When Wisconsin governor Scott Walker stood shoulder-to-shoulder with President Trump and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan at the White House in July 2017, they painted a glorious picture of his state's future. Foxconn, the enormous China-based electronics firm, was promising to bring TV manufacturing back to the United States with a $10 billion investment and 13,000 well-paying jobs. They actually were making America great again, they crowed. Two years later, the project was in shambles. Ten thousand construction workers were supposed to have been building what Trump had promised would be "the eighth wonder of the world." Instead, land had been seized, homes had been destroyed, and hundreds of millions of municipal dollars had been committed for just a few hundred jobs-nowhere near enough for Foxconn to earn the incentives Walker had shoveled at them. In Foxconned, journalist Lawrence Tabak details the full story of this utter collapse, which was disturbingly inevitable. As Tabak shows, everything about Foxconn was a disaster. But worse, he reveals how the economic incentive infrastructure across the country is broken, leading to waste, cronyism, and the steady transfer of tax revenue to corporations. Tabak details every kind of financial chicanery, from eminent-domain abuse to good old-fashioned looting-all to benefit a coterie of consultants, politicians, and contractors. With compassion and care, he also reports the distressing stories of the many individuals whose lives were upended by Foxconn. Powerful and resonant, Foxconned is both the definitive autopsy of the Foxconn fiasco and a dire warning to communities and states nationwide.

This book, first published in 1989, is a valuable addition to the literature on the study of American business history. Most previous historians, however, have studied the management of business in a vacuum, separating the internal affairs of particular companies from the social and political environments in which corporations existed. From 1799 to 1842 the Manhattan Company had three distinct divisions: a water works, a main bank in New York City, and bank branches in upstate New York. To successfully manage this complicated and decentralised business, the Manhattan Company's directors had to be particularly sensitive the social and political environments. This book traces the history of banking in New York, an examination of the nature and significance of the Company's charter, and a detailed analysis of the Company's three divisions.

This study of Ferranti in its last six years of a long history provides a detailed exposition of the British and American businessmen who combined to terminate one of the UK's leading defence electronics firms. Involving action in the Middle East, South Africa and Pakistan, as well as the UK and USA, this highlights the precarious nature of international arms trading.

Jordan Daykin hit the headlines at the age of 18 when he became the youngest ever person to win investment in the Dragons' Den for his invention GripIt, a building product he created with his grandad in the garden shed. GripIt was an instant success, attracting interest from DIY and building supply stores across the country within days of being launched. Today, GripIt Fixings is a global enterprise, with his products stocked in stores around the world. And Jordan is a popular motivational speaker. But beyond the glamour of the television studios and business success, there is a very different story to tell, as Jordan battled to overcome the legacy of a difficult childhood affected by dropping out of school at a young age, family feuds and periods of loneliness. This is Jordan's unflinching, heart-warming and ultimately uplifting story of how he overcame immense obstacles to achieve outstanding success as an entrepreneur. He reveals how he came up with ideas for his first businesses, describes how a business is built up from scratch, and shows how his tremendous work ethic and passion for business is at the heart of his success. Jordan Daykin's story will grip and inspire entrepreneurs of all ages.

This book delves into the research-policy nexus as it relates to development in Africa. It does so by examining four country-cases - Botswana, Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya and Zambia - while referring to South Africa as a possible exemplar case.

The book reaffirms that the majority of governments in Africa spend less than one per cent of their GDP on research and development (R&D) despite the commitment to raise their research funding levels contained in the Lagos Plan of Action (1980). Hence, reliance on external funding for research persists on the continent. To manage research engagements and public funds, Science Granting Councils (SGCs) have been established. These institutions are held accountable for how public funds are spent and how the research they fund contributes to the advancement of society.

To-date, the SGCs and researchers have demonstrated in various ways how funded research contributes to the advancement of society. However, there appear to be differences in opinion amongst key stakeholders in terms of what constitutes research priorities as well as expectations in terms of the returns on research investments made.

This book brings to the fore the importance of research and its outcome on societal development, and reveals the stake that African governments hold in the process. The book encourages African governments to show greater commitment to providing funding for research on the continent.

This is critical if governments are to assume a lead role in the continent's development agenda. It would also set the stage for partnerships with other stakeholders, including industry and funding organisations. Researchers are also encouraged to work closely with the SGCs to ensure the valorisation of research products for societal benefit. This has a potential to unlock more funding for research in Africa which, in turn, would drive the development of the continent.

