Walter A. Friedman

John H. Patterson and the Sales Strategy of the National Cash Register Company, 1884 to 1922

This article assesses John H. Pattersons influence on the development of sales management and modern understandings of salesmanship. From 1884, when Patterson started the National Cash Register Company, to his death in 1922, the firm dominated its industry. At the heart of the companys success was its sales force. Patterson created an intricate system of management to monitor and train company salesmen. He gave them scripts to memorize and assigned them territory to cover. He held conventions and thematic sales contests, and pressured salesmen to rid their regions of competition. Patterson sought to create a method of sales management that encompassed all aspects of selling, from the calculation of quotas and commission rates to the motivation of discouraged salesmen. While much attention has been paid to efforts to improve the efficiency of production processes, especially those advocated by Frederick W. Taylor, Pattersons work at N.C.R. reveals a contemporary effort to reform methods of distribution.

The Harvard Economic Service and the Problems of Forecasting

The Harvard Economic Service pioneered the business of economic forecasting by publishing a weekly newsletter on economic conditions, starting in 1922. The Harvard forecasting model, developed by the statistician and economist Warren Persons, gained international renown for its three-curve A-B-C chart, which rendered business fluctuations as the ebb and flow of speculation (A), business (B), and banking (C). The service was directed by C. J. Bullock, who promoted Harvards forecasting service around the world by forming collaborative agreements with John Maynard Keynes, Lucien March, Corrado Gini, and other prominent economists of the time. The Harvard Economic Service, however, attracted criticism for its purely empirical approach, its failure to make consistently accurate predictions, and its pursuit of commercial objectives in a university setting. The Harvard groups efforts to build a forecasting service are an early chapter in the evolution of the social sciences, the growth of a class of financial analysts, and the commercialization of academic knowledge.

Statistical portraits of American business elites: a review essay

Since the early twentieth century, scholars have conducted statistical studies of groups of business leaders. These have often been extensive undertakings, calling for the collection of large quantities of information about business executives through the use of surveys, personal interviews, dictionaries, obituaries and biographies. The scholars who have carried out these studies have come from a range of disciplines, including sociology, history and economics. The questions they have asked have varied over time. Some have sought to uncover common characteristics among the executives themselves. Others have studied groups of businessmen in order to learn about society (especially the extent of social mobility), or about particular industries and the people who ran them. While the variety of approaches has led some to conclude that these studies present no coherent picture, this article shows an underlying pattern in these efforts and suggests a framework for future study.

The Rise of the Modern Firm

This authoritative volume focuses on the rise of modern firms, from their early history to the present day. It considers the role of laws and contracts in shaping the growth and influence of business enterprises. It presents entrepreneurs, executives and the firms they controlled as driving actors in national economies and international growth.

Wesley Mitchell’s Business Cycles After 100 Years

This paper revisits economist Wesley Mitchell’s classic text, Business Cycles (1913), and assess its impact on economic and political thought in the years prior to the Keynesian Revolution. It describes the key contributions of the book and outlines Mitchell’s career and progression as an economist. It emphasizes the book’s influence on three groups—empirical economists, economic forecasters, and policy makers. For all three, in different ways, Mitchell’s Business Cycles seemed to offer new and exciting possibilities for measuring, predicting, and even controlling economic fluctuations.