Enterprise and Society - recent issues

How Reciprocal was the Business-Government Relationship? The Wedge of Competition in Early Industrializing Japan

von Staden, P. — 2009-05-11

The literature on early industrializing Japan characterizes the business–government relationship in antithetical terms of "cooperation" or "independence." The first position advances that interaction between these actors is largely covert and mutually beneficial and the second characterizes business as ever chary of government interference. These positions have been brought under the framework of "Reciprocal Consent" where government accords business control of industry while retaining its jurisdictional remit. It is argued that this arrangement observed in Japan's energy industry emerged because government was not a financial stakeholder. By contrast, in the iron and steel industry under study here, government was the primary stakeholder. The Shingikai or Councils of Deliberation records show that in the early development of this industry, economics played a central role in shaping the business–government relationship and setting the limits of "reciprocity".

Pensions and Providence: Dutch Employers and the Creation of Funded Pension Schemes

Nijhof, E. — 2009-05-11

From an international perspective, the Dutch system of old age provisions stands out for its wide coverage, fixed benefits, and an overall actuarial soundness that seem to make this system more shock proof to demographic shifts and economic adversities than those in other "Western" countries. Its actual foundation is a compulsory old age insurance for all citizens, enforced by law and implemented by the state; this insurance is supplemented by fully funded pension schemes for workers and employees, operating under legal control; and finally there is a variety of additional and noncompulsory pension benefits and individual insurance arrangements. The main impetus to the genesis of this system came from employers who, with different agendas, created various pension funds; eventually it was the state, which set a decisive example with a funded pension fund for its civil servants. This became the standard to all corporate pension schemes and provoked innovations like branch funds. These initiatives were supported and regulated by legislation that made these arrangements compulsory and guaranteed their juridical independence and actuarial soundness. Only after this legally promoted maturation of private funds, the state set out to create public arrangements on a "pay-as-you-go" basis for all citizens. This delicate interplay between private and public pension arrangements is highly characteristic of the Dutch variety of capitalism in a broader context. In the polarity between liberal and coordinated market economies, as developed by Soskice and Hall, the Dutch system of old age provisions has played a prominent role in ranking this country more firmly into the latter category. However, within this range of countries the Dutch system of old age provisions is also a bit atypical: private corporate and branch arrangements were encouraged and at the same time embedded in a legal framework. The role of the state was also remarkable: a supervisor of the private funds, a collector and distributor in a universal insurance system, and an employer with an exemplary pension scheme.

Looking for "Industrial Confraternity" Small-Scale Industries and Institutions in Nineteenth-Century Paris

Lemercier, C. — 2009-05-11

This research focuses on luxury and fashion industries, especially artificial flower making. This sector of small businesses was often described as totally unregulated but efficient. A very successful union (in terms of membership), nevertheless, was created in 1858. I investigate the motives of its founders and the reality of its economic influence. It acted as a service firm, allowing small businesses to lower transaction costs, and as a conciliation board. However, to understand its creation, success, and limits, other factors must be taken into account, such as political opportunities and the founders’ organizational repertoire.

Between Agnelli and Mussolini: Ford's Unsuccessful Attempt to Penetrate the Italian Automobile Market in the Interwar Period

Toninelli, P. A. — 2009-05-11

This article discusses a chapter of the interwar history of the Ford Motor Company in Europe rather neglected by historians, namely its unsuccessful attempt to erect a solid base of operations in Italy. Expansion onto the Italian market had been part of the post-WWI Ford's strategy of internationalization. It seemed to go well beyond the exploitation of an additional demand as its most interesting and promising aspect was the utilization of the Italian branch as a bridgehead into the Balkans, the East Mediterranean region, the Middle East, and North-East Africa. At the beginning this strategy turned out successful. But when in the late 1920s the Company tried to strenghten its position in the country—either setting up its own assembly plant or establishing a joint venture with an Italian firm—its attempt was blocked. To date scholars have focused exclusively on the political and economic barriers to entry erected by the fascist regime, urged by the powerful Fiat lobby. This was certainly the main cause. Yet, this study shows that on several occasions Ford hesitated and even hung back from acting. Therefor a few chances were missed: the most glamorous being an agreement with Fiat itself, so far ignored by historiography.

