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Diversity in Diversity: Flexible Production and American Industrialization, 1880–1930
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 December 2010
Abstract
The following case studies and analysis of the machine tool and jewelry manufacturing industries attempt to set the stage for a reconsideration of “the other side of industrialization” in the United States during the Second Industrial Revolution—the custom and batch production sectors. Recognizing that much work remains to be done in this area, the author nevertheless concludes that the diversity of circumstances and responses characterizing these industries makes it unlikely that one theory can be adduced to explain their highly contingent world.
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- Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1991
References
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6 The distinction drawn between bulk and mass production is based on observing that, alongside the structured sequential systems for achieving throughput and uniformity (Hounshell, American System), less elaborate formats also operated in which staple products were created without throughput flows. Whereas mass production aptly covers the making of Model Ts or the canning of foodstuffs, bulk production may better suit the weaving of print cloths, cutting of dimensional lumber, or manufacture of nails. In these latter cases, no integrated machine system was involved, yet enormous volumes of goods were made for stock.
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8 Quantifying the role of batch production in overall industrial output is a difficult challenge, given the mix in many “industry” census categories of outputs from differing formats. A crude estimation, based on 1909 Manufacturing Census tables, suggests that custom and batch sectors contributed a bit less than one half the value added in manufacturing that year; Philip Scranton, “Industrial Formats and Prospects for Research in American Business History,” unpub. paper, 1991, tables 1–3.
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15 Here “scope” carries a meaning distinct from that employed in Chandler's recent Scate and Scope. There, scope seems to have been used in two ways, to refer to the addition of product lines by diversifying corporations and the extension of existing production capacities to manufacturing new and related items, both oriented to discovering goods with large market potential, a process that might be termed “scale-seeking” scope. Some batch firms pursued such strategies, and the multiple-format “bridge” giants all did so, but for most batch operations, achieving scope meant having a sufficient range of technology and skill on hand to take on novel products within a firm's chosen area of activity, learning from the experience in making them, and, at times, testing out new input materials, stylistic forms, or channels for contracting. The search criteria for them, if such a term be permitted, were not framed to yield products with large runs and large, durable market share, but to stretch the capacity of the enterprise to cover novel profit possibilities emerging from the uncertainties of technical or fashion shifts.
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22 In 1910 machine tool builders estimated that 80 percent of their trade was handled through dealers; Machinery 16 (1909–10): 872.
23 For detailed treatment of these relations in fashion textiles, see Scranton, Figured Tapestry, which also discusses the decline that emerged once a “permanent” buyers' market was institutionalized in the 1920s.
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44 My sense of contemporary labor union discourse is that leaders sought national presence and uniformity, but often without full understanding of the power of local specificities. Struggling for national wage and hours standards really made sense only in sectors that were product-standardized, but this was poorly perceived by union members and officers.
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56 Casanave Supply Company, Philadelphia, listed about 30,000 items in its 1929 catalogue, whereas the same city's Theo C. Ulmer offered over 20,000 in 1942, both handling factory supplies and equipment. Specialty printers, R. R. Donnelly and Sons of Chicago, better known for telephone books, were major printers of trade catalogues. As early as 1879, P. & F. Corbin's New Britain hardware products catalogue spanned 834 pages, up from 320 in 1871, Corbin sold direct from the factory and a New York office. P. & Corbin, F., History of the House of P. & F. Corbin (New Britain, Conn., 1904), 53–58, 63–65.Google Scholar
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61 Manufacturing Jeweler 28 (1901): 570. The catalogue firm was S. O. Bigney of Attleboro, Mass. In 1929, textiles and apparel represented 69 percent of department store sales versus 4 percent for furniture and 2.6 percent for jewelry, silverware, and books combined. Beekman, Theodore, The Changing Competitive Position of Department Stores (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1957Google Scholar; rev. ed., 1961), tables 14–16. On buyers, see also Henry, Robert, “The Changing Roles and Status of Department Store Buyers, 1870–1960” (Ph.D. diss., Syracuse University, 1965).Google Scholar For furniture, see Selby, John, “Industrial Growth and Worker Protest…High Point, N.C.” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1984)Google Scholar; Ransom, City Buüt on Wood; and Nicklason, Clarence, Furniture Distribution in the Midwest (Washington, D.C., 1932).Google Scholar
62 Scranton, , Figured Tapestry, 397.Google Scholar Furniture contracts for business were reported in Furniture Manufacturer and Artisans trade notes columns, with Jamestown companies strongly oriented toward office purchasers. Analogous reports on contracts for furnishing textiles to hotels, moving picture chains, and the like were printed in American Carpet and Upholstery Trade.
