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This paper examines the Africanization of human resources in East Africa during the latter part of the twentieth century. Focusing on the case of the East African Airways Corporation (EAAC) and later Kenya Airways, we analyze the long-term development of staffing policy in these companies and the impact of the changing political and managerial environment (colonial rule, joint ownership by three independent states, Kenyan state-owned enterprise, private enterprise with foreign ownership). This research shows that post-independence Africanization was hampered by a lack of specific local expertise. The EAAC solved this difficulty by cooperating with foreign organizations that provided adequate training for African pilots, engineers, and managers. However, indigenization was also used in a less meritocratic way and promoted clientelism.

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the entry strategies of luxury brands in Japan. It uses the global value chain framework and the literature on international business to discuss the entry strategies adopted by European brands on the Japanese market during the last seven decades. Two different business models, the dominance model and collaboration model, which are exemplified by French and Italian companies, respectively, are identified in our analysis. The findings of our analysis suggest Italian luxury fashion brands initially used the collaboration model to enter Japan; however, this approach caused conflict over time, which eventually resulted in the adoption of the dominance model and convergence with the French model. This paper demonstrates that when entering markets with a large psychic distance, Western luxury brands are more likely to face the paradox that the dominance model can only be achieved in a specific set of circumstances through a transitional collaboration with local partners. In our conclusions, we detail the managerial implications for practitioners in the luxury sector.

Over the past two decades, the Japanese apparel industry has lost its competitiveness after experiencing a period of fast growth from the postwar years to the early 1990s. In international literature in social sciences, most scholars offer ethnic-based explanations of fashion in Japan, stressing some specificities such as street fashion or star designers in Paris. This article, however, argues that such views are biased and cannot explain the current lack of competitiveness of the Japanese apparel industry. Using the concept of the “fashion system” and following a business history-oriented approach, we offer a new interpretation of the emergence of Western clothing and fashion in Japan during the second part of the twentieth century. This interpretation demonstrates that the characteristics of the Japanese fashion system lie in a focus on the issues of production and technology, both of which led both to an extreme segmentation of the domestic market and to weaker brands.

The automobile industry has been the key driver of developing economies since the early twentieth century. Uzbekistan is an exceptional case, characterised by the creation of automobile production from scratch after independence through the adoption of a protective policy. A state-owned holding company was founded to implement the automobile industry policy and manage operating companies engaged in the sector, among which was a joint venture cofounded with Daewoo Motors. This article examines how a small country like Uzbekistan was able to develop a car industry since the 1990s. It relies on a narrative analysis of interviews as well as a qualitative analysis of internal company records and secondary sources. This study demonstrates that the free trade agreement with Russia and former Soviet countries supported the development of an Uzbek car industry created by FDI in a protectionist environment, a policy usually implemented in large economies.

This article discusses the storytelling strategies adopted by luxury fashion companies to build global brands from the 1990s onwards. Using the example of Christian Dior, it is demonstrated that heritage is a social construction based on strong narratives rather than the mere outcome of the history of a brand. Storytelling is a powerful instrument used in the context of creating global luxury brands over the last two decades. This makes it possible to emphasize the timelessness of a brand while disregarding the contradictions resulting from a change in its identity over time. As a consequence, this article argues that, although the use of heritage through storytelling is a useful tool for the practice of brand management, it is not an academic concept and should be avoided by scholars.

AbstractThe objective of this article is to analyse the historical conditions of the emergence of accessory makers as intermediaries in the fashion system, with the example of the watch company Fossil Inc. More specifically, it sheds light on the twofold evolution of watchmaking (towards global value chains centred on Hong Kong) and of the fashion industries (towards the need to enlarge profits through accessorization), which has led to an increase of newcomers to these industries. This article approaches its investigation from the perspective of business history. The analysis of Fossil since 1984 is based on corporate annual reports and offers a survey of the organizational evolution of the watch and fashion industries, in order to shed light on the strategy and decision-making of this company. In the context of the discussion about the role of intermediaries in creating and legitimizing fashion, this contribution offers new evidence about understudied actors in the industry, i.e. accessory makers. It shows that firms like Fossil are not only passive suppliers of branded accessories, but also contribute to the growth of accessory sales – and consequently, to the strengthening of fashion brands.

Abstract:Whereas the globalization of medicine since the middle of the 19th century has primarily been approached as the sociopolitical and cultural outcome of imperialism, this article argues that Western big business also played a major role through the worldwide export of standardized medical technologies. It focuses on the expansion of Siemens on the X-ray equipment market in non-Western countries during the first half of the twentieth century. This German multinational enterprise experienced slight growth from the mid-1920s onwards but relied mainly on two markets (Argentina and Brazil). It specialized in providing large-scale equipment to a few urban hospitals and engaged during the 1930s in large-scale hospital development together with local authorities and international organizations in various countries (China, Peru, and Central Africa). However, Siemens had great difficulty in expanding its business to include private doctors and inland outlets, where it faced intense competition from other Western X-ray producers. This paper emphasizes that this shortcoming stemmed from a direct application of the European strategy (high-quality, expensive equipment for hospitals) to non-Western markets, where health systems differed.

Whereas the globalization of medicine since the middle of the 19th century has primarily been approached as the sociopolitical and cultural outcome of imperialism, this article argues that Western big business also played a major role through the worldwide export of standardized medical technologies. It focuses on the expansion of Siemens on the X-ray equipment market in non-Western countries during the first half of the twentieth century. This German multinational enterprise experienced slight growth from the mid-1920s onwards but relied mainly on two markets (Argentina and Brazil). It specialized in providing large-scale equipment to a few urban hospitals and engaged during the 1930s in large-scale hospital development together with local authorities and international organizations in various countries (China, Peru, and Central Africa). However, Siemens had great difficulty in expanding its business to include private doctors and inland outlets, where it faced intense competition from other Western X-ray producers. This paper emphasizes that this shortcoming stemmed from a direct application of the European strategy (high-quality, expensive equipment for hospitals) to non-Western markets, where health systems differed.

The article discusses the development of industry and production in Japan in the latter half of the 20th century and its effect on economic and political relations with Switzerland. Specifically it describes the machine tool industry and the emergence of international competition and cooperation between Switzerland and Japan. Among other topics addressed are scholarship on the machine tools industry, previous relations between the Japanese and Swiss machine tools industries between the world wars, and the import, export, and production of machine tools in Japan in the 20th century. Charts and graphs are included.

Abstract:This paper analyzes the emergence of Japanese specialized industry, taking the production of Seiko watches at Hattori & Co. in the first half of the twentieth century as an example. It shows that the competitiveness of this industry, which established itself on the world market during the 1960s, was due to a process of technological hybridization between the American mass production system and the Swiss specialized production system. Starting in the 1910s and 1920s, Hattori selected a few high-precision Swiss watches and set itself the goal of producing them in mass using imported machine tools. Yet this hybrid production system ran into problems because parts were not interchangeable, as a result of which assembly continued along traditional lines until the end of the Second World War. It was only when the company hired many production engineers who had graduated from Japanese engineering faculties and when it began to work with outside research institutions, such as the Department of Precision Engineering of the University of Tokyo, that Hattori was able to implement fully a hybrid production system in the 1950s.