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.

From Victoria Glendinning, winner of the Duff Cooper Prize, the James Tait Black Prize and (twice) the Whitbread Prize for Biography. 'It's Succession in tailcoats and spats ... This is a vivid and eye-opening group biography, backgrounded by the rise of supermarket moguls from humble beginnings' Sunday Times Who was John Lewis? What story lies behind the retail empire that bears his name? Behind the glass windows and displays of soft furnishing, this book reveals the family that founded the shops in all their eccentricities, and whose relationships became blighted by conflicts of epic proportions as their wealth bloomed. Born into poverty, John Lewis was orphaned at the age of seven when his father died in a Somerset workhouse. Dreaming of a better life, the young man travelled to London at the start of what would become a retail revolution. From early years as a draper's apprentice, we see how Lewis's first pokey little business opened on Oxford Street in 1864, and expanded as an emerging middle class embraced the department stores as a recreational experience. Prize-winning biographer Victoria Glendinning has had full access to the company and family archives to write this eye-opening story. She captures the toxic relationships that unfolded between Lewis and his two sons, Spedan and Oswald, as they collided over the future of their retail empire - their worst moments including emotional blackmail, face-slapping and a kidnapping - and much litigation between father and both sons. Yet the family never broke up and Spedan's vision of a Partnership model to act as an ethical corrective and foster a community of happier, more productive workers was eventually realised and survives to this day. With riveting personal detail, this brilliant group biography captures a rags-to-riches story and a tempestuous family saga, all unfolding against the dramatic social and political worlds of nineteenth-century London. The book concludes with an assessment of the position John Lewis holds in British sensibilities, and whether John Lewis and institutions like it have a place in our future.

The service sector occupies a dominant position in the Japanese economy, yet few studies have looked at the way the industry developed. This book, first published in 1992, focuses on the growth and development of a major world security and communications corporation, SECOM. The success of the company has been rooted in the management strategies of Makoto Iida, who has shaped the company from a small localized business to an international industry at the forefront of innovation. The book first looks at the background of Makoto Iida, offering an insight into the nature of an entrepreneur and the issues this raises within the context of Japanese management styles. It then follows the company development stage by stage, assessing the importance of individual creativity in adapting and implementing traditional management techniques. It shows how strategies for human resources, service quality, new technology, globalization and corporate restructuring evolve within the context of a growing organization, and includes an analysis of the innovative marketing techniques and product development processes needed to sell security services to one of the world's safest countries.

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.

Ever since it was founded in 1845, the Fratelli Branca Distillerie company has maintained a solid foothold in both domestic and international markets. Its unmistakable, bitter-tasting liqueur quickly became legendary with its combination of herbs and roots sourced from all over the world. The pioneering secret recipe, which is left to brew in oak barrels for over a year, soon made history under the name Fernet-Branca. Today the company continues to have its base in Milan, but exports its entire range worldwide thanks to a string of winning advertising campaigns, some of which have entered design and poster history in over a century of creative publicity. This book covers 170 years of the company's life through a richly illustrated historical account that documents the continued rise of the brand, and includes many of the more successful advertising campaigns, offering a handsome collector's album of historical coverage and archive material, including reproductions of poster-art and sketches from the 1960s and 1980s.

Changes in the dynamics of economic activities since the last decades of the 20th century have yielded major changes in the composition of industries and the division of labor and production across different regions of the world. Despite these shifts in the global economy, some industries have remained competitive even without relocating their operations overseas. Industries and Global Competition examines how and why the specificities of certain industries and firms determined their choice of location and competitiveness. This volume identifies the major drivers of this process and explains why some firms and industries moved to other parts of world while others did not. Relocation was not the sole determinant of the success or failure of firms and industries. Indeed some were able to reinvent themselves at their original location and build new competitive advantages. The path that each industry or firm took varied. This book argues that the specific characteristics of each industry defined the conditions of competitiveness and provide a wide range of cases as illustrations. Aimed at scholars, researchers and acadmeics in the fields of business history, international business and related disciplines Industries and Global Competition exmaines the unique questions; How and why did the specificities of certain industries and firms determine their choice of location and competitiveness?

