The Growth of the Transnational Industrial Firm in the United States and the United Kingdom: A Comparative Analysis

THIS article is an exercise in comparative institutional history. It examines the beginnings and continuing growth of a powerful economic institution, the modern transnational industrial corporation, in two quite different economies. Such a comparative analysis has the advantage of pointing to basic institutional similarities and, at the same time, suggesting how institutions are affected by differing economic needs and opportunities as well as by differing culture attitudes and values. And, although the similarities in the history of the large industrial firm in the two countries are significant, it is the differences that are particularly striking. This analysis is based on a comparative study that I have been carrying out with Prof. Herman Daems on the rise of large-scale industrial enterprise in the United States, Britain, and the Continent. Our plan has been to make use of lists of over I 00 of the largest industrial firms (ranked either by assets or market value of securities outstanding) in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France for three sets of years: those immediately after World War I, those just prior to the onslaught of the great depression, and those immediately following World War 11.2 These lists document what I found to be the case for the United States.3 The largest firms clustered in a few capital-intensive and energy-intensive groups of industries whose products are distributed in volume in national and international markets. In all four countries the largest enterprises were found primarily in the chemical, machinery, and metal-making industries. In Britain, as might be expected from its industrial history, there were more large textile firms. In the United States there were more large petroleum enterprises. In both the United States and the United Kingdom there were many large companies in the food industries, but in Germany and France there were almost none. In no country,