63 Jewelry's problems commenced before the First World War, as will be noted below, but fashion textiles, furniture, machine tools, and heavy transportation equipment had serious difficulties in the 1920s. On the other hand, batch specialists attuned to the parts needs of the auto and electrical sectors, firms often located in small cities and towns, expanded operations, making long runs of varied components and using lower skilled (and lower paid) labor than did earlier metropolitan batch companies. My thanks to the anonymous Business History Review referee for pointing out this variant, which has conceptual implications beyond the scope of this essay.
64 Scranton, , Figured Tapestry, 256–58.Google Scholar A 1909 report of a metal trade association discussion noted: “upon sounding the sentiment” of the different members as to what should constitute a fair percentage of profit to add to manufacturing costs to obtain selling prices[,] there was found to be but little difference between the highest and lowest estimates.” Metal Industry 8 (1910): 24. The markups averaged about 20 percent, from which selling expenses were to be deducted.
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66 For examples, see Manufacturing Jeweler 15 (1894): 3–4; Furniture Manufacturer and Artisan 62 (1911): 45–47, 240–42, 313; 78 (Jan. 1919): 20–222; Potter, H. D., Cost-Finding Principles for Furniture Factories (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1924)Google Scholar, esp. chap. 8. The key person in devising accounting methods for batch production, whereby costs could be tracked for multiple items in process, was Alexander Church. See his Proper Distribution of Expense Burden (New York, 1908); Production Factors in Cost Accounting (New York, 1910); and Overhead Expense (New York, 1930), among other works. On Church's place in the history of accounting, see Vangermeersch, Richard, The Contributions of Alexander Hamilton Church (New York, 1986)Google Scholar, and Johnson, H. Thomas and Kaplan, Robert, Rehvance Lost: The Rise and Fall of Management Accounting (Boston, Mass., 1987), 52–56.Google Scholar
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68 For response to the 1893 collapse by staple textile mills, see Scranton, , Figured Tapestry, 173–78Google Scholar, and for bulk watch movement makers, Manufacturing Jeweler 13 (1893): 146, 445.
69 Smith, Edwin, Reducing Seasonal Unemphytnent (New York, 1931), 212.Google Scholar See also Kuznets, , Seasonal Variations, 313–14.Google Scholar
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71 Scranton, , Figured Tapestry, 30–31Google Scholar; and see note 118 below. There is no mention, however, of similar rental practices at Grand Rapids, as the spatial requirements for case goods apparently were too great.
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79 Wagoner, , U.S. Machine Tool Industry, 362Google Scholar; Wing, , “Cincinnati Machine Tool Industry,” 217.Google Scholar These production figures are for metal-cutting machines only. In 1914 dollars, the 1918 output reduces to c. $100 million. If all metalworking machinery (including forges and presses) is considered, 1918 output reached $321 million ($145 million in 1914 dollars).
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82 Machinery 28 (1921–22): 425, 457, 873–74; 29 (1922–23): 357–58; Wagoner, , U.S. Machine Tool Industry, 121–29Google Scholar, 133–35, 362. In unit terms, 28,000 tools were shipped in 1927, 50,000 in 1929, and 5,500 in 1932 (136–37). See also Wing, , “Cincinnati Machine Tool Industry,” 240–43.Google Scholar
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87 Ibid., 2.
88 Wing, , “Cincinnati Machine Tool Industry,” 83–87Google Scholar, 185–90; Harris, Howell, “Getting It Together”; Engineering Magazine 17 (1899): 21–22Google Scholar (Orcutt). Lodge had been a journeyman machinist and president of the Mechanics' Union in the 1870s. He started in business in 1880 and his “rapid success encouraged many of his old friends” to follow his lead. Machinery 22 (1915–16); 375. See also Stewardson, , “Changing Technology,” 91–93.Google Scholar
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90 Ibid., 128.
91 For a full description of the system installed at Oberlin Smith's Ferracute Machine Company, near Philadelphia, see Parkhurst, Frederick, Applied Methods of Scientific Management (New York, 1912), esp. 126–29Google Scholar, 143–16.
