147 Posts Found

Headlines espousing the relative decline of the U.S. industrial base, despite a recent upsurge, have left American managers focused on today’s news and this quarter’s results. As a result, few have heeded the invaluable lessons of the country’s longest-running manufacturing success story. For nearly a century, the Lincoln Electric Company has consistently ranked among the most productive manufacturing enterprises in the United States, all while … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: James O’Toole | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: History, Management | Company: Lincoln Electric Company

The Industrial Age was based on a new relationship with time. Instead of paying people for the things they produced, we began to pay people for their time. The Industrial Age also brought a new kind of time-based money. In order to transact, merchants and companies needed to borrow coin, and then pay it back with interest. In a sense, it is money with a … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Douglas Rushkoff | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Economics, History, Money, Time Management

Shakeouts are a common feature of nascent industries. IESE visiting professor Luís Cabral proposes a novel explanation for shakeouts based on sunk costs and technological uncertainty. Fearing they will back the wrong horse, firms initially invest conservatively, only expanding to their optimal capacity once the winning technology emerges, thereby triggering a shakeout.

Content: Article | Author: Luís Cabral | Source: IESE Insight | Subjects: Economics, History

Harvard-Newcomen Fellow Caitlin C. Rosenthal studies the meticulous records kept by southern plantation owners for measuring the productivity of their slaves, some of which were forerunners of modern management techniques.

Content: Article | Author: Katie Johnston | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: History

The common belief that we gain “historical perspective” with increasing distance seems to me to utterly misrepresent the actual situation. “What we gain is merely confidence in generalization that we would never dare to make if we had access to the real wealth of contemporary evidence.

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Decision Making, History, Trends / Analysis

The renowned author discusses how the great economists uncovered the basic truth about progress, prosperity, and productivity, and the reasons you should be careful which ideas you listen to.

Content: Article | Authors: Rob Norton, Sylvia Nasar | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Economics, History

The financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent Great Recession demolished many cherished beliefs—most significantly, the theory that financial markets always get things right. Justin Fox’s The Myth of the Rational Market explains where that idea came from, and where it went wrong. As much an intellectual whodunit as a cultural history of the perils and possibilities of risk, it also brings to life the people … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Justin Fox | Subjects: Economics, History

A British merchant’s long-forgotten work, An Essay on the State of England, could lead to a rethinking of how modern economies developed in Europe and America, and add historical perspective on the proper relationship between government and business. An interview with business historian Sophus A. Reinert.

Content: Article | Author: Sean Silverthorne | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Economics, History

Just after the nation’s founding, Alexander Hamilton took on a banking crisis with eerie parallels to today’s,

Content: Article | Author: Richard Sylla | Source: STERNbusiness (NYU) | Subjects: Economics, History

Historian Elin Whitney-Smith looks at previous periods of disruption to understand what companies (and people) are going through today.

Content: Thought Leader | Authors: Art Kleiner, Elin Whitney-Smith | Source: strategy+business | Subject: History

How capitalism killed the soul of Motorola.

Content: Article | Author: Barry C. Lynn | Source: The Conference Board Review | Subjects: Economics, History | Company: Motorola

In its 400+ year history, the corporation has achieved extraordinary things, cutting around-the-world travel time from years to less than a day, putting a computer on every desk, a toilet in every home (nearly) and a cellphone within reach of every human. It even put a man on the Moon and kinda-sorta cured AIDS.

So it is a sort of grim privilege for the generations … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Venkatesh Rao | Source: ribbonfarm | Subject: History

The lessons of history suggest that if we want to reduce poverty in emerging markets, regulation reform and business success are prerequisites, not outcomes.

Content: Article | Authors: R. Glenn Hubbard, William Duggan | Source: strategy+business | Subject: History

When he died, Vanderbilt was probably the richest man in the U.S., with a fortune that represented US$1 out of every $20 in circulation in the country, including cash and demand deposits (to put that in perspective, Bill Gates’s wealth in 2008 represented $1 out of every $138). But Stiles has much more in mind in this weighty tome than simply documenting the rise of … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: T.J. Stiles | Subjects: History, People

The economic crisis has prompted many to call for a greater emphasis on studying the history of business and management. Morgen Witzel looks at the lessons that could be learned and why they are so important.

Content: Article | Author: Morgen Witzel | Source: Global Focus | Subject: History

In a fast-moving narrative, Wall Street Journal reporter Patterson explores the coterie of mathematicians behind the Wall Street crash of 2008. The story’s stars are “an unusual breed of investors” called quants, who “used brain-twisting math and super-powered computers to pluck billions in fleeting dollars out of the market.” Following the first quant, Beat the Market author Ed Thorp, from his graduate school days in … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Scott Patterson | Subjects: Finance, History

The Puritan Gift traces the origins and the characteristics of American managerial culture which, in the course of three centuries, would turn a group of small colonies into the greatest economic and political power on earth. It was the Protestant ethic whose characteristics–thrift, a respect for enquiry, individualism tempered by a need to cooperate, success as a measure of divine approval–helped to create the conditions … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Authors: Kenneth Hopper, William Hopper | Subjects: History, Leadership

The legendary advertising innovator David Ogilvy created an enduring organization using culture, integrity, and charm.

Content: Article | Author: Kenneth Roman | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: History, People

The most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States;
Its from a PBS documentary. This particular part is from episode 5 of the series titled Cosmopolis. [Hat tip to FinanceProfessor.com]

Content: Multimedia Content | Source: PBS | Subjects: Economics, Finance, History

The latest from Renehan, author most recently of a much-praised biography of another titan of 19th-century business, Jay Gould, is a thorough look at Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877), who rose from nothing to amass one of the great fortunes in American history (more than $158 billion in 2005 dollars) in the burgeoning steamship and railroad industries. A brilliant, vicious businessman with little education, manners or patience … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Edward J. Renehan Jr. | Subjects: History, People