ABSTRACT
The first half of the twentieth century was a period that, according to Chandler, saw a major and crucial divergence between the patterns of share ownership in the UK and the USA. He asserts that this was the point at which the USA made the transition to managerial capitalism whilst the UK remained committed to personal capitalism for several decades longer, with alleged deleterious consequences for its economic progress.1 A number of chapters in this book discuss Chandler’s arguments, with attention paid to the nature of management, and particularly senior management, under personal capitalism. In doing so, we recognise that distinctive business cultures were developed, reflecting the styles of governance groups and the relationships between the members of these groups. The governance of companies reflects the idiosyncratic behaviour of individuals within the organisation. This is not to assume, however, that shareholders did not play a significant and varied role in organisations characterised by personal capitalism. A number of factors are discussed in this chapter that are relevant to the roles played by shareholders in the period 1900-40. One of these was the distribution of share ownership, and the rights and returns offered to investors. This was a period in which the pattern of ownership underwent changes, not all of which are recognised by the conventional model of personal capitalism. The extent to which ownership and control overlapped in UK companies in this period may have been overstated for a number of reasons, which will be discussed later in this chapter.
