Ferranti-Packard

By Norman R. Ball and John N. Vardalas

Through their case-study of the evolution of a relatively small manufacturer such as Ferranti-Packard, Ball and Vardalas address a number of broader themes in the history of Canadian business and technology. Ferranti-Packard was British-owned and thus provides a revealing subject for the authors' investigation of the impact of foreign direct investment on Canadian industrial and technological capabilities. An important theme in this analysis is the interplay of British and North American corporate cultures. Ball and Vardalas explain the complex nature of technical and managerial relationships between subsidiaries and parent firms, demonstrating that Ferranti-Packard did not passively receive parent-firm expertise but was highly innovative in product design and marketing philosophy. The association between government and business in the development and direction of technology in Canadian industries since the Second World War is also explored.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0773509836
• ISBN13: 9780773509832
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 2.95 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Toronto Transformed

The richly photographic social history of the pioneering of electricity generation and how it instantly transformed a sleeping agricultural colony called Upper Canada and the little town of Toronto into an economic giant. From genesis in power transmission to the pinnacle of a too brief Canadian industrial renaissance in Ontario,this book does it all. The quantum leap from depression era pessimism to postwar ebullience ,the stunning post industrial decline in the light of global cold war politics is laid out and carefully referenced. The exhaustively documented tale suffers from being academic and a tad rich in technologic detail,so the book is not going up for a GG award, It nonetheless is magical in narrative scope and deserves a read.