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The Changing Nature of Innovation in Marketing: A Study of Selected Business Leaders, 1852-1958

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Alvin J. Silk
Affiliation:
Acting Assistant Professor of Business Administration, University of California, Los Angeles
Louis William Stern
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Business Organization, The Ohio State University

Abstract

Significant changes in the process of business innovation are suggested in this comparative study of nineteenth- and twentieth-century leaders in marketing.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1963

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Footnotes

*

The authors are indebted to Professor Howard Bennett of Northwestern University for his advice and encouragement in the early stages of the preparation of this paper. The interpretations and conclusions are, of course, entirely those of the authors.

References

1 Schumpeter, Joseph A., “Economic Theory and Entrepreneurial History,” in Research Center in Entrepreneurial History, Harvard University, Change and the Entrepreneur (Cambridge, Mass., 1949), p. 75 Google Scholar.

2 Schumpeter, Joseph A., “The Creative Response in Economic History,” Journal of Economic History, vol. VII (November, 1947), p. 149 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Schumpeter, “Economic Theory and Entrepreneurial History,” p. 83.

4 Following Schumpeter, “innovation” is taken to mean novelty or newness in business activity. The focus of attention here is on the act or process rather than the identity of the innovations themselves. It has been pointed out by numerous writers that the description of an activity as an innovation, an invention, or an imitation often depends on one's point of view. No attempt was made here to develop a rigorous definition of innovation that would eliminate these difficulties of concept and application.

5 See Marburg, Theodore, “Domestic Trade and Marketing,” in Williamson, Harold F. (ed.), The Growth of the American Economy (2nd ed., Englewood Cliffs, 1951), pp. 511–33Google Scholar.

6 Schumpeter, “The Creative Response in Economic History,” p. 151. See also his The Theory of Economic Development, tr. by Opie, Redvers (Cambridge, Mass., 1934), pp. 7494 Google Scholar.

7 Schumpeter, Joseph A., Business Cycles (2 vols., New York, 1939), vol. I, pp. 8788 Google Scholar.

8 Hansen, Alvin H., Business Cycles and National Income (New York, 1951), p. 301 Google Scholar and Robert Baldwin, class lecture on Schumpeter given in Economics 106 at Harvard University, Nov. 27, 1956.

9 See Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development, esp. pp. 74–94.

10 Jack, Andrew B., “The Channels of Distribution for an Innovation: The Sewing-Machine Industry in America, 1860–1865,” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, vol. IX (February, 1957), p. 113 ffGoogle Scholar.

11 Ibid., p. 124.

12 Presbrey, Frank S., The History and Development of Advertising (Garden City, 1929), p. 396 Google Scholar.

13 Lief, Alfred, “It Floats:” The Story of Procter & Gamble (New York, 1958), pp. 42, 55 Google Scholar.

14 Ibid., p. 72.

15 Ibid., passim.

16 Jenkins, John W., James B. Duke: Master Builder (New York, 1927), p. 70 Google Scholar.

17 Tilley, Nannie May, The Bright-Tobacco Industry, 1860–1929 (Chapel Hill, 1948), p. 557 Google Scholar.

18 Ibid., pp. 550–75.

19 Chandler, Alfred D. Jr., , “The Beginnings of ‘Big Business’ in American Industry,” Business History Review, vol. XXXIII (Spring, 1959), p. 8 Google Scholar.

20 Jenkins, James B. Duke: Master Builder, p. 68.

21 Winkler, John K., Tobacco Tycoon: The Story of James Buchanan Duke (New York, 1942), p. 77 Google Scholar.

22 Jenkins, James B. Duke: Master Builder, pp. 89–90.

23 Tennant, Richard B., The American Cigarette Industry (New Haven, 1950), p. 25 Google Scholar.

24 See Gray, James, Business without Boundary: The Story of General Mills (Minneapolis, 1954)Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., p. 51.

26 Ibid., p. 59.

27 See Carson, Gerald, Cornflake Crusade (New York, 1957)Google Scholar.

28 Ibid., pp. 159–60.

29 Ryden, Patricia, “Kellogg Success Based on Idea and Advertising,” Advertising Age, vol. XIX (April 26, 1948), p. 1 Google Scholar.

30 Powell, Horace P., The Original Has This Signature — W. K. Kellogg (Englewood Cliffs, 1956), p. 133 Google Scholar.

31 Ibid., pp. 133–34.

32 Evans, G. Heberton Jr., , “A Century of Entrepreneurship in the United States,” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History vol. X (December, 1957), p. 97 Google Scholar.

33 Ibid., p. 97. Evans makes reference to Nevins, Allan and Hill, Frank E., Ford: The Times, the Man, the Company (New York, 1954), pp. 252–83, 452Google Scholar.

34 Davisson, Charles N., “Automobiles,” in Clewett, Richard M. (ed.), Marketing Channels for Manufactured Products (Homewood, 1954), p. 94 Google Scholar.

35 Ibid., p. 93.

36 See Cole's An Approach to the Study of Entrepreneurship,” Journal of Economic History, vol. VI (Supplement, 1946), pp. 115 Google Scholar as reprinted in Lane, Frederick C. and Riemersma, Jelle C. (eds.), Enterprise and Secular Change (Homewood, 1953), pp. 181–98Google Scholar. Also see Cole, “Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurial History: The Institutional Setting,” in Change and the Entrepreneur, pp. 85–108 and Cole, , Business Enterprise in its Social Setting (Cambridge, Mass., 1959)Google Scholar.

37 Ibid.

38 Cole, “An Approach to the Study of Entrepreneurship,” p. 184.

39 Cole, Business Enterprise in its Social Setting, p. 7.

40 Ibid., p. 51.

41 Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development, p. 78.

42 Cole, “Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurial History: The Institutional Setting,” pp. 103–104.

43 Ibid.

44 See Loth, David G., Swope of G.E. (New York, 1958)Google Scholar.

45 See, for example, “George Romney, Missionary from Detroit,” Saturday Review, January 17, 1959, p. 51, and “The Dinosaur Hunter,” Time, April 6, 1959, p. 84. The principal source of the materials presented here is: Mahoney, Tom, The Story of George Romney; Builder, Salesman, Crusader, (New York, 1960)Google Scholar.

45 Nash-Kelvinator and Hudson merged in 1954 to form American Motors.

47 “Why AMC Can Gamble on Its Small Car,” Business Week, Jan. 11, 1958, p. 83. See also “Why a Big Businessman Hit Big Business,” ibid., Feb. 15, 1958, pp. 36ff.

48 Chandler, Jr., “The Beginnings of ‘Big Business’ in American Industry,” pp. 1–31.

49 Cole, Business Enterprise in its Social Setting, pp. 8–9.