Search

The article presents an in-depth analysis of the archives of the Brown family, collected at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. In it the business activities of the family from the 18th to 20th centuries are charted. Comments are given highlighting the historical value of the papers, citing their remarkable comprehensiveness for such a long period. Issues addressed within the collection include records of business conditions and transactions during the Revolutionary War, the transitions in international business networks after the war, and the family's Western frontier land speculation ventures during the 19th-century.

This paper begins the task of explaining why the American business elite has remained white, male and mostly native-born Protestants for a century, as verified in a previous paper (P. Temin, forthcoming). I argue that the evidence is inconsistent with the hypotheses that the stability is due to discrimination on the job or to principal—agent factors. The most likely explanation is that this demographic group makes the best business managers. I suggest that this in turn is not because they are inherently superior, but because they have had access to superior education, a result of past discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on non-Information Technology businesses operating in the city of Bangalore, India. Data on firms compiled from statutory regulatory filings suggest that the number and proportion of businesses that expand rapidly are much lower than in the United States. In-depth interviews with over 100 entrepreneurs in Bangalore suggest that deficiencies in the performance of basic governmental functions (such as in collecting taxes and maintaining land records) play a significant role in discouraging businesses from starting at or expanding to an economically efficient scale of operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on the life and works of George Jason Streator, a greenhouse and nursery entrepreneur in the U.S. Streator was born in Shalersville Township at Portage County, Ohio on July 23, 1846. He lived his youth in Michigan but returned to Garrettsville in 1870 as a young man to establish a greenhouse and nursery business. He has developed 3 horticultural plants known as Portage Gooseberry, the Streator Corn and the Cardinal Strawberry. He developed interest in the study of the land and fresh-water shells and the wild flowers as a hobby. Streator was an active member of the Portage County Horticultural Society and a founder of the Garrettsville Scientific and Antiquarian Society. He died in California in 1925.

A biography is presented on the slaveholder, tobacco dealer and entrepreneur William D. Swinney. He was born in in Campbell County, Virginia on Sept 4, 1799 and married Catherine Brown in 1819. An overview of Swinney's involvement in the tobacco industry after moving to Missouri in the early 1830s, including his use of slaves in his tobacco factories, is provided.

There has been extensive research and examination dedicated to the advantages and disadvantages of entrepreneurship, both in general and specifically for African Americans. Significant research has been devoted to understanding the economic outcomes of African American men, and there is an area of opportunity to study how African American men, specifically, can leverage entrepreneurship to increase the probability of successful economic outcomes for themselves and their families. Entrepreneurial research has the potential to be leveraged to combat waning labor force participation rates and heightened unemployment rates among African American men. Leveraging the theories of Trust, Goal-Orientation, Logotherapy, and Social Identity Theory, a study was conducted among United States-based business owners. The sample size was forty-one African American male business owners. The results demonstrate how these African American men have leveraged entrepreneurship to build social capital and wealth, while improving their standard of living, as well as highlight the hurdles and barriers they have endured during the process of business ownership. The majority of African American owned business are owned by African American men, and this study provides insights into the phenomenology of African American male entrepreneurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the impact of global sourcing and exports on US domestic manufacturing inventories and quantify the additional inventory costs associated with global operations. Design/methodology/approach - A panel data set of 19 US manufacturing sectors is constructed over the period 2002-2005. Data are collected from the US economic census and other government statistics. Fixed and random effects models in both linear and LOG terms are estimated and the estimated coefficients used to calculate the cost to US manufacturing industries of additional inventories attributed to global operations. Findings - Imports and exports have a positive, significant impact on raw materials inventory and finished goods inventory, respectively, in terms of days of supply. Based on estimations using 2005 data, a 10 percentage point increase in the import and export ratios for all US manufacturers is estimated to be accompanied by $3.03 billion additional costs for raw materials inventory and $5.33 billion for finished goods inventory, respectively. Originality/value - This study is among the first to quantify the impact of global sourcing and exports on US domestic inventories using secondary data. To macroeconomic policy makers and industry managers, the results may serve as a benchmark to how domestic inventories are affected by global outsourcing and exports, and as a reminder that the benefits of global activities may be overestimated if inventory costs are not explicitly taken into consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The demand for counterfeits has become a major headache for brand name manufacturers across the globe. This paper investigates two key demand drivers: (1) corporate image, in the form of evaluative and descriptive judgments of the original manufacturer and the counterfeiter, and (2) product attributes, split into physical, beneficial, and symbolic aspects, and their impact on consumers' intentions to buy fakes, based on the tripartite model of attitudes and by applying Peabody's concept of unconfounding evaluative and descriptive judgments (Peabody, 1984; Peabody & Goldberg, 1989; Saucier, 1994; Saucier, Ostendorf, & Peabody, 2001). In total, 1846 consumers were surveyed in six different countries: the United States, Austria, Mexico, Sweden, Slovakia, and the Ukraine. According to the results, corporate image and product characteristics show a strong impact on the consumers' intention to buy fakes. The relative importance of the concepts' sub-dimensions, however, differs substantially across the countries selected. With respect to the corporate image, respondents use mainly emotional responses to describe the image of original manufacturers and counterfeiters, and they clearly distinguish them based on image. Product-level comparisons revealed that looks, functionality, image, and physical appearance differed between originals and fakes across countries, whereas quality and durability of originals and fakes are perceived very similarly. The paper closes with managerial implications and avenues for future research. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theoretical and empirical arguments suggest that fear of violence will cause consumers, employees and entrepreneurs to alter their routine activities in areas that experience a surge in violent activity. This paper argues that understanding how businesses respond to violence has important implications for understanding community crime cycles and offers further evidence of how crime impacts the choices individuals make with regard to where they live, shop and work. Using newly available longitudinal business data and homicide data disaggregated to the ZIP code level, an examination is made of the impact of violence surges on the creation, destruction and growth of business establishments in five large US cities between 1987 and 1994. Controlling for pre-existing levels of violence, it is found that increased violence has the greatest consequences for service-related establishments in low-crime neighbourhoods. This finding is consistent with the notion that the fear of victimisation imposes additional indirect costs to society through its negative impact on local business establishments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley and Route 128 - America's leading centers of technological innovation - organized politically in the late 1970s. This paper seeks to explain why high tech business associations in these two regions have adopted widely divergent political stances and behavior. It argues that business interests are defined through the process of organization, and that the attitudes of these groups of industrialists were shaped by distinctive political environments, in turn a result of the different industrial and social histories of the two regions. While much scholarly interest has been devoted to the ways in which business affects political outcomes, the paper suggests that the reciprocal causation is equally important: the political environment is an important determinant of business interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries differ with regard to labour-market flexibility and 'animal spirits' of entrepreneurs. The paper aims at an analysis of the consequences of these differences in a climate favourable to economic growth. For that purpose a two-country model is presented in section 2. Although wealth variables are taken into account, expectations are assumed to be static. Despite this simplification the model cannot be solved analytically. The role of a dynamic region (USA) versus a more passive region (Europe) is therefore studied by working through numerical examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the challenges faced by St. Louis, Missouri merchants and the railroad boom of the 1850s Topics discussed include failure of Page and Bacon banks that illustrates the challenges confronting St. Louis merchants in the 1850s; end of the Mexican War which brought renewed migration and prosperity; and impact of the groeyh of telegraph and railroads on business in the region.

