails to stress this inherent characteristic of business bureaucracies. He also fails to meet the challenge of Geneen's complex personality and conflicting drives...
...some ways, Geneen is close to genius: the management method he has imposed on ITT disciplines and tames territorial chieftains who might otherwise rebel and enables him to check the performance of a widely-almost wildly-diversified company. In other ways Geneen is a gambler on a monumental scale. Sampson neglects this facet of Geneen, although he does show that when Geneen acquired Hartford Insurance he knew full well that the antitrust division of the Justice Department would oppose him. In short, Sampson concludes, Geneen was under the utmost compulsion to try to change the trustbusters' collective mind...