Sue Bowden

Ownership Responsibilities and Corporate Governance: The Crisis at Rolls Royce, 1968-71

Despite the wealth of primary materials available and the insights which business historians can make to our understanding of corporate governance, applied work on the operation of internal and external mechanisms of corporate governance is sorely missing in the literature. This article attempts to address that omission. Theoretical insights on ownership behaviour are used to assess how owners behave in practice using previously un-utilised source materials relating to the crisis at Rolls Royce. We find standard theoretical approaches to ownership behaviour to be sorely lacking. We find, instead, that the key players were the merchant banks. We also find perceptions of government policy to be an important explanatory factor behind the behaviour of owners and managers, and, as such, suggest that this event in business history is important not only in its own right but in determining future corporate governance in this country.

A very peculiar practice: Underemployment in Britain during the interwar years

This article presents new evidence on the determinants of short-time working in Britain during the interwar period. Using a selection of manufacturing industries we test the impact that output volatility, the benefit-wage ratio, and trade union density had on short-time working. We find that persistence effects (captured by lagged values of output fluctuation) and gender differences in trade union density were important for a number of industries. However, perhaps our most interesting finding is that the benefit-wage ratio also exercised a statistically significant impact on short-time working. This suggests that the Benjamin-Kochin thesis may be important after all. In other words, the army of short-time workers that existed in Britain between the Wars may, indeed, have been a ‘volunteer army’.

Investment decision-making and industrial performance: The British wool industry during the interwar years

As exogenous shocks impact on industry we believe it timely to revisit the experience of two ‘staple’ industries during the interwar period: cotton and wool textiles. Using a variety of under- explored primary source materials we argue that the ability to withstand the shocks of the interwar years was largely dependent on prior investment decisions. In cotton textiles the re floatation boom precluded strategic flexibility and encouraged collusion. The absence of such behaviour in wool textiles fostered competition and the pursuit of a successful marketing policy.

Getting it Right? Lessons from the Interwar Years on Pulmonary Tuberculosis Control in England and Wales

This paper examines morbidity and mortality patterns in interwar England and Wales, using previously under-explored primary archival source materials. These materials help us understand not only what local authorities could and did do, but also the reasons for the marked variations in the ability of different authorities to manage the problem. We identify where and why there were problems and also how and why some authorities were more successful than others in dealing with the disease. Wealth was not an issue. We find a combination of pro-active preventative measures was significant.

Avoiding Conscription to the Inter-war 'Army' of the Unemployed: Short-Time Working in the Iron and Steel Industry

This article is a new investigation into the controversial thesis, advanced by Benjamin and Kochin, that the high and persistent levels of unemployment in Britain between 1919 and 1939 were the result of a generous and liberally administered unemployment benefits scheme. By using a case study of the inter-war iron and steel industry, we demonstrate that high benefit–wage ratios applied only to a small proportion of workers in this industry. We argue that the benefit–wage ratio was but a part of a complex web of factors determining the extent to which workers voluntarily chose not to be fully employed. Much more importance, we argue, needs to be attached to the effects of an ageing workforce and the desire to secure employment for offspring. Viewed from this perspective patterns of short-time working at the industry level depended more on collective, rather than individual, rationality.

At the End of the Road: The Rise and Fall of Austin-Healey, MG and Triumph Sports Cars.

Corporate strategy and structure, 1945-1971 design and development rationalization and production sale production methods labour relations distribution structure consumer demand, 1947-1977 quality and reliability the end of sports car production, 1977-1981.