Economics as “a Story Engine”: John D. McDonald and Business as Game and Gamble

IF 16.4 1区化学 Q1 CHEMISTRY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY

Accounts of Chemical Research Pub Date : 2023-08-17 DOI:10.1215/00182702-10875031

T. Mata

引用次数: 1

Abstract

John D. McDonald was a writer and editor best known for his work at Fortune magazine in the 1950s and 1960s and as the ghostwriter of the memoirs of Alfred P. Sloan. McDonald was also the first person to popularize game theory. In this article I argue that game theory played a key role in McDonald's transition from documentary writer to business journalist. Game theory gave McDonald a journalistic device to discover business stories and to give those stories a driving tension; he called it a “story engine.” After decades writing with game theory, it began to serve a different purpose for McDonald. By coding business stories as games, McDonald gained insight into the characters, corporate executives who were often brief in explanations and shallow in self-understanding. McDonald's career gives us a glimpse at an extraordinary transformation of how a set of scholarly ideas can become a literary resource for vividness (of stories) and depth (of characters).

查看原文本刊更多论文

经济学是“故事引擎”：约翰·麦克唐纳和商业是游戏和赌博

约翰·麦克唐纳是一位作家和编辑，因其在20世纪50年代和60年代在《财富》杂志的工作以及阿尔弗雷德·P·斯隆回忆录的代笔而闻名。麦克唐纳也是第一个普及博弈论的人。在这篇文章中，我认为博弈论在麦当劳从纪录片作家到商业记者的转变中发挥了关键作用。博弈论为麦当劳提供了一种发现商业故事的新闻手段，并使这些故事具有驱动力；他称之为“故事引擎”。在用博弈论写作了几十年后，它开始为麦当劳服务。通过将商业故事编码为游戏，麦当劳深入了解了这些角色，即那些解释简短、自我理解肤浅的企业高管。麦克唐纳的职业生涯让我们得以一窥一套学术思想如何成为（故事）生动性和（人物）深度的文学资源的非凡转变。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Accounts of Chemical Research 化学-化学综合

CiteScore

31.40

自引率

1.10%

发文量

312

审稿时长

2 months

期刊介绍： Accounts of Chemical Research presents short, concise and critical articles offering easy-to-read overviews of basic research and applications in all areas of chemistry and biochemistry. These short reviews focus on research from the author’s own laboratory and are designed to teach the reader about a research project. In addition, Accounts of Chemical Research publishes commentaries that give an informed opinion on a current research problem. Special Issues online are devoted to a single topic of unusual activity and significance. Accounts of Chemical Research replaces the traditional article abstract with an article "Conspectus." These entries synopsize the research affording the reader a closer look at the content and significance of an article. Through this provision of a more detailed description of the article contents, the Conspectus enhances the article's discoverability by search engines and the exposure for the research.