Thomas Friedman's 2005 book The world is flat was meant as a wake-up call to those in the United States who direct its corporate boardrooms and govern its political/economic state, a warning that globalization has brought about a level economic 'playing field' in which the United States might be losing the game. As rhetoric, the title certainly works well to raise fears about North America's future economic role. It also works in concretizing a popular view of globalization, a view that obscures its uneven, discordant, and decidedly unflat processes and practices. In this paper I help deconstruct this view by fleshing out the everyday ways through which United States expanded economically in its early (1890-1927) global empire. Based on archival work in Argentina, Russia, Scotland, and the United States, I provide a historical look at encounters between North American business men and women and their foreign customers, students, and workers. Focusing on the diverse practices and personal encounters that were critical to the early global efforts of select United States-based corporations, I expose the uneven, contested, and messy ways in which economic expansion works. By analyzing early global encounters when the economic dominance of the United States was just becoming apparent, I am able to highlight the sheer complexity and truly relational nature of United States' expansion in the early twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important aspect of social change is adoption of policy innovation by multiple states. Using models to explain the factors affecting policy adoption and diffusion, this paper examines the models that best explain the adoption process for the innovative Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) policy. We show that policy entrepreneurs play a principal role in initiating the policy adoption process. In addition, two internal determinants, the emergence of a problem and the availability of resources, are influential in the states' decisions to enact IDA legislation. Furthermore, policy leaders at both state and federal levels, as well as federal legislation are influential in the implementation and diffusion of IDA policy. We discuss implications for public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the phenomenon of Afro-Caribbean immigrant enterprise viability in two US counties heavily populated by Afro-Caribbean immigrants: Kings (Brooklyn), New York, and Miami-Dade, Florida. It aims to construct an understanding of enterprise viability as it is understood by local economic development agency (LEDA) directors by examining the meanings of their experiences and interactions with this particular group of immigrants. It posits that objectively studying empirical indicators of enterprise viability only from the scholar's or entrepreneur's perspective would not get at the essential structure of enterprise viability as experienced by providers of enterprise development services. Examining the meaning providers ascribe to their experiences lends to better understanding of how potentials and challenges to enterprise viability manifest on the ground. Opportunities, challenges, expectations and unmet needs are exposed. Progress can then be made to provide immigrant entrepreneurs with the quality of programs and policy that can make them viable. Findings suggest that understanding the "American system" and learning and applying basic modern business functions are essential elements in enterprise development and viability. Professionalization, formalization, and systematization effectuate migration from periphery to mainstream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U.S.-based stock exchanges (e.g., NASDAQ) continue to be the financial markets of choice for IPOs among Asian entrepreneurs, although many Asian firms, upon listing, have performed poorly. This paper surveys the existing literature and summarizes the main advantages and disadvantages associated with a U.S. listing by an Asia-based venture. The paper also examines the post-IPO experience of four Asian companies which illuminate issues that are particularly relevant for Asian entrepreneurs. Our findings indicate that a U.S. listing can provide Asian companies with increased liquidity, visibility, and business opportunities. But being public in the U.S. brings disadvantages that include disclosure and reporting requirements, risk of lawsuits, and additional expenses. Our case studies reveal that successful U.S. listings require Asian firms to fully commit to transparency and investor relations programs. Based on our findings, we develop practical guidelines as to when a U.S. IPO may be sensible for an Asian venture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illustrates the construction of CEO charisma within the US stock market. By metaphorically employing the myth of the Minotaur, we discuss three forces underlying the rise of heroic CEO images in the USA: Ariadne, or charismatic leadership theory and its formulation of charisma; Theseus, or the CEOs struggling to obtain power over stock market actors; and the Minotaur, or the stock market itself and the securities analyst profession. Building on the literature on organizational symbolism, we present a qualitative study of two CEO successions, focusing on the