A Thematic Analysis of the American Business Creed

In this study a manual content analysis was performed on speeches made by American businessmen. The speeches were divided into four groups according to whether they were given during the period between 1900 and 1929 or during the period between 1950 and 1967, and according to whether the businessmen were corporation managers or individual entrepreneurs. The speeches were measured for the presence of two ideological themes, “traditionalism” and “antistatism.” It was hypothesized and found that: modern managers were more traditionalistic than early managers, modern entrepreneurs were more antistatist than either early entrepreneurs or managers, and that modern entrepreneurs were more antistatist than modern managers. It was also observed that modern managers were more traditionalistic than modern entrepreneurs.