Alcan
Matthias Kipping and Ludovic Cailluet
Mintzberg’s Emergent and Deliberate Strategies: Tracking Alcan’s Activities in Europe, 1928–2007
The management scholar Henry Mintzberg has situated company strategies on a continuum that ranges from those that are the result of deliberate internal decisions, on one extreme, to those that emerge largely as a response to external forces, on the other. This framework is applied to the strategies of the Canadian aluminum producer Alcan, in Europe, from its origins as a spin-off from Alcoa, in 1928, until its acquisition by Rio Tinto, in 2007. Throughout this period, the company gradually moved from emergent to more deliberate strategies, although external forces continued to influence its decisions. The increasing centralization of Alcan’s organizational structure paralleled its shift toward reliance on deliberate strategies.
he Canadian company that eventually became known as Alcan (Aluminum Company of Canada) emerged as a major player in the European aluminum industry during the interwar period.1 In 1902, the Pittsburgh Reduction Company (renamed Aluminum Company of America, or Alcoa, in 1907) established a smelter in Québec, officially chartering a subsidiary there under the name Northern Aluminum Company Limited. In 1928, Alcoa moved most of the activities it had been
MATTHIAS KIPPING is professor of strategic management and chair in business history at the Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto, Canada. LUDOVIC CAILLUET is associate professor of strategy at the Graduate School of Management (IAE), University of Toulouse, France. We gratefully acknowledge the France–Canada Research Foundation, which supported our research for this article. Earlier versions were presented at the International Conference on Business History at Waseda University in Tokyo, on January 26 and 27, 2008, and at the Wilson Seminar at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, on October 15, 2009. We thank the participants for their
Mintzberg’s Emergent and Deliberate Strategies: Tracking Alcan’s Activities in Europe, 1928–2007
The management scholar Henry Mintzberg has situated company strategies on a continuum that ranges from those that are the result of deliberate internal decisions, on one extreme, to those that emerge largely as a response to external forces, on the other. This framework is applied to the strategies of the Canadian aluminum producer Alcan, in Europe, from its origins as a spin-off from Alcoa, in 1928, until its acquisition by Rio Tinto, in 2007. Throughout this period, the company gradually moved from emergent to more deliberate strategies, although external forces continued to influence its decisions. The increasing centralization of Alcan’s organizational structure paralleled its shift toward reliance on deliberate strategies.
he Canadian company that eventually became known as Alcan (Aluminum Company of Canada) emerged as a major player in the European aluminum industry during the interwar period.1 In 1902, the Pittsburgh Reduction Company (renamed Aluminum Company of America, or Alcoa, in 1907) established a smelter in Québec, officially chartering a subsidiary there under the name Northern Aluminum Company Limited. In 1928, Alcoa moved most of the activities it had been
MATTHIAS KIPPING is professor of strategic management and chair in business history at the Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto, Canada. LUDOVIC CAILLUET is associate professor of strategy at the Graduate School of Management (IAE), University of Toulouse, France. We gratefully acknowledge the France–Canada Research Foundation, which supported our research for this article. Earlier versions were presented at the International Conference on Business History at Waseda University in Tokyo, on January 26 and 27, 2008, and at the Wilson Seminar at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, on October 15, 2009. We thank the participants for their