In THE PURITAN GIFT (see page 118), my brother and I described the foundation in the late 1940s of a small electronics company with a large name: TOKYO KYUSHIN KOGYO KABUSHIKI KAISHA; and how, over a very few years, it evolved into a large company with a short name: SONY. We also regretted the decision …
TRACING THE ORIGINS OF U.S. MANAGERIAL CULTURE
THE PURITAN GIFT traces the origins and characteristics of a managerial culture which, over the course of three centuries, turned a handful of small American colonies into the greatest economic and political power on earth. It argues that the energy, social mobility, competitiveness and capacity for innovation which lay at the heart of that culture had their origins in the discipline and ethos of America’s first wave of European immigrants: the Puritans.
Drawing lessons from their own extensive experience, the authors warn that, as America distances itself from the core values which underlay its commercial and economic success during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it puts its own future prosperity and security at risk.
JAPAN’S INHERITANCE OF AMERICAN CULTURE
The book also explores how American managerial culture has spread throughout the world. In particular it examines the impact of the US occupation of Japan on the social and manufacturing mores of that country and explains how America’s inherited style of management interacted with Japanese traditions.
This is an original exploration of the dramatic and far-reaching consequences of the Puritans’ ‘Gift’ to America – the ethos which produced the early success of America and what came to be known as the American Dream.
There has long been a battle between Fiscal Doves and Hawks. I capitalise these names because they describe two different breeds with opposing ways of thought. Doves tend to be distrustful of the market place, believing in the efficacy of state intervention. Hawks tend to believe in the efficacy of free markets and are distrustful …
The answer, dear reader, is that I wish the PURITAN GIFT website to be a living thing. So many websites look dead — indeed, most of them are dead, in the sense that they have not obviously changed for a year or more. If, however, the reader sees a topical reference right in the middle …