Chandler on High Technology Industries from the 1880s to the 1990s: A Comment

Abstract

Al’s essay here on more than a century’s history of high technology industries and firms is vintage Chandler. My comments on it will focus on three points: Chandler’s global perspective, which is one that too few U.S. business historians have; Chandler’s defense of the large corporation as a fount of continuing innovation in high tech industries against the allegations of others that such Chandlerian corporations are yesterday’s news and no longer very relevant; and lastly what I see as a lacuna that seems still to exist in Chandler’s interpretations, namely a tendency to ignore or minimize the importance of finance.

This paper is a comment on How High Technology Industries Transformed Work and Life Worldwide from the 1880s to the 1990s by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. which can be found at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2205806.

Chandler's response to this comment can be found at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2205854