Management and Innovations: The Winchester Repeating Arms Company, A Case Study

For several reasons the aspect of management decisions that has interested most business historians has involved the innovating function. For one, the main responsibility for introducing innovations in a capitalist society, without which the economy would tend to stagnate, is undertaken by the business executives. Secondly, the fortunes of individual companies are closely related to the capacity of the managements to undertake and cany through changes. While it is true that a passive policy may be sufficient to establish a new firm or to maintain a going concern, the rewards in the form of prestige, income, size or position in the market, and the like, are more likely to go to those organizations whose managements take an active role, who pioneer changes or are quick to see the applications to their own organization of innovations developed outside.