Business Performance in the Retail Sector The Experience of the John Lewis Partnership

by Bradley, Keith; Taylor, Simon

• ISBN13: 9780198256946
• ISBN10: 0198256949
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1992-04-02
• Publisher: Clarendon Press

Summary

The John Lewis Partnership, a major British retailing company, has been employee-owned and operated according to democratic principles since 1929. Conventional models of commercial success would predict that such an arrangement would be inefficient and that the firm would tend to underinvest. Using conventional performance criteria, the authors demonstrate that the Partnership is highly successful and that conventional methods to predict business performance are flawed. The authors feel that to understand why this firm has sustained its commercial prosperity over several decades, one must look to its distinctive emphasis on people.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
List of Tables
Introduction	p. 1
A Research Strategy	p. 12
Strategy, Competitiveness, and the Way Ahead	p. 22
A Business History of the John Lewis Partnership	p. 33
The Organizational Structure in 1989	p. 47
Existing Research on the John Lewis Partnership	p. 55
The John Lewis Partnership and the Japanese Firm	p. 70
Partnership Principles and Business: An Analysis	p. 79
Theories of Business Performance and the John Lewis Partnership	p. 89
The Post-war Retailing Environment	p. 102
A Comparative Business Analysis: 1970-1989	p. 108
Crossing Over into the Human Dimension	p. 140
Conclusion	p. 173
References	p. 186
Index	p. 193
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