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“Giants of an Earlier Capitalism”: The Chartered Trading Companies as Modern Multinationals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2010

Ann M. Carlos  and
Stephen Nicholas
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Abstract

Much has been written about late-nineteenth-century multinationals and their relationship to the transnational firms of the present, but both historians and economists have largely discounted the relevance of the earlier chartered trading companies to this discussion. In an article emphasizing transaction cost analysis and the theory of the firm, Professors Carlos and Nicholas argue that the trading companies did meet the criteria of the modern MNE—the growth of a managerial hierarchy necessitated by a large volume of transactions and of systems to control those managers over space and time.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 62 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1988 , pp. 398 - 419
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1988

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References

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