Originally published in 1989 this study examines some new facets in the development of the iron industry in the USA between 1839 and 1921 through the study of an individaul form, namely the Thoms Iron Company, one of the leading merchant furnace companies. It charts the end of the anthracite iron age and the changes which brought about the advent of open-hearth steel and integrated steel works. The book discusses the problems the managers of the firm faced with the appearance of industrial innovations which tended to undermine their firm's very existence and provided a new set of optimal conditions necessary for the survival of the firm. It provides a clear understanding of the destructive forces of industrial innovation and the place of creative entrepreneurship in the survival of the firm.

In the twenty-first century technology has become global, and firms compete using knowledge and capital. The 'traditional firm' has a need for innovation and depends on efficient knowledge management to improve productivity. This book examines five firms that produce the same commodity, white chicken meat, in different parts of the world and under very different conditions. It brings to bear the expertise and international perspectives of the author team, utilizing theoretical discussions and case studies to address the question: How do local firms use knowledge to compete in an increasingly globalized world? This book will be of interest to any postgraduate student, researcher or policymaker hoping to achieve a firmer grasp of innovation and knowledge management: a recurring and highly pertinent theme in contemporary economics.

In June 2017, Travis Kalanick, the CEO of Uber, was ousted in a boardroom coup that capped a brutal year for the transportation giant. Uber had catapulted to the top of the tech world, yet for many came to symbolise everything wrong with Silicon Valley. In the tradition of Brad Stone's Everything Store and John Carreyrou's Bad Blood, award-winning investigative reporter Mike Isaac's Super Pumped delivers a gripping account of Uber's rapid rise, its pitched battles with taxi unions and drivers, the company's toxic internal culture and the bare-knuckle tactics it devised to overcome obstacles in its quest for dominance. Based on hundreds of interviews with current and former Uber employees, along with previously unpublished documents, Super Pumped is a page-turning story of ambition and deception, obscene wealth and bad behaviour, that explores how blistering technological and financial innovation culminated in one of the most catastrophic twelve-month periods in American corporate history.

In 1836, Charles Henry Harrod found himself in a prison hulk awaiting transportation to Tasmania for seven years' hard labour. He had been convicted at the Old Bailey of receiving stolen goods, and this should have been the beginning of the end for his fledgling business and his family. And yet, in miraculously escaping his fate and vowing to turn his back on crime, he would become the much esteemed founder of the now legendary Harrods in London's fashionable Knightsbridge district. Some years later Charles was succeeded by his son, who brought with him the necessary energy and drive to take the shop from a successful local grocer's to a remarkable and complex department store, patronised by the wealthy and famous. Robin Harrod's fascinating family story reveals the previously unknown origins of the store, and follows its remarkable fortunes through family scandal, the devastating fire of 1883 and its subsequent rise from the ashes, to the end of the nineteenth century when its shares were floated on the stock exchange, thus completing one of the most extraordinary comeback stories in the history of commerce.

Lukens Steel was an extraordinary business that spanned two centuries of American history. The firm rolled the first boiler plate in 1818 and operated the largest rolling mills in America in 1890, 1903, and 1918, Later it worked on the Manhattan Project and built the steel beams for the base of the World Trade Center. The company stayed in the family for 188 years, and they kept the majority of their business papers."The Language of Work" traces the evolution of written forms of communication at Lukens Steel from 1810 to 1925. As standards for iron and steel emerged and industrial processes became more complex, foremen, mechanics, and managers began to use drawing and writing to solve problems, transfer ideas, and develop new technology. This shift in communication methods - from 'prediscursive' (oral) communication to 'chirographic' (written) communication - occurred as technology became more complex and knowledge had to span space and time.This richly illustrated volume begins with a theoretical overview linking technical communication to literature and describing the historical context. The analysis is separated into four time periods: 1810 to 1870, when little writing was used; 1870-1900, when Lukens Steel began to use record keeping to track product from furnace, through production, to the shipping dock; 1900-1915, when written and drawn communication spread throughout the plant and literacy became more common on the factory floor; and 1915-1925, when stenographer typists took over the majority of the written work. Over time, writing - and literacy - became an essential part of the industrial process.

