This is the first textbook that comprehensively covers the three centuries of British business history from 1720 to the present day. Wilson argues that company culture has been the most important component in the evolution of business organisations and management practices. The influence of business culture on firms' structure, sources of finance, and the background and training of senior managers is investigated to show its pivotal importance in determining business performance.

This book explores the limits of the idea of 'neo-colonialism' - the idea that in the period immediately after independence Malaya/Malaysia enjoyed only pseudo-independence, because of the dominant position of British business interests.

This 1989 book examines the experience of British business in Asia since 1860, with primary focus on the impact of British commerce in the region. Following an introduction by the editors, there are essays by leading specialist historians on British businesses in Iran, India, Thailand, Malaysia, China, Russian Asia and Japan.

This is a study about the collapse of Chinese traditional commercial order in the late Qing period. It regards the process as an influence from the prevalence of pro-British Chinese commercial networks in the 1880s. Through the analysis of various Sino-British commercial conflicts after the Arrow war, this book reveals when and where such a commercial network was born and what impact it brought about on the Chinese society.

'A general introductory text on British business history', declared ProfessorDonald Coleman in an important public lecture published in 1987, 'has yet to bewritten'.1 This lacunae is extraordinary, given Britain's role as the birthplace ofthe Industrial Revolution and its possession, even in the late 1980s, of theworld's sixth largest Gross Domestic Product.2 It is even more odd given thatbusiness history in Britain is almost a 'sunrise' industry: every year severalscholarly company histories are published, although these volumes remainlargely unread by business people, business scholars and e.

This book questions conventional accounts of the history of European integration and British business. Integration accounts normally focus on the nation-state, while Neil Rollings focuses on business and its role in the development of European integration, which business historians have previously overlooked. Business provided a key link between economic integration, political integration, and the process of Europeanization. British businessmen perceived early on that European integration meant much more than the removal of tariffs and access to new markets. Indeed, British entry into the European community would alter the whole landscape of the European working environment. Consideration of European integration is revealed as a complex, relative, and dynamic issue, covering many issues such as competition policy, taxation, and company law. Based on extensive archival research, this book uses the case of business to emphasize the need to blend national histories with the history of European integration.

First published in 1981, The British Business Elite is a study of the attitudes to class, status and power of top businessmen in Great Britain, based upon first-hand interviews with chairmen, chief executives and other directors of Britain’s largest industrial, banking and insurance companies: men of genuine wealth and power. Dr Fidler produces important empirical data in a field of study which has been plagued with problems of access; a field in which much of the theory has been based on assumptions. The book includes a careful examination of the background and career of those interviewed; a discussion of the way in which businessmen see the objectives of their companies, particularly relevant to the long-standing debate over the ownership and control of corporations; their views of class and status and of the power of businessmen in Britain. Finally, Dr Fidler considers the implications of the research for future theory and investigation.

This collection of fresh, incisive scholarship, by some of the leading business historians, critically examines the nature of economic recovery in Britain in recent years. Covering the key issues for business history in this period, the book confronts the traditional literature on conclusions of relative decline, and monocausal, simplistic explanations. It provides an impressive range of studies forming a platform for a new debate on the nature of British business in the 20th century. Themes include productivity, management, research and development, marketing, regional clusters and networks, industrial policy, the use of technology, and gender. Sector studies include newer, post-war hopefuls and successes including: * aerospace, * IT, * retail, * banking, * overseas investment, * the creative industries. The book demonstrates that our understanding of the historic strengths and weaknesses of business in Britain, and the shifting balance between sectors of the economy, has until now been poorly understood, and that British business history needs a fundamental reappraisal.

This book argues that a business culture based on embedded socio-cultural norms was an important element in the success of the British-Atlantic economy 1750-1815.