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Boeing’s Decline in Innovation: The Impact of the McDonnell Douglas Merger
Boeing and McDonnell Douglas agreed to a merger in December, 1996. At the time, Phil Condit, then CEO of Boeing, called the acquisition a “historic moment in aviation and aerospace”. The past 28 years have proven that it was definitely a historic moment–just not in the way Boeing originally envisioned. (avgeekery.com) More...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
Clearly the merger with MD started the decline at Boeing but how surprising that in the following nearly 30 years no one at Boeing was able to stop the rot. Whilst it is easy to put the blame on the original merger the ongoing problems rest solely on the shoulders of subsequent Boeing senior board and management members.
That is because the merger was about money and stocks, greed. They were in it for profits, you dont merge to innovate, you merge to remove competition and make the MB&A guys rich.
So basically Boeing merged with a horribly run MD company and then let them run Boeing! We can all see how that's working out. Makes no sense that Boeing merge with a poorly run company and then allowed those people to run Boeing??
It makes sense only to the bean counters. Every large company has declined after depending on stock manipulation instead of customer satisfaction.
There were movies back in the '80's about corporate greed. We're certainly reaping those benefits. Don't get me wrong,there is nothing wrong about making money, but greed wins.
If, by "bean counters", you mean Accountants - Accountants simply report results. They do not run companies. What the executive suite decides to do based upon the results reported is up to them. Though the Accountants will report those results as well.
What if the executive suite that runs companies is made up of folks with a wall street mentality vs. safety/engineering? That's what happened at Boeing
They do run companies if the Bean Counters are the majority on the Board Of Directors or are the CEO
Harry Stonecipher was not an Accountant. His background was Physics.