‘Give my Regards to Uncle Billy ... ’: The Rites and Rituals of Company Life at Lever Brothers, c.1900–c.1990

This article examines the foundation, transmission, perception and transformation of a company culture at Lever Brothers. It argues that the framework developed by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., which emphasises strategy, structure, scale and scope as the keys to business success, needs supplementing with a study of the ‘softer’ side of company life. By doing so, evidently managerial concepts such as ‘corporate culture’, ‘human resource management’, ‘team-working’ and ‘communication’ all have historic antecedence. The article disputes the impression, given notably by Ronald Dore, that it is only Japanese companies that are capable of diffusing strong corporate values.