Hinterland Dreams and Midwestern Rails: Public Power and Railroading in Nineteenth-Century La Crosse, Wisconsin

Morser, E. J. — 2009-05-11

Historians of the nineteenth-century American Middle West typically pay scant attention to the financial and regulatory role that smaller cities played in forging a regional railroad network. This article, however, explores railroading in La Crosse, Wisconsin, to demonstrate that politicians and boosters in such cities often took advantage of municipal power to shape the course of railroads in unexpected ways. In 1853, 1864, and 1876, for example, local boosters convinced city aldermen to fund railways and help forge commercial links to Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Chicago, and other markets in the East and West. The city's influence over railroading did not start and stop with public investment. Beginning in 1883, after state lawmakers had amended the city's charter and given municipal officials new police powers, aldermen forced railroad executives to clear city streets, prevent damage to private property, and guarantee the personal safety of local residents. Moreover, even when La Crossers lost a fight with railroads, as they did when they waged a holy war over the location of a Mississippi River bridge in the 1860s and 1870s, they forced railroad men to pay attention to their concerns. In the end, the case of La Crosse suggests that historians need to pay much greater mind to people and governments in small, hinterland cities before they can fully grasp the rich history of railroading, and of capitalism more generally, in the nineteenth-century Middle West.

Jeffrey Haydu. Citizen Employers: Business Communities and Labor in Cincinnati and San Francisco, 1870-1916

Pearson, C. — 2009-05-11

Kristin L. Hoganson. Consumers' Imperium: The Global Production of American Domesticity, 1865-1920

Sheumaker, H. — 2009-05-11

Andrew M. Schocket. Founding Corporate Power in Early National Philadelphia

Gajewski, P. K. — 2009-05-11

Edward J. Renehan, Jr. Commodore: The Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt

Salmon, M. S. — 2009-05-11

Deirdre N. McCloskey. The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce

Lasch-Quinn, E. — 2009-05-11

Editor's Introduction

Scranton, P. — 2009-02-13

French Connections: The International Propagation of Trademarks in the Nineteenth Century

Duguid, P. — 2009-02-13

The history of modern brands depends to a significant degree on the history of trademark law, but there are reasons to doubt how comprehensive standard versions of the latter history are. Business, economic, and even legal historians tend to accentuate the importance of the Anglo-Saxon common-law tradition and assume that the continental, civil law tradition followed in its wake. Yet the historical sequence of events suggests that almost exactly the opposite is true. Not only did the French have robust trademark law long before Great Britain and the United States, but the latter two countries only adopted trademark law after signing trademark clauses in diplomatic treaties with France. Drawing on newspaper accounts, public debates, specialist and general newspapers, as well as court cases and diplomatic negotiations, this paper argues that, to a certain degree, Anglo-Saxon trademark law was international before it was national. The evidence suggests that some of the easy verities on which arguments about modern brands, the "second industrial revolution," and institutional economics are based may be more complex than is generally assumed.

Family Finance: Value Creation and the Democratization of Cross-Border Governance

Kobrak, C. — 2009-02-13

As Mira Wilkins has argued, there is a curious disconnect between business and financial history (Wilkins 2004). Whereas business history literature has rediscovered the importance of family business in many countries and in many sectors of contemporary commercial life, for example, little has been written about family banking as an alternative to joint-stock, management-run financial institutions. This lacuna is odd for many reasons. First, family banking is one of the best-known examples of family business in history. Second, family banks once played a much greater role in international investment banking than it does today. Third, some family financial institutions are still active (dominant) in certain market segments and countries. This paper will focus on how, when and why family banking lost its position in international (multinational) banking during the first few decades of the twentieth century. Although political upheaval and a widespread movement to reduce the power of private financial institutions undermined their businesses, family banks suffered, too, from America's maturing as a financial center. I will argue that this shift is connected with the increased importance of American markets and financial regulations, which, in the 1930s, deliberately steered financial transactions away from private dealings and toward transparent impersonal exchanges and capital markets with new forms of aggregated capital and individual investors, in which private banks were ill-suited to manage or at the least for which they had no special competitive edge. Using concepts drawn from an earlier paper on family businesses and relying mostly on secondary sources, this paper will further argue that in markets or market segments, such as Leveraged Buyouts, where uncertainty forms a greater part of the transactional environment, family banking still plays a significant role.

