Transfer of Power in Literature and Business: Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure and King Lear

Abstract

The study of Shakespeare’s plays, apart from the delight one may experience from the language, plot, and staging, offers useful insights into the enduring problems of human relationships in general and of organizational behavior in particular. Using as text material the tragedy of King Lear and the comedy Measure for Measure, this paper addresses one such organizational problem, succession, the transfer of power from one chief executive to another.