"In vivid detail... examines the little-known history of two extraordinary dynasties."--The Boston Globe "Not just a brilliant, well-researched, and highly readable book about China's past, it also reveals the contingencies and ironic twists of fate in China's modern history."--LA Review of Books An epic, multigenerational story of two rival dynasties who flourished in Shanghai and Hong Kong as twentieth-century China surged into the modern era, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist The Sassoons and the Kadoories stood astride Chinese business and politics for more than one hundred seventy-five years, profiting from the Opium Wars; surviving Japanese occupation; courting Chiang Kai-shek; and nearly losing everything as the Communists swept into power. Jonathan Kaufman tells the remarkable history of how these families ignited an economic boom and opened China to the world, but remained blind to the country's deep inequality and to the political turmoil on their doorsteps. In a story stretching from Baghdad to Hong Kong to Shanghai to London, Kaufman enters the lives and minds of these ambitious men and women to forge a tale of opium smuggling, family rivalry, political intrigue, and survival.

This book provides an authoritative study of interfirm and supplier relationships in leading Japanese industries, which thoroughly disrupts existing cultural stereotypes by pursuing a carefully crafted evolutionary and comparative perspective combined with compelling original research' - Geoffrey Jones, Harvard Business School, USThe goal of this path-breaking volume is to relativize the experience of Japanese industries in terms of both location and time, exploring its similarities and differences with other countries and its unique relationship with the global standard of company performance set by US firms. Yongdo Kim looks beyond organizational principles, overturns stereotypes, and covers a wide range of industries. In particular, this book focuses on the intertwining of the market principle and the organizational principle in interfirm relationships among the steel, machine tool, integrated circuit and liquid-crystal display materials industries, concluding that there is no such thing as 'Japanese uniqueness' in the history of interfirm relationships. This book compares several intermediate product industries within a global context to offer insights into the studies of businesses across the globe. Numerous interviews with key individuals in the Japanese steel, integrated circuit and machine tool industries offer unique and illuminating information. This analysis covers a broad range of firms by examining the relationships within large companies as well as smaller corporations. This fresh and varied analysis is a critical resource for both business practitioners and scholars of business history, business strategy, industrial marketing, product development management, and economic history.

This monograph narrates the decade-long struggle of workers, unions, and management in transforming one of the largest ailing family-owned jute businesses in India, into a sustainable worker-owned and governed cooperative. It focuses on the variation in the three groups' involvement in the transformation. It begins with the employees' struggles in taking over the business, deserted by its owners, to save their jobs. The study analyzes the tensions between the three groups in creating and maintaining democratic governance that would sustain the initial leap in employee participation in the transformation. The analysis reveals contradictions at multiple levels, starting with the unexpected outcome of information sharing with workers: increased information sharing by management resulting in decreased employee involvement. The study explains this paradox by showing that for workers, information has a symbolic nature and information sharing is a signal of their trustworthiness in the assessment of those who are privy to the information. This means involvement is contingent upon the feeling that the information that workers consider crucial is being shared with them. However, what workers consider crucial, and thus a symbol of trust, changes over time as the nature and breadth of their involvement evolves. Thus, worker expectation as well as management and union expectation of information sharing evolves. However, the evolution has the potential to create a mismatch between the two expectations that might lead to contradictions in employee involvement. While for management, information sharing is an instrument in eliciting involvement, and thus management's expectation of information sharing goes through an instrumental loop, for employees, information sharing is a matter of trust, and thus their expectation of information sharing goes through an institutional trust-based loop. To sustain high employee involvement, the organization should ideally institutionalize the trust-based loop and avoid engaging with the instrumental loop. The author proposes a collaborative approach to organizational transformation that will help deal with the contradictions more effectively, sustaining employee involvement in the transformation. The author also discusses the implications of these propositions for academic scholarship and organizational practices and situates them in the ongoing attempts to reform Industrial Disputes Act in India.

Building Blocks is the history of Buckeye CableSystem. Buckeye is part of a family empire started in 1900 by the son of an immigrant in upstate New York. This book is a fascinating tale of the family's progression into the fourth generation and through the myriad of daily newspapers, radio and television stations, cablevision firms, a telephone company, a fiber-optic construction company, and other related communications and advertising firms which the family owns or has owned. This book shows some of the trials and tribulations faced by family members as they employ a nimble strategy to compete with the industry behemoths. It also examines the unique factors that have spelled success for 50 years and looks at what the competitive future holds for smaller cable and Internet firms Buckeye's size.