Rethinking business models in the Great Depression: the failure of America's vacuum cleaner industry

Scott, P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1230-9040 (2019) Rethinking business models in the Great Depression: the failure of America's vacuum cleaner industry. Business History Review, 93 (2). pp. 319-348. ISSN 2044-768X doi: 10.1017/S0007680519000679

Abstract/Summary

We examine the factors leading to the onset of organizational rigidities in the dominant vacuum cleaner firms of the 1920s, Hoover and Eureka. Strategies aimed at strengthening organizational commitment, in conjunction with low levels of organizational diversity – owing to managerial hierarchies dominated by men recruited from the sale force - restricted organizational flexibility and adaptability, while accentuating resistance to change. In conjunction with core competencies that largely reflected conditions in their previous rapid growth phases, organisation rigidity left both firms vulnerable to the new conditions of the Depression, including product and value chain innovation by a new entrant, Electrolux.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/81509
Identification Number/DOI	10.1017/S0007680519000679
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Henley Business School > International Business and Strategy
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
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