Advertising Expenditures by Industries

Why do industries vary in their advertising intensity? In this paper, the author reviews the evidence of econometric studies and of business historians, and contributes some new findings of his own. He concludes that, of the many causes that are responsible, one of the most important and neglected is what Borden has called ‘the nature of the product’.     

Bringing Political Economy Back in

Like so many of the fields that have flourished in history departmentsin recent years, business history has an uneasy relationshipwith political history. When business history first emergedin the United States as a separate field in the 1920s, its foundersstressed the importance of lavishing on business records thesame reverence that political historians accorded the personalpapers of lawmakers. Only in this way, business historians assumed,would it be possible to convince other historians of the centralityof business leaders—and, more broadly, of economic institutions—tothe making of the nation. Much has changed since the 1920s. Yet the adversarial relationshipof business historians toward political history persists. Thismindset is evident     

Business history,global networks and the future of mobility

Globalisation raises serious concerns about ecological sustainability and social equality. This article proposes that business historians should write a usable past that is framed by the imperative of addressing these issues. The transport and communication networks that underpin global trade and travel offer an opportunity to narrate such a past. In particular business enterprises have historically helped to shape the ways consumers think about and realise bodily movement. By contributing to a genealogy of these mobility cultures, business historians can help to uncover the mythic traces that continued to shape contemporary public and policy understandings of global mobility.     

New business histories! Plurality in business history research methods

We agree with de Jong et al.'s argument that business historians should make their methods more explicit and welcome a more general debate about the most appropriate methods for business historical research. But rather than advocating one ‘new business history’, we argue that contemporary debates about methodology in business history need greater appreciation for the diversity of approaches that have developed in the last decade. And while the hypothesis-testing framework prevalent in the mainstream social sciences favoured by de Jong et al. should have its place among these methodologies, we identify a number of additional streams of research that can legitimately claim to have contributed novel methodological insights by broadening the range of interpretative and qualitative approaches to business history. Thus, we reject privileging a single method, whatever it may be, and argue instead in favour of recognising the plurality of methods being developed and used by business historians – both within their own field and as a basis for interactions with others.     

Coming Full Circle: The Study of Big Business since 1950

Taking a broad view of historians' work on the rise of big businessin the United States over the last half-century, this articleattempts to assess both where business history has been andwhere it may go in the future. The analysis recognizes the centralityof the impact made by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., but it also delvesinto other paths, including some not taken, of interest to historians.This wide-ranging interpretation also maintains the importanceof big business itself as a subject worthy of historical attentionand argues that its crucial role in the development of Americansociety has not yet been considered by mainstream historianswith the intensity it deserves. Musing over the nearly constantpreoccupation of practitioners with defining the scope of businesshistory as a field, the essay highlights a number of topicsneeding attention, suggesting that historians of business arewell positioned to shed light on the growing role of businessin all aspects of life in the twenty-first century.     

Exploring business students' creative problem-solving preferences

Past research has established the importance of problem solving to business success. The authors explored the creative problem-solving (CPS) preferences of business students, addressing two primary issues: (a) Do CPS preferences vary across CPS stages and tasks? And (b) Do CPS preferences regarding collaboration and delegation vary by stage? Findings suggest business students' CPS preferences do vary across CPS stages and tasks. Further, results show business students' preferences for CPS collaboration and delegating do vary by stage. The implications for businesses and educators attempting to improve attitudes toward creativity are discussed.     

Is there “no such thing as business ethics”?

What are we to make of the claim that we often hear, that there is no such thing as business ethics? This essay first examines two arguments that might be in people's minds in making such a claim — that business is a “game,” and hence the ordinary constraints of morality do not apply, and that one cannot survive in business if one is too “ethical.” The critique of these arguments begins the process of making clear what business ethics is. The paper then proceeds in a more positive vein to define and explain for the sceptic what business ethics is. Everyone must confront the question, what should I do in my business relationships? Business ethics is defined, then, as the effort to develop Socratically one's answer to this question, that is, through the critical examination of alternatives. In the process of explaining this notion, several other senses in which someone might say that there is no such thing as business ethics are explored and the basic distinction between the moral point of view and ethical egoism is introduced.     

