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Dissertation Information for Gregory S. Hunter

NAME:
- Gregory S. Hunter

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- New York University (USA) (1989)

ADVISORS:
- None

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- None

MPACT Status: Incomplete - Not_Inspected

Title: The Manhattan Company: Managing a multiunit corporation in New York, 1799-1842

Abstract: "This dissertation seeks to integrate the internal and external determinants of corporate strategy and structure in early nineteenth century New York. Ordinarily, historians concerned with the internal development of corporations do not emphasize possible external pressures for change, whether coming from the political or general business environment. Similarly, students of the relationship between politics and business seldom consider the effect of corporate managerial practice on the realm being studied. This dissertation seeks to overcome these two forms of historical myopia. It is thus a case study relating internal and external aspects of managing individual nineteenth century corporations, linking strategy and structure to the local social and political environments.

This dissertation proceeded by looking in detail at the Manhattan Company, one of the earliest multi-unit business corporations in the United States. From 1799 to 1842 the Manhattan Company had three distinct divisions: water works, a main bank in New York City, and bank branches upstate in Utica and Poughkeepsie. The company also had a charter unusual for the time: it granted the Manhattan Company perpetual life, a large capitalization ($2 million), and great freedom in the structuring of operations and the use of capital.

In order to successfully manage this complicated and somewhat decentralized business, the Manhattan Company's leaders had to be particularly sensitive to the social and political environments. Case studies of the water works, branch banking, and the general banking operation show that there was no fixed boundary between the internal and the external. Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.'s strategy and structure and Bray Hammond's social and political environments were intertwined in the daily workings of this leading nineteenth century American business corporation."

MPACT Scores for Gregory S. Hunter

A = 0
C = 3
A+C = 3
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2014-02-09 17:16:28

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