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| Winter 2008 | Volume 82 | Issue 4 |
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Article Abstracts Entrepreneurship and the Development of Global Brands Over the course of the twentieth century, entrepreneurs developed a number of successful global brands in consumer-goods industries. However, few independent brands survived the merger waves of the 1980s. To address the question of why so few independent brands survived, this paper examines successful brands in industries that rely principally on advertising for competitive success. Successful consumer-goods brands in several industries and countries are compared in order to highlight innovative strategies pursued by brand managers. The analyzed brands are mainly owned by Europeans, although a few examples of American and Japanese brands are covered as well. Path Dependence in Ports: The Persistence of Cooperative Forms The concept of path dependence is used to compare the evolution of the organizational forms of two groups of transportation and warehousing firms, the Dutch vemen and the Antwerp naties, that operated in seaports between c.1500 and 1900 and beyond. Their adoption of cooperative forms reflected the corporative guild creed that prevailed in early modern European cities. After 1815, when their businesses were no longer regulated by local governments, the vemen and naties remained locked into the cooperative form of governance that had prevailed for so long. This organizational form gradually adapted to changing circumstances, but its egalitarian structure remained intact until the late nineteenth century (vemen), and even into the twentieth century (naties). The two groups of firms' organizational forms evolved differently under the impact of the legacy of the early modern period and the weight of their own later distinctive experiences. The Fall and Rise of the Norwegian IT Industry in the Global Age, 1970-2005 Although Norway's information-technology (IT) industry has never been an international success, it has been a critical factor in the country's economy over the past thirty years. Several IT companies came close to reaching a global scale, but escalating costs finally prevented them from doing so. In addition, the IT firms became sidetracked by the domestic sales opportunities that accompanied the expansion of the Norwegian oil sector, as they chose to design specialized products for national markets instead of targeting the international marketplace. Although their decision resulted in organizational continuity, the firms themselves have experienced turbulence, bankruptcy, and change, making the development of the sector a messy and problematic affair. From Products to Services: The Software Industry in the Internet Era The computer-services and software industry used to be conveniently divided into three main sectors: mass-market software vendors, enterprise software vendors, and computer services. The three sectors were distinct, because personal computers, corporate mainframes, and online computer networks operated in relative isolation. The arrival of the Internet effectively connected everything, facilitating the entry of mass-market vendors into enterprise software and of both mass-market and enterprise software vendors into computer services. As the turbulence of the first decade of the Internet era subsides, a gradual transition from traditional software products to "Web services" is taking place. |
Review Essay Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction. By Thomas K. McCraw. Reviewed by Richard M. Abrams *Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view the book reviews. If you cannot open the files,
download Adobe Acrobat here for free! Dominance by Design: Technological Imperatives and America’s Civilizing Mission. By Michael Adas. Reviewed by Robert W. Rydell. When Movements Matter: The Townsend Plan and the Rise of Social Security. By Edwin Amenta. Reviewed by W. Elliot Brownlee. Same Time, Same Station: Creating American Television, 1948–1961. By James H. Baughman. Reviewed by Daniel Horowitz. Major Problems in American Business History: Documents and Essays. Edited by Regina Lee Blaszczyk and Philip B. Scranton. Reviewed by Leslie Hannah. Les Banques du Grand Sud Ouest: Système bancaire et gestion des risques (des années 1900 à nos jours) [The Banks of the Grand South-West: The Banking System and Risk Management from 1900 to the Present]. Edited by Hubert Bonin and Christophe Lastécouères. Reviewed by Elisabeth Paulet. Capitals of Capital: A History of International Financial Centres, 1780–2005. By Youssef Cassis, translated by Jacqueline Collier. Reviewed by Forrest Capie. Trust and Power: Consumers, the Modern Corporation, and the Making of the United States Automobile Market. By Sally H. Clarke. Reviewed by Gary Cross. Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America. By Eric Jay Dolin. Reviewed by Joshua M. Smith. The European Economy since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond. By Barry Eichengreen. Reviewed by Michael S. Smith. The Dutch Slave Trade, 1500–1850. By P. C. Emmer, translated by Chris Emery. Reviewed by Karel Davids. Bourgeois Nightmares: Suburbia, 1870–1930. By Robert M. Fogelson. Reviewed by Kenneth T. Jackson. The Boardinghouse in Nineteenth-Century America. By Wendy Gamber. Reviewed by Timothy B. Spears. From Submarines to Suburbs: Selling a Better America, 1939–1959. By Cynthia Lee Henthorn. Reviewed by Lisa Jacobson. The Path Not Taken: French Industrialization in the Age of Revolution, 1750–1830. By Jeff Horn. Reviewed by Paul Spagnoli. Chicago’s Progressive Alliance: Labor and the Bid for Public Streetcars. By Georg Leidenberger. Reviewed by Richard R. John. Alfred Herbert Ltd. and the British Machine Tool Industry, 1887–1983. By Roger Lloyd-Jones and M. J. Lewis. Reviewed by Roberto Mazzoleni. Networked Machinists: High Technology Industries in Antebellum America. By David R. Meyer. Reviewed by John K. Brown. The Global Securities Market: A History. By Ranald C. Michie. Reviewed by Priscilla Roberts. Investment Banking: Institutions, Politics, and Law. By Alan D. Morrison and William J. Wilhelm Jr. Reviewed by Ranald Michie. Die jüdischen Mitglieder der deutschen Wirtschaftselite, 1927–1955: Verdraenung—Emigration—Rueckkehr [Jewish Members of the German Business Elite, 1927–1955: Expulsion—Emigration—Remigration]. By Martin Münzel. Reviewed by Dieter Ziegler. Advertising Sin and Sickness: The Politics of Alcohol and Tobacco Marketing, 1950–1990. By Pamela E. Pennock. Reviewed by Inger L. Stole. Making IT: The Rise of Asia in High Tech. Edited by Henry S. Rowen, Marguerite Gong Hancock, and William F. Miller. Reviewed by Mark Fruin. The Cut of His Coat: Men, Dress, and Consumer Culture in Britain, 1860–1914. By Brent Shannon. Reviewed by Elisabetta Merlo. Borderland Smuggling: Patriots, Loyalists, and Illicit Trade in the Northeast, 1783–1820. By Joshua M. Smith. Reviewed by Andrew Wender Cohen. Inventing Pollution: Coal, Smoke, and Culture in Britain since 1800. By Peter Thorsheim. Reviewed by Hugh Gorman. After the Gold Rush: Tarnished Dreams in the Sacramento Valley. By David Vaught. Reviewed by Ryan J. Carey. America’s Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier. By Robert Vitalis. Reviewed by Steffen Hertog. Meat Matters: Butchers, Politics, and Market Culture in Eighteenth-Century Paris. By Sydney Watts. Reviewed by Kolleen M. Guy. Out of the Pits: Traders and Technology from Chicago to London. By Caitlin Zaloom. Reviewed by Paul J. Miranti. Driving Germany: The Landscape of the German Autobahn, 1930–1970. By Thomas Zeller. Reviewed by Christopher Kopper. |