On April 1, 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak entered into a partnership agreement to found Apple Computer. In the decade that followed, Apple experienced remarkable growth and success, as Jobs catapulted Apple to the Fortune 500 list of top‐flight companies faster than any other company in history. Under direction of Jobs, Apple, an idea that started in a garage, transformed into a major force in the computer industry of the 1980s. Though Jobs' leadership undoubtedly influenced Apple’s success during this time, in 1995, he was forced to resign, when conflicts mounted at the executive level. Using Kenneth Burke’s theory of identification and the dramatistic process, this thesis examines Jobs’ discourse through a series of interviews and textual artifacts. First, I provide a framework for Jobs' acceptance and rejection of the social order at Apple, and then consider the ways in which Jobs identified with employee and consumer audiences on the basis of division. Analysis shows that Jobs identified with individual empowerment, but valued separation and exclusivity. Jobs' preference to create identification through division, therefore, established the foundation for new identifications to emerge. The findings of this study suggest that division has significant implications for creating unity. / Graduation date: 2012

The study consists of a psychobiography of the American entrepreneur and innovative co-founder of Apple Computers, Steven Paul Jobs (1955 – 2011). The psychobiographical research method qualitatively considers the lived life of an individual in an attempt to understand the psychological development in the context of applied psychological theory. A theoretical integration of Adler‘s Individual Psychology and Antonovsky‘s Sense of Coherence was utilized in the present study. This integrative approach facilitated a dynamic and holistic picture of the individual‘s functioning in illuminating not only personality but also the individual‘s social context, choice making capacity, general resistance resources and the individual‘s ‗meaning making‘ capacity in the strive towards health and superiority. Steven Paul Jobs revolutionised personal computing. Ranked as Forbes‘ seventeenth most powerful person and Man of the Year by The Financial Times in 2010, Jobs‘ contribution to modern technology is widely acknowledged and revered. To ensure the accurate description of the lived life of Steven Paul Jobs, extensive data was examined by utilizing Alexander‘s model of identifying salient themes. The study considered the nature and methodology of psychobiography, the theories of Alfred Adler and Aaron Antonovsky and the life of Steven Paul Jobs that resulted in an integrated psychological description of the subject. The findings of this study indicate that Steven Paul Jobs‘ unique context (environment and constitutional attributes) was valuable in light of the theoretical frameworks that the present study is grounded upon as it illustrated an individual‘s self-determination and capacity to exercise choice in response to life challenges. The study highlighted that the individual is not necessarily a passive bystander to his life events but rather is driven by an internal forward striving. Key concepts: Aaron Antonovsky, Alfred Adler, Apple Computers, Individual Psychology, Psychobiography, Sense of Coherence, Steven Paul Jobs.

M.Ing. (Engineering Management) / The current research investigated the inter-relationship between Steve Jobs and Apple Company. The study looked at Steve if he launched Apple with business orientation. The researcher used Yin’s (1994) single case, holistic design research method and looked at the data gathered from thirty-seven authors. Steve Jobs’ business orientation was measured using Snaddon (2008) business measures. Symbols were used to indicate whether the evidence found from different sources is direct, indirect, negative or if there was no evidence at all. A score that ranged from -1 for negative evidence to +2 for direct evidence was assigned to evidence from each author; then the total score that represented evidence from all thirty- seven authors on each business measure was presented in the results column (see table 4). Based on the total score of each measure, the strength of the relationship was established. The results showed that there was an inter-relationship between Steve Jobs’ business strategy and the Snaddon (2008) business measures. The evidence gathered did not support the hypothesis that Steve Jobs had little business orientation and the conclusion drawn was that Steve was business oriented when he (and his partners) launched Apple Company.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2017-09-18T12:29:18Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Amanda Moura da Silva dos Santos.pdf: 4842874 bytes, checksum: 23744ffdb2bf6401ae37d88f26b46616 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-18T12:29:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Amanda Moura da Silva dos Santos.pdf: 4842874 bytes, checksum: 23744ffdb2bf6401ae37d88f26b46616 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-09-05 / Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq / Steve Jobs’ speech, that marked the launch of products made by Apple, a technology company, was eagerly anticipated by the market, fans and media. All over the world, many people line up and even set up tents in front of Apple stores on the eve of product launches, and then come out holding their package as a trophy. But what explains Apple’s phenomenon? This study is based on the assumption that Jobs is considered a sort of modern times messiah, making Apple an extension of himself, and aims to understand, within an enunciative-discursive perspective, as developed by Dominique Maingueneau, how the messiah figure is personified in Jobs and unveils a “savior” myth established around him. This investigation is also founded on the hypothesis of sacralization of technology (Noble, 1997), which considers that, by promoting the encounter between the physical and the metaphysical, technology aims at transcendence and appropriates religious ideas. As such, this study is spread across different discursive fields, such as advertising, religion and the media, aiming to understand not only the intertextuality but also the discursive ethos and set design in the conjuncture of the public appearances of Apple’s co-founder. In addition, in order to understand how Steve Jobs’ discourse got acclaimed by the world, using the religious discourse to legitimize his own speech, the notion of constituent discourses is thus mobilized. Considering the evolution in the networks of discourse genres, especially after the emergence of the internet and the widespread dissemination of technology, the study also contemplates the notion of generic valence (Maingueneau, 2015), which allows us to reflect on how discourse genres and consequently the exercise of the discourse have been transforming over time. This reflection is essential, since the analysis of this research focuses on events that happened empirically and were reproduced on YouTube, an online video sharing platform. The results show how the pre-discursive ethos was constructed with an interaction between different genres, the discursive artifices used by the enunciator in the scenography of his presentations to challenge his co-exponents, as well as the links between what Jobs demonstrated and the contents circulating about him, raising expectations of his public appearances / Nas apresentações que marcavam o lançamento oficial dos produtos da Apple, empresa de tecnologia, o pronunciamento de Steve Jobs, cofundador e presidente da companhia, era ansiosamente aguardado por todo o mercado, por fãs e pela mídia. Ao redor do mundo, muitos fazem filas e até montam acampamentos em frente às lojas às vésperas do lançamento de algum produto e depois saem exibindo o pacote como um troféu. Mas o que explica esse fenômeno Apple? Esta pesquisa parte do pressuposto de que Jobs se consagrou como uma espécie de messias dos tempos modernos, tornando a Apple uma extensão de si, e objetiva compreender, na perspectiva enunciativo-discursiva, tal como desenvolvida por Dominique Maingueneau, como a figura de messias se personifica em Jobs e desvela uma mítica de “salvador” instaurada sobre ele. Esta investigação também parte da hipótese da sacralização da tecnologia (NOBLE, 1997), a qual considera que, promovendo o encontro entre o físico e o metafísico, a tecnologia visa à transcendência e se apropria de ideias religiosas. Assim, neste trabalho realiza-se um atravessamento por diferentes campos discursivos como o publicitário, o religioso e o midiático, com vistas a depreender não somente a intertextualidade como o ethos discursivo e a cenografia na conjuntura das aparições públicas do cofundador da Apple. Ademais, para compreender o modo como o discurso de Steve Jobs encenou sua consagração ao mundo, recorrendo ao discurso religioso para legitimar a própria fala, mobiliza-se a noção de discurso constituinte. Considerando a evolução nas redes dos gêneros do discurso, especialmente após o surgimento da internet e da ampla disseminação da tecnologia, a pesquisa também contempla a noção de valência genérica (MAINGUENEAU, 2015), que permite refletir sobre o modo como os gêneros do discurso e, consequentemente, o exercício do discurso vêm se transformando. Essa reflexão é essencial, uma vez que a análise desta pesquisa se concentra em eventos que aconteceram de modo empírico e que foram reproduzidos em um site de compartilhamento de vídeos, o YouTube. Os resultados mostram o modo como o ethos pré-discursivo se construiu por meio da interação entre diferentes gêneros, os artifícios discursivos utilizados pelo enunciador na cenografia de suas apresentações para interpelar seus coenunciadores, bem como o encadeamento que havia entre aquilo que Jobs demonstrava e os conteúdos que circulavam a seu respeito, suscitando expectativas em relação a suas aparições públicas

From Integrative Summary: There has been a growing interest in successful entrepreneurs. Research on entrepreneurship has focused on the identification of personality variables that would assist in the prediction of entrepreneurial success. The present study moves away from attempting to predict entrepreneurial success and instead focuses on exploring and describing the personality of a successful entrepreneur. A psychobiographical case study was adopted by the researcher to explore and describe the extent to which Steve Jobs demonstrated the entrepreneurial characteristics identified by Rauch and Frese (2007). A personality trait approach to entrepreneurship was adopted in the study. The study also attempted to explore the socio-cultural and economic context within which Jobs practised his entrepreneurial activities. Jobs was a successful entrepreneur who co-founded Apple and founded NeXT and Pixar, which were all companies that transformed various technological industries. His entrepreneurial orientation allowed him to produce innovative products that transformed society in various sectors which included personal computing, mobile phones, music, retail stores and films (Isaacson, 2011). A qualitative approach was adopted in the study. The data collection and analysis was guided by the three linked sub-processes proposed by Miles and Huberman (2002) which involved data reduction, data display and conclusion drawing and verification. The findings of this study showed that Jobs demonstrated, at varying levels, all the entrepreneurial characteristics identified by Rauch and Frese (2007) which included a need of achievement, risk-taking, innovativeness, autonomy, locus of control and self-efficacy. The researcher however noted that the desire for autonomy, risk-taking, innovativeness and self-efficacy were the most dominant characteristics driving his entrepreneurial orientation. The research thesis adopted the structure of a teaching case which can be used to explore and discuss the personality trait perspective to entrepreneurship in a classroom setting. The findings of the study can be recognised as positively contributing to the growing field of psychobiographical research on exceptional individuals, including entrepreneurs. The study can be considered as a foundation for future studies which will add to the body of knowledge relating to entrepreneurship and personality.