The Making of Shareholder Welfare Society traces and accounts for the debates and discussions between law and economics scholars and mainstream legal scholars, management theorists, and economic sociologists. This is done in detail to demonstrate that the shareholder welfare society was built from the bottom up, beginning with theoretical propositions regarding alleged market efficiencies and leading all the way to the idea that a society characterized by economic freedom and efficiency maximization pave the way for uncompromised shareholder welfare, in turn being good for everyone. This book is of relevance for a variety of readers, including graduate students, management scholars, policy-makers, and management consultants, as well as those that are concerned about how the economic system of competitive capitalism is now in a position where it is riddled by doubts and concern, not the least as the levels of economic inequality is soaring. It addresses the topics with regard to corporate governance, accounting and society and will be of interest to researchers, academics, students, and members of the general public that are concerned about the economic system of competitive capitalism.

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.

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.

In 1962, Masahiro Shima founded Shima Seiki, with the aim of developing a fully automated seamless glove-knitting machine. Following this success, the company expanded into flat knitting machines. However, the age of the computer brought a whole new era for Shima Seiki. By committing to computerization in its mainstream products, Shima Seiki gradually began to stand apart from its competitors. Shima Seiki's focus on computer-aided knit design and programming, in fact led to a revolution in the fashion industry. Written by the inventor himself, this book looks at how Masahiro Shima developed both the technology and philosophy to enable his company to be market leaders in industrial knitting machines - and fundamentally change the fashion industry. This culminated in the launch of the company's Wholegarment knitting machine in 1995, which altered forever the way knitted garments are produced, and which today is used by fashion manufacturers across the world.

Strategy is becoming more 'open' - more transparent and more inclusive. Opening Strategy tells the story of how corporate strategists and strategy consultants have worked since the middle of the last century to open up the strategy process. First strategic planning, then strategic management, and now 'open strategy' have all brought more people into the strategy process and provided more strategic information, for the benefit of both business and society at large. Informed by interviews with corporate strategists and consultants at leading firms such as General Electric and McKinsey & Co, and drawing on the historical archives of strategy's pioneers, this book provides vivid insights into the trials and tribulations of practice change in the strategy profession. Above all, it stresses the hard work of the little recognized and sometimes eccentric individuals who have been leaders in practice change. By building on a wide range of illustrations, covering both successes and failures, the book draws out general lessons for practice innovation in strategy. Those studying the topic will be able to set standard strategy techniques in historical and social context and develop new areas for investigation, while practising executives and consultants should gain a sense of how to innovate in strategy - and how not to.

This book provides a collective view of the five major English chartered trading companies which were active during the period 1688-1763: The East India Company, the Royal African Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, The Levant Company, and the Russia Company. Using both archival and secondary sources, this monograph fills in some of the knowledge gaps concerning the less well-studied companies, and examines the interconnections between international rivalry, the financial operations of the companies, and politics which have not featured prominently in the historiography.

The Pennsylvania and the New York Central railroads helped to develop central Pennsylvania as the largest source of bituminous coal for the nation. By the late 19th century, the two lines were among America's largest businesses and would soon become legendary archrivals. The PRR first arrived in the 1860s. Within a few years, it was sourcing as much as four million tons of coal annually from Centre County and the Moshannon Valley and would continue do so for a quarter-century. The New York Central, through its Beech Creek Railroad affiliate, invaded the region in the 1880s, first seeking a dependable, long-term source of coal to fuel its locomotives but soon aggressively attempting to break its rival's lock on transporting the area's immense wealth of mineral and forest products. Beginning around 1900, the two companies transitioned from an era of growth and competition to a time when each tacitly recognized the other's domain and sought to achieve maximum operating efficiencies by adopting new technology such as air brakes, automatic couplers, all-steel cars, and diesel locomotives. Over the next few decades, each line began to face common problems in the form of competition from other forms of transportation and government regulation; in 1968 the two businesses merged. Branch Line Empires offers a thorough and captivating analysis of how a changing world turned competition into cooperation between two railroad industry titans.

