Patrick Fridenson

Business Failure and the Agenda of Business History

Is it really useful to focus the interest of business historians on major companies that failed in recent years, like Parmalat in Italy or Enron in the United States? What can we learn from studying cases like that of the French company Schneider, a first mover in metallurgy, armaments, and nuclear energy, which for almost 150 years dominated the company town Le Creusot, where the Business History Conference held its fiftieth anniversary meeting in 2004, but which has now disappeared?

The Bilateral Relationship between Accounting History and Business History: A French Perspective

This is a plea for a warm and close relationship between business history and accounting history. On the one hand I wish to argue that business history is not a luxury merely for accounting historians, but a necessity; on the other hand I wish to argue that business historians will benefit from closer contacts with the work and researches of accounting historians. These bilateral relationships are seen in this paper from a French viewpoint, that is from that of a group of scholars, both business historians and accounting historians, comprising roughly 70 people, dispersed throughout departments of history and departments of management in universities or business schools or engineering schools, who have learnt to work together through a journal, Entreprises et Histoire, through annual national conferences and through direct personal relationships. I wish to make my case in three parts: the first part will provide an overview of some major aspects of business history; the second part will consider what I see as some important aspects of accounting history for business historians; and, in the last part, I will pose some questions inspired mainly by the French case.

THE COMING OF THE ASSEMBLY LINE TO EUROPE

Mechanization can be analyzed from several view points. A history of technology per se will concentrate on the long sequel of inventions which have led to the present tools and objects. A cultural approach will “describe the impact of a mechanized world on the human organism and on human feelings” (1). The economic historian will show that a technological dynamic is inseparable from ‘a managerial dynamic’ and ‘a personnel dynamic’, which are the three basic elements in the modern factory system (2). Anthropological history will deal with the adaptation of technology according to various national needs. Our purpose here rather fits in the frame of social history. We want to see what exactly are the new relations between the agents of production that become possible with the use of machinery.

Mira Wilkins and Frank Ernest Hill , American Business Abroad: Ford on Six Continents.

Arthur L. Honiker, from “Brooklyn, New York,” reviewed American Business Abroad: Ford on Six Continents, first published in 1964, in the Autumn 1966 issue of the Business History Review . His review was sober, yet quite positive: “This is a thoroughly researched, straightforward account of the overseas expansion of the Ford Motor Company during the sixty years from its founding in 1903.” He praised the books contextualization of “the vast economic and political changes in the world during that period” and “its objective evaluation of the consequences to the corporation, to the United States, and to the host nations from Fords activities abroad” ( Business History Review 40, no. 3 [1966]: 395).

French Public Sector Managers 1945-1975: Modernization without Miracle

Were state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in France during the years between 1945 and 1975 part and parcel of a nation-centered process of decline? This chapter challenges this current view by examining actual practices regarding SOEs’ business leaders: their origins and recruitment, their activities and results and the relations between them as agents and the State as principal. It suggests that these top managers contributed to modernity, growth and internationalization and that the heterogeneity of the State, the pressure of some unions and their own contradictions, explain most of the limits of their action and their high level of debt. The overall conclusion is therefore modernization without miracle.

Revues et accès libre: Les pièges de la transparence

Developpement du numerique, concentration de l’edition scientifique, transformation du role des bibliotheques... Ces evolutions ont eu d’importantes consequences sur les revues et leur modele economique. Faut-il rendre accessibles librement les articles issus de la recherche publique, comme le recommande la Commission europeenne ? Ne risque-t-on pas ainsi de plaquer un modele concu pour les sciences exactes sur le paysage bien plus divers et bien plus fragile de l’edition en sciences humaines ?

The Politics of French Business 1936-1945

Preface List of abbreviations 1. Introduction 2. Sources and methodology 3. Background 4. The mobilization of French business 5. New ideologies 6. The counter-attack 7. The patronat and the war 8. The patronat and the establishment of the Vichy regime 9. Labour relations during the occupation 10. Who controlled the Vichy industrial organization? 11. An industrial new order? 12. Pro-Vichy business leaders 13. Business at the liberation 14. Comparative and theoretical perspectives 15. Conclusions Appendices Bibliography Index.

De la diversification au recentrage : le groupe Thomson (1976-1989)

Le changement complet de strategie et de structures impose par le gouvernement francais a l’entreprise publique Thomson S.A. amene a s’interroger sur les strategies suivies par ce groupe durant les vingt dernieres annees. Les annees 1970 avaient vu la poursuite d’une strategie de croissance externe et de diversification. Les capacites organisationnelles n’ayant pas cru au meme rythme, l’entreprise avait ete secouee par des pertes financieres. Apres la nationalisation de 1982, le cap inverse a ete pris : recentrer l’entreprise sur deux metiers de base (les materiels grand public, l’electronique professionnelle). De la periode precedente ont ete conservees deux dimensions importantes : la croissance externe et l’expansion multinationale. Devant les difficultes financieres rencontrees par l’electronique grand public, l’Etat choisit de diviser le groupe et pour chacun de ses morceaux revient a une strategie de diversification. L’article montre que l’identite des entreprises n’est pas stable et que les frontieres fluctuent au gre des fusions dans l’electronique.

The Automobile Revolution: The Impact of an Industry

The authors--two historians, an economist, and a labor sociologist--discuss not only the business and technological development but also the revolution caused by the automobile industrys impact on labor, production methods, and urban and rural life. This book will interest automobile buffs as well as business and labor historians.