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Abstract
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Abstract
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Abstract
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Abstract
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This study aims to compare the National Alliance of Businessmen and the National Urban Coalition, two change efforts spawned during the 1960’s US Urban Crisis, in which businesses…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to compare the National Alliance of Businessmen and the National Urban Coalition, two change efforts spawned during the 1960’s US Urban Crisis, in which businesses took a central role to address urban problems, particularly through expanding opportunities for African-Americans.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a historical comparative case study developed through research utilizing published resources and archival material.
Findings
Neither organization clearly achieved its initial goals, with each migrating toward the end of its existence away from business-related goals to focus on public education. Potential causes include economic obstacles, a heroic conception of change that fostered overcommitment, and conflicting institutional logics in the organization’s missions, both of which were intertwined with governmental objectives from their foundings. However, the period shows overall changes in social awareness by business, in which these organizations played a part, and efforts by today’s businesses to respond to racial tensions in cities display learning from these predecessor organizations.
Research limitations/implications
A significant dependence on published sources limits the depth of insight versus accessing organizational archives; however, it does offer a similar basis for information on both organizations to facilitate comparisons.
Practical implications
The structural vulnerabilities of these organizations can present lessons for organizations hoping to pursue similar change through business partnerships today.
Social implications
The racial tensions continuing in the USA today display parallel the challenges of the 1960s, making learning from these precedents valuable.
Originality/value
This study offers a comparative view of the NAB and NUC throughout their history, which has not previously been provided.
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M.L. Emiliani and P.J. Seymour
The purpose of this paper is to introduce management historians to the long‐forgotten work of Frank George Woollard (1883‐1957), who in the mid‐1920s established flow production…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce management historians to the long‐forgotten work of Frank George Woollard (1883‐1957), who in the mid‐1920s established flow production in the British motor industry, and its remarkable similarity to current‐day production principles and practices used by Toyota Motor Corporation, also known as lean production.
Design/methodology/approach
Overview of Frank Woollard's life and work obtained from newly discovered journal papers, his 1954 book, Principles of Mass and Flow Production, newly discovered archives, and new first‐hand testimony from a close friend and from a long‐time family friend.
Findings
Frank Woollard was a pioneer in the establishment of flow production in the British motor industry in the mid‐1920s and the principal developer of automatic transfer machinery. His accomplishments are comparable to Taiichi Ohno, regarded as the architect of Toyota's production system.
Research limitations/implications
Woollard's accomplishments in flow production are a fruitful area for future research given the speed and completeness with which flow production was established at Morris Motors Ltd, Engines Branch. Newly discovered papers describing his flow production system have yet to be studied in detail by academics.
Practical implications
Woollard's application of flow production beginning in 1923 means that timelines for discoveries and attributions of key accomplishments in lean management must be reexamined and revised.
Originality/value
Woollard's work fills important gaps in the literature on the history of flow production generally and in the British motor industry in particular. His work constitutes an early application of current‐day lean principles and practices, and is therefore noteworthy and relevant to management historians and the operations and production management community. It is hoped that this paper will inspire management historians to study Woollard's work and place him in the context of other early twentieth‐century pioneers in industrial management and flow production.