IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/buhirw/v54y1980i04p480-503_04.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Thomas Midgley and the Politics of Industrial Research

Author

Listed:
  • Leslie, Stuart W.

Abstract

The conventional distinctions between “practical†and “scientific†research and development can be misleading. The experience of Thomas Midgley, Jr., at the General Motors Corporation in the three decades before World War II, and especially his critical role in the development of “antiknock†gasoline additives, freon refrigerant, and synthetic rubber, illustrate this fact. Dr. Leslie demonstrates that the management of corporate research and development, especially as that management affects uniquely talented individuals whose interests do not necessarily reflect the immediate needs of the company as seen by management, is basic to success. To solve such problems as they arose, Charles F. Kettering, himself a sympathetic scientist as well as distinguished inventor, worked closely with chief executive Alfred P. Sloan, whose genius for solving managerial problems matched the scientific genius of the most brilliant men in the General Motors laboratories.

Suggested Citation

  • Leslie, Stuart W., 1980. "Thomas Midgley and the Politics of Industrial Research," Business History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(4), pages 480-503, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:buhirw:v:54:y:1980:i:04:p:480-503_04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0007680500048352/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Naomi R. Lamoreaux & Kenneth L. Sokoloff & Dhanoos Sutthiphisal, 2008. "The Reorganization of Inventive Activity in the United States during the Early Twentieth Century," NBER Chapters, in: Understanding Long-Run Economic Growth: Geography, Institutions, and the Knowledge Economy, pages 235-274, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:buhirw:v:54:y:1980:i:04:p:480-503_04. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/bhr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.