Merchants to Multinationals

British Trading Companies in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Erscheinungsjahr 2002
ISBN: 978-0-19-924999-2
Verlag: OUP Oxford

Buch, Englisch, 414 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 629 g

Merchants to Multinationals examines the evolution of multinational trading companies from the eighteenth century to the present day. During the Industrial Revolution, British merchants established overseas branches which became major trade intermediaries and subsequently engaged in foreign direct investment. Complex multinational business groups emerged controlling large investments in natural resources, processing, and services in Asia, Latin America, and
Africa.

While theories of the firm predict the demise over time of merchant firms, this book identifies the continued resilience of British trading companies despite the changing political and business environments of the twentieth century. Like Japanese trading companies, they 're-invented' themselves in successive generations. The competences of the trading companies resided in their information-gathering, relationship-building, human resource, and corporate governance systems. This book provides a
new dimension to the literature on international business through the focus on multinational service firms and its evolutionary approach based on confidential business records.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Jones, Geoffrey

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Geschichte der VWL
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Internationale Wirtschaft Internationaler Handel
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Bereichsspezifisches Management Außenhandel
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftsgeschichte

Über Autor(innen)

Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Business Administration, Entrepreneurial Management Unit, Harvard Business School. He previously taught at the universities of Cambridge and Reading, and at the London School of Economics, in the U.K. He is the author and editor of many books and articles on the history of international business, including British Multinational Banking 1830-1990 (OUP 1993). He is a former President of both the European Business History
Association and the Business History Conference of the United States, is co-editor of the journal Business History Review, and editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Business History.