Franco Amatori

Big Business and the Wealth of Nations

Written in non-technical terms, this book explains how the dynamics of big business have influenced national and international economies. A path-breaking study, it provides the first systematic treatment of big business in advanced, emerging, and centrally-planned economies from the late nineteenth century, when big businesses first appeared in American and West European manufacturing, to the present. Large industrial enterprises play a vital role in developing new technologies and commercializing new products in all of the major countries. How such firms emerged and evolved in different economic, political, and social settings constitutes a significant part of twentieth-century world history. This historical review of big business is particularly valuable today, when the viability of large enterprises is being challenged by small firms, networks, and alliances. These essays, written by internationally-known historians and economists, help one understand the essential role and functions of big business.

Business History Around the World

Acknowledgments List of contributors 1. Introduction Franco Amatori and Geoffrey Jones Part I. General Issues, Open Questions, Controversies: 2. Identity and the boundaries of business history: an essay on consensus and creativity Louis Galambos 3. Understanding innovative enterprise: toward the integration of economic theory and business history William Lazonick 4. Productive alternatives: flexibility, governance, and strategic choice in industrial history Jonathan Zeitlin Part II. Area Patterns: 5. Business history in the United States at the end of the twentieth century William J. Hausman 6. British and Dutch business history Geoffrey Jones and Keetie E. Sluyterman 7. Scandinavian business history at the end of the 1990s: its prior development, present situation, and future Hakan Lindgren 8. Business history in German-speaking states at the end of the century, achievements and gaps Harm G. Schroter 9. Business history in France Youssef Cassis 10. Business history in Italy at the turn of the century Franco Amatori and Giorgio Bigatti 11. Business history in Spain Albert Carreras, Xavier Tafunell, and Eugenio Torres 12. Business history in Greece: the state of the art and future prospects Margarita Dritsas 13. The state of business history in Japan: cross-national comparisons and international relations Akira Kudo 14. Chinese business history: its development, present situation, and future direction Chi-Kong Lai 15. Business history in Latin America: issues and debates Maria Ines Barbero Part III. Comparative Business History: 16. Family firms in comparative perspectives Andrea Colli and Mary B. Rose 17. Multinationals Geoffrey Jones 18. Business-government relations: beyond performance issues Mathias Kipping 19. The opportunities for business history at the beginning of the twenty-first century Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. Index.

Entrepreneurial Typologies in the History of Industrial Italy: Reconsiderations

The market types that were the subject of an earlier essay in the Review are resurveyed in order to examine the changes that have occurred over the past fifty years. The entrepreneurial typologies identified then–one based on a market orientation, another that relies on state support, and a third, hybrid, approach–are still valid today. The liveliest components of the modern Italian economy, which operate as a fourth type of capitalism (mainly based on industrial districts), share features of the market typology, while, in southern Italy, the states failure to support business is linked to the rise of organized crime. The more recent hybrid type features a new kind of actor, exemplified by Silvio Berlusconi, the central figure on the Italian political scene for almost two decades.

Business history as history

I would like to thank Harm Schroeter and his colleagues on the organising committee for the honour of being able to stand before you today and deliver this keynote address. As many of you know, I have a strong intellectual – and emotional – attachment to the European Business History Association which, over the past 12 years, has been for me a great source of personal and professional encounters. I will be quite frank: I consider us to be a very fortunate group of scholars because we are really working in an exciting field – business history. Think, for instance, of what might be considered the four most important developments of the past half century. I would suggest that they are:

Entrepreneurial Typologies in the History of Industrial Italy (1880–1960)

Those who in the past twenty years have examined the historiography of industrial Italy cannot help but recognize its “backwardness” when compared to similar studies in other countries, particularly those of American entrepreneurial history. Various reasons have been given to justify this “backwardness,” such as the excessive humanistic tradition of Italian historical studies, the relatively scarce statistical data available on Italian industry, and the poor condition of industrial archives. But, above all, it has been observed that “enterprise,” “entrepreneurs,” and “entrepreneurship” are concepts not especially sympathetic to Italian historiographical culture. First, there is an ideological suspicion, which suggests that to investigate these topics implies per se a favorable attitude. Second, there is a diffuse conviction according to which it is necessary to utilize explanations other than free initiative, and, particularly to stress the role of the State, in order to understand Italian economic development.

Italian Firms in History: Size, Technology and Entrepreneurship

The economic performance of a country depends, among other things, on the strategies and structures of its firms. In the framework that is designed by institutions and policies and determined by technology and macroeconomic cycles, entrepreneurs decide how to allocate available resources in order to face off competitors and to hook up with demand cycles. This paper looks at the evolution of the Italian economy across the last 150 years from a business history perspective. Analyzing Italian firms over the long-term cycles of the global economy and with respect to the different paradigms of the three industrial revolutions, we identify some structural features that explain successes and failures of the Italian economy. In doing this we explicitly connect the micro level of the business enterprise to the macro one of the national business system and explain the comparatively good performance of the Italian economy from the end of the 19th century to the 1970s. Over the last three decades this performance has turned negative, highlighting the role played by the small average size of firms and the failure of institutions to provide incentives for growth.

European Corporations: Ownership, Governance, Strategies and Structures. A Review of Five Countries: United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Spain

The focus of this chapter is on large firms, for which the convergence/divergence patterns in ownership and governance are more easily detectable. Thus (notwithstanding their well known relevance) a distinctive section of the European enterprise apparatus, i.e. the world of the small and medium-size companies and of local production systems will be left aside. Consequently, we will concentrate on the top section of each country’s rankings of manufacturing enterprises by turnover, even if some of the data collected in the secondary sources we utilise refer to other rankings (e.g., the top listed corporations). We must say however that in general they overlap almost completely with the list of top corporations by total sales.

State and Enterprise: The Case of SOEs in Europe in the Twentieth Century

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) had a great relevance along the twentieth-century history of European economies. A very important issue is the role played by politics in the various European states. In the strong core of European capitalism, SOEs managed by the “right hands” enjoyed a substantial amount of independence. But at the dawn of the current era of globalization, SOEs declined in most European countries.

Two Lives Both Parallel and Divergent: Pasquale Saraceno and Giorgio Fuà

These biographical sketches of two well-known Italian public managers highlight both their similarities and their very different visions. The two protagonists acted in a scenario in which the challenge was to fill the development gap between countries. In the 1950s, the main instrument to cope with that challenge was the State intervention. Saraceno remained strictly coherent with this vision; its failure left him in a sort of intellectual desperation. Fua, instead, was more careful to grasp the new aspects of the Italian economy, leading the way to the discovery of Italy’s industrial districts.

Industrial Policy and the Role of MITI in Japan

In the interview granted to Amatori and Molteni, Shinji Fukukawa, for a long time Vice-Minister of the powerful Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), retraces the role of the Ministry in guiding Japanese industrial economy. In the 1950s and 1960s, MITI effectively ran much of Japanese industrial policies, with the major objective of strengthening the country’s industrial basis, not differently from what other governments were doing through the instrument of State-owned enterprises (SOEs). The Ministry acted both as an arbiter and a regulator, providing private industries with guidelines on technological investments and on crucial competition challenges. Fukukawa underlines the vision inspiring MITI and also illustrates the working of MITI from inside, focusing on the relationships between its officials and private managers.