Innovation, Deskilling and Profitability in the British Machine-tools Industry
Author: Tony Arnold
Publisher:
Published: 1998
Total Pages: 38
ISBN-13:
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Author: Tony Arnold
Publisher:
Published: 1998
Total Pages: 38
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthor: Roger Lloyd-Jones
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-09-29
Total Pages: 358
ISBN-13: 1351959565
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAt the beginning of the twentieth century Britain was amongst the world leaders in the production of machine tools, yet by the 1980s the industry was in terminal decline. Focusing on the example of Britain's largest machine tool maker, Alfred Herbert Ltd of Coventry, this study charts the wider fortunes of this vital part of the manufacturing sector. Taking a chronological approach, the book explores how during the late nineteenth century the industry developed a reputation for excellence throughout the world, before the challenges of two world wars necessitated drastic changes and reorganisations. Despite meeting these challenges and emerging with confidence into the post-war market place, the British machine tool industry never regained its pre-eminent position, and increasingly lost ground to foreign competition. By using the example of Alfred Herbert Ltd to illuminate the broader economic and business history of the British machine tool industry, this study not only provides a valuable insight into British manufacturing, but also contributes to the ongoing debates surrounding Britain's alleged decline as a manufacturing nation.
Author: Myrddin John Lewis
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-05-13
Total Pages: 250
ISBN-13: 1317081978
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book is specifically aimed at addressing a gap in the study of the evolution of corporate governance in Britain. In particular its key theme, the relationship between corporate governance and personal capitalism in British manufacturing in the first half of the twentieth century, provides the means for a systematic and critical examination of the dominant Chandlerian paradigm that the long-running persistence of personal capitalism shaped the governance of British manufacturing firms well into the twentieth century and acted to erode their competitive performance. The book helps to identify those aspects of corporate governance that have undergone change, with some critical observations on the magnitude of change and those aspects which have displayed characteristics of continuity. The empirical spine of this book is set out in a series of case studies which provide the basis for the examination of corporate governance in Britain during the period c. 1900 to 1950. By focusing particularly on the responses of a range of businesses to the turbulent environment of the inter-war years, this volume offers an insight into a much neglected, yet vital, area of business and economic history.
Author: John F. Wilson
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-03-18
Total Pages: 177
ISBN-13: 0429602561
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis shortform book presents key peer-reviewed research selected by expert series editors and contextualised by new analysis from each author on how the specific field addressed has evolved. The book features contributions on the history of government-business relations, regional and local business relationships, the development and formation of Silicon Valley, and the rise and fall of the US machine tool industry after the Second World. Of interest to business and economic historians, this shortform book also provides analysis that will be valuable reading across the social sciences.
Author: John F Wilson
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-07-05
Total Pages: 302
ISBN-13: 1351927795
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAlthough economists have long recognised industrial districts as one of the key features of many economies, it is only recently that attention has been focused on the region as an effective means of generating accurate insights into the larger picture of economic performance. This renewed interest in regional issues has also placed at centre stage the role played by networks as a principal organisational feature of the local business community, providing scholars with a rich topic for investigation and debate. Recent work has shown that universal generalisations concerning the impact of networking on the performance of industrial clusters lack credibility, highlighting the consequent need to compare the role played by business networks in a variety of regions. Using a copious range of research material examining several British regions, this volume poses a series of fundamental questions about the nature of industrial clusters and networks. Particular attention is paid to identifying the basic characteristics of a network, outlining how they evolved in key industrial clusters, and assessing their impact on industrial performance, both regionally and nationally. The durability of such networks is another key thread that runs through the essays, prompting comparison with industrial clusters in Britain and abroad. These are issues which stimulate discussion on a wide range of factors within the disciplines of business, economic and social history.
Author: Robert Forrant
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-03-02
Total Pages: 204
ISBN-13: 1351842943
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOn February 4, 1986, the lives of thousands of workers changed in ways they could only begin to imagine. On that day, United Technologies Corporation ordered the closure of the 76-year-old American Bosch manufacturing plant in Springfield, Massachusetts, capping a nearly 32-year history of job loss and work relocation from the sprawling factory. The author, a former Bosch worker and the business agent for the union representing nearly 1,200 Bosch employees when the plant closed, interjects his personal recollections into the story.For more than 150 years Springfield stood at the center of a prosperous 200-mile industrial corridor along the Connecticut River, between Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Springfield, Vermont, populated with hundreds of machine tool and metalworking plants and thousands of workers. This book is a historical account of the profound economic collapse of the Connecticut River Valley region, with a particular focus on Bosch, its workers, and its union. The shutdown is placed in the context of the wider region's deindustrialization. The closure marked the watershed for large-firm metalworking and metalworking unions in the Connecticut River Valley. The book also describes how the United States, in a ten-year period from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, went from being the world's leading exporter of machine tools to its leading importer, and how that sharp decline affected the region's leading city, Springfield, Massachusetts, which by 2005 was in danger of bankruptcy.
Author: Roderick Floud
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2003
Total Pages: 636
ISBN-13: 9780521527378
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Author: J. Judson
Publisher:
Published: 1916
Total Pages: 40
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthor: Yovanna Pineda
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2009
Total Pages: 225
ISBN-13: 0804759839
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIndustrial Development in a Frontier Economy is pioneering microanalysis of 59 Argentinean corporations between 1890 and 1930 that explains Argentina's failure to develop an efficient manufacturing sector, even as countries in similar circumstances successfully modernized.
Author: Steven R. Nivin
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-01-12
Total Pages: 172
ISBN-13: 1351767313
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis title was first published in 2000: Steven Nivin analyzes a process vital to economic development - technological change. He furthers understanding of the processes driving innovation, so that we may gain a deeper insight into the development of economies. Specifically, the study explores the concept of innovation potential and the factors that result in variations in innovation potential across metropolitan areas, using the US machine tool industry as a case study. To provide a comparison, the same models are also estimated for the semiconductor industry. The findings indicate that urbanisation economies, localization economies, human capital, universities, and invention-derived knowledge are significant factors. The study assesses the contributions of three different skill levels of human capital; college-educated, graduate degree, and locally produced PhD’s in mechanical and electrical engineering. Only the graduate and PhD degree measures are found to be significant, indicating the importance of having a highly skilled pool of labour within the region. The influences of the factors appear to be similar across industries, with some slight differences. The transfer of knowledge through patents is also studied. It is found that the transmission of this knowledge is slower between different industries, relative to the transmission within the same industry.