Profit or Utility Maximizing? Strategy, tactics and the Municipal Tramways of York, c. 1918-1935

TY - JOUR

T1 - Profit or Utility Maximizing?

T2 - Strategy, tactics and the Municipal Tramways of York, c. 1918-1935

AU - Tennent, Kevin Daniel

N1 - © Emerald Publishing Limited 2017. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.

PY - 2017/7/19

Y1 - 2017/7/19

N2 - Purpose: This paper contests Mees (2010) theory that publically owned public transport operators normatively target their resources to maximize service rather than profit. Mees argues that neoliberal governments in the Anglosphere were mistaken toprivatize their undertakings yet we show that the British ethos of municipal trading meant that municipalities always saw public transport as more of a business than a service.Methodology: We use an archival microstudy of the municipal tramway undertaking of the English city of York, using municipal archives triangulated with local and industry media sources.Findings: We propose the refination of the Mees spectrum of public transport from public to private (2010, pp. 73–75) to note that public undertakings can be operated within a profit-maximizing framework.Originality/Value: We provide a rare historical explication of an individual municipal trading enterprise and tramway system placed in its economic context together with its wider theoretical implications.

AB - Purpose: This paper contests Mees (2010) theory that publically owned public transport operators normatively target their resources to maximize service rather than profit. Mees argues that neoliberal governments in the Anglosphere were mistaken toprivatize their undertakings yet we show that the British ethos of municipal trading meant that municipalities always saw public transport as more of a business than a service.Methodology: We use an archival microstudy of the municipal tramway undertaking of the English city of York, using municipal archives triangulated with local and industry media sources.Findings: We propose the refination of the Mees spectrum of public transport from public to private (2010, pp. 73–75) to note that public undertakings can be operated within a profit-maximizing framework.Originality/Value: We provide a rare historical explication of an individual municipal trading enterprise and tramway system placed in its economic context together with its wider theoretical implications.

U2 - 10.1108/JMH-05-2017-0026

DO - 10.1108/JMH-05-2017-0026

M3 - Article

SN - 1751-1348

SP - 1

EP - 40

JO - Journal of Management History

JF - Journal of Management History

ER -