biographies
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Alfred Chandler
This profile deals with business historian Alfred D Chandler
(1918-2007).
It covers -
For
us Chandler's writings (complementing those of economists
Ronald Coase and Oliver Williamson)
offer greater insights into the information economy,
the evolution of the web
and innovation than those
of digital gurus such as Nicholas Negroponte, Kevin Kelly
or Don Tapscott.
introduction
Chandler's research centred on business organisation,
ranging from legal structures such as the corporation
to the use of electronic communications and information
technology. He questioned much of the hype about the information
society and the new
economy, noting that any industrial economy is dependent
on the systematic collection, storage and manipulation
of information.
In The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American
Business (Cambridge: Harvard Uni Press 1977) Chandler
for example suggested that modern business emerged when
administrative coordination did better than market mechanisms
in enhancing productivity and lowering costs. A managerial
hierarchy was a prerequisite for realising the advantages
of coordinating multiple units within a single enterprise.
The growing volume of economic activities that made administrative
coordination more efficient than market coordination.
In line with comments by Weber,
Veblen and Merton, Chandler commented
that an effective managerial hierarchy becomes its own
source of permanence, power, and continued growth. Such
hierarchies tend to become increasingly technical, professional
and independent of ownership. Major enterprises grew to
dominate branches and sectors of the economy, and so doing,
altered their structure and that of the economy as a whole.
In
later works he suggested that the true revolution in information
processing occurred during the fifty years from 1880 onwards,
with the percentage of the workforce engaged in information-handling
increasing from 6.5% to 24.5%. (As a point of reference
35% of the US workforce and 38% of the Australian in 1930
were employed in industry.) That is consistent with Coase's
1937 observation that
changes
like the telephone and telegraph which tend to reduce
the cost of organising spatially will tend to increase
the size of the firm.
For
him the major information-processing innovations concern
procedures rather than devices: standardisation, printed
forms, consistent data collection and record-keeping.
Adoption of IT was based on supersession of existing data-processing
tools: punch-card tabulators, typewriters, adding machines.
Applications of his suggestions about communications include
James Beninger's Control Revolution: Technological
& Economic Origins of the Information Society (Cambridge:
Harvard Uni Press 1989), James McKenney's Waves of
Change: Business Evolution Through Information Technology
(Boston: Harvard Business School Press 1995), Margaret
Levenstein's Accounting for Growth: Information Systems
and the Creation of the Large Corporation (Stanford:
Stanford Uni Press 1998), JoAnne Yates' Control Through
Communication: The Rise of System In American Management
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni Press 1993) and Jeffrey
Fear's Organizing Control: August Thyssen and the
Construction of German Corporate Management (Cambridge:
Harvard Uni Press 2005.
The European Corporation: Strategy, Structure, and
Social Science (Oxford: Oxford Uni Press 2002) by
Richard Whittington & Michael Mayer is an insightful
and often engaging exercise in rescuing Chandler from
the Chandlerists. A social network analysis of arguments
by Chandler and Oliver Williamson is provided in Robert
Freeland's The Struggle for Control of the Modern
Corporation: Organizational Change at General Motors,
1924-1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 2001),
complemented by Richard Langlois' The Dynamics of
Industrial Capitalism: Schumpeter, Chandler, and the New
Economy (London: Routledge 2007). Dissent is evident
in Naomi Lamoreaux' The Great Merger Movement in American
Business, 1895-1904 (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press
1985).
A perspective on application by managers and other theorists
is provided by Henry Mintzberg's Strategy Safari: A
Guided Tour Through The Wilds of Strategic Management
(New York: Simon & Schuster 1998), co-authored with Bruce
Ahlstrand & Joseph Lampel.
life
Alfred duPont Chandler was born in Delaware in 1918,
gaining a AB from Harvard in 1940 before spending five
years in the US Navy, an AM in 1947 and a doctorate in
1952.
He was a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology during 1950 and 51, becoming an MIT professor
in 1960. He was professor of history at Johns Hopkins
University during 1963-71 and Director of the Center for
Study of Recent American History, 1964 to 71.
Chandler became Straus Professor of Business History at
Harvard Business School in 1971 (Emeritus from 1989).
He was a visiting fellow at All Souls College, Oxford
in 1975.
Official appointments included service as consultant to
the US Naval War College in 1954 and chairing the Advisory
History Committee of the US Atomic Energy Commission 1969
to 77. He was a member of the editorial team for the 11
volume Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower and four
volume Letters of Theodore Roosevelt. Chandler
was a Guggenheim Fellow for 1958-59.
biographies
As yet there has no major biographical study of Chandler
or collection of his correspondence.
A helpful concise account is found in The Essential
Alfred Chandler: Essays Toward a Historical Theory of
Big Business (Boston: Harvard Business School Press
1988), edited by Thomas McCraw. The book includes a complete
bibliography up to 1987.
writings
Chandler's works include -
Leviathans:
Multinational Corporations and the New Global History
(Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 2005) coedited with
Bruce Mazlish
Shaping the Industrial Century: The Remarkable Story
of the Evolution of the Modern Chemical and Pharmaceutical
Industries (Cambridge: Harvard Uni Press 2005)
Inventing the Electronic Century: The Epic Story of
the Consumer Electronics & Computer Industries
(New York: Free Press 2001)
A Nation Transformed By Information: How Information
Has Shaped the United States From Colonial Times to
the Present (New York: Oxford Uni Press 2000) coedited
with James Cortada—incisive essays about publishing,
telecommunications, management structures, productivity
and economic growth
The Dynamic Firm - The Role of Technology, Strategy,
Organization and Regions (New York: Oxford Uni Press
1998) coedited with Peter Hagström & Örjan Sölvell
Big Business & the Wealth of Nations (New
York: Cambridge Uni Press 1997) coedited with Franco
Amatori & Takashi Hikino—a collection of papers
on corporate organisation, markets and government, notable
for international comparisons and skepticism about dogma
such as the Wiener thesis
Scale & Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism
(Cambridge: Harvard Uni Press 1994)—a continuation
of Strategy & Structure, including UK and
German enterprises
Managerial Hierarchies: Comparative Perspectives
on the Rise of the Modern Industrial Enterprise
(Cambridge: Harvard Uni Press 1980) coedited with Herman
Daems
Managerial Innovation at General Motors (New
York: Arno Press 1979)—editor
The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American
Business (Cambridge: Harvard Uni Press 1977)—the
landmark study of communications, management processes
and institutional structures
Pierre S. Du Pont and The Making of the Modern Corporation
(New York: Harper & Row 1971) with Stephen Salsbury—a
deservedly influential study of corporate organisation
and management styles
The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins Uni Press 1970-80) coedited with Stephen
Ambrose, Louis Galambos and others—the 11 volume
official edition of the papers of the US President
Railroads, the Nation's First Big Business (New
York: Columbia Uni Press 1965)
Strategy & Structure: Chapters in the History
of the Industrial Enterprise (Cambridge: MIT Press
1962)
Henry Varnum Poor - Business Editor, Analyst &
Reformer (Cambridge: Harvard Uni Press 1956)—the
definitive biography of the early US business analyst,
progenitor of Standard & Poor's rating service
The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt (Cambridge:
Harvard Uni Press 1951-54) coedited with Elting Morison
& John Morton Blum—the
four volume authorised edition of the correspondence
of the big game hunter, conservationist and President.
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