Nouveau riche, old guard, established elite: agency and the leadership of Vivendi Universal

Nihel Chabrak (), Russell Craig and Nabyla Daidj ()
Additional contact information
Nihel Chabrak: IMT-BS - DEFI - Département Droit, Économie et Finances - TEM - Télécom Ecole de Management - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris] - IMT-BS - Institut Mines-Télécom Business School - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris], UAEU - College of Business and Economics, Accounting Department (United Arab Emirates University)
Russell Craig: VU - College of Business, Victoria University (.)
Nabyla Daidj: IMT-BS - MMS - Département Management, Marketing et Stratégie - TEM - Télécom Ecole de Management - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris] - IMT-BS - Institut Mines-Télécom Business School - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris], LITEM - Laboratoire en Innovation, Technologies, Economie et Management (EA 7363) - UEVE - Université d'Évry-Val-d'Essonne - TEM - Télécom Ecole de Management

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: We respond to the call for a more balanced view of agency (Tourish, 2014: 88) by presenting an account of the forced resignation of Jean-Marie Messier as CEO of the major French company, Vivendi Universal, in 2002. Messier's ousting arose from a struggle for board control involving an exercise of power that was influenced strongly by kinship relationships, interlocking directorships, and business alliances; and by the interplay between a nouveau riche (Messier), an influential old guard shareholder family (the Bronfmans), and an established elite (of prominent representatives of French business). Collusion between the French business establishment and the Bronfman family created a coalition of interest and a locus of control that managerial and agency theories explain inadequately. We highlight the potential for a reading of class relationships in terms of structuration to foster better understanding of the complexities involved when the board of a major corporation decides to support, or withdraw support for, their CEO. We highlight several context-specific structures and mechanisms that were influential in determining corporate control and CEO agency.

Keywords: Networks; Elites; Board; Kinship; Control; Agency; Structuration theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-09
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Leadership, 2016, 12 (4), pp.398 - 419. ⟨10.1177/1742715014565442⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01370671

DOI: 10.1177/1742715014565442

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().