The Siamese rice trade during the interwar years: Trade pattern,crisis and business survival

This article recounts the story of the Siamese rice trade during the interwar years. Many previous studies tend to focus on the Great Depression in 1929 and the decline in the Siamese rice trade. However, export statistics show that Siam continued to export large volumes of rice during this period. This article examines the Siamese rice export patterns and highlights how instrumental Western and Japanese firms were in determining the destinations to which the rice was shipped. It also explores business strategies in response to interwar market conditions that helped the Siamese rice trade survive.     

Local government: Big business

Cochrane, A. 1993: Whatever Happened to Local Government? Buckingham: Open University Press, £10.99 paper.     

Trade in the shadow of power: Japanese industrial exports in the interwar years

During the interwar years, Japanese industrialization accelerated alongside the expansion of industrial exports to regional markets. Trade blocs in the interwar years were used as an instrument of imperial power to foster exports and as a substitute for productivity to encourage industrial production. The historiography on Japanese industrialization in the interwar years describes heavy industries’ interests in obtaining access to wider markets to increase economies of scale and reduce unit costs. However, this literature provides no quantitative evidence that proves the success of those mechanisms in expanding exports. In this article we scrutinize how Japan—a relatively poor country—used colonial as well as informal power interventions to expand regional markets for its exports, especially for the most intensive human capital sector of the industrializing economy. Our results show that Japanese exports in 1938 would have been around one-third smaller had no empire ever existed, which indicates an outstanding effect of empire in the international context.     

The real structural imbalance and fiscal stance in Australia during the interwar years

By using the concept of the constant employment budget balance and changes in real public debt it is possible to determine the size of the public sector's real structural budget imbalances during the interwar period. In doing so the budget deficit of the public sector during the depression is shown to have been much larger than indicated by previous estimates of the nominal budget imbalance, and indicates that the fiscal stance of the government was expansionary during the worst year of the Great Depression rather than contractionary.     

Multinational business and host countries in times of crisis: Courtaulds,Glanzstoff, and Italy in the interwar period

Despite the considerable attention granted to the history of international business, we still have a limited knowledge of the historical impact of multinationals on host economies. This article presents the case of the giant Italian rayon firm Snia Viscosa which was acquired by its direct rivals, Courtaulds in the UK and the German firm Glanzstoff, in 1927. Italian deflation which underpinned the return of the country to the gold standard between 1925 and 1927 and the parlous financial conditions of Snia Viscosa proved incentives in what seemed to be a fire sale investment. This investment mitigated the credit crunch and allowed Snia Viscosa to have access to foreign rayon expertise. Evidence suggests that the regime and economic nationalism exerted some pressure on foreign interests and were instrumental in the abandonment of plans intended to reduce Italian rayon output dramatically. One contribution of this article is its use of business history to illustrate how recessions can reshape foreign direct investment flows and the tensions that may arise between domestic business interests and foreign stakeholders during recessions. In addition, the history of Snia Viscosa shows the importance of foreign interests and multinationals in the long‐term industrialization of Italy.     

Japan's elderly small business managers: Performance and succession

We investigate the effects of succession from an elderly to a nonelderly small business manager using firm-level data for Japan. The number of elderly small business managers has increased in Japan with the aging of the population; therefore, succession to younger managers has become an important policy issue. We make use of data for 2001–2015 for 188,021 small businesses, of which 77,773 at some point have a manager aged 60 or older and 8711 of these transition to a manager of under age 60. First, we investigate the relationship between firm performance and manager age. Performance is found to be lower for firms with elderly managers. Second, we estimate the determinants of succession in small businesses with elderly managers, showing that larger, less leveraged, more cash-rich, and profitable firms are more likely to transition to younger managers. Our results imply that more poorly performing firms are less likely to replace elderly managers, suggesting that such firms are not selected by young managers. Third, we examine post-succession performance using propensity score matching. Succession from elderly to young managers is shown to have positive effects on sales, employment, assets, return on assets, capital investment, and cash holdings. These results imply that succession improves firm growth. Furthermore, young successors tend to accumulate cash holdings implying that they are more risk averse and/or face tighter credit constraints than their predecessors.     

The determinants of competitive success in the interwar British radio industry1

This article discusses the sources of competitive advantage in the interwar British radio industry. Specifically, it examines why sections of the industry that reaped substantial monopoly rents from the downstream value chain failed to dominate the industry. During the 1920s Marconi (which controlled the fundamental UK patents) had a key cost advantage, as had other members of the ‘Big Six’ electrical engineering firms which formed the BBC and were granted preferential royalties. Meanwhile the valve manufacturers' cartel was also able to extract high rents from set manufacturers. The vertical integration literature suggests that input monopolists have incentives to control downstream production. Yet—in contrast to the gramophone industry, which became concentrated into two huge companies following market saturation in the 1930s—radio retained a much more competitive structure. The Big Six failed to capitalize fully on their initial cost advantages owing to logistical weaknesses in supplying markets subject to rapid technical and design obsolescence. Subsequently, during the 1930s, marketing innovations are shown to have played a key role in allowing several independents to establish successful brands. This gave them sufficient scale to provide strong bargaining positions with input suppliers, negating most of their initial cost disadvantage.     

Achievement motivation and small business success in Transkei

The success of small firms is crucial for the creation and expansion of employment opportunities. Success in business often relies on entrepreneurial skills and attributes. This article examines the effect of one of these attributes, need achievement (n‐Ach), on entrepreneurial success as measured by asset, sales and labour growth. N‐Ach was found to be a significant predictor of success for indigenous entrepreneurs in Transkei Subjects with high and above‐average n‐Ach level tended to engage in more sophisticated business ventures than their counterparts low on n‐Ach. Male entrepreneurs were found to have a higher mean score on n‐Ach than their female counterparts. A one‐unit enhancement in n‐Ach level of the entrepreneur could induce a more than proportionate rise in the labour growth rate of the small entrepreneurial firm.     

浅析大规模定制生产模式

本文分析了中小企业在我国经济发展中的特有作用,探讨了中小企业发展的三大模式、选择原则及促进中小企业发展的主要途径。     

Problems and training needs of small business in Transkei

This note reports the findings of a survey of the problems and training needs of 121 small business owner‐managers in Transkei The average response rate was 83 per cent, with 63 per cent of the towns achieving a response rate of over 70 per cent Retailers made up the largest part of the sample (45 per cent). It was ascertained that the owner‐managers experienced management problems and that existing training was not meeting their needs.     

Big ideas for a small town: the huddersfield creative town initiative

Whilst much of the attention of those concerned with culture and regeneration has rightly been focused upon the core cities and regional capitals, it would be a mistake to assume that smaller towns and cities do not also have a role to play. Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, is one of a number of towns clustered around the Pennines that grew, and for a hundred years prospered, from the textile trade but which, by the 1980s, were in serious economic decline. This article examines how culture has contributed to the regeneration of the town and the wider local authority district.¹ It reviews the developing role of the creative industries within the district and, in particular, the role of the local Council as a key catalyst for many of the institutional and policy shifts that have contributed to this development. The paper is very much intended as reflection on a particular case study. It is certainly not offered as a blueprint but as an opportunity to contribute to the developing knowledge base concerned with the role of the cultural and creative industries in urban development.