The Political Economy of American Transportation

Rose, M. — 2009-02-13

Delivery to the Customer's Door: Efficiency, Regulatory Policy, and Integrated Rail-Truck Operations, 1900-1938

Churella, A. J. — 2009-02-13

During the first third of the twentieth century, U. S. railroad executives offered local collection and delivery trucking operations. Railroad managers claimed, with justification, that these services were necessary to reduce congestion at urban freight terminals, and to increase the operating efficiency. Yet, executives also employed collection and delivery practices to discriminate against shippers and communities, and to draw business away from rival carriers, in violation of the 1887 Interstate Commerce Act, the 1903 Elkins Act, and the Transportation Act of 1920. During the 1920s, as competition from independent truckers became more intense, railroad managers used their inherent advantage in line-haul service to cross-subsidize local delivery services, to the detriment of independent motor carriers—an issue of considerable concern to Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) commissioners, following the passage of the 1935 Motor Carrier Act. The railroads' emphasis on the productive efficiency associated with local trucking operations conflicted with the allocative efficiency advocated by federal courts and by the ICC. Commissioner Joseph B. Eastman, in particular, emphasized both the potential benefits and the potential dangers associated with coordinated rail-truck service. More broadly, the status of that service, as one of the few forms of transportation that lay beyond the ICC's authority, stemmed from a complex interaction, over several decades, between all three branches of the federal government. By 1938, the ICC commissioners had concluded that the railroads' local delivery operations occupied a nebulous region between rail and truck regulation. While lawful, they did not serve as a model for post-1945 efforts to achieve integrated, multi-modal transportation services.

The Populist Appeal of Deregulation: Independent Truckers and the Politics of Free Enterprise, 1935-1980

Hamilton, S. — 2009-02-13

Two Cheers for Discrimination: Deregulation and Efficiency in the Reform of U.S. Freight Transportation, 1976-1998

Levinson, M. — 2009-02-13

Jennifer Karns Alexander. The Mantra of Efficiency: From Waterwheel to Social Control

Hintz, E. S. — 2009-02-13

Philip Scranton and Janet F. Davidson, eds. The Business of Tourism: Place, Faith, and History

Koenig, W. — 2009-02-13

Peter von Staden. Business-Government Relations in Prewar Japan

ABE, E. — 2009-02-13

Lara Kriegel. Grand Designs: Labor, Empire, and the Museum in Victorian Culture

Casto, M. — 2009-02-13

Laura J. Miller. Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption

Eliot, S. — 2009-02-13

Naomi R. Lamoreaux and Kenneth L. Sokoloff, eds. Financing Innovation: In the United States, 1870 to the Present

King, B. L. — 2009-02-13

John E. Murray. Origins of American Health Insurance: A History of Industrial Sickness Funds

Baranoff, D. — 2009-02-13

Warren J. Belasco. Appetite for Change: How the Counterculture Took On the Food Industry

Charles, J. — 2009-02-13

Steven High and David W. Lewis. Corporate Wasteland: The Landscape and Memory of Deindustrialization

Hirsch, S. E. — 2009-02-13

Looking Toward the Future: Expanding Connections for Business Historians

Laird, P. W. — 2008-12-01

The Telephone Patents: Intellectual Property, Business, and the Law in the United States and Britain, 1876-1900

Beauchamp, C. — 2008-12-01

This dissertation summary introduces a new perspective on the legal and economic history of patents in the late nineteenth century. Through a case study of the early telephone industry in Britain and the United States, the dissertation explores interactions between business strategies and national legal regimes, and proposes a revised view of the multi-layered relationship between patents and industrial organization.