Cultural Themes in Brazilian and U.S. Auto Ads: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

Abstract

Do Brazilian and U.S. advertisers employ different themes in print advertisements? If so, what can we conclude about cross-cultural differences in values? In our study of automobile ads that appeared in the business magazines of Brazil and of the U.S. during the 1970s, we found that (1) urban themes were used more frequently in Brazilian ads than in U.S. ads, (2) leisure themes were used more frequently in U.S. ads than in Brazilian ads, (3) work themes appeared as frequently in Brazilian ads as in U.S. ads, and (4) work themes appeared more frequently in U.S. ads as the 1970s progressed. Thus, our study suggests that values differ between the business subculture of Brazil and that of the United States. Importantly, our latter two findings disaffirm the theories of many historians and sociologists. Because the application of historical and sociological theories may produce erroneous advertising decisions, we advise advertisers to research carefully each national market before using a “standardized” advertising theme.     

Can social awareness be increased through business school curricula?

The study was prompted by (a) Frederick and Vogel's debate concerning future research in “business and society”, (b) such recently reported managerial excesses as golden parachutes, “greenmail”, and fraud, (c) the increasing emphasis on coursework in the area. It appears that there is a need to assess how students, our future business leaders, perceive social issues and if a “business and society” course can help them define and understand the importance of these issues. Three questions provided the focal point: (1) Which issues do students perceive as most important before and after completing the course? (2) How much importance do students place on issues? (3) Does completing a “business and society” course make a significant difference in how students perceive the importance of the issues presented? Students appeared to have already clearly defined priorities before entering the course as there was very little post-course reordering of priorities. However, they did display an increased perception of the importance of social issues. The study also indicated that a “business and society” course can contribute to an increased student awareness of the importance of social issues. Therefore, it was concluded that a “business and society” course can help students define and evaluate the importance of social issues.     

Sustainability in Practice

Should business lead on environmental sustainability? The article argues that while there are some environmental initiatives that support the mission of the business, such as energy savings that also reduce costs, business should not go too far. On the one hand, its ability to do so is limited since most of the carbon footprint is outside its four walls, and even where it can make substantial changes, it should not do it until consumers will be willing to pay for it and incur minor inconveniences.     

Moving forward: Balancing the financial and emotional costs of business failure

Why do owner-managers delay business failure when it is financially costly to do so? In this paper we acknowledge that delaying business failure can be financially costly to the owner-manager and the more costly the delay, the more difficult the recovery. But we complement this financial perspective by introducing the notion of anticipatory grief as a mechanism for reducing the level of grief triggered by the failure event, which reduces the emotional costs of business failure. We propose that under some circumstances delaying business failure can help balance the financial and emotional costs of business failure to enhance an owner-manager's overall recovery — some persistence may be beneficial to recovery and promote subsequent entrepreneurial action.     

Varieties of business history: Subject and methods for the twenty-first century

This paper deals with different approaches to business history. It argues that conflicting choices about methodology and subject can enrich a discipline, but that some of the current disputes among business historians produce unnecessary opportunity costs and block a more integrated understanding of how firms function in their larger social, political and economic contexts. The paper provides examples of how the separation in the field works against writing business history that is at once rigorous and appeals to broad audiences. It also suggests two approaches for bridging methodological differences. The first calls for reviving some basic historiographical notions. The second involves developing a closer relationship with business to gain more access to private, primary source materials. German experiences are drawn on to show how mutually beneficial academic–business cooperation can be.     

A successful British MNE in the backyard of American big business: Explaining the performance of the American and Canadian subsidiaries of Lever Brothers 1888–1914

After 1888, Lever Brothers expanded into the United States and Canada. The surviving archival evidence suggests that the Canadian subsidiary was more successful than the American one. This article considers a number of factors that help to explain why this was the case. Some of the factors considered, such as differences between the Canadian and American tariffs, Canada's more robust system of trademark protection, and the absence of an anti-trust law in Canada before 1908, are related to themes very familiar to business historians. This article also applies concepts that are not part of the normal toolkit of business historians. The article draws on the literature on identity economics and argues that the greater success enjoyed by Lever Brothers in Canada was, in part, rooted in Canada's strongly British identity. The impact of identities on the policymakers, managers, and consumers who collectively shaped the two North American subsidiaries is assessed.     

