The Technological Strategy of a Leading Iron and Steel Firm, Bolckow Vaughan & Co. Ltd

In their attempts to explain British economic decline, many historians have focused upon the steel industry of the late Victorian and Edwardian period. British industrialists, it is argued, failed to invest in new technologies and lost the increasing competitive advantages of integration and returns to scale. The leading iron and steel firm of Bolckow Vaughan highlights the importance of key decisions on technological investment. At the turn of the century, the firm failed to choose the right technology because it lacked scientific knowledge and expertise and was unwilling to innovate and take risks. Lack of innovation resulted in stagnant steel output and this in turn reduced the firm's ability to gain the advantages of integration. Bolckow Vaughan could have overcome material and market constraints in several ways, and there were good prospects for radically improving performance. In short, decision-making at Bolckow Vaughan did not have the characteristics of long-term ‘economic rationality’

Business · Competitive advantage · Economic system · Economics · Industrial organization · Investment (military · Management · Market economy · Political science · Rationality · Scale (ratio · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Law · Metallurgy and Cultural Artifacts

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