The virtues of dialogue between academics and businessmen

Abstract

This article aims to understand the process of production of knowledge in the field of business organisation and in problems of administration. It argues that the acquisition of this type of knowledge is greatly assisted by the developments of dialogue between academics and industrialists. It looks at a method which has been applied in England during the period late 1940s to early 1970s in three academic seminars: the Seminar in Problems of Administration at the LSE (1947–1972); the Industrial Seminar at Birmingham University (late 1950s‒1972); and the BPhil Seminar in Economics of Industry at the University of Oxford (1957–1974). By the mid-1970s, these three seminars had ceased to exist and left room for the rapid development of management studies, on the one hand, and the formalisation of industrial economics (game theory), on the other.

Keywords:

• Management education
• business organisation
• LSE
• University of Oxford
• University of Birmingham
• empirical realism
• seminar method

Notes

1. See Cary, An Essay on the State of England; and Petty, A Treatise of Taxes and Contributions.

2. Marshall, The New Cambridge Curriculum, 3.

3. Whitaker, Alfred Marshall: The Years, 1.

4. Marshall, The Present Position of Economics, 55–6.

5. Clapham, Of Empty Economic Boxes, 305.

6. Pigou and Robertson, “Those Empty Boxes.”

7. Leonard Minkes’ recollection is that he had little patience with the drawing of long-run envelope curves, showing economics of scale: yet he was a pioneer in recognising the existence of indivisibilities in factors of production as source of such economies. Oddly, however, he saw no limits to scale if appropriate management was achieved.

8. For a further detailed account, see Chester, Economics, Politics and Social Studies, 54–5; and Young and Lee, Oxford Economics and Economists, 120–25.

9. Interestingly, this research practice was also used by politics fellows during the same period. This is evidenced in The History of the University of Oxford: The Twentieth Century. In particular, Harrison notes: ‘In the 1930s, while Henderson’s Economists Research Group was entertaining visiting businessmen, politics tutors were entertaining visiting non-academic speakers in their Public Administration Group’ (Harrison, Politics, 388–9).

10. Edwards and Townsend, Business Enterprise. Also see Edwards and Townsend, Studies in Business Organisation.

11. Minkes, Business and a Behavioural Tradition.

12. Minkes and Nuttall, Business Behaviour and Management Structure.

13. See, respectively, Edwards, The Rationale of Cost Accounting; and Edwards and Black, Notes on the British Income Tax.

14. Coase, Essays on Economics and Economists, 213.

15. Edwards and Townsend, Business Enterprise, vi.

16. More details about the academic career and the economic thought of Philip Sargant Florence can be found in Minkes, “Philip Sargant Florence”; and Arena, “The Evolution of Labour Welfare.”

17. Sargant Florence, Economics and Human Behaviour.

18. Minkes and Nuttall, Business Behaviour and Management Structure.

19. Recent personal correspondence with Brian Loasby.

20. Early in his career Loasby was a research fellow at Birmingham University for several years, studying location of industry. He attended a number of meetings of the Industrial Seminars – of which, it is only fair to say, he has no detailed recollection, but exemplifies his growing interest in decision-making and conversation with businessmen.

21. Ansoff (Corporate Strategy) separates strategic and administrative decisions. They are, of course, intimately associated.

22. Tivey in political science, Ross in industrial relations: both attended the Birmingham seminar, as did Geoffrey Gilbert, from the Chemistry department.

23. As Elizabeth Brunner rightly pointed out, ‘there was no formal teaching of graduates at Oxford until after the War. Until 1947, if you wanted to read a higher degree you wrote a thesis and submitted it for either a B.Litt. [two years, research report] or a D.Phil. [up to four years, originality and worthy of publication]. … After the War, it became clear that graduate work at Oxford was going to be greatly expanded. People were demanding to find some organization. … And Oxford introduced a new graduate degree, the B.Phil., equivalent to the B.Litt. in standing but to be taken by examination not thesis and to be taught by class instruction. B.Phil. for 2 years (exceptionally 1) primarily for Philosophy, Economics and History’ (Brunner, “The Training of Academic Industrial Economists,” 2).

24. Ibid., 1–2.

25. Ibid., 3.

26. Letter from P. W. S. Andrews to David Liston, The Metal Box Company, 10/01/1957, Andrews and Brunner’s archives: Box 529.

27. Ibid.

28. Brunner, “The Training of Academic Industrial Economists,” 3.

29. Different Oxfordshire businessmen were speaking at this seminar every week.

30. Brunner, “The Training of Academic Industrial Economists,” 5.

31. Engwall, Mercury meets Minerva, 89.

32. Ibid., 90, italics added.

33. Locke, The Collapse of the American Management Mystique.

34. Dichgans in Kipping, “The Hidden Business Schools,” italics added.

35. Kipping and Nioche, “Politique de productivité et formations .”

36. Andrews, “Preliminary Notes,” 1.

37. Lazonick, “What Happened to the Theory.”

38. Ibid., 290.

39. Ibid., 291.

40. Giocoli, “Three Alternative (?) Stories.”

41. Arena and Dutraive, “La théorie.”

42. Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism.

43. The FME financed the establishment of London and Manchester business schools, a few years later. The FME still exists and seeks to encourage business leaders to make the transition between the private sector and business school academia. For further details on this institution: https://management-education.org.uk

44. The members of the Savoy Group differed from the FME’s work, mainly because their main idea was in favour of the need for a ‘completely new type of college which would be tailor-made to fit industry’s requirements’, created independently from any existing structures.

45. Whitley, Thomas, and Marceau, Masters of Business, 44.

46. Locke, The Collapse of the American Management Mystique, 46.

47. Robbins, “Report of the Committee,” 65.

48. Arena, “The Marshallian Tradition of Industrial Economics.”

49. Andrews and Brunner’s archives, LSE, Box 258.

50. For instance, lack of knowledge in economics from students in Management Studies (‘The membership has generally included only men of fairly good quality as economists’), confidence issues with businessmen which could arise from the introduction of new people, general incompatibility between the aims of the BPhil in Management Studies and the purpose of the seminar, library-related issues, and so on.

51. ‘But that does not mean that I am to be treated as a person hostile to management education’ (ibid., 4).

52. Brunner, “The Training of Academic Industrial Economists.”

53. Minkes, “Early Years in University Development.”

54. Sylos-Labini, Oligopoly and Technical Progress.