Business Groups in the West

Edited by Asli M. Colpan, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Management and Graduate School of Economics, Kyoto University, and Takashi Hikino, Mizuho Securities Endowment Professor, Graduate School of Management, Kyoto University

Asli M. Colpan is Associate Professor of Corporate Strategy at the Graduate School of Management and Graduate School of Economics, Kyoto University, Japan; and Visiting Associate Professor at Koç University, Turkey. Previously she was the Alfred Chandler visiting scholar at Harvard Business School and visiting scholar at the Department of Political Science at MIT. Her research interests include corporate strategy, corporate governance, and especially the evolution of large enterprises in developed and emerging economies. Her work has been published in such journals as Industrial and Corporate Change, Journal of Management Studies, Strategic Management Journal, Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Business History and Corporate Governance: An International Review. She co-edited (with Takashi Hikino and James Lincoln) The Oxford Handbook of Business Groups (Oxford University Press, 2010).

Takashi Hikino is Mizuho Securities Endowed Chair Professor at the Graduate School of Management at Kyoto University, Japan; and Visiting Professor at Koç University, Turkey. His major publications include Big Business and Wealth of Nations (co-edited with Alfred D. Chandler and Franco Amatori, Cambridge University Press, 1997), Competing Policies for Competitiveness: Microeconomic Policies During the Golden Age of Capitalism (co-edited with Hideaki Miyajima and Takeo Kikkawa, Oxford University Press, 1998), The Global Chemical Industry in the Age of the Petrochemical Revolution (co-edited with Louis Galambos and Vera Zamagni, Cambridge University Press, 2006), and The Oxford Handbook of Business Groups (co-edited with Asli Colpan and James Lincoln, Oxford University Press, 2010).

Bharat Anand, Harvard Business School, USA
Marco Becht, Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Marcelo Bucheli, Department of Business Administration, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Youssef Cassis, Department of History and Civilization, European University Institute, Italy
J. Yo-Jud Cheng, Harvard Business School, USA
Andrea Colli, Department of Institutional Analysis and Public Management, Bocconi University, Italy
David J. Collis, Harvard Business School, USA
Asli M. Colpan, Graduate School of Management and Graduate School of Economics, Kyoto University, Japan
Alvaro Cuervo-Cazurra, D'Amore-McKim School of Business, Northeastern University, USA
Takashi Hikino, Graduate School of Management and Graduate School of Economics, Kyoto University, Japan
Ferry de Goey, Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, Erasmus University, Netherlands
Geoffrey Jones, Harvard Business School, USA
Abe de Jong, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Netherlands
Mats Larsson, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden
James R. Lincoln, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, USA and National University of Singapore, Singapore
Randall Morck, School of Business, University of Alberta, Canada
Pedro Neves, Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão, Portugal
Tom Petersson, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden
Matthew Sargent, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, USA
Ben Ross Schneider, Department of Political Science, MIT, USA
Harm Schröter, Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, University of Bergen, Norway
Gloria Tian, Australian Graduate School of Management, Australia
Alvaro Ferreira da Silva, Nova School of Business and Economics, Portugal
Michelangelo Vasta, Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Siena, Italy
Simon Ville, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, Faculty of Law, Humanities & the Arts, University of Wollongong, Australia
Weihuang Wong, Department of Political Science, MIT, USA

"This is exciting original research from 12 modern Western nations, documenting the co-evolution of business groups with their ambient institutional contexts. The work makes clear that we should not think of business groups as anachronisms of the process of economic development, rather they both react to and shape the surrounding context, and therefore are likely very persistent organizational forms. This volume is of great value to scholars and policymakers alike." - Tarun Khanna, Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor, Harvard Business School and Director, Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute, Harvard University

"This is an innovative and important book with a solid message. It demonstrates that business groups can live and prosper even in the fiercely competitive environment of advanced economies. It is reassuring to observe that business groups in advanced economies still act as value adding entities thanks to their longer-term horizons in decision making processes. I believe that this book has critical implications for the business executives of large enterprises in emerging markets." - Rahmi M. Koç, Honorary Chairman, Koç Holding A.,S.

"Contrary to the conventional wisdom, diversified business groups have continued to evolve and grow in many developed economies, from Continental Europe and Britain to Canada, the United States and Australia. This book provides the best analysis of the reasons why corporate diversification is so resilient even in the face of global competition and deregulation." - Mauro F. Guillén, Director of the Lauder Institute and Dr. Felix Zandman Professor of International Management, The Wharton School

"Colpan and Hikino have given us a remarkable survey of an essential element in modern capitalism. They provide breadth and depth to the comparative study of the flexible business groups which played and continue to play a central role in our industrial economies." - Louis Galambos, Research Professor and Co-Director, The Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise, Johns Hopkins University