Reappraising Corporate Failure in Britain: Labor Management in the Tobacco Industry before 1939

Robert Fitzgerald and Takashi Hirao

Business History Review, 2005, vol. 79, issue 2, 305-337

Abstract: To what extent did the search for solutions to problems of labor management mold the development of large-scale business? The history of the Imperial Tobacco Company (ITC) is instructive, because its managerial structures have been heavily criticized. Yet many of the organizational improvements that were implemented after the company's founding in 1901 have been overlooked, particularly in the realm of labor management, which emerged as an important component of the company's increasing capabilities and growth. In contrast to U.S. tobacco firms, ITC implemented labor policies that responded to arising difficulties in size, legislation, trade unionism, and social attitudes. Its development reveals how the variety of factors influencing the management of labor stretch beyond the narrow concern for models of internal administrative structures.

Date: 2005
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