第一次大戦前米英海運企業経営の特質

Abstract

In the international maritime history, the International Mercantile Marine (IMM) Co., established as an American concern in 1902, had an unique beginning as follows : firstly, J.P. Morgan & Co., a famous investment banking, played an important role in forming the IMM; secondly, Morgan & Co. combined several important liner companies engaged in a single operating route, the North Atlantic; and lastly, the IMM was composed of shipping firms whose nationalities were different, but mainly American and British. So far, many books and articles have treated of the IMM, usually, from a viewpoint of regarding the IMM as Morgan's Trust in the shipping industry. They analyse the financial aspects of the IMM, with pointing out failure as Trust because of poor financial performance. They are, however, little explanation of 'Americanization' policy that the IMM disposed of its foreign subsidaries and became an American shipping enterprise after the First World War. In order to inquire into the reason for and meaning of adopting Americanization policy, it should be required to analyse the IMM's strategy and structure rather than financial results up to the period of pre-War, and that is my task of the article. In conclusion, it is the reason for adopting Americanization policy that the IMM failed to formulate definite corporate strategy because of differences in managerial environment between constituent companies in the U.S.A. and U.K., and to create administrative control as a whole because of different approaches to organizational design between the top management in the U.S.A. and U.K. While, thus, Americanization policy taken by the IMM after the war was seen as a result of managerial failure of an earlier transnational enterprise in the maritime history, its policy was valid in the sense that it aimed to reconstruct effective organization for control and operation of fleets through unification of strategy by disposing of foreign flags under nominal control.