As companies became larger and shareholders more numerous in nineteenth and early twentieth-century Britain, the conventional wisdom is that the free-rider problem inhibited active shareholder participation. Discontented shareholders could sell in the market, but it was long before the takeover bid mechanism facilitated the removal of underperforming incumbent boards. We show, using a sample of fifty cases in the period from 1888 to 1940, that UK shareholders overcame the free-rider problem by using committees of investigation on a sufficiently large scale to present a credible threat to board malfeasance. Although there was more to corporate performance than corporate governance, this aspect of good governance plausibly contributed to London's precocity in divorcing ownership from control in domestic companies up to World War II.

Arthur L. Honiker, from “Brooklyn, New York,” reviewed American Business Abroad: Ford on Six Continents, first published in 1964, in the Autumn 1966 issue of the Business History Review. His review was sober, yet quite positive: “This is a thoroughly researched, straightforward account of the overseas expansion of the Ford Motor Company during the sixty years from its founding in 1903.” He praised the book's contextualization of “the vast economic and political changes in the world during that period” and “its objective evaluation of the consequences to the corporation, to the United States, and to the host nations from Ford's activities abroad” (Business History Review 40, no. 3 [1966]: 395).

We examine the factors leading to the onset of organizational rigidities in the dominant vacuum cleaner firms of the 1920s, Hoover and Eureka. Strategies aimed at strengthening organizational commitment, in conjunction with low levels of organizational diversity—owing to managerial hierarchies dominated by men recruited from the sales force—restricted organizational flexibility and adaptability while accentuating resistance to change. In conjunction with core competencies that largely reflected conditions in the previous rapid-growth phases of both firms, organization rigidity left them vulnerable to the new conditions of the Depression, including product and value chain innovation by a new entrant, Electrolux.

This article analyzes changes in the composition of Colombia's entrepreneurial class since the 1990s. We identify an increasing heterogeneity among the country's entrepreneurs, marked by greater diversity in gender, social class, and educational level. We also note more diverse regional origins, career trajectories, and political orientations among this group. The increasing number of women entrepreneurs, especially, played a significant role in changing the dynamics of entrepreneurship within the country. To provide some examples, this article looks at the trajectories and career dynamics of a selected group of women business leaders in Colombia. In terms of conceptual framing, this article makes use of the alternative business history (ABH) approach developed to explore emerging markets.

This article examines the early industrial chaplain movement. In the midst of a postwar religious revival, companies, primarily in the South, hired Protestant ministers to care for their workers' spiritual needs. Many were motivated by both religious convictions and the desire to build a productive, loyal workforce. The opposition of unions and liberal Protestantism slowed the movement's growth, although over the last three decades thousands of employers have rediscovered the benefits of faith-based workplace programs. This article illuminates important postwar trends such as the persistence of paternalism and the importance of religion in managerial strategies.

Professor Vamplew describes the expansion of a leading Scottish industry of the nineteenth century, illustrating that the nature and level of demand were the most important factors shaping the industry's growth throughout several distinct stages of development.

The problems and experiences of the largest American powder producer form an interesting case study of the effects of the Civil War upon business.

The ability of some New York businessmen to exploit the war economy of the Revolution is suggested in this study of their pursuits and profits.

To what extent did the search for solutions to problems of labor management mold the development of large-scale business? The history of the Imperial Tobacco Company (ITC) is instructive, because its managerial structures have been heavily criticized. Yet many of the organizational improvements that were implemented after the company's founding in 1901 have been overlooked, particularly in the realm of labor management, which emerged as an important component of the company's increasing capabilities and growth. In contrast to U.S. tobacco firms, ITC implemented labor policies that responded to arising difficulties in size, legislation, trade unionism, and social attitudes. Its development reveals how the variety of factors influencing the management of labor stretch beyond the narrow concern for models of internal administrative structures.

In this study of Philadelphia merchants in the latter half of the eighteenth century, Thomas M. Doerflinger subjects to critical scrutiny some heretofore accepted interpretations of the transition from general merchant to specialist. Specifically, he finds a surprisingly large degree of specialization in the period under study. In the course of this investigation, Dr. Doerflinger develops important ideas concerning the forces encouraging and inhibiting this transition.

James Forten (1766–1842) was in business in Philadelphia for almost half a century. A sailmaker by trade, he invested the profits from his sail-loft in real estate, bank stock, and shares in various ventures, including railroads. He was also a money-lender. Throughout his long career in business, Forten struggled to be accepted as an astute and successful member of the business community who happened to be a man of color. As this essay demonstrates, that was how some of his white peers saw him. To others, however, he was a man of color first and a man of business second.

A great deal has been written about the perception of time before the invention of mechanical timepieces, but the nature of the evidence has led much of this literature to take on an impressionistic, even metaphysical, cast. In the following article, Professor Epstein uses specific data gleaned from the cartularies of thirteenth–century Genoese notaries to investigate more concretely the uses of time and the structure of the business day in Genoa. He concludes that, in this early center of Western commercial activity at least, an impulse toward greater precision in marking the time of day preceded the arrival of the clock.