92 Machinery 17 (1911–12): 394, 765. The quotes are from remarks by Ralph Flanders of Vermont, later NMTBA president. See also Stewardson, , “Changing Technology,” 62Google Scholar, and for an overview of particular tools, Woodbury, Robert, Studies in the History of Machine Tools (Cambridge, Mass., 1972).Google Scholar Cincinnati Milling Machine was the most dedicated “unit system” advocate.
93 Engineering Magazine 21 (1901); 586–90; Harris, “Getting It Together”; Wing, , “Cincinnati Machine Tool Industry,” 179–80.Google Scholar 230–37; NA, Records of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, RG 280, files 33/ 106 (Brown and Sharpe, 1915), 33/ 119, 33/ 529, 33/ 985, 170/ 804 (all Cincinnati, 1915–20). In Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Providence, metal trade groups sponsored labor bureaus that served to organize labor markets and to screen out unionists and strike veterans. Wing shows that war decade Cincinnati strikes, all failures, were followed by wage increases that brought local rates to eastern levels, eliminating a profitable, forty-year differential.
94 Machinery 2 (1895–96): 15; 3 (1896–97): 189; Engineering Magazine 12 (1896–97): 833; 18 (1899–1900): 572–84, 689–96 (Norris). For later accounts of pay system tangles, see Engineering Magazine 45 (1913–14): 566–70 and sources in note 40.
95 Machine tool employment in 1931 was 55 percent of the 1929 level, versus an all-industries average of 74 percent; “A Comparison of Selected Industries for the Years 1929 and 1931,” NA, RG 9, box 3498, file 103–22. See also T. D. Doan to Herman Lind, NMTBA, 4 Jan. 1934, in NA, RG 9, box 3497, file 103–9, and F. Seifert to W. H. Dillingham, National Research Project, 25 May 1936, in RG 9, box 3499.
96 Machinery 4 (1897–98): 101–9; 15 (1908–9): 299–301; 16 (1909–10): 223–24, 782–83.
97 Machinery 7 (1900–1901): 127–28; 17 (1910–11): 782, 872; 18 (1911–12): 265–67, 345–46, 755; 23 (1916–17): 677–78 (Heald).
98 Wagoner, , U.S. Machine Tool Industry, 93–97Google Scholar, 149; Sachs, , “Material Bearing on the Machine Tool Industry: Related Industries,” 2–3Google Scholar; Machinery 28 (1921–22): 452–53, 873–74; 29 (1922–23): 357–58; 30 (1923–24): 853–54; 32 (1925–26): 543–44.
98 Parkhurst, , Applied Methods, 22.Google Scholar
100 “Reports on 59 Machine Tool Builders, showing the influence of depressions,” tobies I and II, NA, RG 9, box 3498, file 103–22.
101 Sachs, , “Materials Bearing on the Machine Tool Industry,” 13Google Scholar, table II. That leading firms like Brown and Sharpe were “close corporations” with nominal stock issues (for B&S, $100,000, supporting employment of 4,500 workers in the 1930s) surely added to this flexibility. See also A. L. Faulkner to William Wilson, Secretary of Labor, 26 Oct. 1915, NA, RG 280, file 33/106.
102 Machinery 31 (1924–25): 359, 367; 32 (1925–26): 24, 238; 33 (1926–27): 138, 331–32; Wagoner, , U.S. Machine Tool Industry, 120Google Scholar, 151.
103 Of the 139 active machine tool firms whose dates of founding were recorded in a 1933 report, the pattern of new starts was as follows:
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Source: “Hearing on … Machine Tool Industry,” 2 Oct. 1933, 23–42, NA, RG 9, box 7523, file 1319–15. For the quoted matter and later surge of new starts, see Sonny, Jacob, “Technological Change in the U.S. Machine Tool Industry, 1947–1966” (Ph.D. diss., New School for Social Research, 1971), 23.Google Scholar
104 Landes, David, Revolution in Time (Cambridge, Mass., 1985).Google Scholar
105 Carsten, Oliver, “Work and the Lodge: Working Class Sociability in Meriden and New Britain, Connecticut, 1850–1940” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1981), 78–81Google Scholar, 87–92. See also U.S. Tariff Commission, Silverware (Washington, D.C., 1927).Google Scholar
106 Manufacturing Jeweler 1 (1884–85): 335, 397; 2 (1885–86): 169–70; 9 (1891): 268; 14 (1894): 12, 14, 16, 324; Frankovich, George, The Jewelry Industry (Cambridge, Mass., 1955), 9–10;Google Scholar New Jersey Commerce and Finance 2 (1906): 145; Parsons, Floyd, ed., New Jersey: Life, Industries, and Resources (Newark, N.J., 1928), 289–91.Google Scholar
107 Bovin, Peter, “A Study of the Contemporary Precious Jewelry Industry in New York City” (E. D. diss., New York University, 1975), 61Google Scholar; Manufacturing Jeweler 8 (1890–91): 318; 10 (1892): 284; 14 (1894): 414.
