Based on voluminous corporate records and extensive interviews with key employees, Science and Corporate Strategy: Du Pont R and D, 1902 1980 provides a comprehensive, critical study of research and development in a large US corporation. Du Pont was among a handful of US corporations that established formal research and development laboratories at the turn of the century to improve competitive positions in their respective industries. Initially, Du Pont's executives viewed R&D as an important though not central part of the corporations strategy. However the gains made by the company's...

A history of America's use of wage and price controls from colonial times to the 1970s.

This book tells the story of how and why industrial research was established in America by two large and innovative corporations: General Electric, formed in a merger of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston in 1892, and the dominant force in the American electrical industry ever since; and American Telephone and Telegraph, the commercial outgrowth of Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone. Important lessons can be drawn from the early efforts of these two corporations. Through industrial research - and particularly through the development of patented products and processes...

Since the 1930s, U.S. agriculture has undergone a revolution in productivity. Sally Clarke explains how government activity, from support for research to price supports and farm credit programs, created a climate favorable to rapid gains in productivity. Regulation stabilized prices, introduced new sources of credit, and caused tool manufacturers and private creditors to revise their business strategies. Competitive farmers took advantage of these new conditions to invest in expensive technology and achieve new gains in productivity.

Elihu Thomson was a major American inventor of electric light and power systems. A contemporary of Thomas Edison, Thomson performed the engineering and design work necessary to make electric lighting a common product. From the 1880s to the 1930s, Thomson was employed by the General Electric Company and its predecessors. Working within the corporation, Thomson reveals how successful inventions are based on explicit links among technological artifacts, marketing strategy, and the business organization needed for manufacturing and marketing.

The study of Panhandle Eastern's history shows the relationship between regulatory policy and the modern corporation in the twentieth century from a unique perspective, for it extends over three eras. This book shows how entrepreneurs competed, first, in an unregulated industry through the exercise of unrestrained corporate muscle, then as it became increasingly regulated and profitable, and finally in the era of business reorganization and deregulation when regulators changed the structure of the pipeline industry.

This book examines in detail the fiscal and more general economic crisis of New York State and City. The authors show that the crisis was as much the fruit of political manoeuvering as it was the outcome of long-term economic trends and fiscal ineptitude. The book examines the roots of fiscal excesses and economic retardation and explores the interaction of fiscal and economic factors that ultimately imperiled the credit rating of the Empire State and the city that remains the financial capital of the United States. In uncovering the causes of these problems, McClelland and Magdovitz present...