Gordon Boyce

The development of modern business

History and Theory of the Growth of the Firm Entrepreneurship and Management Information and Uncertainty Corporate Finance Labour Management Production Marketing Structure Inter-organisational Relations and Co-operative Structures International Business Government and Business Future Directions in Business History

Information and Uncertainty

Today, there is much speculation about the formidable opportunities and challenges presented by new communication technology. The internet is expected to cause national markets to become integrated into a global arena by lowering the cost and enhancing the speed of making transactions. At the same time, the ‘boundary units’ shown in Figure 1.4 are confronting a growing flood of information about environmental conditions. The need to process this data and make it accessible to decision-makers is compelling firms to invest in ‘knowledge-management’ systems and ‘intranets’. Moreover, the internet is spawning ‘virtual firms’ run by a core of entrepreneurial specialists linked by e-mail to knowledge workers who contract to perform specific tasks. What these unfolding trends reveal is that changes in communication technology have a direct impact on the institutional arrangements included in Figure 1.2. Simultaneously, they enlarge markets, increase the span of corporate control, and encourage the proliferation of cooperative structures.

Language and Culture in a Liverpool Merchant Family Firm, 1870–1950

Ethnographic methods are applied to this investigation of the links between language and business culture found in letters exchanged in the 1880s, 1900s, 1930s, and 1940s among members of a long-lived family-owned business. The letters are contained in three sets of correspondence between three different generations of the Bates family, who were merchants, shipowners, and private bankers based in Liverpool. The aim is to develop a different perspective from which to consider communicating processes, business culture, social mobility, and the socialization of managers. The study invites consideration of the appropriateness of accepted behavioral assumptions attributed to economic actors and the significance of judgment and instinct in decision-making.

64thers, Syndicates, and Stock Promotions: Information Flows and Fund-raising Techniques of British Shipowners Before 1914

Analysis of British capital market operations before 1914 has focused on institutional and investor behavior without fully considering entrepreneurial conduct. Consequently, those who argue that industrial performance was impaired because capital flows were obstructed by information blockages have overlooked the role company owners could play in shaping communication lines. The fund-raising techniques used by shipowners reveal that private capital attracted through preferential communication channels supported the rise of large-scale enterprise. Founders were not motivated by supply constraints, nor did they forego profits to retain control. Rather, shipowners created asymmetric information flows to attract resources and shape institutional development. The debate concerning whether Britains financial mechanisms contributed to its relative decline in competitiveness before 1914 has focused primarily on factors affecting the supply side of capital flows. For example, W. P. Kennedy argued that resource allocation was impeded by risk-averse investors, while Michael Best and Jane Humphries suggested that underdeveloped institutional instruments

The Development of Commercial Infrastructure for World Shipping

The chapter examines the development of elements that in combination provided vital commercial infrastructure for the global shipping industry. Specifically, it discusses the roles of key institutions, such as the Baltic Mercantile and Shipping Exchange, Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, the Lloyd’s of London insurance market and various commodity and financial markets, in facilitating exchanges needed to sustain oceanic transport. In addition to these institutions’ formal attributes, for example, their constitutions and rules, the discussion considers their informal characteristics, including the customs, routines and behavioural patterns observed by participants. Together, these formal and informal institutional arrangements have supported shipping by disseminating information, reducing uncertainty and mitigating transaction costs associated with this volatile industry.1 The chapter also pursues a secondary, somewhat abstract aim; it explores how markets operate and attempts to show how various mechanisms have generated efficiencies.

Institutional Development in Maritime and Business History

In writing this response, I am fortunate to have the benefit of not only post-publication hindsight but also the valuable insights offered by this distinguished panel of maritime experts. The reviewers have observed that Information, Mediation and Institutional Development attempted to address five broad problems. I will comment on each in turn, while also responding to the more detailed suggestions and criticisms. First, when I began my research, much of the work on shipping enterprise consisted of single-firm studies, and a number of these were mainly narrative. For these reasons, there appeared to be scope for a more comprehensive study that made an attempt to apply theory in a more rigorous fashion. Second, the history of British maritime enterprise seemed to be considered as a distinct sub-set of business history. I therefore wondered if there was a way to integrate it more closely into the mainstream business history literature. Third, Chandlers transactioncost perspective seemed ill-suited to analysing Britains maritime sector (and perhaps British business as a whole) in the 1870-1945 era. This led me to wonder if there was an alternative framework that provided greater explanatory power? Fourth, once I decided that principal-agent theory and network analysis might serve the purpose, I began to think about how to extend, rather than simply apply, these approaches. Focusing explicitly on information flows and communication pointed to a way of placing business more directly in a wider social and cultural context. Fifth, many of the debates surrounding Britains institutional fabric between 1870 and 1914 (in particular the discussions concerning regulation, operating ties, financial markets, investment flows, management development and entrepreneurship) appeared to miss the mark when one considered the highly successful shipping sector. If these debates could be approached from the perspective of how institutional arrangements were shaped by underlying information channels, accepted

Maritime Networks, History of

This article examines the dynamics and forms of networks used in world shipping from the sixteenth century to the present day. It begins with a theoretical exposition of network structures, ethical standards, and internal functions in order to develop a basis for analyzing how these cooperative constructs were employed by British, European, American, and Japanese shipping enterprises. The article also explores the impact of technical and legal changes, especially the recent introduction of containerization, new shipbuilding methods, logistics, and computerization.

The Professions as Systems that Support Transactions Involving Knowledge: Their Contribution to Economic Development and their Response to the Growth of Global Markets

This chapter examines professions as systems that support transactions involving knowledge. With respect to transactions with clients, professional bodies facilitate such exchanges by validating knowledge, creating brands and establishing a price. The associations also rely on network structures to effect exchanges of knowledge and know-how among practitioners, and they operate as communicating nodes when interacting with outside constituents, including other professional groups, governments and regulatory agencies.

Entrepreneurship and Management

The role of the entrepreneur is today regarded as crucial in the success of the business enterprise, a perception that has not always existed. How that role is fulfilled most effectively, though, remains a matter for much contention. The postwar ascendancy of many Japanese firms was particularly associated with long-term strategic planning through shared decision-making. Entrepreneurial skills were concentrated on a narrowly focused individual firm and its enterprise group within a local setting. Emphasis was placed on strategies that were market-driven, fostered close interfirm relationships, and empowered employees. The dominant Westernised, or at least American, paradigm has been somewhat different. It emphasised broad generic management skills in large diverse corporations, with decision-making concentrated in elite head offices that oversaw wide geographic empires and concentrated upon performance-monitoring and problem-solving.

Government and Business

Governments have played a pervasive role in the economies of many nations. Such roles have periodically included that of facilitator (economic development and stabilisation, role model, information conduit), arbitrator (competition, regulation, corporations law, property rights) and participant (buyer and seller of goods and services). In a sporting analogy we can say that the state has been coach, referee and player; sometimes all three!