On the Importance of Education

The role of education in economic growth has been clearly established. This address is concerned with several issues: What are the benefits and costs of education? Where does the United States stand in educational attainment in historical perspective and relative to OECD nations? What can NABE as a group do to improve education of business economists? What can NABE individual members do?     

How Strong are the Ethical Preferences of Senior Business Executives?

How do senior business executives rank their preferences for various ethical principles? And how strongly do the executives believe in these principles? Also, how do these preference rankings relate to the way the executives see the future (wherein business decisions play out)? Research on these questions may provide us with an appreciation of the complexities of ethical behavior in management beyond the traditional issues concerning ethical decision-making in business. Based on a survey of 585 vice presidents of U.S. businesses it was found that: (1) there is a distinct set of principles of ethical conduct that is considered favorable as opposed to another set considered unfavorable among a comprehensive list of 14 ethical principles; (2) the executives believed overwhelmingly that their own individual ethical preferences are better than those of other executives; (3) the strength of their preferences for ethical principles is associated with whether the executives are relatively near-future oriented or more distant-future oriented; and (4), there are very few significant differences in terms of gender, age, education level, private/public education, prestigious/other schools, business/non-business academic backgrounds, and length of job experience. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

More than you think: An inclusive estimate of business entries

The Wells Fargo/NFIB Series on Business Entries and Exits collected data throughout 1995 from 36,000 households regarding the business formation activity occurring among adults within those households. After adjusting for the 1.37 owners per firm and the 10% of households with more than one entry, there were an estimated 4.553-million business entries in the 12-month period involving 6.211 million active owners. Seventy-eight and one-half (78.5) percent of those businesses were de novo starts, 20.0% purchases, and the remainder other forms of entry (including missing responses). Most of the entries were quite small whether started or purchased.The number of business entries is significantly larger than prior estimates. However, the 4.553-million figure, when dissected into component parts, is consistent with other measures of business entry. The primary reason for the larger estimate is that this research was able to capture the significant number of very small entries that either do not appear in other databases or appear only after a substantial delay.These new data offer a significantly expanded view of the American business population and its dynamics. More specifically, they provide quantification of the smaller end of the entry scale, thereby introducing new population distributions and raising fundamental research and marketing questions about the unit of analysis (What is a business?) What constitutes a reasonable survey sample? To what population do we generalize survey data? What are the market segments of the small-business population, and how do they differ? What are the public policy requirements of these segments, and how do they coincide and conflict? And, what do real entry numbers tell us about the operation of the American economy on both a secular and cyclical basis?The foregoing are obvious. However, there are more subtle and perhaps more interesting questions. For example, the more people try to go into business for themselves, the more our collective (American) experience is influenced by the experience of business ownership. Small business draws enormous empathy from the American public; few Americans institutions are as popular. This is obviously a complex phenomenon. However, one explanation for its popularity is that so many Americans are exposed to business ownership either personally or through someone they know. Part of this research not yet published shows that small-business ownership pervades every class, income category, racial grouping, etc. The penetration of business formation into the American experience, therefore, is not only deep, it is also broad. And when its dimensions are so great, the remaining issue is not the existence of influence but its degree.If there are more starts than previously recognized, there must also be more exits. And, if there are more exits, the dynamics of the business entry-exit process become even more tumultuous than previously recognized. Particularly for those interested in either policy or management, the question becomes, “Why is exit so common?” One path of inquiry leads to motivation for entry, including career alternatives and income supplementation. To what extent do people intend to grow their businesses and to what extent do they intend their businesses to fill financial, occupational, or time gaps until something better comes along? Another path of inquiry leads to resources. Do resource constraints or constraints of other natures impede business development? Then there is the issue of preparation. How well-prepared are entrants? And, what reasonable steps can be taken to improve their assessments of potential opportunities or to effectively implement plans to capitalize on them? These are not necessarily new issues. But they become more conspicuous and pressing when the large number of exits is appreciated.The technique used to capture these data at a reasonable cost is called an “omnibus” or “caravan” survey. This survey technique is not well-known outside the commercial survey industry, but it presents considerable opportunity for researchers either with limited budgets or desirous of asking fewer than 10–15-minutes' worth of questions from a sample of the adult population. Its advantage is financial. Multiple sponsors can ask a limited number of proprietary questions at their own expense. But they then share the costs and results of reaching respondents and of asking the demographic questions, for example, age or sex of respondent. The current research posed two screen questions to all 36,000 households interviewed. The sponsors paid for those 72,000 questions. But only about 2,000 respondents passed one of the screens. These respondents were led through several more questions. Thus, the sponsors paid just for the screen questions and those questions administered to the 2,000. An extensive set of demographic data about the respondents was thrown in “free.”     

