Business Policies in the Making. Three steel companies compared

Notes:

Scholarly account written by a specialist in managerial economics primarily for 'people interested in management' and in business history, etc. Forms a study of 'business policies within the context of management and the firm'. It addresses three core themes: 1] degrees of rationality and error in decision making; 2] trade offs between growth, efficiency and social action; and 3] managerial specialisation and phases in the development of firms'. These themes are tested in the context of the experience of three steel production firms in the period 1914-39, these being: Dorman Long & Co Ltd, United Steel Companies Ltd and Stewarts & Lloyds Ltd. Chapters cover, inter alia, comparative growth policies, 1914-20; responses to adversity in early 1920s; critical changes in top management, 1925-31; successes and failures in growth in 1930s; efficiency and organisational problems in 1930s; relationships with public opinion and government, 1930s