Business Policies in the Making (Routledge Revivals)

First published in 1983, this study investigates and compares three leading firms in the British iron and steel industry between 1914 and 1939, analysing their strategies, boardroom politics, and their responses to the problems posed by the Great War and by the vicissitudes of the 1920s and '30s. Boswell's rejection of economic determinism; his insistence that managerial influences fall into definable long-run patterns; and his theses on managerial specialisation and long-term policy biases confront fundamental issues for theories of the firm.

Boswell, Jonathan

Foreword; 1. Management: trade-offs, biases and phases2. Management: iron and steel3. Exuberance and caution4. Miseries and grandeurs of recession 5. The managerial watershed6. Mergers and investment, liaisons and wars 7. Efficiency and organisation building8. Labour and local community problems9. Relationships with public policies and government10. Conclusions;Source material;Index