Clio in the business school: Historical approaches in strategy,international business and entrepreneurship

On the back of recent and significant new debates on the use of history within business and management studies, we consider the perception of historians as being anti-theory and of having methodological shortcomings; and business and management scholars displaying insufficient attention to historical context and privileging of certain social science methods over others. These are explored through an examination of three subjects: strategy, international business and entrepreneurship. We propose a framework for advancing the use of history within business and management studies more generally through greater understanding of historical perspectives and methodologies.     

Is Guanxi Orientation Bad, Ethically Speaking? A Study of Chinese Enterprises

Guanxi as one of the key factors leading to business success in China (PRC) has ironically been synonymous with bribery. This raises some serious questions: should Western foreign firms do business in China? How should they do business with Chinese firms? This study investigated the relationship between guanxi orientation and cognitive moral development in an attempt to determine whether the level of guanxi orientation of Chinese business people affects their ethical reasoning. Based on a classification of Chinese enterprises (Nee, 1992), it was found that Chinese enterprises rely on guanxi for business to different extents. However, their levels of cognitive moral development are not significantly different, suggesting that guanxi orientation has very little to do with ethical reasoning (as captured through an established measure of cognitive moral development). Furthermore, time in profession was found to positively affect guanxi orientation; however, age failed to predict guanxi orientation and education turned out to be a negative predictor of guanxi orientation.     

Barry Shank. A Token of My Affection: Greeting Cards and American Business Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. xvii + 328 pp. ISBN 0-231-11878-3, $50.00 (cloth).

Barry Shank has written a history of commercially produced greetingcards in the United States. Using vocabulary, concepts, andthe terrifically long sentences common to cultural studies,Shank argues that greeting cards reveal the emotional life ofcard-buying Americans. That inner life, he argues, was fundamentally"conditioned" and "structured" by American business culture.Many business historians will find Shank’s book challengingto read and not always convincing. If they persevere, and occasionallysuspend empirical demands, they will     

International investment and Nazi politics: The cloaking of German assets abroad, 1936–1945

This article deals with the relationship between business and government during the Third Reich in making policy toward attempts by German companies to protect their foreign assets. In contrast to the widely held view of many professional historians and journalists, we argue that business engaged in these efforts largely without governmental assistance, indeed often in the face of resistance from the regime, since for the most part companies set up structures that were contrary to the wishes of the National Socialist political bureaucracy. Although some of the evidence we present here is known to historians, much of our interpretation of the data has not penetrated professional accounts of the period. The cloaking story, moreover, has implications for contemporary multinational business. As the Second World War approached, fear of expropriation became a more important motivation for cloaking, but even in the late 1930s German managers created these structures for a variety of commercial reasons. Firms are still confronted by a myriad of pressures and political risks, not the least of which are those posed by their own home countries' actions that affect the value of their foreign assets. We argue here that one of the commercial objectives of German businesses' cloaking efforts was to reduce the political risk of the actions of the country in which they were incorporated.