A $1 Million Chair

The Business School yesterday announced that a Japanese industrialist has donated $1 million to endow a faculty chair in "leadership."

The grant is the first funding of a professorship at the school by a foreign company.

Abraham Zaleznik, currently Cahners Rabb Professor of Social Psychology of Management, was named the first Konosuka Matsushita Professor of Leadership. The chair's namesake is chairman of the Matsushita Electric Industrial Company, Ltd. of Japan, an international concern which sells electronic equipment under the Panasonic, Technical and Quasar brands in the United States.

The new endowment is intended to sponsor research and doctoral programs in the area of business leadership. "The Business School and American society has proven that it can train good managers but we need leaders," Zaleznik said, adding that the chair represents a "quantum leap and shows Harvard's commitment to leadership."

The donation is the product of a March, 1981, trip to Japan during which Zaleznik and C. Roland Christensen, Baker Professor of Business Administration, approached the 89-year-old Matsushita about endowing a chair.

Matsushita has taken "an incredibly strong interest in education" Donald Spetner, the public relations director for the Japanese firm's American office, said yesterday. Three years ago, the industrialist founded the Matsushita School of Government and Management, which trains elected students for leadership positions.

Matsushita's only previous contribution to an American university was a 91 million grant to MIT in 1976 for two professorships in electronic engineering in medical science.

Zaleznik, who teaches the psychology of business management said he plans use the endowment's funds to conduct research in such areas of research as the effect of French nationalization on business leaders and the problems of "corporate governance" in Sweden.