Enterprise and Society - Advance Access

Seppo Honkapohja, Erkki A. Koskela, Willi Leibfritz, and Roope Uusitalo. Economic Prosperity Recaptured: The Finnish Path from Crisis to Rapid Growth

Jalava, J. — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:13:56 PST

Javier Vidal Olivares. Las Alas de Espana: Iberia, Lineas Aereas (1940-2005)

Binda, V. — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:13:55 PST

The Continuity of Innovation: The Civil War Experience

Thomson, R. — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:13:54 PST

Capitalist development involves ongoing technological changes in which a series of innovations develop and diffuse. Wars and other discontinuities periodically break the process, thwarting some innovations and generating others. Wartime experience hence illuminates the question of whether innovation responds to the changing economic environment or maintains earlier directions. The paper examines the roles of peacetime factors and wartime dislocations in the development of three Civil War innovations, firearms, shoe mechanization, and petroleum. Using patent data, government procurement records, and selected firm records to compare antebellum and wartime activities, I argue for the continuity of innovation in its content and in the occupation, network status, and location of patentees. Wartime innovation evolved out of antebellum firms, networks, and inventors. It drew on machinists, engineers, and applied scientists to transfer critical antebellum capabilities into innovating sectors. The war accelerated innovations in firearms and shoe mechanization and may have slowed petroleum innovation. Whereas the North continued antebellum innovation processes during the war, the South, with little capability in any of the sectors, was unable to innovate successfully even when military need was strong.

Miguel Tinker Salas. The Enduring Legacy: Oil, Culture, and Society in Venezuela

Santiago, M. — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:12:34 PST

Marc Levinson. The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger

Jacobs, M. — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:06:01 PST

Jeremy Bernstein. Plutonium: A History of the World's Most Dangerous Element

Malloy, S. L. — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:06:00 PST

Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford, and Orlanda Ruthven. Portfolios of the Poor: How the World's Poor Live on $2 a Day.

Baer, W. — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:19:48 PST

Bethany Moreton. To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise

Burgin, A. — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:19:48 PST

Wim Klooster. Revolutions in the Atlantic World: A Comparative History

Coates, T. J. — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:59:53 PDT

Dan Hagedorn. Conquistadors of the Sky. A History of Aviation in Latin America

Dierikx, M. — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:59:52 PDT

Visual Analytics of an Eighteenth-Century Business Network

Haggerty, J., Haggerty, S. — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 06:33:23 PDT

Cameron McNeil, ed. Chocolate Sin Mesoamerica: A Cultural History of Cacao. Maya Studies Series, edited by Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase

Mahony, M. A. — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:53:59 PDT

Alison C. Kay. The Foundations of Female Entrepreneurship: Enterprise, Home, and Household in London, 1800-1870.

Miler, J. K. — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 09:40:13 PDT

Elizabeth B. Jones. Gender and Rural Modernity: Farm Women and the Politics of Labor in Germany, 1871-1933

Stibbe, M. — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 09:40:12 PDT

Economic Information on International Markets: French Strategies in the Italian Mirror (Nineteenth-Early Twentieth Centuries)

Stanziani, A. — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:21:23 PDT

During 1870–1914, business actors were concerned about the increasing uncertainty and occasional cheating in commercial relationships. In such situations, economic actors seek to improve the information they have, so as to benefit from strong comparative advantages over their competitors. This essay analyzes the acquisition and circulation of information and the actors and rules involved between 1870 and 1914, through a comparative approach (France and Italy). It considers individual trading firms, professional associations, information intermediating agencies, and state offices. We argue that these agencies (and therefore markets and institutions) acted much less as rivals than as complements in this era. Indeed, product information is different from information on the reputation of economic actors, the latter generating further distinctions between reputation for payment, respect of deadlines, and fidelity to the terms and objects of the contract. In turn, such kinds of situated micro-information differ from general statistics on market evolution and prices. We show that most economic actors were much more interested in the former (specifics) than in the latter kinds of information. To demonstrate this point, we compare the way traders, their associations, and private and state agencies intervened in the gathering, circulation, and interpretation of economic information in two countries, Italy and France, between 1870 and 1914. We argue that their opposite outcomes were not simply the result of different "mentalities" or attitudes to risk (as exogenously given), but rather can be traced to the different institutional settings and economic segmentation of the market for information in these two countries. In fact, unlike the Italian government, French ministries refused to provide their traders with micro-information on potential overseas correspondents and product characteristics. That is to say, "attitude to risk" and "animal spirits" are not exogenous and cannot be studied outside a given historical and institutional context.

English Commercial Banks and Organizational Inertia: The Financing of SMEs, 1944-1960

Baker, M., Collins, M. — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:24:18 PDT

Cooperative Networks in the Italian Economy

Menzani, T., Zamagni, V. — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:35:50 PDT

This paper analyzes cooperative enterprises’ networks in the Italian economy, in accordance with recent economic theory, to throw light on the causes of their success of in the last 30 years. We reference the vast literature about business networks to identify some interpretative lines that can be transferred to the cooperative world. On this basis, a typology of the Italian cooperative networks is offered, in order to evaluate the competitive advantages of each type of net, their governance methods, their evolution, and their impact on the recent flourishing of Italian cooperatives. Our conclusion is that the use of networks by co-ops has been very intensive and can still be strengthened, if Italian co-op umbrella organizations will merge. Building large cooperative corporations was often the result of networking, as was the creation of joint stock companies owned by cooperatives.

Editor's Introduction

Scranton, P. — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:01:37 PDT