108 Manufacturing Jeweler 1 (1184–85): 173, 218; 2 (1885–86): 215; 3 (1886–87): 476; 29 (1901): 522.
109 Ibid. 4 (1887–88): 192–96; 13 (1893): 103, 391; 26 (1900): 56; Shapiro-Perl, , “Labor Process,” 52–54.Google Scholar Such household contractors could not afford shop rents, as in apparel outwork in New York or Philadelphia, and used family living spaces to set up their manufacturing efforts. For homework in clothing manufacturing at Philadelphia, and the union battle to eradicate it, see LaMar, Eiden, The Clothing Workers in Philadelphia (Philadelphia, Pa., 1940), 120–32.Google Scholar
110 Manufacturing Jeweler 24 (1899): 171; 26 (1900): 56; 28 (1901): 40; 29 (1901): 522.
112 By 1909, Rhode Island and Massachusetts held 471 firms and 17,000 workers, to which New York and New Jersey added 649 shops with 12,000 employees; Manufacturing Jeweler 49 (1911): 214; 50 (1912): 1382. For discussion of demoralization, see ibid. 50 (1912): 1064, 1154; 80 (9 June 1927): 16, 18; and for the sellers' market, ibid. 65 (1919): 374, 402, 546. Wartime attrition seems to have reduced the number of firms by half; ibid. 66 (1920): 1228, but new starts, both the fruit and the source of trade miseries, surged during the 1920s to reach a 1929 total of 1,536 firms. Sachs, Alexander, “Material Bearing on the Precious Jewelry Producing Industry,” 1Google Scholar, NA, RG 9, box 4409. Peak 1919 employment was 31,000, but fell below 24,000 by 1925 (ibid., 7). For earlier complaints about new firms' practices, see Manufacturing Jeweler 15 (1894): 3; 29 (1901): 155.
113 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Industrial Survey of Metropolitan Providence for 1926 (Providence, R.I., 1928), 4.Google Scholar For Newark troubles, see Journal of Finance and Industry 3 (1928–29): 58.
114 A gold surface mechanically plated around a core of base metal.
115 Frankovich, , Jewelry; Machinery 17 (1910–1911): 181–84Google Scholar; 18 (1911–12): 255–57; Manufacturing Jeweler 24 (1899): 15 (on Ferracute's presses for jewelers’ use); American Machinist 49 (1918): 47–52.
116 Manufacturing Jeweler 3 (1886–87): 210; 12 (1893): 395–96; 13 (1893): 711; 24 (1899): 362; 25 (1899): 486; 19 Oct., anniversary no., separately paginated [hereafter, AN]: 28–34; 29 (7 Nov. 1901, AN): 32; 56 (1915); 647; Metal Industry 13 (1915): 125–26, 336, 425–26; Modern Plastics 13 (Aug. 1936): 9–11, 54–56; 17 (July 1940): 32–35, 82. By 1934 three-quarters of costume jewelry was being made from plastics; Modern Plastics 17 (July 1940): 32. See also “Hearing on … Medium and Low Priced Jewelry,” 13 Oct. 1933, 447, 456–62, NA, BG 9, box 7247.
