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Since its inception in the late 19th century, Britain's mail order
industry both exploited and generated social networks in building
its businesses. The common foundation of the sector was the agency
system; Sales were made through catalogs held by agents, ordinary
people in families, neighborhoods, pubs, clubs and workplaces.
Through this agency system mail order firms in Britain were able to
tap social networks both to build a customer base, but also to
obtain vital information on credit worthiness.
In this, the first comprehensive history of the British mail order
industry, the authors combine business and social history to fully
explain the features and workings of this industry. They show how
British general mail order industry firms such as Kay and Co.,
Empire Stores, Littlewoods, and Grattan grew from a range of
businesses as diverse as watch sales or football pools. A range of
business innovations and strategies were developed throughout the
twentieth century, including technological development and labor
process rationalization. Indeed, the sector was in the vanguard of
many aspects of change from supply chain logistics to
computerization. The social and gender profile of the home shopper
also changed markedly as the industry developed. These changes are
charted, from the male-dominated origins of the industry to the
growing influence of women both within the firm and, more
importantly, as the centre of the mail order market. The book also
draws parallels and contrasts with the much more widely studied
mail order industry of the United States.
The final section of the book examines the rise of internet
shopping and the new challenges and opportunities it provided
forthe mail order industry. Here the story is one of continuity and
fracture as the established mail order companies struggle to adjust
to a business environment which they had partly created, but which
also rested on a new range of core competencies and technological
and demographic change.
Information Technology has become symbolic of modernity and
progress almost since its inception. The nature and boundaries of
IT have also meant that it has shaped, or become embedded within a
wide range of other scientific, technological and economic
developments. Governments, from the outset, saw the computer as a
strategic technology, a keystone of economic development and an
area where technology policy should be targeted. This was true for
those economies interested in maintaining their technological and
economic leadership, but also figured strongly in the developmental
programmes of those seeking to modernise or catch up. So strong was
the notion that IT policy should be the centre of economic strategy
that predominant political economic ideologies have frequently been
subverted or distorted to allow for special efforts to promote
either the production or use of IT. This book brings together a
series of country-based studies to examine, in depth, the nature
and extent of IT policies as they have evolved from a complex
historical interaction of politics, technology, institutions, and
social and cultural factors. In doing so many key questions are
critically examined. Where can we find successful examples of IT
policy? Who has shaped policy? Who did governments turn to for
advice in framing policy? Several chapters outline the impact of
military influence on IT. What is the precise nature of this
influence on IT development? How closely were industry leaders
linked to government programs and to what extent were these
programs, particularly those aimed at the generation of 'national
champions', misconceived through undue special pleading? How
effective were government personnel and politicians in assessing
the merits of programs predicated on technological trajectories
extrapolated from increasingly complex and specialised information?
This book will be of interest to academics and graduate students of
Management Studies, History, Economics, and Technology Studies, and
Government and Corporate policy makers engaged with IT and
Technology policy.
"Rivers and Society" explores the ways in which human/river
relations have shaped important historical transformation
processes. With examples ranging from explorations of classical
agrarian civilizations such as the Indus, Angkor and Maya, to
analyses of the role of water in the modernization process of
countries such as Spain, Britain and Japan, the international
contributors shed new light on the ways in which the key
relationship between humans and water has given rise to new forms
of social organization, new technologies and economic activities
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