608 research outputs found
Weather forecast or rain-dance? On inter-war business barometers
In this paper, I use the materials of the debate on the reliability and the utility of âbusiness barometersâ of the Twenties in order to show that the theoretical reflexions of the time could be used by economic historians as a working hypothesis to analyze the influence exerted by circulating statistical data on the decisions of economic operators and institutions. I offer a short illustration of the origins and circulation of economic trends forecasting in the first decades of 20th century, paying particular attention to the critical attitude shown by Corrado Gini and Oskar Morgenstern and to the debate arisen inside the Harvard Committee for Economic Research on the inefficiency of its âindex of economic conditionsâ during the 1929 crisis. I finally suggest that thorough research on the circulation and the influence exerted by the Harvard index on the business world, still after the slump in prices of New York Stock Exchange, could contribute to explain the behaviour of American businessmen and investors during the first Thirties, and the deepening of the crisis.Economic forecasts, 1930s crisis, US
Benetton: identifying an image, imagining an identity
This paper deals with the Benettonâs approach to advertising and with the changes in the image of the company since its foundation in 1965 up to the 2000s. Links among the evolution in promotional, distributional and productive strategy are discussed.business strategy, image policy, franchising
Teaching urban history in Italian universities
This paper presents the situation of Urban History teaching in Italian universities, using the results of a web search and of an inquiry performed among Italian teachers by means of a form distribution and collection.urban history, teaching, Italy
Le tour du monde: les memoires de voyage dâun emigrant de Schio en Russie et au Canada au dĂ©but du XXe siĂšcle
This paper deals with the problem of family links among individuals when separated, using the memoirs of an Italian emigrant in Russia and Canada during the first decades of 20th century and his letters home.memoirs, emigration, family
Le systĂšme dâinnovation de Benetton et ses limites
This paper focuses on the innovation system in the Benetton case: on the one hand, it puts in evidence the ability of the company in exploiting institutional conditions in order to develop a network organisation and a series of coordinated innovations; on the other hand, it investigates on the characteristics of the circulation of innovation among Benetton suppliers and distributors. The paper was presented at the conference Les systĂšmes dâinnovations: multiplicitĂ© des Ă©chelles, diversitĂ© des espaces, Bordeaux, Maison de Sciences de lâHomme dâAquitaine, November 16-17, 2006.Innovation, network firm, industrial policies.
Old and new ceramics: manufactures, products and markets in the Venetian Republic in the 17th and 18th centuries
This contribution aims to draw up a map of ceramics production sites in the Venetian area from 1600 to 1800, bearing particular attention to institutional and informal devices allowing local production to adapt to European markets trends and innovations. The paper investigates the logics of privileges allowance to pivate entrepreneurs outside of the guilds framework, conceived probably as a protection for offer more than for demand: they had to do with the exploitation of natural resources at a local level (water, raw materials), and of the services of a labor force accumulating specialized skills working in close contact with foreign invited artisans. The defence and seizure of industrial expertise was in fact the object of enduring court cases between manufacturers fighting to retain and attract highly qualified workers. These were the actual agents of innovation exchange among European, Italian and regional production centres. Continuous exchange and imitation allowed Venetian privileged firms to keep positions in econdary European markets providing most of the demand for local production.ceramics, guilds, privileged firms, Venetian Republic
The Becoming of the Past: an Exploration of Temporal Tension Enactments in a Historical Café
The uses of the past are the subject of a stream of research at the intersection of organization studies and business history, which highlights the importance of the past as a âtoolâ for organizations, but also acknowledges its potential being an âarena of struggleâ among organizational actors. However, most contributions in this literature study the uses of the past quite statically, at a given moment in time. Adopting a temporality perspective - i.e. considering the past as constantly (re)negotiated in the present and in relation with the future -, and employing a retrospective study based on historical sources, this paper aims at understanding how the past becomes past and how it informs future outcomes. The empirical case used to explore this research question is the CaffĂš Pedrocchi, an historical cafĂ© in Padua (Italy), which the founderâs heir left as a bequest to the Municipality, explicitly positing a past-future tension in the use of its past. We found out that in the history of the cafĂ© there was no such thing as âtheâ past to be projected for the future, but four main forms that the same cafĂ©âs past took (legacy, burden, constraint, enabler), varying along two dimensions: the pastâs positive/negative value, and the active/passive role assigned to it. Also, every form of the past came with at least two possible future outcomes: continuous future (the maintenance of the status quo) and discontinuous future, occurring whenever some actor intervened influentially, also creating a new form of the past. By disentangling the role of the past beyond being just a tool or an arena of struggle, we provide a processual view on how the past shifts its forms according to the actorsâ interventions and future outcomes
Accounting fraud, business failure and creative auditing: A microanalysis of the strange case of the Sunbeam Corporation
This article closely examines the Sunbeam Corporation's path to failure and explores the reasons for its singularity. From the analysis of US fraud cases included in the UCLA-LoPucki Bankruptcy Research Database, this corporate case appears as an outlier. For Sunbeam, the time-lapse between fraud disclosure and its final bankruptcy is the longest of the entire sample; it is unique because of its length. This article uses a historical microanalysis to evaluate different hypotheses about the Sunbeam Corporation's path to failure. The relationships between acquisitions and fraud, scapegoat dynamics' and creative auditing' are identified as the most relevant issues to be examined against a changing institutional context. The resulting reconstruction of the events provides unexpected insights and recommendations for future research on auditing and accounting fraud
Catalase-based modified graphite electrode for hydrogen peroxide detection in different beverages
A catalase-based (NAF/MWCNTs) nanocomposite film modified glassy carbon electrode for hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) detection
was developed. The developed biosensor was characterized in terms of its bioelectrochemical properties. Cyclic voltammetry (CV)
technique was employed to study the redox features of the enzyme in the absence and in the presence of nanomaterials dispersed
in Nafion polymeric solution. The electron transfer coefficient, , and the electron transfer rate constant, , were found to be
0.42 and 1.71 sâ1, at pH 7.0, respectively. Subsequently, the same modification steps were applied to mesoporous graphite screenprinted electrodes. Also, these electrodes were characterized in terms of their main electrochemical and kinetic parameters. The
biosensor performances improved considerably after modification with nanomaterials. Moreover, the association of Nafion with
carbon nanotubes retained the biological activity of the redox protein. The enzyme electrode response was linear in the range 2.5â
1150 mol Lâ1, with LOD of 0.83 mol Lâ1. From the experimental data, we can assess the possibility of using the modified biosensor
as a useful tool for H2O2 determination in packaged beverages
Dynamics of acetone photodissociation: a surface hopping study
We present on the fly surface hopping simulations of the dynamics of photoexcited acetone in the n->pi* band, taking into account both the spin-orbit and the dynamic couplings and allowing for the C-C bond dissociation. The S0, S1, T1 and T2 states were considered and the propagation time was 50 ps. According to the simulation results, after excitation to S1 both Internal Conversion (IC) to S0 and InterSystem Crossing (ISC) to T1 or T2 take place at comparable rates; T2 plays an important role and the simultaneous treatment of the spin-orbit and dynamic couplings is shown to be mandatory to describe the photodynamics. We propose a mechanism that explains the observed fast and slow decay rates of the S1 state of acetone
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