Theodore N. Vail and the Role of Innovation in the Modern Bell System

Louis Galambos

Business History Review, 1992, vol. 66, issue 1, 95-126

Abstract: The record of long–term innovation at the American Telegraph and Telephone Company seems to defy conventional economic and social theories of the firm. The following essay, based on extensive research in the AT&T Archives, argues that CEO Theodore Vail made this possible by transforming the Bell System's orientation to innovation, its structure, and its culture. He also gave the System a cadre of leaders who sustained over the long term Vail's strategy of blending adaptive and formative innovations to promote network efficiency.

Date: 1992
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