Machiavelli's Prince as CEO
本文分析马基雅维利的《君主论》,认为现代CEO的成功在于为所有利益相关者创造价值,而非滥用权力,并讨论了从君主到CEO的翻译问题。
The Machiavellian model is often praised as a realistic description of modern corporate life. My analysis of The Prince follows Rousseau in arguing that the prince can survive and prosper most easily by creating an environment in which almost all the citizens prosper. Far from licensing unrestrained self-aggrandizement, in this model success only comes from providing real value to almost every citizen for the entire period of one's leadership.Translation from the early sixteenth to the late twentieth century is far from simple; for example, the CEO is in many ways far less powerful than a Medici prince. The closest approximation is a far less bureaucratic organization with very small units possessing maximum autonomy. Also, deciding who is, and who is not, a citizen is not nearly as straightforward as it was for Machiavelli; it probably includes every stakeholder on whom the corporation has a major impact.