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.

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.

From before the dawn of the twentieth century until the arrival of the New Deal, one of the most protracted and deadly labor struggles in American history was waged in West Virginia. On one side were powerful corporations and industrialists whose millions bought political influence and armed guards for their company towns. On the other side were 50,000 mine workers, the nation's largest labor union, and the legendary "miners' angel," Mother Jones. Attempts to unionize were met with stiff resistance. Fundamental rights were bent, then broken, and the violence evolved from bloody skirmishes to open armed conflict. The fight for civil rights and unionization in West Virginia verged on civil war and stretched from the creeks and hollows to the courts and the U.S. Senate. In The Devil Is Here in These Hills, celebrated labor historian James Green tells this story like never before.

Most stories of medical progress come with ready-made heroes. John Snow traced the origins of London’s 1854 cholera outbreak to a water pump, leading to the birth of epidemiology. Florence Nightingale’s care of soldiers in the Crimean War revolutionized medical hygiene. Yet focusing on individual innovators ignores many of the darker, unacknowledged sources of medical knowledge.

Re-examining the foundations of modern medicine, Jim Downs shows that the study of infectious disease depended crucially on the unrecognized contributions of conscripted soldiers, enslaved people, and subjects of empire. From Africa and India to the Americas, plantations, slave ships, and battlefields were the laboratories where physicians came to understand the spread of disease.

Boldly argued and urgently relevant, Maladies of Empire gives a long overdue account of the true price of medical progress.

Learn about one of the most impactful distilleries in American history in this comprehensive tale Buffalo, Barrels, & Bourbon tells the fascinating tale of the Buffalo Trace Distillery, from the time of the earliest explorations of Kentucky to the present day. Author and award-winning spirits expert F. Paul Pacult takes readers on a journey through history that covers the American Revolutionary War, U.S Civil War, two World Wars, Prohibition, and the Great Depression. Buffalo, Barrels, & Bourbon covers the pedigree and provenance of the Buffalo Trace Distillery: The larger-than-life personalities that over a century and a half made Buffalo Trace Distillery what it is today Detailed accounts on how many of the distillery's award-winning and world-famous brands were created The impact of world events, including multiple depressions, weather-related events, and major conflicts, on the distillery Belonging on the shelf of anyone with an interest in American spirits and history, Buffalo, Barrels, & Bourbon is a compelling must-read.

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 book reveals a great untold story of enterprise and innovation based on the relationship between the Victoria and Albert Museum, and Elkington & Co., the renowned industrial art and design manufacturer of the 19th-century. The Birmingham-based company pioneered and patented the industrial art of electro-metallurgy to create original artworks, perfect replicas, and mass-reproduced luxury consumer goods that used electricity to 'grow' metal into shape at a molecular level. This technological revolution created a profound legacy, which continues to influence the way modern material culture looks and operates today. Elkington's syntheses of science and art into industrial manufacturing processes revolutionized the design and production, replication and reproduction of precious metalwork, metal sculpture, and ornamental art metalwork. Elkington & Co. gained huge public acclaim at the Great Exhibition of 1851. They subsequently produced artworks and luxury goods, including world-renowned sports trophies like the Wimbledon Singles Trophies, as well as luxury dining services for great steamships and railways, including tableware that sank with the Titanic. Elkington played a crucial role in shaping and building the V&A's permanent collection from its foundation in 1852 (following the Great Exhibition) until the First World War. The V&A's collections in turn had a profound influence on Elkington's output. The great success of their relationship cemented both the museum's status as a leading cultural institution, and the E&Co 'makers-mark' as one of the world's first truly multinational designer brands. Elkington's electrical alchemy helped spark the electrical revolution that founded the modern world.