Search

This paper aims to assist in a better understanding of the real role of patents by examining how Crossley Brothers – the world's main producer of gas engines before the First World War – and its partners (as well as the German inventor Nikolaus Otto) used the patent system to introduce the gas engine into Spain. The evidence suggests that patents were for them mainly an instrument to protect the market for their imported products. It is probable that the know-how transferred to the local agents and the engines imported could somehow enhance the domestic industrial abilities, but the supposed aim of the patent system – creating a local industry – was not achieved. Although the Spanish patent system was not well implemented, this was not the main explanation of this failure; rather it was the weak domestic technological abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that a cartel is not necessarily synonymous with a brake on innovation but that, on the contrary, it may become the site of information transfer and technology exchange. The example chosen is the cable industry. Research was based on the archives of two Swiss cable manufacturers and on those of a Swiss and an international cartel (International Cable Development Corporation) from the beginning of the twentieth century until the 1970s. The cartels studied, which were primarily based on territorial and price protection, fostered various forms of information and technology transfers: exchange of information in order to rationalise production, know-how sharing, transfers or sales of patents or licences, standardisation of products to ensure compatibility between products from various companies. Finally, one of the cartels studied became a key player in Research and Development (R&D) by creating test structures and R&D laboratories and controlling market introduction of innovating products. The historiography of the last 30 years had a tendency to consider cartels as an exception, however, as Jeffrey Fear wrote 'Yet, until the 1980s, the global story of big business must be told in conjunction with cartels rather than without them' (Fear, October 2006). The purpose of this paper is to once again look at one aspect of the cartels' impact on the innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before World War II, Dutch State Mines, the national, state owned coal corporation, was confronted with major challenges, specifically that foreign coal was sold at dumping prices in the home market. At the same time, coal cleaning needed to be improved in order to offer higher quality coal against lower coal processing costs. In this paper we illustrate how State Mines relied on its innovative capacity in order to overcome the economic, technological and market changes. The coal cleaning innovations at State Mines show how absorptive capacity was of prime importance for the firm's innovative capacity. External knowledge acquisition as well as internal knowledge building proved to be relevant, although the balance changed over time. While initially acquisition and assimilation of external knowledge (potential absorptive capacity) were essential to improve the existing coal cleaning processes, internal knowledge building was needed to come to real improvements in coal cleaning. The establishment of a licensing company was essential to exploit this knowledge. An important feature was that State Mines was always well aware of its lack of capabilities and knowledge and open to search for and learn from knowledge outside its firm boundaries. Moreover, expectations determined the search for external knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Neil Rollings and Laurent Warlouzet, the historical analysis of the European competition policy has been a priority in the research on institutions but the reaction of companies to these policies has received less attention. This study highlights the importance of analyzing how public policies affect business strategies in innovation. More specifically, how the policy adopted by the High Authority of the ECSC regarding the scrap market influenced the strategies implemented by the steelmakers in the innovation of their production processes. The High Authority banned exports and established maximum prices and a system to equalise internal prices with import prices. This policy was considered a success by both institutions and companies. It decisively influenced the scrap price to be maintained at affordable levels in Europe. But this success in resolving the scrap problem created a larger one as it delayed innovation. This was the scrap paradox suffered by Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses family entrepreneurial orientation to explain longevity and trans-generational value creation in Trenor y Cía., a Spanish family firm that remained in business for over three generations from 1838 to 1926. While the entrepreneurial view of the family was evident under the patriarch's leadership, this was more remarkable when the second-generation introduced innovative industrial processes; furthermore, the family was actively engaged in other firms, before, during and after Trenor y Cía. When the Trenors managed to integrate into the Spanish nobility through marriage, the ennobled-entrepreneurs did not change their attitudes towards business and contributed to economic progress. The Trenor family also pursued non-financial goals to maintain socioemotional wealth, and played a key role in both society and politics. This analysis contradicts the view that family firms are often a burden for progress and confirms that they have bivalent attributes that can be managed to achieve net benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relying on various primary sources, this article aims to explore the experience of the Roman Prince Alessandro Torlonia as entrepreneurial landowner during the nineteenth century. The analysis of two specific cases in different areas of the Papal State will be used to identify the peculiar features of Torlonia agrarian entrepreneurship that granted him high profitability. His experience is even more interesting if considered in the light of the backward context of the country, on the economic periphery of Europe; at the same time it suggests a reconsideration of the consolidated vision of absolute immobilism of the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how Cuban-based firms and entrepreneurs circumvented ever- increasing risks in the illegal slave trade. The article sheds light to this question by analyzing new qualitative information of 65 Cuban-based firms against the Slavevoyages database. Our findings indicate that Cuban-based firms were entrepreneurial as they exploited the opportunities arising from the volatility