Jones (1997)

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Culture

Chandler could not find any obvious reasons for the British tendency for personal capitalism, while the author believes culture plays a big part.

The British way of thinking was distinctly "anti-industrial", which opposed that of the German culture, which was more focused on technology and progression.

Hofstede argued that Germans are less individualistic and more risk averse, which explains the ability of the Germans to build large, centralised organisations in the new capital-intensive industries of the late nineteenth century. The British have weaker uncertainty avoidance, so they embarked on more risky entrepreneurial activities.

The author discusses Casson, who argues that in "high trust" societies, transaction costs will be lower, as fewer resources will be needed to monitor behaviour. Thus governance structures and patterns of inter-firm interaction will differ between countries.

British managerial decisions were adverse to new machinery and more geared towards a personal value system, which favoured financial, entrepreneurial and trading business activities.

Improvements?

Post 1945

Why it still wasn't working out