"JCPenney was the quintessential American company. Since James Cash Penney opened his first store in the small mining town of Kemmerer, Wyoming, in 1902, this unique institution has been an iconic part of the national landscape. Founded and run on the core principles of thrift, hard work, and good citizenship, the retail giant prospered throughout the 20th century, even during the Great Depression, as American citizens came to rely on it for its good...
I've worked at JCPenney for over 25 years before reading this book. It is currently making its rounds through my store. It's a great book of JCPenney history for anyone who wanted to know or to remember where we were and where we're headed. It is current up until the time that Q & V took over, which is now another chapter to be written by another writer someday. P.S. I bet Mike Ullman, current CEO, has read it.
0Report
Celebration of Fools by Bill Hare is a narrative about the people and events at JC Penney that contributed to the company's growing success and about those that led to its decline in the 1990s when business and the economy were soaring. The company and its leaders lost, or forgot, the company's vision to bring value to customers and communities. Once the descent began, no one, not even the board, seemed to question that...
0Report
This probing look into the inner workings of the JC Penney company is one of the richest reads about the business world I've encountered since "Barbarians at the Gate." Hare tells the story with the drama of a screenwriter, the research of an historian and the insight of a novelist. It's a book I couldn't put down. And it's especially appropriate in these times of corporate chicanery, deceit and executive greed.
0Report
Hare suggests that CEOs W.R. Howell and James Oesterreicher as well as their associates were fools to abandon the cultural values and operating principles which enabled the J.C. Penney Company (JCP) to become the most profitable and highly-regarded retail merchandiser in the world. With all due respect to Wal-Mart's executive leadership, JCP's decline was the result of self-inflicted wounds. The "inside look" Hare provides...
0Report