Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-hgkh8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-19T09:04:24.473Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Electronic Bits and Ten Gallon Hats

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2015

Abstract

My dissertation uses the Enron Corporation to examine how companies use culture to shape political and economic systems. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the company morphed from a vertically integrated natural company into a derivatives trading house. An emphasis on innovation, free markets and knowledge work in the firm’s marketing efforts accompanied this organizational shift. Because the change was so dramatic, after its 2001 collapse the company became an ideal site for Americans to express cultural anxieties about the move away from Fordist production and toward an emphasis on working with complicated pieces of information. Drawing on archival sources such as issues of the employee magazine and executive correspondence, this study contributes to an understanding of the cultural work that must be performed in order to establish and maintain political economic systems, as well as the ways in which cultural production is used to make sense of economic change.

Type
Dissertation Summaries
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2013. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I would like to thank both Mark Rose and Stephanie Kolberg for their thoughtful comments on an early draft of my dissertation summary.

References

Bibliography of Works Cited

Books

Castaneda, Christopher. Invisible Fuel: Manufactured and Natural Gas in America, 1800–2000. New York: Twayne, 1999.Google Scholar
Eagleton, Terry. After Theory. New York: Basic Books, 2003.Google Scholar
Feagin, Joe. Free Enterprise City: Houston in Political-Economic Perspective. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1988.Google Scholar
McKenna, Christopher D. The World’s Newest Profession: Management Consulting in the Twentieth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Pratt, Joseph A. Castaneda, Christopher J. Builders: Herman and George R. Brown. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Prebble, Lucy. Enron. London: Methuen Drama, 2009.Google Scholar
Salter, Malcolm. Innovation Corrupted: The Origins and Legacy of Enron’s Collapse. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Thrift, Nigel. Knowing Capitalism. London: Sage Publications, 2005.Google Scholar

Articles and Book Chapters

Cohen, Richard. “Enron’s ‘Con.’” The Washington Post, December 4, 2001. http://lexisnexis.com.Google Scholar
Freedenberg, Daniel. Letter to the Editor. The New York Times, December 2, 2001.Google Scholar
Jones, Geoffrey Zeitlin, Jonathan. “Introduction.” In The Oxford Handbook of Business History, edited by Jones, Geoffrey Zeitlin, Jonathan, 16. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Lipartito, Kenneth. “Culture and the Practice of Business History.Business and Economic History 24 (Winter 1995): 2.Google Scholar
Lipartito, Kenneth. “Business Culture.” In The Oxford Handbook of Business History, edited by Jones, Geoffrey Zeitlin, Jonathan, 603–28. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Maxwell, Dominic. “The Smartest Play in the Room.” The Times (London), January 7, 2010. http://www.lexisnexis.com.Google Scholar
McKenna, Christopher D. “In Memoriam: Alfred Chandler and the Soul of Business History.” Enterprise & Society 9.3 (2008): 422–5.Google Scholar
Peck, Jamie Tickell, Adam. “Neoliberalizing Space. ” In Spaces of Neoliberalism, edited by Brenner, Neil Theodore, Nik, 3357. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002.Google Scholar
Phillips-Fein, Kim Zelizer, Julian E. “Introduction: What’s Good for Business. ” In What’s Good for Business: Business and American Politics Since World War II, edited by Phillips-Fein, Kim Zelizer, Julian E., 315. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Swartz, Mimi. “How Enron Blew It. ” Texas Monthly (November 2001): 136–9, 171–8.Google Scholar
Williams, John. “11th Hour Pitch for Stadiums/Business Leaders Tout Downtown Site.” The Houston Chronicle, October 28, 1996. http://www.chron.com.Google Scholar
Zellner, Wendy. “From Sleepy Utility to Online Turbotrader.” BusinessWeek, September 18, 2000.Google Scholar

Archival Sources and Unpublished Material

Enron Corp. “1995 Enron Annual Report to Shareholders and Customers.” 1996.Google Scholar
Enron Corp. “1999 Enron Annual Report to Shareholders and Customers.” 2000.Google Scholar
Enron Corp. “Enron Energy Services Poised for Competition.” Enron Business Volume 2, 1998.Google Scholar
Fraser, Mark F. Enron —The Musical. Unpublished manuscript. 2006.Google Scholar
Lay, Kenneth. The Enron Story. New York: The Newcomen Society of the United States, 1991.Google Scholar
Lay, Kenneth. “Letter to George W. Bush.” February 15, 1995. George W. Bush Papers, Texas State Archives.Google Scholar
Transcript of Jury Trial Before the Honorable Sim Lake United States District Judge, Vol. 37, April 10, 2006.Google Scholar