Business Institutions and International Competitive Advantage

Key publications: Please click on underlined titles for access to Adobe pdf files.

The Decline of the British Economy, co-edited with Bernard Elbaum, Oxford University Press, 1986.
A reinterpretation of the causes of Britain's long-run economic decline in the twentieth century that stresses the role of “institutional rigidities” that derived from the institutional arrangements that had enabled Britain to become the world economic leader in the nineteenth century.  

"Strategy, Structure, and Management Development in the United States and Britain," in K. Kobayashi and H. Morikawa, eds., Development of Managerial Enterprise, University of Tokyo Press, 1986: 101-146.
This article is a comparative analysis of the evolution of managerial organization in major US and British industrial enterprises from the late nineteenth century through the 1970's that stresses the systematic segmentation of top management from the technical and administrative organization in Britain compared with its integration in the United States (at least through the 1950's) and that draws out the implications for the evolution of higher educational systems in the two nations.  

Business Organization and the Myth of Market Economy, Cambridge University Press, 1991 (paperback edition, 1993); also published in Italian by Il Mulino, 1993 and in Greek by University of Crete Press, 2001; chapter one reprinted in Richard Whitley, ed.,Competing Capitalisms: Institutions and Economies, Elgar Publishing, 2002.
A comparative institutional analysis of the shift in industrial leadership from Britain to the United States to Japan, 1890-1990, provides a basis for formulating a theoretical perspective on the relation between business institutions and innovative enterprise and for critically evaluating the contributions of neoclassical, neo-Marxist, neo-Keynesian,and neo-Schumpeterian economists to such a perspective.

"Social Organization and Technological Leadership," in W. J. Baumol, R. R. Nelson, and E. N. Wolff, eds., Convergence of Productivity: Cross National Studies and Historical Evidence, Oxford University Press, 1994: 164-193.
A perspective on how advanced nations, with specific reference to Britain, United States, and Japan, develop organizational capabilities that generate technological leadership.

"Organization, Finance, and International Competition," with Mary O'Sullivan, Industrial and Corporate Change, 5, 1, 1996, 1-49. 
A comparative analysis of the forms of "organizational integration" and "financial commitment" characteristic in major industrial enterprises in Britain, Germany, Japan, and the United States in the 1980's, with implications for comparative national quality/cost performance at that time.  

"Big Business and Skill Formation in the Wealthiest Nations: The Organizational Revolution in the Twentieth Century," with Mary O'Sullivan, in A. D. Chandler, Jr., F. Amatori, and T. Hikino, eds., Big Business and the Wealth of Nations, Cambridge University Press, 1997: 497-521. 
A comparative-historical synthesis of organizational integration and skill formation in major industrial enterprises in Britain, Germany, Japan and the United States. 

"Finance and Industrial Development Parts I" and Finance and Industrial Development part II, with Mary O'Sullivan, Financial History Review, 4, 1 and 2, 1997: 7-29, 113-134; reprinted in David Coates, ed., Models of Capitalism: Debating Strengths and Weaknesses , Elgar, 2002. 
A comparative-historical of the sources of financial commitment in major industrial enterprises in Britain, Germany, Japan, and the United States.  

"The Japanese Economy and Corporate Reform: What Path to Sustainable Prosperity?," Industrial and Corporate Change, 8, 4,1999: 607-633 reprinted in Lazonick and O'Sullivan, Corporate Governance and Sustainable Prosperity
An analysis of the persistence of Japanese "lifetime employment" institutions in the 1990's as integral to a national intergenerational dependence "strategy” of keeping people employed for more years of their lives while accepting lower returns on financial assets.

"Varieties of Capitalism in the Twentieth Century," with Ronald Dore and Mary O'Sullivan, Oxford Review of Economic Policy,15, 4, 1999: 102-120; reprinted in Malcolm Warner, ed., International Encyclopedia of Business and Management, Thomson Learning, 2001;and reprinted in David Coates, ed., Models of Capitalism: Debating Strengths and Weaknesses, Elgar, 2002. 
A new comparative synthesis of the evolution of financial and employment institutions in Britain, Germany, Japan and the United States in the twentieth century, with an emphasis on differences in a) the rise of managerial capitalism, b) political responses to the Great Depression, c) corporate restructuring after World War II, d) institutional adjustments to the inflationary conditions of the 1970's, and e) movements toward “shareholder value” modes of corporate governance in the 1980's and 1990's.  

"Maximizing Shareholder Value: A New Ideology for Corporate Governance," with Mary O'Sullivan, Economy and Society , 29, 1, 2000: 13-35; reprinted in Lazonick and O'Sullivan, Corporate Governance and Sustainable Prosperity 
The roles of corporate overextension, international competition, and financial deregulation in the rise of shareholder value as an ideology of corporate governance in the United States in the 1980's and 1990's.