117 Sachs, , “Materials Bearing on Precious Jewelry Industry,” 6a.Google Scholar
118 Manufacturing Jewekr 4 (1887–88): 234, 578–84; 5 (1889): 140; 9 (1891): 306–22; 10 (1892): 284; 11 (1892): 871–72; 12 (1893): 592–600; 25 (1899): 28; 29 (1901): 91; (7 Nov., AN): 42–46; 49 (1911): 304; Commonwealth Massachusetts, of, 45th Annual Report on the Statistics of Labor (Boston, Mass., 1914), 90–109Google Scholar; U.S. Senate, 61st Cong., 2d sess., Report on Condition of Women and Child Wage-Earners in the United States (Washington, D.C., 1913), 18: 213–19, doc. no. 645; Children's Bureau, Department of Labor, Industrial Home Work of Children (Washington, D.C., 1922), 28–40, 58–72; B. Leinwand to General Hugh Johnson, 24 Feb. 1934, NA, RG 9, box 4414, file 130–24 (on continuity of bench rental).Google Scholar
119 Manufacturing Jeweler 57 (1915): 1126. By “card,” Makinson referred to the pasteboard backings on which cheaper jewelry was mounted for display in retail shops. This work was then done by apprentices and later by women.
120 Ibid. 2: (1885–86): 170, 215; 25 (1899): 277; 29 (1901): 380.
121 Ibid. 5 (1888–89): 307; 9 (1891): 803–4; 11 (1892): 253; 24 (1899): 59, 453–54; 25 (1899): 183–84, 260; 28 (1901): 590; 55 (1914): 492–94; 58 (1916): 940; 60 (1917): 201–2; 64 (1919): 144–46; 70 (1922): 269.
122 Ibid. 25 (1899): 210, 230, 243, 260, 264, 277, 284, 388, 420, 429; 31 (1902): 334, 380, 447, 512, 768; 32 (1903): 378, 386; 34 (1903); 128, 163, 228, 239–40; 49 (1911): 214; 65 (1919): 84, 128, 354, 590, 638, 686, 1026, 1078; 66 (1920): 38–39, 548; 67 (1920): 1024. After intensive 1902 organizing efforts, the 1903 strike plans aborted. The International Jewelers continued to have little success, especially in the eastern district, into the 1940s. See IJU, Report of the Proceedings of the Sixth Convention (Chicago, Ill., 1926)Google Scholar, and Report of the Ninth Convention (New York, 1942), 96, 258.
123 IJU, Monthly Bulletin, quoted in Shapiro-Perl, , “Labor Process,” 69.Google Scholar Skilled jewelers were paid by the hour or week, with piecework reserved for assembly, outwork, and related tasks usually assigned to women. As late as 1928, a New England survey found half the jewelry firms having “no employees on a piece work basis” and only 21 percent of all workers compensated by output; Manufacturing Jeweler 82 (2 Feb. 1928): 29. This pattern may help to account for the union's weak showing, as craft organizations used the advance of piecework and rate manipulations as a key argument for solidarity (for example, among machinists). The absence of this issue, the ease with which workers could become petty proprietors, and the large presence of women workers rarely considered worth organizing combined to frustrate unionizers’ efforts.
124 Manufacturing Jeweler 1 (1884–85): 7, 9, 19, 404.
125 Manufacturers advocated selling direct by 1884 and actively practiced it by 1888; ibid.: 9; 10 (1892): 283. On scheme and prize goods, see ibid. 3 (1886–87): 210, and for jobbers' boycotts, ibid. 5 (1888–89): 581, 587; 10 (1892): 283. For improved trade terms, see ibid. 6 (1890): 116–17, 197, 216.
126 Ibid. 3 (1886–87): 84, 174; 5 (1888–89): 193, 531; 9 (1891): 1207, 1327, 1363; 11 (1892): 417.
127 Ibid. 49 (1911): 329; 50 (1912): 334–36, 1064; 53 (1913): 1048–49; 55 (1914): 1006, 1142; 55 (1914): 838, 924; 57 (28 Oct. 1914, AN): 46–51; 58 (1916): 1180a; 70 (1922): 922, 934; 71 (1922): 1073; 76 (18 June 1925): 20–22; (17 Sept. 1925): 20; (5 Nov. 1925): 18–20; 80 (7 April 1927): 22; (9 June 1927): 11, 18.
