Jacoby, Sanford M. 1953-

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Jacoby, Sanford M. 1953-

(Sanford Mark Jacoby)

PERSONAL: Born May 13, 1953, in New York, NY; married, 1984; children: two. Education: University of Pennsylvania, A.B., 1974; University of California, Berkeley, Ph.D., 1981.

ADDRESSES: Office— University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-1481; fax: 310-825-0218. E-mail— [email protected].

CAREER: Economics historian, educator, writer, and editor. University of California, Los Angeles, professor, 1980—, Sanford M. Jacoby Howard Noble professor of management and vice chairman, associate director of the Institute of Industrial Relations. Former economic and business historian for the U.S. Department of Labor. Visiting scholar, Cornell University, Meiji University, and the University of Tokyo.

MEMBER: National Academy of Social Insurance.

AWARDS, HONORS: George R. Terry Book Award, Academy of Management, 1986; National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship, 1990; Philip Taft Prize in Labor History, 1998; Piper Memorial Lecturer, Chicago-Kent Law School, 1999; Abe fellow, Japan Foundation and Social Science Research Council, 2000.

WRITINGS

Employing Bureaucracy: Managers, Unions, and the Transformation of Work in American Industry, 1900-1945, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 1985, revised edition published as Employing Bureaucracy: Managers, Unions, and the Transformation of Work in the 20th Century, Lawrence Erlbaum (Mahwah, NJ), 2004.

(Editor) Masters to Managers: Historical and Comparative Perspectives on American Employers, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 1991.

(Editor) The Workers of Nations: Industrial Relations in a Global Economy, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1995.

Modern Manors: Welfare Capitalism Since the New Deal, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1997.

The Embedded Corporation: Corporate Governance and Employment Relations in Japan and the United States, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 2005.

Coeditor of Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal; serves on numerous editorial boards, including California Management Review, Enterprise & Society, Industrial Relations, Labor History, and Work & Occupations.

SIDELIGHTS: Sanford M. Jacoby is an economics historian whose primary research and writing interests are twentieth-century U.S. business, economic, and labor history. In his book Modern Manors: Welfare Capitalism since the New Deal, the author presents a business history that focuses on labor relations in non-union companies with the goal of exploring welfare capitalism, primarily from the 1920s through the 1950s. Focusing on Kodak, Sears, and Thompson Products, the author chronicles how the idea of welfare capitalism virtually disappeared in the 1930s—due to the economic turmoil caused by the Great Depression—only to reemerge in the 1940s. Writing in the Business History Review, Sven Beckert noted that “all three companies created viable labor relations that helped forge a workforce strongly attached to their employers, and that succeeded in keeping away organized labor.” Similarly, Business History contributor Joseph Melling noted: “Jacoby shows how each firm adapted to the conditions of the Depression and sought to develop practices which would enable the corporate structure to encompass the legal requirements of the New Deal years whilst also providing workers with a strategic reason to remain loyal to the enterprise.” In his book, the author also details how welfare capitalism changed from the 1920s to its reemergence in the 1940s and also discusses subsequent changes to the philosophy in the later part of the century.

In his review of Modern Manors, Beckert called the book “a tour de force, taking readers on a journey through the largely unexplored universe of labor relations.” Beckert went on to note: “It is business history, at its best, firmly rooting the analysis of company policies in discussions of the macroeconomic environment, the history of labor and its institutions, and employers’ collective action and politics.” In a review in the Administrative Science Quarterly, Larry W. Hunter wrote: “In Modern Manors, Jacoby sets out to amend our understanding of welfare capitalism and succeeds admirably.” Hunter added: “The significance of his work, however, goes beyond the history itself. In Modern Manors, the roles of managers and their ideologies get their due: the subtle ways they differ across companies, change over time, and influence outcomes and practices of critical importance to their workforces.”American Journal of Sociology contributor Christopher Howard wrote: “Leaving readers wanting to know more is often the sign of good scholarship, and Modern Manors is a very good book. Each case study weaves together developments internal to the company, in the relevant industry, in unionized firms, and in Washington—no mean feat.”

In his 2005 book The Embedded Corporation: Corporate Governance and Employment Relations in Japan and the United States, Jacoby delves into the question of whether different types of capitalism are becoming more similar due to globalization. His research and analysis focus on senior human relations executives in large U.S. and Japanese corporations. Gary Herrigel, writing in Enterprise & Society, commented: “This is a very interesting examination of the fate of human relations (HR) departments.”

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES

PERIODICALS

Administrative Science Quarterly, December, 1999, Larry W. Hunter, review of Modern Manors: Welfare Capitalism since the New Deal, p. 826; March, 2005, Emilio J. Castilla, review of The Embedded Corporation: Corporate Governance and Employment Relations in Japan and the United States, pp. 143-148.

American Journal of Sociology, November, 1998, Christopher Howard, review of Modern Manors, p. 946.

American Political Science Review, December, 1998, Charles Noble, review of Modern Manors, p. 946.

British Journal of Industrial Relations, December, 2005, Frank Dobbin, review of The Embedded Corporation, pp. 569-576.

Business History Review, summer, 1999, Sven Beck-ert, review of Modern Manors, p. 300.

Business History, April, 1999, Joseph Melling, review of Modern Manors, p. 151.

Enterprise & Society, March, 2006, Gary Herrigel, review of The Embedded Corporation, pp. 181-183.

Journal of Economic Issues, December, 1998, Dell Champlin, review of Modern Manors, p. 1200.

Journal of Industrial Relations, December, 2005, Peter Waring, review of The Embedded Corporation, pp. 484-486.

Journal of Socio-Economics, Volume 36, 2007, John W. Budd, review of The Embedded Corporation, pp. 161-165.

Labor History, August, 1998, Jeffrey Haydu, review of Modern Manors, p. 347.