Historical Studies in International Corporate Business

by Edited by Alice Teichova , Maurice Lévy-Leboyer , Helga Nussbaum

• ISBN13: 9780521528696
• ISBN10: 0521528690
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-07-18
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This is the sequel to Multinational Enterprise in Historical Perspective (1986), in which the same editorial team continues the historical exploration of a vital but often misconstrued commercial phenomenon. The contributory essays, each written by an authority in the field, raise further questions on the idea of the firm, on periodisation and on research and development, and examine the international financial operations of worldwide corporate business. With the aid of trans-industrial and transnational comparisons, the range of policies pursued by business and government is fully discussed. Above all, this discussion is extended to include the production of mass-consumer goods and the areas of China, Japan and Latin America. All the contributions are based on original historical research undertaken in national and private bank and business archives in Europe, the USA and Japan. In their critical assessments and interpretations the authors are also able to combine economic theory with history.

Table of Contents

Preface

1. Introduction: multinational enterprise Barry Supple

2. History, the social sciences and economic 'theory', with special reference to multinational enterprise Edith Penrose

3. The changing form of multinational enterprise expansion in the twentieth century John Cantwell

4. Electrical research, standardisation and the beginnings of the corporate economy Mikulá

s Teich

5. The nature of multinationals, 1870-1939 T. A. B. Corley

6. International price maintenance: control of commodity trade in the 1920s Joseph Brandes

7. Financial operations of US transnational corporations: development after the Second World War and recent tendencies Monika Sestá

ková

8. Multinational enterprise - financing, trade, diplomacy: the Swedish case Klaus Wohlert

9. Foreign penetration of German enterprises after the First World War: the problem of Ü

berfremdung Gerald D. Feldman

10. International industrial cartels, the state and politics: Great Britain between the wars Clemens A. Wurm

11. Vickers and Schneider: a comparison of new British and French multinational strategies 1916-26 R. P. T. Davenport-Hines

12. J. &

P. Coats Ltd in Poland Emma Harris

13. Multinationals and the French electrical industry, 1889-1940 Pierre Lanthier

14. The Japanese cotton spinners' direct investments into China before the Second World War Tetsuya Kuwahara

15. Mitsui Bussan during the 1920s Hiroaki Yamazaki

16. Japanese business in the United States before the Second World War: the case of Mitsui and Mitsubishi Nobuo Kawabe

17. The state and private enterprise in the United States-Latin American oil policy Stephen J. Randall

18. Transnational corporations and the denationalization of the Latin American cigarette industry Phil Sheperd

19. Summary: reflections on the papers and the debate on multinational enterprise: international finance, markets and governments in the twentieth century Charles Kindleberger

Indexes.