128 Schurz, William, “Aftadavit” (Washington, D.C., 1935), 17Google Scholar, NA, RG 9, box 4409. Given the sample and duplicate form of jobbers' ordering, middlemen had retailers' confirmed orders in hand when they returned to arrange terms and prices. The ease with which styles could be copied by “mushroom” firms only added to the pressure for manufacturers' concessions. In real terms (1929 dollars), the earnings drop was 60 percent, with real product value down 64 percent; Schurz, , “Affadavit,” 13Google Scholar, adjusted using Series E-14, Historical Statistics of the United States. In Philadelphia textiles, real earnings, 1929–33, fell 37 percent and real product 43 percent; Scranton, Figured Tapestry, tables 6.9 and 6.10. See also Manufacturing Jeweler 82 (29 March 1928): 5; (1 Nov. 1928): 23. In the jobbers' defense, the retailers they served were among the worst merchandisers in the nation, averaging 1.5 stock turns annually (vs. six for department stores), and jobbers' bad debt losses were double those of wholesalers in other fields; ibid. 54 (1914): 939–40; 82 (7 June 1928): 13.
129 Manufacturing Jeweler 6 (1889–89): 222; 32 (1903): 269–70; 51 (1912): 217–18, 552, 1270, 1450; (24 Oct., AN): 68–70; 52 (1913): 378–82; 54 (1914): 170, 1193; Schurz, , “Affiidavit,” 17.Google Scholar
130 Manufacturing Jeweler 2 (1885–86): 170; 15 (1894): 494–96; 25 (1899): 429; (19 Oct., AN): 3, 28–34; 82 (2 Feb. 1928): 29; 84 (2 May 1929): 14; Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Jewelry Distribution (Washington, D.C., 1931), 26–33. A 1917 profile of 108 Attleboro and Providence firms showed the following pattern of founding dates:
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Source: Manufacturing Jeweler (5 April 1917, Attleboro issue): 20–76; 60 (1917): 883–89, 926–40, 1014–20, 1152–62. Long-lived firms started in both dull and prosperous periods, a contrast, however limited, with machine tools.
131 Batch specialists operating in isolated locations were constrained in layoff policies by the absence of alternative work opportunities for dismissed employees, the fear of their relocation, and the difficulties and costs of new recruitment when demand rose. In urban districts, laid-off workers could take their skills to other companies in die same or related sectors, in some eases shifting among firms with complementary seasonalities (as in textiles and radio at Philadelphia, c, 1920–40). The larger labor pool made rehiring less a problem, whereas aspiring entrepreneurs in the work force could, through job shifting, accumulate experience in varied trade branches. However, in cities where industry was dominated by a single sector or a few large corporations, these possibili ties were less marked.
132 “Lining” is the practice of gapped pricing by retailers (the $15, $22.50, and $30 men's suit), which forced suppliers to make goods for ranges of retail selling prices set in advance and downstream from factories. In the 1920s, Woolworth's (1,100 stores) spent $4 million yearly for five- and ten-cent goods, commanding nearly 10 percent of the cheap jewelry market. Department store and jobbing buyers sought $1, $3, and $5 lines, resisting makers' efforts to raise prices; Manufacturing Jeweter 68 (1921): 64; 86 (27 March 1930): 24.
133 The 1930s surge of plastics in cheap jewelry devalued metalworking machinery and skills, while bringing back casting, in its injection molding variant; Modern Plastics 13 (Aug. 1936): 55–56; 14 (May 1937): 70–72.
134 Makers of school, college, and fraternity jewelry were a partial exception. Josten's, Balfour, and others contracted directly with institutions and sent salesmen on rounds to test-market designs and gather orders. This subsector alone remained a solid performer into the Depression era. “Hearing on Medium and Low Priced Jewelry Industry,” 82–124.
135 Chandler, , Scale and Scope, 605–28.Google Scholar
136 For one effort at reassessment, see Best, Michael, The New Competition (Cambridge, Mass., 1990)Google Scholar, esp. chaps. 2 and 5.
137 What I have termed “bridge” firms in electrical manufacturing are an exception, and all the more fascinating for that. Similarly, a number of European “mixed format” giants (Siemens, I.G. Farben) drew creatively on a variety of production forms to generate enormous market power and technological momentum.
138 For seminal discussions, see Hodgson, Geoflrey, Economics and Institutions (Philadelphia, Pa., 1988)Google Scholar and Douglas, Mary and Isherwood, Baron, The World of Goods (New York, 1979).Google Scholar
139 Williamson, Oliver, The Economic Institutions of Capitalism (New York, 1985).Google Scholar
140 Granovetter, Mark, “Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness,” American Journal of Sociology 91 (1985): 481–510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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