Within the last two months, GE has named a new chief executive and launched the largest industrial takeover ever.

The two events, combined with uncertainty in the US and global economies, would be enough to unsettle most companies.

But enthusiasts for GE - and there are many, both on Wall Street and among the chief executives interviewed for this survey - believe Jack Welch's earnings machine should be able to shrug them off.

Nonetheless, 2001 is likely to be one of the most interesting years for GE-watchers since Mr Welch took over as chairman and chief executive in 1981.

Mr Welch himself will be there to see it. He was due to step down in April 2001, but when GE launched its lightning $43bn bid for Honeywell, the industrial group, in October, Mr Welch agreed to stay on until the end of the year.

During that period he will be flanked by his heir, Jeffrey Immelt, named last month as chairman-elect and president.

Mr Immelt, former head of GE's medical systems division, has the toughest act in corporate America to follow. But neither he, nor Mr Welch, has any doubts that GE, now worth an astonishing $500bn, can continue to expand. "I don't see any limits to how we can grow and how we can do things," Mr Immelt said on the day of his appointment. "I think we have unlimited capacity for growth."

The ability of Mr Welch and his team to manage the growth of one of the largest companies in the world in a rapidly changing business environment is one of the main reasons executives again selected GE to top the ranking in 2000.

"Although they are a huge company, they have the youth of a newly established company," said one chief executive polled for the survey, while another described GE as "the role model for restructuring".

A number of chief executives made clear it was simply the age, size and durability of the company that had earned their respect. In an era when chief executives often last less than two years, Mr Welch's two decades at the helm is impressive in itself.

But there are more positive reasons for the admiration in which GE and its chief executive are held. Bullish analysts point to the way in which GE is squeezing more business from loyal customers as the most hopeful sign that growth will continue. They cite ways in which GE offers services alongside sales of equipment , in fields as diverse as kitchen appliances and aircraft engines.

The internet is behind many of these innovations, although not many chief executives in the survey specifically cited GE's ongoing transformation into an e-business as a reason for voting for the conglomerate. "[Jeff Immelt's] most important job in the next year is really to try to accelerate digitisation of the whole of the company," says Nick Heymann of Prudential Securities.

Mr Immelt has the advantage of coming from one of the most technologically advanced GE divisions and, at age 44, of being the youngest of the three GE executives who were in the running for the top job. Mr Welch expects him to serve 10 or even 20 years as chief executive.

That prospect may put the challenges of the next year or two in perspective. Mr Welch himself describes the integration of Honeywell - which has a strong position in areas such as avionics and industrial controls - as a comparatively simple task. "Its earnings are about equal to our power systems [division's] earnings . . . It's not anything near the scale of integration that we had when RCA [the consumer electronics and broadcasting group] was purchased [in 1985]," he says.

The fact that Mr Welch and Dennis Dammerman, GE vice-chairman, will be guiding the integration process should also reassure shareholders. In effect, a four-man corporate executive office, made up of Mr Welch, Mr Immelt, Mr Dammerman and Bob Wright, who runs NBC, GE's television network, will help guide the company for the next year.

That should give Mr Immelt more freedom to learn the bits of the company with which he is not yet familiar, meet big customers, and ascend smoothly to the top job. "The point really is that this is easy, this is a very comfortable relationship," claims Mr Welch.

Doubters are still concerned that GE may be too big to maintain the aggressive double-digit growth in earnings and revenues that has become a Welch hallmark, and much of the praise heaped on GE and Mr Welch is now self-reinforcing.

But investors and other companies are not shy about praising GE's historic achievements.

As one chief executive put it in the survey: "Since everybody always mentions him [Mr Welch] and he is the golden example of all consultants, there must be something in him."

Perhaps the biggest accolade came after the appointment of Mr Immelt as chairman-elect, when big corporations immediately began bidding to hire the two disappointed candidates - James McNerney of GE Aircraft Engines and Robert Nardelli of GE Power Systems. Mr McNerney went to become chief executive of 3M, the industrial group, while Mr Nardelli took the same position at Home Depot, the retailer. There are few companies in the world that can boast that rivals compete for their cast-offs.