Cotton's Renaissance: A Study in Market Innovation

Hardback

Main Details

Title Cotton's Renaissance: A Study in Market Innovation
Authors and Contributors      By (author) George David Smith
By (author) Timothy Curtis Jacobson
Physical Properties
Format:Hardback
Pages:364
Dimensions(mm): Height 230,Width 160
Category/GenreEconomic history
Business and management
ISBN/Barcode 9780521808279
ClassificationsDewey:338.7677210973
Audience
Professional & Vocational
Illustrations Worked examples or Exercises; Worked examples or Exercises

Publishing Details

Publisher Cambridge University Press
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publication Date 17 September 2001
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

Cotton's Renaissance is the story of one of the more remarkable feats in the annals of enterprise. At its center, the book shows how U.S. cotton growers lost half their market share in the 1960s and 1970s and then won it back through highly innovative marketing and organization. To place this unprecedented achievement in perspective, the authors analyze and interpret the responses of cotton growers over two hundred years to the timeless problems of nature, technology, markets, and politics. The upshot is a dramatic history of how growers learned--after more than a century and a half of trying to manage supply--how to drive and shape demand for their commodity. This key change in perspective and behavior was accomplished by the creation of a unique public-private company that helped thousands of growers to cultivate demand and to survive in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. The impact of Cotton Incorporated on the markets for cotton was nothing less than an entrepreneurial coup in strategy and organization. In its "total marketing" effort to rebuild cotton's market share, it fostered substantial scientific, technological, and managerial improvements in the quality and performance of cotton. In doing so, it has enhanced the efficiency not only of the farmers who grow cotton but also of the intermediaries who transform it into consumer goods. This account of the cotton industry's revival, which took place at every level of production and distribution, holds many important lessons for anyone interested in history, economics, marketing, or public policy.

Reviews

'This is an insightful case study about how a collective marketing and research organisation took on the chemical and synthetic corporate giants ... this story offers convincing evidence in its own right that technical investment can promote the survival of cotton industries in advanced countries.' Business History