Customer Reviews

Territories of Profit: Communications, Capitalist Development, and the Innovative Enterprises of G. F. Swift and Dell Computer (Innovation and Technology in the World E)

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The author does a wonderful job of bringing together two firms that are seperated in time, space and industry and draws a rich tapestry of parallels between them. Strong recommendation for anyone interested in understanding how the Internet/E-commerce affects firms, firm strategy and industrial organization with an intriguing parallel from the 19th century. The author provides a convinving argument that firms do not simply react to market forces but actively attempt to shape the market (in the case of Swift and Dell successfully) to meet their needs for profit and control.

By emphasizing the use of communication and transport technology by Swift and Dell, Fields' arguments illustrate the impact of innovation in logistics, not only in the creation, but also in the distribution of goods and its territorial consequences. Swift and Dell implemented a transformation in the way their products reached the customer and the territorial effect that this journey had, and not in the products themselves or in the demands of the market. Swift fresh beef was not all that different from the beef offered by other firms at the time, and Dell computers did not introduce radically different products that other companies were not also producing. What made those firms take full advantage of the communications revolution that they faced was their creative response and their adaptation to technological change, which translated into profound modifications in their internal organization, and external relationships with other companies and their logistics.

The author explains how information technology affected organization of production, profit structure, and regional economic structure. I myself would not come up with a comparative analysis of these two cases, Swift (a meatpacking firm with railroad) and Dell (as you know), but he provides excellent data and develops arguments to grand theories.

His research style, writing, and theoretical argument should be a model for all economic historians.

Unfortunately, author takes enormous liberties in connecting two terribly disparate entities. As a result, the book looses its credibility very quickly.