Building Up Goodwill: British Business, Development and Economic Nationalism in Ghana and Nigeria, 1945-1977

Decker, S. — 2008-12-01

Debtor Nation: How Consumer Credit Built Postwar America

Hyman, L. — 2008-12-01

When Wall Street Met Main Street: The Quest for an Investors' Democracy and the Emergence of the Retail Investor in the United States, 1890-1930

Ott, J. C. — 2008-12-01

"When Wall Street met Main Street" recovers the lost history of the American investor and locates the origins of conservative belief in the ability of laissez-faire financial markets to provide economic security and justice for all. Bond and stock marketing by the federal government, corporations, and the financial industry is analyzed alongside emerging investor-centered theories of political economy and the relevant debates over economic reform. As early twentieth century securities marketers and their ideological allies promoted investment, they wrestled with the meaning of citizenship and democracy under industrial corporate capitalism. The ideas and institutions examined in this study endured the Crash of 1929, shaping the parameters of New Deal securities market regulation and sustaining opposition to modern liberalism until the present day.

Editors' Introduction: Business History and the Middle East: Local Contexts, Multinational Responses--A Special Section of Enterprise & Society

Godley, A., Shechter, R. — 2008-12-01

Building for the Shah: Market Entry, Political Reality and Risks on the Iranian Market, 1933-1939

Andersen, S. — 2008-12-01

Unlike other Western European companies operating in Iran between the first and second world wars, the Danish construction firm Kampsax pursued a forestalling strategy in dealing with the political imperative of Reza Shah. The British Bank of the Middle East and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, by contrast, pursued an absorption strategy. That is, they actively tried to "Iranize" their operations by appointing native Iranians to important managerial positions. Kampsax, however, made no attempt at "Iranization," depending entirely on contractual relations with local builders and labor forces. This no doubt contributed to the firm's exposure as a totally foreign enterprise and lessened their chances of gaining favor with the Shah's advisors, who pursued an overtly nationalistic set of policies. The history of Kampsax in Iran therefore offers a useful case to use the concept of the political risks in relation to multinationals working in dictatorial settings. This paper undertakes such a study and concludes that the absorption strategy that was already being pursued by British firms offers a better way of managing such risks.

Synthetics for the Shah: DuPont and the Challenges to Multinationals in 1970s Iran

Blaszczyk, R. L. — 2008-12-01

In the 1960s and 1970s, the largest U.S. chemical firm, E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, established an international presence in synthetic fibers by building plants to make nylon, polyester, and acrylic in Latin America and Europe. DuPont managers also looked to the Middle East, specifically to Iran, which was fast industrializing under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The Shah's pro-Western stance and his country's rich oil fields made Iran appealing to a petrochemical giant like DuPont, which used petroleum feed stocks to make fibers and other products. In the 1970s, DuPont partnered with the Behshahr Industrial Group, a conglomerate run by the Ledjavardi clan, one of Iran's leading families, to build a high-tech fiber facility that would help modernize the Iranian textile industry. The story of this short-lived joint venture, a victim of the Islamic Revolution, demonstrates the challenges to multinationals operating in imperial Iran, and shows how the daily experience of dealing with cultural differences often masked larger political and economic troubles.

Nestle in the Ottoman Empire: Global Marketing with Local Flavor 1870-1927

Koese, Y. — 2008-12-01

This paper examines the marketing activities of Nestlé in the Ottoman Empire between 1870 and 1927. Nestlé began with the same strategy it had developed in Western markets for the Ottoman market. But the Ottoman political, social, and cultural context differed considerably from Europe. The article explores how Nestlé responded to this complex marketing environment with increasing local differentiation. It goes on to demonstrate that as well as its variegated approaches to the ethnically, religiously, and culturally heterogeneous urban consumer, Nestlé's success derived from its ability to connect with different strata of society. I argue that the Ottoman Empire, and especially its capital Istanbul, were strategically essential to Nestlé's development of its adaptive global marketing strategy.

