Kevin D. Tennent

Peterson and Berger revisited: Changing market dominance in the British popular music industry, c.1950-80

In studies of the popular music industry, there has been much interest in the market share of the leading firms (majors), and the apparent connections between a high level of concentration and musical innovation and diversity. Peterson and Berger argued that in the United States the majors lost market share to independent companies in 1955–62, then recovered their position to 1973. This article uses a newly-constructed database and concentration measures to test the proposition in relation to Britain for 1952–75. We find that British majors also lost market share, but the process started much later, and was not followed by a recovery. Instead, American majors entered the market directly from the late 1960s.

A distribution revolution: Changes in music distribution in the UK 1950–76

Little business history has been written on the popular music industry while sociological study has tended to focus on the effect of the industry on society. This paper concentrates on how recorded popular music reached the customer, charting the evolution of the industry in the UK from a cartel structure distributing only to specialists, into an industry which allowed upstream entry freely but increasingly emphasised large-scale distribution through mass retailers by the mid-1970s. The paper examines the structure of music distribution in the UK prior to 1965 and how the industry adapted its distribution strategy to the changing environment after 1965.

International taxation and corporate strategy: evidence from British overseas business, circa 1900–1965

In this article we establish the impact and importance of international taxation on British overseas business circa 1900 to 1965. As the levels of national taxation rose across the twentieth century, different states began to compete for taxable income. This created international double taxation whereby taxation was due twice on the same income or profit. We examine the difficulties that this caused and the responses of firms to this challenge, through the adoption of tax-minimisation strategies, alterations to corporate structure, and the relocation of corporate domicile. We discuss how international taxation was one of the secular changes in the international business environment that contributed to the rise of large-scale multinational enterprises. We conclude by making a call for greater consideration of international taxation in international business history.

Beer and the boro - A perfect match!

Although football clubs (FCs) as firms are relatively unsustainable from a purely financial perspective, the club brands appear highly sustainable in comparison with many other industries (Kuper and Szymanski, 2012). While the ownership and the companies running the clubs may change, the club brands themselves appear to be more stable than in other industries where firms and brands go out of business, relocate or diversify to a far greater extent (e.g. Hannah, 1997). This may be because they are less vulnerable to competition — FCs have historically been geographic, and while their catchment area may shrink during less successful periods, it will not disappear entirely. Furthermore, rival foreign clubs do not enter and supply soccer at lower prices (although foreign investors may bid to take over the ownership) and although English clubs as a whole could fall behind foreign competitors and lose their best players, foreign clubs have their own problems of finance and management (Kuper and Szymanski, 2012). Put succinctly, society can keep unprofitable clubs going cheaply: bank managers and tax collectors have historically appeared reluctant to close century-old clubs -and so society swallowed the losses. Perhaps clubs were and still are too small to fail. At the same time, the brand loyalty of supporters means that no matter how lousy the product, a hard core of customers will continue to purchase: “Soccer is more than just a business. No one has their ashes scattered down the aisle at Tesco” (Taylor, 1998, cited by Kuper and Szymanski, 2012, p.82).

Shadow hybridity and the institutional logic of professional sport: Perpetuating a sporting business in times of rapid social and economic change

Purpose Existing studies of the finance of English Association Football (soccer) have tended to focus on the sport’s early years, or on the post-1992 Premiership era. We examine a case from the turbulent 1980s charting the struggle for economic survival of one club in a rapidly changing financial, economic, political, and demographic landscape. Design/methodology/approach We investigate the financial difficulties of a sport business, Middlesbrough Football and Athletic Company Limited (MFAC), examining the broader economic context, drawing on unseen archival sources dating from the 1980s to analyse the relationship between club, local and national government, and the regional economy. Findings We examine not only the financial management of the football club but also analyse the interventionist role of the local authority in supporting the club which had symbolic value for the local community. Practical implications This paper is relevant to policy makers interested in the provision of local sports facili...

Dynamic Sublimes, Changing Plans, and The Legacy of A Megaproject: The Case of the 1966 Soccer World Cup

Global sporting events such as the FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) World Cup have been described as megaprojects. The motives of decision makers for undertaking megaprojects are summarized by Flyvbjergs (2012, 2014) “four sublimes,” which lack a temporal dimension. We utilize a case study of the 1966 FIFA World Cup in England, applying the three levels of project management identified by Morris and Geraldi (2011), refined through Flyvbjergs four sublimes, to analyze the shifting nature of stakeholders’ motives. We evidence that Flyvbjergs sublimes are dynamic in response to change during the project timeline, creating new insights into project development and opportunities for research into historic projects.

Adolf Berle’s Critique of US Corporate Interests in the Caribbean Basin

The expansion of the USA into a global economic power began with the extension of its influence over the Caribbean and subsequently Latin America. This was not an accidental process and was instead the result of foreign policy decisions that led to the USA’s political and economic dominance in the western hemisphere.

Profit or utility maximizing? Strategy, tactics and the Municipal Tramways of York, c. 1918-1935

Purpose This paper aims to contest Mees’ (2010) theory that publicly owned public transport operators normatively target their resources to maximize service rather than profit. Mees argues that neoliberal governments in the Anglosphere were mistaken to privatize their undertakings, yet it is shown that the British ethos of municipal trading meant that municipalities always saw public transport as more of a business than a service. Design/methodology/approach The author uses an archival microstudy of the municipal tramway undertaking of the English city of York, using municipal archives triangulated with local and industry media sources. Findings The paper proposes the refination of the Mees spectrum of public transport from public to private (2010, pp. 73-75) to note that public undertakings can be operated within a profit-maximizing framework. Originality/value This paper provides a rare historical explication of an individual municipal trading enterprise and tramway system placed in its economic context together with its wider theoretical implications.

Strategies of dominance and tactics of resistance: twice narrating the history of UK music retail

This purpose of this paper is to examine how narrative framing shapes the perception of worked examples, or case-studies, to explore how notions of strategy are constructed. Our research is motivat...

When the shopping was good: Woolworths and the Irish main street

Although Haggerty’s definition of a ‘strong’ tie as ‘an emotionally-intensive tie as opposed to one based on frequency or financial value’ (p. 174) seems contradictory in economic terms, historians can nevertheless learn much from this approach, and this methodology will be strengthened as it is adopted by other scholars and developed over time. What is disappointing and frustrating for the reader is that in an otherwise high quality publication, the rendering of these diagrams is comparatively poor. While presumably not the author’s purview, this detracts from what is otherwise a particularly illuminating section of the book. ‘Merely for Money’? is extremely thought-provoking, opening several avenues for future investigation. The book uses Liverpool as its ‘axis’ (p. 23) – a sensible approach given Liverpool’s dominance of Atlantic trade in this period, as well as being the arena in which much of the author’s own prior research lies. This approach, though, means that the ‘British’ element of the book is somewhat lost, despite some small sections discussing Irish and particularly Scottish participation in the British Atlantic (e.g. pp. 124, 173). Similarly, though the issue of triangular trade is touched upon (e.g. p. 172), future examination of this practice will add more to our understanding of business culture in the wider Atlantic region. The book’s biggest contribution to the field is undoubtedly its interdisciplinarity. Haggerty successfully places qualitative research in a theoretical framework, demonstrating, quite rightly, that a socio-economic approach can add much to historical studies. This book will invigorate debate over the intricacies of trade throughout the British Atlantic and more widely, and the methodologies explored promise much for future generations of commercial historians.