Frank B. Tipton

“Thumbs‐up is a rude gesture in Australia”

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider the role of culture in international business studies, viewed from the perspective of textbooks in the field.Design/methodology/approach – This paper analyses the separate chapters on the role of culture in 19 survey texts in international business at three levels: factual assertions; social and historical interpretations; and application of general theories.Findings – Although all textbooks in international business emphasize the importance of culture, the survey reveals serious weaknesses at all three levels, including straightforward errors of fact, more subtle errors of interpretation, and serious problems with definitions and application of theories of cultural difference. The weaknesses are strikingly consistent, and the paper examines a range of possible common causes. Imbricated in the professional structures of the field, the authors appear to be under pressure from publishers, they share a US‐centred bias, and they appear professionally isolated...

Farm Labor and Power Politics: Germany, 1850–1914

Understanding the political impact of economic growth requires knowledge of the timing of structural changes within a national economy. The decline of agricultures share in the national economy and variations in regional economic structures are of particular importance. The corrected figures on farm employment discussed in Section II indicate that between 1861 and 1907 the share of agriculture in national employment in Germany declined considerably more rapidly than appears in the census results; regional shares also tended to diverge from each other and from the average throughout the period. New international competition and the thrust of urban and industrial development required regional readjustments within German agriculture. They also made it progressively more difficult for agricultural regions to compete for resources and markets without outside help. In the absence of internally generated pressure from commerce and industry, the elite in the eastern regions of Prussia opposed outside help whenever it threatened the local economic structure. The result was to increase the dependence of the regions labor for jobs on relatively declining regional industry. The response of the landowners to these changes in turn strongly influenced national political groupings. The whole experience laid a foundation for the reaction in German political life to the social discontents and economic miseries of the First World War and decades following.

An economic and social history of Europe, 1890-1939

Introduction - Economic Development in Europe before the First World War - European Expansion: The Gold Standard and Imperialism - European Society in the Belle Epoque - Politics and Ideology before 1914 - The First World War - Economic Development from 1918-39 - Europe and the World between the Wars - European Society from 1918-39 - European Politics from 1918-39 - Epilogue - Maps - A Guide to Further Reading - Index

The Continuing Crisis

The experience of the 1970s and 1980s contrasted sharply with that of the 1950s and 1960s, though again the suspicion that conditions might have changed spread only gradually. A recession in 1970–71 was quite widespread and long-lasting, and Swedish output actually declined, but the boom seemed to return in 1973. Then in 1974–75 total output declined in nearly all western European countries for the first time since the 1930s. Another boom year followed in 1976, but recession returned in 1977 and again from 1979 to 1982, when most countries experienced declines in output. ‘Recession’ began to sound less like an analytical concept and more like an official euphemism intended to divert attention from some unpleasant facts. In all western European countries average rates of growth of total output were lower and fluctuations in the rates greater during the 1970s and 1980s than during the late 1950s and 1960s. Some of the contrasts were striking; for instance, during the 1970s Swiss industrial output grew at less than one-tenth the rate maintained during the 1960s. Moreover, though the eastern European economies had continued to expand relatively rapidly until the mid-1970s, beginning in the late 1970s they too slowed.

Government Policy and Economic Development in Germany and Japan: A Skeptical Reevaluation

Recent studies, when taken together, suggest that the bureaucratic elites of nineteenth-century Germany and Japan were much less successful in stimulating economic development than has been traditionally asserted. Direct government investment was neither extensive nor successful. Government-sponsored institutional change, notably in financial structures, had little if any beneficial impact. Development in both nations resulted from the gradual emergence of a commercial culture, and on world factors exogenous to government policy. The bureaucratic elites failed to adjust to changed circumstances, instead leading both nations into disastrous wars. These results call into question development strategies based on central government control.

Book Review: The Rise of Historical Economics and Social Reform in Germany 1864–1894

Although the author covers almost all the important aspects of Peters’ life, this study remains concise and to the point. Perhaps one criticism can be made, namely that the book deals too briefly with the central question as to how this man, who had failed to join the Prussian army and had abandoned his ambition to become a professor of philosophy, was transformed under African conditions and in an extremely short period of time into a desperado with a criminal character. It would have been worthwhile, without going into any profound individual psychological analysis, to devote a few pages of the book to the mentality of the German Protestant educated class.

The Great Boom

Western Europe slipped from the period of reconstruction into an unprecedented boom, but observers adjusted to the new situation rather slowly. By 1948 or 1949 industrial output in all countries already exceeded its prewar level, but growth rates were expected to drop once the ‘recovery phase’ ended. In 1950 and 1951 the Korean War created a sudden worldwide increase in demand for raw materials and machinery, but this was regarded as a temporary phenomenon. American pressure for rearmament further stimulated demand, but in the absence of cuts in consumption the continued boom was generally seen merely as dangerously inflationary. By the late 1950s the boom showed no sign of ending, and economists began to turn to their shelves for copies of works offering explanations of long periods of economic growth. The boom persisted through the 1960s. It was interrupted on four occasions, in 1952, 1956–58, 1963 and 1967. However, these interruptions were not traditional ‘depressions’, but ‘recessions’, years in which output continued to grow, but at rates somewhat lower than those which Europeans came to see as ‘normal’. In 1958 total output declined in Belgium, Eire and Norway; these were the only three cases in which output declined in any western European country during any of the four recessions.

The National Consensus in German Economic History

The beginning student of German economic history, should he happen to read more than one text, may be pardoned a certain sense of confusion. General texts agree that Germany became an industrial power, but there remains a remarkable uncertainty as to when this occurred. “During the period from 1870 to 1914 Germany was transformed from a predominantly agrarian to a predominantly industrial state,” asserts Koppel Pinson. He explicitly dismisses the 1850s as a “prelude,” but Ralph Flenley insists that “the real ‘foundation time’ came earlier, most markedly in the fifties….Not the railways alone but the whole economic framework of modern Germany arose during the period before 1870.” In a recent short synthesis of German economic history, Knut Borchardt warns that “experts still disagree” over the beginning date of the “foreward leap.”

The Impact of China on the Electrical and Electronics Industry in Southeast Asia

Technology, and especially high technology, has an almost mystical value in the contemporary world. Developing nations place great hopes in high-tech industries, both as sources of growth and as markers of successful entry into the ranks of advanced economies. The electrical and electronics industry is one such, but the picture is problematic. China and the countries of Southeast Asia are emerging economies. They compete for foreign investment, and multinational firms are adroit in the exploitation of the resulting “tournaments” among would-be host countries. Domestic firms face daunting competition from the major established firms from the United States, Europe, and Japan, and from second-tier firms from Taiwan and South Korea. Further, in the high technology area the role of the individual entrepreneur has been crucial over the past generation, but in both China and Southeast Asia the possibilities for entrepreneurial activity are severely restricted by political and social structures. China has the advantage of size, but in the longer run its future depends not only on the progress of technology, but also on ongoing reforms in legal systems, corporate governance, and possibly broader national cultural traits.

Government and the economy in Japan: the Japanese model of development

Craig Freedman (ed). Economic Reform in Japan: can the Japanese Change? Cheltenham and Northampton: Edward Elgar, in association with the Centre for Japanese Economic Studies, Macquarie University, Australia, 2001. xii, 231 pp. A