of the slave trade by: (a) internalizing networks of agents which allowed the rapid diffusion of information, (b) diversifying trading goods and expanding the number of partnerships to reduce transaction costs and risk, and (c) adopting technological innovations that modified the design and use of vessels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on international differences in retail productivity has highlighted formidable environmental barriers to the 'industrialisation' of mass retailing as a driver of declining British interwar productivity growth in this sector (and in services more generally). We examine evidence for such barriers, using a case study of a firm that built its interwar expansion strategy on 'American' retail methods -- Marks & Spencer (M&S). We find that, rather than facing barriers to the adoption of American mass retail practices, M&S reaped major productivity gains from this process. This adds further evidence to an emerging literature rejecting the barriers to industrialisation thesis for retailing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The origins of enterprise are often associated with the Industrial Revolution, but this article presents evidence of entrepreneurial activities from a much earlier date – the medieval period. Between 1250 and 1500 the church, merchants and members of the royal court all engaged in activities that demonstrated the entrepreneurial characteristics of innovation, risk-taking and judgement. The activities of the prior of Tynemouth and the career of the wool merchant William de la Pole illustrate these developments. By focusing on individuals rather than firms, it is possible to push back the study of entrepreneurship beyond the Industrial Revolution and early-modern trade to a period that witnessed the origins of the modern state. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Economic theories of commercial nonprofits and mutuals usually emphasise the advantages of such organisational forms in reducing agency and monitoring costs in markets that suffer from information asymmetries in exchanges between firms and their customers. This article examines the ability of such transaction cost theories to account for historical variations in the ownership and governance of firms in the US personal finance industry between the early nineteenth century and the Great Depression. It focuses, in particular, on mutual savings banks and their role in the development of the intermediated market for savings accounts. While I find some evidence in support of transaction cost theories of organisational form, I also find that entrepreneurial and socio-political factors played crucial roles in the choice of ownership and governance structures; mutual savings banks predominated in the early years of the industry because the form offered entrepreneurial advantages over investor-owned corporations and because in some states they benefitted from regulatory and political advantages that joint-stock companies lacked. Their relative decline by the early twentieth century was the result of increasing competition in the market for savings deposits, the loosening of regulatory barriers to entry, and changes in public policy that reduced the transaction, innovation and regulatory advantages that the mutual savings bank form had once held. The article draws out the theoretical implications for our understanding of the historical role of nonprofit and mutual firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay undertakes a comparative review of radical innovation in the early Cold War, when UK jet propulsion development far outpaced any US efforts. British ingenuity created a series of jet engines which Americans adopted. One among these, which captures contrasting organisational formats for handling complexity and innovation, was the Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire, a tough, reliable propulsion system. The USAF's licence assigned production to Curtiss-Wright, which had made piston engines for decades and which spectacularly botched the project, wasting millions. Eventually, the Pentagon shifted the J-65 American Sapphire to GM's Buick division, which finally fabricated adequate but obsolete engines in the mid-1950s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Impelled by a crisis in Dutch horticulture in the early 1930s, two Dutch food preserving companies, Hero and De Betuwe, decided to start producing non-alcoholic drinks made from fruits and vegetables. Different kinds of knowledge were needed for this radical innovation. Innovation trajectories were established and knowledge was incorporated, but the knowledge sources and 'knowledge filters' of the two companies were very different. Hero's Swiss parent played an important role in transferring Swiss knowledge of production techniques to its Dutch subsidiary company. De Betuwe, on the other hand, mainly relied on knowledge provided by the existing Dutch horticultural innovation network. While succeeding in the soft drink market was to a certain degree a competition between publicly available knowledge and private knowledge, in the end both companies succeeded in producing a comparable product, but their routes to success were different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sets out to demonstrate how regulation, markets and technology can be intertwined. It argues that the introduction of technology in a regulated market, such as that of international telecommunications, must be seen in terms of its impact on economic and political alliances in that regulatory market. It presents a case study of the first transatlantic telephone cable, TAT1 - a joint project between the US company, American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T), the British Post Office (GPO) and Canada's Overseas Telephone Corporation - and a coaxial cable proposed by another US company, International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT). Both cables became part of a British attempt to alter existing British and US domestic regulation of international telegraph transmission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers for consideration four propositions about business, government, and innovation in the post-World War Two United States, points which may have a wider resonance as well. They concern the long term role of continuous innovation, technology–science relationships, state-led problem setting for innovation, and the ‘permanent uncertainties’ that arise from Cold War-era technological advance. Each of these has implications for the practice of business history, for conceptualizing innovation, and for our understanding of post-war science–technology trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]