Business History: Selected Readings

Description:
This selection of readings demonstrates the use of both descriptive analysis and quantitative methods in the study of business records. The emphasis, however, is on the role of various quantitative approaches. Part I contains articles that consider a number of questions about the methods to be used and the aims of business history research. How is the subject to be defined? What types of analysis are most useful in research? In what ways can the findings of any research he used? Part II provides a number of examples of business history writing that demonstrate the results of a quantitative approach using both Primary and secondary source material. Some of the papers concentrate on the growth and performance of firms from various sectors of the economy. Some consider features of industrial structure. Others concentrate on techniques of marketing, personnel management and the assessment of profitability. Part III focuses on the techniques of manage meat that have been used to motivate or control the development of business activity. The studies include an analysis of the role of accounting data and other types of information, aids to forecasting, market analysis and the problems of risk and uncertainty in business decision making within various contexts. The editor has not only provided an introduction to the reprinted articles but he has also included, in Part IV, several special appendices useful for future research in business history. There is a section on allowing for changes in the unit of account. Another appendix deals with the merits and limitations of financial ratio analysis. An extensive bibliography is also provided. This authoritative text was first published in 1977.

Table of Contents:
Introduction ix; Part One:{emsp}AIMS AND METHODS IN BUSINESS HISTORY; {ensp}1. Arthur H. Cole; What is Business History? Business History Review, vol. 36 (1962) pp. 98--106, with addendum 3; {ensp}2. F. E. Hyde; Economic theory and Business History; Business History, vol. V (1962) pp.1--10, with addendum 15; {ensp}3. Louis Galambos; Business History and the Theory of the Growth of the Firm; Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, vol. IV (1966), pp. 3--16 29; {ensp}4. K. A Tucker; Business History: Some Proposals for Aims and Mehodology; Business History, vol. XIV (1972), pp. 1--16 43; Part Two:{ensp}ENTREPRENEURS, THE FIRM AND INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURE; {ensp}5. P. L. Payne; The Govan Collieries 1804--1805; Business History, vol. 111 (1960), pp. 75--96. 65; {ensp}6. M. Blaug; The Productivity of Capital in the Lancashire Cotton Industry During the Nineteenth Century; Economic History Review, vol. XIII (1960--61), pp. 358--81 91; {ensp}7. S. Pollard; Factory Discipline in the Industrial Revolution; Economic History Review, vol. XVI (1963--64), pp. 254--71 126; {ensp}8. H. W. Richardson and J. M. Bass; The Profitability of Consett Iron Company before 1914; Business History, vol. VII (1965, pp. 71--93 148; {ensp}9. A. E. Musson; James Nasmyth and the Early Growth of Mechanical Engineering; Economic History Review, vol. X (1957--58), pp. 121--27 174; 10. H. C. Livesay and P. G. Porter; Vertical Integration in American Manufacturing, 1899--1948; The Journal of Economic History, vol. XXIX (1969), pp. 494--500 184; 11. D.F.Dixon; The Growth of Competition among the Standard Oil Companies in the United States, 1911--1961; Business History, vol. IX (1967), pp. 1--29 192; 12. F. J. Glover; Government Contracting, Competition and Growth in the Heavy Woollen Industry; Economic History Review, vol. XVI (1963--64), pp. 478--98 225; 13. M. Klein and K. Yamamura; The Growth Strategies of Southern Railroads, 1865--1893; Business History Review, vol. XLI (1967), pp. 358--77 250; 14. P. G. Porter and H. C. Livesay; The Merchant as Catalyst: Financing Economic Growth; Merchants and Manufacturers: Studies in the Changing Structure of Nineteenth-Century Marketing, The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore and London (1971) 271; 15. H. Siegenthaler; What Price Style? The Fabric Advisory Function of the Dry Goods Commission Merchant, 1850--1880; Business History Review, vol. XLI (1967), pp. 36--61 290; Part Three:{emsp}TECHNIQUES OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND ORGANISATION; 16. B. S. Yamey; Accounting and The Rise of Capitalism: Further Notes on a Theme by Sombart; Journal of Accounting Research, vol. 2 (1964), pp. 117--36 with addendum 319; 17. H. T. Johnson; Early Cost Accounting for Internal Management Control: Lyman Mills in the 1850s Business History Review, vol. XLVI (1972), pp. 466--74 347; 18. H. Heaton; An Early Victorian Business Forecaster in The Woollen Industry; Economic History, vol. 2 (1933), pp. 553--74 356; 19. B. W. Clapp; A Manchester Merchant and His Schedules of Supply and Demand; Economica, New Series, vol. 29 (1962), pp. 185--87 377; 20. A. Cohen; The Social Organisation of Credit in a West African Cattle Market; Africa, vol. XXXV (1965), pp. 8--19 381; Part Four:{ensp}SPECIAL APPENDICES; Appendix 1 Interpreting Accounting Data and Business Records 399; Appendix 2 Allowing for Changes in the Unit of Account 407; Appendix 3 Select Bibliography for Further Reading 410; Author Index 431; General Index 433