Enterprise and Society 4:502-520 (2003)
© 2003 Business History Conference
Article |
High-Tech Corporatism: Management–Employee Relations in U.S. Electronics Firms, 1920s–1960s
Christophe Lécuyer is a research associate in the Division of Technology, Culture, and Communication at the University of Virginia.
Contact information: School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Virginia, Thornton Hall, Room A237, 351 McCormick Road, Charlottesville, VA 22904–4744, USA. E-mail: cml8n{at}virginia.edu.
Abstract
In this article I examine corporative management practices in electronics firms in Boston and in Silicon Valley from the 1920s to the 1960s. Managers in several key firms developed these practices in response to political and professional ideologies and as a way to address the problems of hiring, using, and retaining a highly skilled work force. They did this independently of the welfare capitalism plans of corporations such as Eastman Kodak and before the guru theorists and work empowerment programs of the 1960s. The corporatist methods first developed in Boston and further refined in Silicon Valley later diffused to most U.S. firms in the software, computer, Internet, and biotechnology industries.