The Rise and Fall of Great Companies: Courtaulds and the Reshaping of the Man-Made Fibres IndustryThis book is about a company which pioneered a major new industry, failed to build on that success, and ended up being taken over and broken up. By comparing this firm with its competitors in the same industry, the book sheds light on one of the hardest of all managerial challenges: what companies can do when their industry goes through a period of turbulence, forcing them to change direction, learn new skills, and perhaps abandon businesses on which they have relied for many years. Courtaulds was a British company which was once the world's leading producer of man-made fibres. It failed to adapt to the crisis in that industry that began in the mid-1970s, and lost ground to the point where, 25 years later, it could no longer sustain itself as an independent company. The crisis stemmed from the shift of textiles, clothing, and man-fibre production to low-wage countries, and above all to China. The book looks in some detail at the other companies - European, American, and Japanese - which had a big commitment to man-made fibres in the earlier post-war decades and, like Courtaulds, faced difficult adjustment problems in the closing years of the 20th century. Why did some of them handle the crisis better than Courtaulds? In answering this question the book looks both at decisions taken by individual managers and at the national context in which they were operating. Institutional differences between countries, notably in the role of shareholders and the financial markets, played an important role in determining which companies survived and which did not. |
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Contents
Rayon in Retreat and Courtaulds Narrow Escape | 35 |
Frank Keartons Grand Design | 62 |
Courtaulds on the Rack | 93 |
Copyright | |
11 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
Acordis acquired acquisitions acrylic fibre aerospace Akzo Nobel American Asahi Kasei BASF benefited bought brands British capacity carbon fibre Celanese cellulosic cellulosic fibres cent chairman chemical companies chief executive coatings company’s competition Corporation cotton Courtaulds Textiles Courtelle demerger difficult diversified DuPont Enka Europe European fabrics factory fibre plants fibre producers Fibres fibres business filament film financial find first five Germany Grimsby Hoechst Hogg Huismans ICI’s International Paint investment investors Japan Japanese joint venture Kearton Kelheim knitwear later Lenzing lyocell man-made fibres industry manufacturer Marks & Spencer merger mills Monsanto Montefibre nylon operations pharmaceuticals polyester polymer polypropylene portfolio private equity firm production profitable profits rayon retailers Rhone-Poulenc Samuel Courtauld Sara Lee sell share shareholders Snia Snia Viscosa sold spinning strategy supplier synthetic fibres takeover Taylor Teijin Tencel textile industry textiles and clothing tonnes Toray Twaron viscose viscose staple Viyella
Bibliographic information
| Title | The Rise and Fall of Great Companies: Courtaulds and the Reshaping of the Man-Made Fibres Industry Volume 17 of Pasold Studies in Textile History |
| Author | Geoffrey Owen |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint |
| Publisher | OUP/Pasold Research Fund, 2010 |
| Original from | Northwestern University |
| Digitized | Jul 29, 2011 |
| Length | 338 pages |
| Subjects | › › Business & Economics / Economic History Business & Economics / General Business & Economics / Industries / Manufacturing Business & Economics / Management Business & Economics / Strategic Planning History / Europe / Great Britain |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |