This article explores the activities in Russia, between 1889 and the Revolution of 1917, of J. & P. Coats, the British multinational firm that manufactured cotton thread. The main motive for Coats's local manufacturing in Russia was to avoid import duties. Manufacturing facilities were secured by means of a joint venture and acquisitions in St. Petersburg, Riga and Lodz. The Russian business was under the full control of the headquarters in Paisley, U.K., and this policy contrasts with the more decentralized management style preferred by many other British multinationals of the day. Despite the unstable political situation in Russia, Coats's mills performed better than their competitors, and accounted for some 90 percent of the national demand by the time they were confiscated in 1917.

The company union movement in the United States during the 1920s cannot be understood entirely in terms of employers' efforts either to block independent unionization or to foster greater worker loyalty through the paternalistic provisions of “welfare capitalism.” Company unions were institutional mechanisms by which workers voiced their concerns about shopfloor conditions to employers instead of exiting the firm. Evidence suggests that company unions led to both enhanced shopfloor productivity and safety, and were thus mutually beneficial for labor and management. Interestingly, however, the process by which they emerged was filled with conflict, historical contingency, and unintended consequences. Company unions were neither an inevitable nor even an intentional replacement for voluntary quits as a mechanism for addressing workers' shopfloor discontent.

By any measure, major-league baseball in North America surely qualifies as big business. The national pastime is a vital component of today's urban political economy, and baseball teams resemble other high-prestige businesses in that cities must compete for the privilege of hosting them—whatever their true worth. This article analyzes the transfer of the Milwaukee Braves baseball franchise to Atlanta in 1965 as the outcome of “competitive boosterism,” or the active participation of local elites in luring trade, industry, and investment from other cities for the purpose of economic development.