form and content of the persona and the vision projected by CEOs and elaborated by securities analysts. The results suggest that jointly constructing charisma through discourse, CEOs and analysts enact a form of power that does not lie in top-down coercion, but rather on the emergent, active involvement and contribution of its very subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between tenure and principled reasoning is of vital importance to the fields of management and business ethics, as more tenured managers often hold influential posts and have the ability to affect the overall ethical tones of their organizations. Few researchers have studied this relationship, however, and those studies that have been conducted have produced mixed results. While some researchers have found that greater tenure is associated with higher levels of ethical reasoning, others have found the reverse to be true. The findings of this particular study of 270 current U.S. corporate managers, who responded to a nationwide survey, indicated that there is indeed a link between tenure and principled reasoning. More tenured managers demonstrated lower principled reasoning than their less tenured counterparts. As the number of years of tenure increased, principled reasoning scores declined. The results of this study, as well as a comparison to the results of previous studies that have been conducted, are discussed within this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1 January 1999, all requests by pharmaceutical manufacturers and others to Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS) of Colorado and Nevada for the listing of new pharmaceutical products or any proposed change to the formulary status of an existing product must be accompanied by a submission which meets the informational and analytical standards set out in the BCBS Guidelines for Formulary Submissions for Pharmaceutical Product Evaluation. These submission requirements relate both to the anticipated therapeutic impact of a new product and to claims made as to its anticipated pharmacoeconomic impact. The guidelines have been developed because BCBS is concerned that decisions to admit a drug to formulary have been based in the past on incomplete information. In order to rectify this situation (and to meet quality control objectives), it has been decided that all submissions to BCBS should meet a common information standard that describes both the characteristics of the product and its expected impact in a disease or therapeutic area. Unlike guidelines that have been introduced in countries such as Australia and the Canadian Province of Ontario, these guidelines take an explicit systems approach to the case a manufacturer must make before a product is considered for formulary listing. While the notion of systems impact requirements is not new, this is the first time that a managed healthcare system in the US has adopted this explicit perspective and notified manufacturers that traditional pharmacoeconomic evaluations may not meet the information needs of drug purchasers. The purpose of this paper is to describe the BCBS formulary guidelines and to demonstrate how manufacturers are expected to meet the information needs of a systems impact perspective in submissions to the pharmacy and therapeutics committee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses about the book "Creating Modern Capitalism: How Entrepreneurs, Companies, and Countries Triumphed in Three Industrial Revolutions," edited by Thomas K. McCraw. Twelve papers explore the capitalist era since 1820 in Great Britain, Germany, the United States, and Japan, considering how growth occurred and illustrating the role of entrepreneurs and business firms through biographical sketches and company histories. Contributors are in the fields of history and business administration. McCraw is Isidor Straus Professor of Business History at the Harvard Business School.

This article presents alternative types of objectives for FTC affirmative disclosure orders. The framework for this discussion was developed on the basis of an extensive study of FTC orders in this area. The paper also presents an evaluation of the outcomes of these FTC orders relative to the objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The US and India collaborated on a successful institution building programme in the 1950s and 1960s to develop capacity for agricultural education, research and extension. This paper analyses that process for lessons that might bear on efforts to build similar institutions in other countries. India was an especially favourable environment due to the sophistication of its scientific base, the openness of its leaders to institutional innovation, the presence of public sector entrepreneurs to mobilize support for reform, and a food crisis that made it urgent to find new technology. The US did not fund institutional changes that had little demand in India, but it did influence Indian preferences over the long run by creating several mechanisms to exchange information about the American land grant system. These exchange mechanisms enhanced India's capacity for agricultural science and, less often noticed, contributed to the political support essential to new institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]