This article addresses the issue of the uses of the multidivisional form in the French context at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s. Comparing two case studies, Danone and Hachette, it sheds light on specific experiences in two different industries, the food and the book industry, respectively, in order to contribute to the debate over the Chandlerian paradigm. These two cases show that the implementation of the M-form in European companies can neither be reduced to the necessary diffusion of a universal structure nor to managerial fashion. At first a matter of redistributing the power between the shareholders and the management, the M-form led to hybrid organizations with characteristics heavily dependent on intensive internal negotiations. These findings emphasize the potential diversity of the implementation of the M-form and of the relations between management and shareholders. Far from being linear, company trajectories then heavily depend on partial compromises.

The sewing machine was one of the first standardized and mass-marketed complex consumer durables to have been diffused widely around the world before 1920. This global diffusion was almost the sole responsibility of one firm, Singer. Despite its American origins, Singer’s success lay principally overseas. New data provide insight into the company’s international marketing strategies. Although the firm had a reputation for marketing sophistication, Singer did not depend on price discrimination, extensive advertising, or loss-leading expansion of retail networks in its overseas markets. Rather, its success was due to the characteristics of consumer demand for sewing machines, features that combined with its strategic investments in market support services and in its selling organization to create Singer’s enormous competitive advantages in foreign markets.

This article examines the formation in 1890 of the United Alkali Company in order to explore new perspectives on the transition to a corporate economy. Its starting point is the process of transition itself, highlighting the role played by networks. This perspective promotes an emphasis on institutional environments and on patterns of relationships and behavior, as opposed to those of formal structure. Thus, the archives of the company are probed for evidence of how key agents conceived of the firm. Finally, governance systems are seen as interacting in a dynamic fashion with the institutional environment, and in particular with the balance of internal and external economies.

Brewing in the United Kingdom in the years following 1950 saw a shift from a production to a retailing orientation. As part of this shift, the role of the area manager started to move from production and sales discipline to retail development. This article explores the job of the area manager during the period, seeking to demonstrate the weakness in recent accounts that suggest that area managers serve only as an “information relay” between senior managers and unit managers. Although the evidence is limited, because of problems with the survival of records, it suggests a more complex picture, which has implications for area managers in retail and service industries more generally.