Rise of the Modern Firm

Edited by Geoffrey Jones, Isidor Straus Professor of Business History, Harvard Business School and Walter A. Friedman, Director, Business History Initiative and Lecturer of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, US

‘This timely collection by two of the world’s most eminent business historians reviews the evolution of the modern firm from a geographical and chronological perspective. It demonstrates definitively how the strategy and organisational structure of the firm, together with the legal framework in which it operates, has adapted to the challenges posed by the rise of the high-technology global economy.’

• Contents:AcknowledgementsIntroduction Geoffrey Jones and Walter A. Friedman PART I WHAT IS A FIRM? 1. Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. (1992), ‘What is a Firm? A Historical Perspective’ 2. Mira Wilkins (1986), ‘Defining a Firm: History and Theory’3. S.R.H. Jones (1997), ‘Transaction Costs and the Theory of the Firm: The Scope and Limitations of the New Institutional Approach’PART II EARLY FIRMS4. Karl James Moore and David Charles Lewis (2000), ‘Multinational Enterprise in Ancient Phoenicia’5. Constance Jones Mathers (1988), ‘Family Partnerships and International Trade in Early Modern Europe: Merchants from Burgos in England and France, 1470–1570’6. Ann M. Carlos and Stephen Nicholas (1988), ‘“Giants of an Earlier Capitalism”: The Chartered Trading Companies as Modern Multinationals’PART III MODERN FIRMS 7. N. McKendrick (1960), ‘Josiah Wedgewood: An Eighteenth-Century Entrepreneur in Salesmanship and Marketing Techniques’8. Pat Hudson (1994), ‘Financing Firms, 1700–1850’9. Eric Hilt (2008), ‘When Did Ownership Separate from Control? Corporate Governance in the Early Nineteenth Century’10. Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. (1965), ‘The Railroads: Pioneers in Modern Corporate Management’11. Walter A. Friedman (1998), ‘John H. Patterson and the Sales Strategy of the National Cash Register Company, 1884 to 1922’ PART IV MATURE FIRMS 12. Edith T. Penrose (1960), ‘The Growth of the Firm – A Case Study: The Hercules Powder Company’13. Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. (1976), ‘The Development of Modern Management Structure in the US and UK’14. Richard Whittington, Michael Mayer and Francesco Curto (1999), ‘Chandlerism in Post-War Europe: Strategic and Structural Change in France, Germany, and the UK, 1950–1993’15. Robert F. Freeland (1996), ‘The Myth of the M-Form? Governance, Consent, and Organizational Change’ 16. Geoffrey Jones and Peter Miskell (2007), ‘Acquisitions and Firm Growth: Creating Unilever’s Ice Cream and Tea Business’ PART V VARIETIES OF FIRM 17. Madeleine Zelin (2009), ‘The Firm in Early Modern China’ 18. W. Mark Fruin (1980), ‘The Family as a Firm and the Firm as a Family in Japan: The Case of Kikkoman Shõyu Company Limited’19. Albert Carreras and Xavier Tafunell (1997), ‘Spain: Big Manufacturing Firms between State and Market, 1917–1990’ 20. Hartmut Berghoff (2006), ‘The End of Family Business? The Mittelstand and German Capitalism in Transition, 1949–2000’ PART VI LAW AND REGULATION 21. Peter L. Payne (1980), ‘Fields of Enterprise’22. Naomi R. Lamoreaux (1998), ‘Partnerships, Corporations, and the Theory of the Firm’23. William C. Kirby (1995), ‘China, Unincorporated: Company Law and Business Enterprise in Twentieth Century China’24. Aldo Musacchio (2008), ‘Can Civil Law Countries Get Good Institutions? Lessons from the History of Creditor Rights and Bond Markets in Brazil’ PART VII GLOBAL FIRMS 25. Mira Wilkins (1975), ‘Epilogue’26. Geoffrey Jones and Judith Wale (1998), ‘Merchants as Business Groups: British Trading Companies in Asia before 1945’27. Chiara Betta (2005), ‘The Trade Diaspora of Baghdadi Jews: From India to China’s Treaty Ports, 1842–1937’