Sometimes referred to as the ‘Cover Curse,’ legend has it that not sooner does a company (or emergent business sector) have a prominent article about it in the magazine Business Week (especially business or CEO of-the-year articles), and especially no sooner is a CEO featured on the cover, than the company and executive’s fortunes start a precipitous decline. A similar observation is frequently made about companies lauded in business books, for example In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters, where several (though not all) of the technology companies he lauded went into rapid declines.
There may be some substance to the theory, especially as extended to other business magazine such as Fortune, etc., according to research by one group of financial analysts. One suggestion is that managers in promoting such articles are in fact seeking to raise their profile as part of a search for a new job, which may in turn reflect long-term problems at the company. See Edifice Complex; New Headquarters/Office Syndrome, Shiny.