Exporting the American Model: The Postwar Transformation of European Business. - Review - book review

Administrative Science Quarterly, Dec, 2000 by Paula Phillips Carson

Djelic concludes by taking lessons learned from the diffusion of capitalism in postwar Europe and generalizing them to other large-scale cross-national programs of economic assistance and reconstruction. She articulates certain prerequisites to success, such as an organized administrative agency with clearly established objectives and other mechanisms of control, the capacity of the donor country to co-opt powerful others sympathetic to its projects, and the absence of those resisting transfer. Djelic weaves an interesting and complex chronicle involving such diverse actors as Elton Mayo, the CIA, the Roman Catholic Church, the Society for the Advancement of Management, Fred Taylor, and the AFL-CIO. Interspersed throughout this tale, the reader is even enlightened about interesting issues seemingly marginally related to her story, such as the reasons for the first American merger wave in 1895 and the early beginnings of the European Union in 1945.

But, as with all projects of this type, there are minor shortcomings the reader must forgive, for example, a reference to Philadelphia as a state and the fact that the material is not arranged chronologically. Further, Ojelic's insistence on using only primary historical source material results in the omission of references to research by other established scholars of her subject, such as Volker Berghahn or Matthias Kipping. There are also some significant elements of history that have become ingrained as part of our collective wisdom but have been downplayed or ignored in the book. One example is the desire of Marshall Plan supporters to use the program to squelch the spread of communism. Another is the recognition that postwar planning for Europe's economic recovery began as early as 1941. A third is the belief of many Americans that the Marshall Plan worked too well, given the relative competitive positioning of the United States today. Arguable alternative interpretations of historical events are similarl y downplayed or omitted, such as how American influence worked toward eliminating restrictive business practices in France (Pedersen, 1996) or what the real intentions of the Morgenthau Plan were (Berghahn, 1995). Relatedly, there are few, if any, references to the impact of the Marshall Plan on globalizing American consulting firms, the European Recovery Program propaganda campaign in Italy (Ellwood, 1998), Truman's Point IV Program, or the implications of the war in Korea on American relations with Europe in the post-war period. Djelic also fails to articulate the emerging belief that European economic recovery in the postwar period had more to do with the resilience and dedication of European business leaders themselves than with macroeconomic intervention or international politics (Kipping, 1994).

Finally, and perhaps appropriately so, Djelic also resists drawing the all-too-common parallels between the experiences of Western Europe in the 1940s and those in Eastern Europe today (cf. Forbes, 1993). Given that we have just celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Marshall Plan, such comparisons are overly prevalent. Instead, Djelic presents a theoretical framework for allowing readers to discover the history of this place and time and draw their own conclusions. As such, it is a mature, sophisticated, and valuable form of historiography.