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New business history?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

David J. Jeremy
Affiliation:
Manchester Metropolitan University

Abstract

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Type
Review Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 See his most recent work Scale and scope: the dynamics of industrial capitalism (Cambridge, MA, 1990), ch. 2 especially.Google Scholar

2 Coleman, D. C., ‘New business history for old?’, The Historical Journal, XXXV (1992), 239–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Jeremy, David J. and Shaw, Christine (eds.), Dictionary of business biography (6 vols., London, 19841986).Google Scholar

4 Gospel, Howard, ‘Managerial structures and strategies’ in Gospel, Howard and Littler, Craig (eds.), Managerial strategies and industrial relations (London, 1983).Google Scholar

5 Coleman, , ‘New business history for old?’, p. 244.Google Scholar

6 Wilson, Charles, The history of Unilever: a study in economic growth and social change (3 vols, London, 19541968)Google Scholar; Coleman, D. C., Courtaulds: an economic and social history (3 vols, Oxford, 19691980)Google Scholar; Supple, Barry, The Royal Exchange Assurance: a history of British insurance, 1720–1970 (Cambridge, 1970)Google Scholar; Reader, W. J., Imperial Chemical Industries: a history (2 vols, 19701975)Google Scholar; Barker, T. C., The glassmakers. Pilkington: the rise of an international company, 1826–1976 (London, 1977)Google Scholar; Payne, Peter L., Colvilles and the Scottish steel industry (Oxford, 1979)Google Scholar; Hannah, Leslie, Engineers, managers and politicians: the first fifteen years of nationalised electricity supply in Britain (London, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gourvish, T. R., British Railways, 1948–73: a business history (Cambridge, 1986)Google Scholar; Ashworth, William, The history of the British coal industry, vol. 5: 1946–1982: the nationalized industry (Oxford, 1986)Google Scholar. Access to the literature on ‘old’ and ‘new’ business history will be facilitated when the forthcoming International bibliography of business history edited by T. R. Gourvish and Francis Goodall appears.

7 Davenport-Hines, R. P. T., Dudley Docker: the life and times of a trade warrior (Cambridge, 1984).Google Scholar

8 A pioneering study in cross-company research was Boswell, Jonathan S., Business policies in the making: three steel companies compared (London, 1983)Google Scholar. Some of these questions were tackled in a number of the essays in the volumes reviewed by Professor Coleman, most reprinted from Business History. The series of volumes carrying reprints of articles relating to themes in business history is another source for some of this work. See Jones, Geoffrey (ed.), The international library of critical writings in business historyGoogle Scholar in which volumes have so far appeared on The growth of multinationals (ed. Wilkins, Mira)Google Scholar; Government and business (ed. Tolliday, Steven W.)Google Scholar; Mergers and Acquisitions (ed. Marchildon, Gregory P.)Google Scholar; Antitrust and regulation (ed. Burgess, Giles H. Jr.)Google Scholar; The rise of big business (ed. Supple, Barry E.)Google Scholar: Marketing (ed. Hollander, Stanley C. and Rassuli, Kathleen M.)Google Scholar; Coalitions and collaborations in international business (ed. Jones, Geoffrey)Google Scholar; Business elites (ed. Cassis, Youssef)Google Scholar; Technology transfer and business enterprise (ed. Jeremy, David J.)Google Scholar. So too are some of the essays in the Brown and Rose (eds.) volume, cited here in the next note.

9 See Tony Corley's and Mary Rose's essays in Brown, Jonathan and Rose, Mary B. (eds.). Entrepreneurship, networks and modern business (Manchester, 1993).Google Scholar

10 See Dellheim, Charles, ‘The creation of a company culture: Cadburys, 1861–1931’, American Historical Review, XCII (1985).Google Scholar

11 My postgraduate student John Griffiths is preparing a doctoral dissertation on this subject in the Management and Business Faculty at Manchester Metropolitan University.

12 An early foray into this topic on the other side of the Atlantic is Steinberg, Theodore, Nature incorporated: industrialisation and the waters of new England (Cambridge, 1991).Google Scholar

13 Pettigrew, Andrew, The awakening giant: continuity and change in ICI (Oxford, 1985)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Longitudinal field research on change: theory and practice’, Organisation Science, III (1990).Google Scholar

14 Christine Shaw's forthcoming analysis of the DBB, and Tony Slaven's analysis of the persons in Slaven, Anthony and Checkland, Sydney (eds.), Dictionary of Scottish business biography (2 vols, Aberdeen, 19861990) are examples of work in progress.Google Scholar

15 For an example of a simple use of the computer directed towards cross-linking two large populations (here business leaders and church leaders) see Jeremy, David J., Capitalists and Christians: business leaders and the churches in Britain, 1900–1960 (Oxford, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a more sophisticated example see Bostock, Frances and Jones, Geoffrey, ‘Foreign multinationals in British manufacturing, 1850–1962’, Business History, XXXVI, 1 (01, 1994).Google Scholar