Search results for ""author naomi r. lamoreaux""
The University of Chicago Press Organizations, Civil Society, and the Roots of Development
Modern developed nations are rich and politically stable in part because their citizens are free to form organizations and have access to the relevant legal resources. Yet in spite of the advantages of open access to civil organizations, it is estimated that eighty percent of people live in countries that do not allow unfettered access. Why have some countries disallow the formation of organizations as part of their economic and political system? The contributions to Organizations, Civil Society, and the Roots of Development seek to answer this question through an exploration of how developing nations throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany, made the transition to allowing their citizens the right to form organizations. The transition, contributors show, was not an easy one. Neither political changes brought about by revolution nor subsequent economic growth led directly to open access. In fact, initial patterns of change were in the opposite direction, as political coalitions restricted access to specific organizations for the purpose of maintaining political control. Ultimately, however, it became clear that these restrictions threatened the foundation of social and political order. Tracing the path of these modern civil societies, Organizations, Civil Society, and the Roots of Development is an invaluable contribution to all interested in today's developing countries and the challenges they face in developing this organizational capacity.
£112.00
The University of Chicago Press Coordination and Information: Historical Perspectives on the Organization of Enterprise
Case studies that examine how firms co-ordinate economic activity in the face of asymmetric information, information not equally available to all parties, are the focus of this volume. In an ideal world, the market would be the optimal provider of co-ordination, but in the real world of incomplete information, some activities are better coordinated in other ways. Divided into three parts, this book addresses co-ordination within firms, at the borders of firms and outside firms, providing a picture of the overall incidence and logic of economic co-ordination. The case studies - drawn from the late 19th and early 20th century, when the modern business enterprise was evolving, address such issues as the relationship between co-ordination mechanisms and production techniques, the logic of co-ordination in industrial districts and the consequences of regulation for co-ordination. Continuing the work on information and organization presented in "Inside the Business Enterprise", this book provides material that may be useful for business historians and economists who want to study the development of the dissemination of information and the co-ordination of economic activity within and between firms.
£36.04
The University of Chicago Press Learning by Doing in Markets, Firms, and Countries
Drawing out the underlying economics in business history, this text focuses on learning processes and the development of competitively valuable asymmetries. The essays show that organizations, like people, learn that this process can be organized more or less effectively, which can have major implications for how competition works. The first three essays in this volume explore techniques firms have used to both manage information to create valuable asymmetries and to otherwise suppress unwelcome competition. The next three focus on the ways in which firms have built special capabilities over time, capabilities that have been both sources of competitive advantage and resistance to new opportunities. The last two extend the notion of learning from the level of firms to that of nations. The collection as a whole builds on the previous two volumes to make the connection between information structure and product market outcomes in business history.
£32.41
Stanford University Press The Challenge of Remaining Innovative: Insights from Twentieth-Century American Business
The Challenge of Remaining Innovative explores innovation as a complex phenomenon that may be organizational as well as technological, that operates both within firms and across the broader economy, and that involves matters not only of research and development, but also of marketing, design, and government relations. The contributors explore two main themes: the challenge of remaining innovative and the necessity of managing institutional boundaries in doing so. The collection is organized into four parts, which move outward from individual firms; to networks or clusters of firms; to consultants and other intermediaries in the private economy who operate outside of the firms themselves; and finally to government institutions and politics. This scheme delineates a variety of ways in which entrepreneurship has persisted across the 20th century—and accentuates how ongoing organizational re-arrangement has contributed mightily to its sustained vitality.
£52.20
Harvard University Press Corporations and American Democracy
Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Citizens United and other high-profile cases have sparked passionate disagreement about the proper role of corporations in American democracy. Partisans on both sides have made bold claims, often with little basis in historical facts. Bringing together leading scholars of history, law, and political science, Corporations and American Democracy provides the historical and intellectual grounding necessary to put today’s corporate policy debates in proper context.From the nation’s founding to the present, Americans have regarded corporations with ambivalence—embracing their potential to revolutionize economic life and yet remaining wary of their capacity to undermine democratic institutions. Although corporations were originally created to give businesses and other associations special legal rights and privileges, historically they were denied many of the constitutional protections afforded flesh-and-blood citizens.This comprehensive volume covers a range of topics, including the origins of corporations in English and American law, the historical shift from special charters to general incorporation, the increased variety of corporations that this shift made possible, and the roots of modern corporate regulation in the Progressive Era and New Deal. It also covers the evolution of judicial views of corporate rights, particularly since corporations have become the form of choice for an increasing variety of nonbusiness organizations, including political advocacy groups. Ironically, in today’s global economy the decline of large, vertically integrated corporations—the type of corporation that past reform movements fought so hard to regulate—poses some of the newest challenges to effective government oversight of the economy.
£30.56
