The London-based Greek Shipping Co-operation Committee: A paradigm of collective action in the shipping sector, 1930–1950

Abstract

In 2016, the Greek Shipping Co-operation Committee (GSCC) celebrated its 80th anniversary in London. This article, which is part of an ongoing research project on the development of the GSCC in the twentieth century, provides a new interpretive framework by using the tools of historical institutionalism to study and understand the circumstances that led to its establishment, operation and broad activity in London, England. Furthermore, it seeks to answer the question of how the GSCC, as an independent institutional body of the Greek shipping industry, became a successful paradigm of concerted and collective action within a business sector that is known for its spirit of individualism. The particular time period under consideration in this article is the early 1930s to the early post-war years (1946–1950), excluding the Second World War, when exceptional conditions obliged the Committee to alter its normal mode of working.