Simon Mollan

Complexity in history: modelling the organisational demography of the British banking sector

Using a new historical data set on the ‘population’ of British Banks for the last 200 years, we consider why, since its peak of approximately 1100 banks 1810, the population of British banks has declined to its present day population of less that 100. We hypothesise that amalgamation became an advantageous way for banks to expand, and use an agent-based simulation to test this hypothesis against the baking data. We are unable to falsify the hypothesis and show that the simulation reproduces many aspects of the real data with the minimum of assumptions.

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.

Business Failure, Capital Investment and Information: Mining Companies in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1900–13

Investment in mining enterprises in the British Empire was popular in the period 1880–1914 despite the high-risk nature of the business and the presence of unscrupulous company promoters who sought only pecuniary gain; most mining companies failed. This article examines the reasons for the failure of mining companies in Sudan to 1913, using this analysis to explore the importance of information for mining investment, the role of business and social networks in the formation of mining companies, the relationship between business and colonial government, and the ‘gentlemanly’ nature of the City of London as a financial centre with reference to the provision of capital and related specialist mining services. The main reason for the failure of mining in Sudan was deficient information on which investment decisions were based, related to inaccurate notions of mineral wealth located in the colony. Nevertheless, the dynamism of the City at this time can partly be explained by the ability to tease out commercial opportunity in the most marginal of locations with the minimum of capital outlay.

Employing neo-Durkheimian institutional theory in cross-cultural accounting research

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose Neo-Durkheimian institutional theory, developed by the Durkheimian institutional theory, as developed by anthropologist Mary Douglas, as a suitable theory base for undertaking cross-cultural accounting research. The social theory provides a structure for examining within-country and cross-country actions and behaviours of different groups and communities. It avoids associating nations and cultures, instead contending any nation will comprise four different solidarities engaging in constant dialogues. Further, it is a dynamic theory able to take account of cultural change. Design/methodology/approach The paper establishes a case for using neo-Durkheimian institutional theory in cross-cultural accounting research by specifying the key components of the theory and addressing common criticisms. To illustrate how the theory might be utilised in the domain of accounting and finance research, a comparative interpretation of the different experiences of financialization in Germany and the UK is provided drawing on Douglas’s grid-group schema. Findings Neo-Durkheimian institutional theory is deemed sufficiently capable of interpreting the behaviours of different social groups and is not open to the same criticisms as Hofstede’s work. Differences in Douglasian cultural dialogues in the post-1945 history of Germany and the UK provide an explanation of the variations in the comparative experiences of financialization. Originality/value Neo-Durkheimian institutional theory has been used in a wide range of contexts; however, it has been little used in the context of accounting research. The adoption of the theory in future accounting research can redress a Hofstedian-bias in accounting research.

S. Hoffnung and Co. 1851–1980: The case of a market intermediary in Australia

Beginning with contemporary critiques of consumer culture as a starting point for a discussion of the sources and directions of corporate strategy and structure, the history of the firm of S. Hoffnung and Co. is traced from inception in 1851 until its takeover by Burns Philp in 1980. The organizational development of the firm is analysed as it moved from merchant trade to wholesaling, and then subsequently declined and was taken over. This is explained with reference to the rise of multinationals, and domestic manufacturers and retailers, and a changed national and international business environment. These changes eventually obviated the need for specialist market intermediaries.

Book review: Arts-based methods and organizational learningChemiTatianaDuXiangyun, Arts-based methods and organizational learning, Palgrave Macmillan: London, 2018; 338 pp.:

Aesthetics – including arts-based methods – have now been an established part of the repertoire of ways of developing knowledge in management and organization studies for at least the past three decades (Linstead and Höpfl, 2000; Strati, 1999). Tatiana Chemi and Xiangyun Du’s edited volume contributes further to this field. The purpose of the volume is to explore ‘Arts Based Methods’, in this case in Higher Education. The approach is to draw together from different traditions: ‘arts education, arts in education, arts in business (or arts-in-business) or more generically arts-based interventions in education and organizations (Chemi and Du, 2018: 1–2)’. The book consists of 12 chapters by contributors from Australia, Brasil, Canada, China, Finland, Italy, Norway, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, alongside an introduction and conclusion by the editors. Topics range from more theoretical and discursive subjects to specific geographically varied case studies. The book is centred around pedagogy and the means of integrating arts practice in teaching settings. The introduction to the book by the editors (‘Tracing Arts-Based Methods in Higher Education’) sketches the contours of the field, discussing the role of arts in potentially unlocking creative processes in organizational contexts. They are not unreflective of the tension between the aesthetic dimensions of art, and the more performative organizational functions that it can be made to serve. This said, however, throughout the book one – perhaps unwitting – theme is how art is located with reference to the individual. Almost all of the chapters refer to an engagement with the arts that relates to interiority of experience, and the self-actualization, self-realization, or self-appraisal that arts can bring as a means of learning about organizational processes, organizational means and organizational change. This stands in contrast to another artistic engagement that is not really present here, namely the use of art as a lens, mirror or text that invites an individual to think about the social, political or cultural world that is exterior to the self. This lack of a more politically aware exteriority to the engagement with the arts places the book more generally in an ultimately (if subtly and with nuance) performative role, where art is either considered solely aesthetically, or as a means to an (organizational) end. The editors are clear on this, identifying two schema (each of four taxa) to conceptualize the role of art in organization (and its studies). The first – art as decoration, entertainment, as a tool and as a ‘changing process’; the second – art as ‘projection’ in a symbolic process, as illustration to a concept, as ‘making’ of change, and as a means of skills transfer (Chemi and Du, 2018: 9–11). Thus:

169.99, ISBN 9783319638089

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to decompose the historical and conceptual basis of the Free-Standing Company (FSC) in international business history. This is used to critique the FSC concept. The paper then provides a new framework to explain the lifecycle of these firms in a theoretically sensitive way. Design/methodology/approach The paper is conceptual. The argument is developed through a critical reading of the existing literature. Findings The central argument presented is that the FSC concept is ahistorical and cannot fully explain the firms it considers over time. An alternative approach is proposed. Research limitations/implications The paper does not present new (archival) historical evidence. Originality/value The central contribution/ambition of the paper is to advance the theoretical understanding of international firms of considerable historical importance. The ambition of the paper is to help renew research into this important historical organizational form that speaks directly to the ability of historical research to help advance international business theory.

The Free-Standing Company: a 'zombie' theory of international business history?

ABSTRACT The novel This Sporting Life by David Storey is used in this article as fictive, ethnographic data to explore the relationship between sports work, industrial organization, identity, and the management of the body. Drawing upon the work of Pierre Bourdieu on sport, and rugby specifically, and the relationship between sport, the body, class, and rationalization, this paper argues that David Storey provides a vivid, if pessimistic, fictional, and semi-autobiographical account of the ways in which sports, and sports work specifically, is driven by management discourses of rationality and control. We examine how this functions as class exploitation where labour is embodied and expended as a form of bodily capital. Lastly, we offer a critique of the precarious social mobility that sports work promises. Through Storey’s Rugby League playing fictional anti-hero – Art Machin – we explore the central struggle between social structures and individual agency.

This Sporting Life: the antithetical novel’s revelation of the organization and work of sport

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...

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

In one of the most grimly effective depictions of nuclear war, the film Threads (Hines & Jackson, 1984/2005) traces the build-up to and aftermath of a nuclear attack on the United Kingdom. At first barely noticed by the film’s main characters, the media reports of escalating tensions in a distant conflict form a backdrop to the everyday lives and concerns of a young couple and their families in early 1980s Sheffield. The conflict swiftly escalates as the Cold War powers become involved, and when the first nuclear strike occurs one of the most disturbing portrayals of the sheer futility of war begins to unfold. The viewer is left in no doubt that things can never be the same again – not for the film’s principal characters, nor for humanity as a whole. The closing scenes depict a barren and desolate landscape, some 13 years after the war, in which the remaining humans live a brutal husk of a life. In this post-apocalyptic world, communication is reduced to a series of barely recognizable grunts and fragments of words. Language itself has been degraded as all sense of meaningful existence is lost.