Glocal Mediators: Marketing in Egypt during the Open-Door Era (infitah)

Shechter, R. — 2008-12-01

This article discusses the business strategies formulated by Egyptian marketers as they established their enterprises to meet new multinational corporations’ (MNCs’) demand for marketing—research, promotion, and advertising services. This transition occurred during a period of economic liberalization, known locally as the infitah (open-door era), and rapid economic growth, resulting from the regional oil-boom of the early 1970s. Local entrepreneurship and competition for accounts would create a new, "glocal" business environment in Egypt, which concurrently mediated MNCs adaptation to local economic conditions and "Egyptianized" imported goods.

Did the Protestant Ethic Disappear? The Virtue of Thrift on the Cusp of Postwar Affluence

Steigerwald, D. — 2008-12-01

After World War II, the United States moved into what historians are now recognizing as a full-blown consumer society. Consumer society carried with it vast cultural changes, including shifts in fundamental values. Not least important were shifts in the practices of thrift, as seen in how Americans regarded personal savings and debt. Traditionally seen as opposites, those two economic behaviors became intertwined in the 1950s, as Americans continued to save, not to accumulate wealth but to spend and often even as they took on consumer debt. Thus, the 1950s were a tipping point between industrial capitalism and consumer capitalism.

The New York Yankees Cope with the Great Depression

Surdam, D. G. — 2008-12-01

The New York Yankees donated their financial records to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. These records provide a rare glimpse into the business of professional team sports. I use these records to examine how the Yankees’ management reacted to the Great Depression. Since the team possessed both price-setting power over ticket prices and monopsony power over player salaries, how did the team adjust ticket prices and salaries in response to the falling incomes of its customers and general deflation of the early 1930s? How did the team's response differ from other teams in Major League Baseball?

Paul F. Paskoff. Troubled Waters: Steamboat Disasters, River Improvements, and American Public Policy, 1821-1860

Aldrich, M. — 2008-12-01

Sarah T. Phillips. This Land, This Nation: Conservation, Rural America, and the New Deal

Anderson, J. L. — 2008-12-01

Tom McCarthy. Auto Mania: Cars, Consumers, and the Environment

Black, B. — 2008-12-01

Kevin L. Borg. Auto Mechanics: Technology and Expertise in Twentieth Century America

Castillo, T. A. — 2008-12-01

James Taylor. Creating Capitalism: Joint-Stock Enterprise in British Politics and Culture, 1800-1870

Cookson, G. — 2008-12-01

Stephen Mihm. A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States

Evans, C. W. — 2008-12-01

Gregory Clark. A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World

Jaffe, J. — 2008-12-01

Duane C. S. Stoltzfus. Freedom from Advertising: E. W. Scripps's Chicago Experiment.

MacLennan, A. F. — 2008-12-01

Rebecca Edwards. New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age, 1865-1905

Mason, D. — 2008-12-01

Edward S. Miller. Bankrupting the Enemy: The U.S. Financial Siege of Japan before Pearl Harbor

Metzler, M. — 2008-12-01

Robin Archer. Why Is There No Labor Party in the United States?

Minchin, T. — 2008-12-01

Laura Croghan Kamoie. Irons in the Fire: The Business History of the Tayloe Family and Virginia's Gentry, 1700-1860

Schultz, R. — 2008-12-01

Pamela E. Swett, S. Jonathan Wiesen, and Jonathan R. Zatlin, eds. Selling Modernity: Advertising in Twentieth-Century Germany

Silberstein-Loeb, J. — 2008-12-01

A. D. Morrison-Low. Making Scientific Instruments in the Industrial Revolution

Singleton, J. — 2008-12-01

Chaim M. Rosenberg. Goods for Sale: Products and Advertising in the Massachusetts Industrial Age

Stanger, H. — 2008-12-01

A. K. Sandoval-Strausz. Hotel: An American History: Rachel Sherman. Class Acts: Service and Inequality in Luxury Hotels * Wayne Koestenbaum. Hotel Theory

Levinson Wilk, D. — 2008-12-01