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Remembering Woolworth's: A Nostalgic History of the World's Most Famous Five-And-Dime
Buyer Power and Competition in European Food Retailing
Retailing In The European Union: Structures, Competition and Performance
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Museum Store Management (American Association for State and Local History Book Series)
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Second-Hand Cultures (Materializing Culture)
Did Trojans Use Trojans? : A TRIP INSIDE THE CORNER DRUGSTORE
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The Shoestring Entrepreneur's Guide to the Best Home-Based Franchises (Shoestring Entrepreneur's)
The Department Store: A Social History
Plunkett's Retail Industry Almanac 2005: The Only Comprehensive Guide to Retail Companies and Trends (Plunkett's Retail Industry Almanac)
Deal Engines: The Science of Auctions, Stock Markets, and E-Markets

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A riveting journey through a French department store

The Bon Marche
Michael B. Miller
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Economic History | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 069103494X

Book Description

In this comprehensive social history of the Bon Marché, the Parisian department store that was the largest in the world before 1914, Michael Miller explores the bourgeois identities, ambitions, and anxieties that the new emporia so vividly dramatized. Through an original interpretation of paternalism, public images, and family-firm relationships, he shows how this new business enterprise succeeded in reconciling traditional values with the coming of an age of mass consumption and bureaucracy.

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A riveting journey through a French department store.......2007-06-04

Michael Miller's The Bon Marché: Bourgeois Culture and the Department Store, 1869-1920 is fundamentally a book about changes in the nineteenth-century Parisian retail market and their effects on the identity and aspirations of the Parisian bourgeoisie. Miller seeks to model a professional change in the way historians craft narratives of social and entrepreneurial history through his treatment of the Boucicaut family and the changes involved in their highly successful Bon Marché store. For Miller, change in general, but particularly business and social change, is complex, not easily explained through class and cultural dichotomies. The success of the Bon Marché and the emerging influence of the French bourgeoisie in the late nineteenth century did not occur "through a radical break with the past" (11). Instead these changes involve complex mélanges of tradition with innovation.

Following a fast-paced introduction that sets Miller's idea of complex change against the previous works of business and social historians, Part I of the book situates the Bon Marché within the nineteenth-century context of emerging business practices and shifting bourgeois attitudes. The creation of the world's largest department store involved a gradual evolution of the French business culture. Miller explains the momentous 1869 groundbreaking ceremony of the new Bon Marché and the store's subsequent successes through a complicated intersection of a transformation in mass society, personalization in bureaucratization, and innovations in rationalization.

"Part Two: Internal Relations" aptly comprises the book's center, for it is indeed the heart of the work. Forcibly written and amply documented, this section locates the Bon Marché within the Parisian family, social and business environments, and details managerial practices that catapulted the house of Boucicaut above its competitors in the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. In contrast to André Saint-Martin's understanding that "all department story history...is dominated by this idea...circulate the capital as often as possible" (58), Miller argues persuasively that "for the Boucicauts, building the Bon Marché required more than pioneering marketing strategies and administrative structures" (77).

Miller does not present a hagiography of Aristide and Marguerite Boucicaut as purely pro-employee or pro-middle class. Yet, neither does he present them as anti-worker. His narrative depicts the Boucicauts as family shopkeepers (albeit keepers of the world's largest shop) of a traditional social system who possessed the wherewithal to facilitate and adapt to changes in French bourgeois culture, expectations, and behavior. Miller explains their tradition-plus-dynamism managerial formula this way: "Basically wedded to the French household tradition, the Boucicauts were to cope with fundamental changes in their culture, not by abandoning its practices and its tenets, but by redefining these to fit their new needs and new ends" (99).

One of Miller's important contributions is his attention to the managerial and familial relationships within diverse levels of employees within the house of Boucicaut. Aristide and Marguerite established the new Bon Marché upon a managerial paternalism not only out of a genuine benevolence and sense of duty for those in their charge, but also out of a need to maintain control over the store's performance and progress. Employees of the Bon Marché were among the best-paid store employees in Paris, enjoying attractive benefits. However, the Boucicauts' rationalized, bureaucratic working environment did not tolerate deviation from established procedures. Control rested in the hands of the patrons. In 1876, Aristide Boucicaut announced the unilateral, store-sponsored establishment of a financial fund for employees, telling his workers, "It is my wish that every employee be a pillar of my House" (105). There was no question that the Bon Marché was his House. The Boucicauts' executive successors, most brought up through the ranks of the store, continued and fortified the paternalistic system to survive the First World War and post-war entrepreneurial changes.

In Part III, as Miller gives life the Bon Marché, the institution itself becomes a part of the bourgeoisie, offering splendor, art, nouveautés, a library, and concerts. The store explicitly attracts a clientele of "those who shared, or wished to share, in the middle-class way of life" (179). Not only did the store's employee pool augment the numbers of the middle-class ranks and its merchandizing schemes personify middle-class values, the Bon Marché helped construct how the middle-class looked and acted. "Consumption itself became a substitute for being bourgeois," and the department store "now became the arbiter of bourgeois identity, defining it accordingly with what the House had to sell" (185). The Bon Marché's public relations strategy, using tours, cards, and the press, endeared the store to the bourgeois public as a national institution. In addition, the store's paternalism turned outward. Public-focused efforts invited the bourgeoisie to feel 'at home' in the house of Boucicaut, billing the store as one that shared their values.

One of the book's strong and weak points is Miller's comfort with complexity. He strives, and succeeds on most levels, to demonstrate the complexities of organizational, class, interpersonal changes within Bon Marché and the French bourgeoisie. He remains numbered among those he critiques in his analysis of Boucicaut-styled paternalism. While brilliantly detailing the complex nature of the Bon Marché business strategy, Miller characterizes the employees as simply accepting the Boucicautian procedures and benefits with no contemplation of their lot. Employees received higher pay, promotions, profit-sharing, disability, and a pension in exchange for loyalty, excellence, and longevity. Likewise, concerning increased bourgeois consumption and female kleptomaniacs whose "monomania of possession" led them to steal things they could not afford, Miller's 'the-store-made-me-do-it' assessment robs individuals of the responsibility to exercise restraint (203). Miller's Bon Marché is an incredibly shrewd employer and seller; but the environment he describes hardly seems as coercive as the analysis suggests.

The Bon Marché is a well-researched, well-drafted, and well-organized book whose argumentation is linear and sequential. The book will entice business historians with early discussions of merchandising practices, marketing techniques, business strategies, and market forces; but, the paucity of consistent number crunching may leave some business-minded readers unsatisfied. With similar ambitions as Patrick Joyce's work on nineteenth-century English social history [Democratic Subjects: The Self and the Social in Nineteenth-Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994)], Miller sets some high expectations of revising the traditional narrative of the social history of modern business enterprises. In the end, after a riveting 266-page journey through the life of the house that Boucicaut built, The Bon Marché achieves the goal--if not in whole, at least in part--of telling a nineteenth-century social history that strongly links the firm's rise to human involvements and the period's cultural elements.

The Bon Marche. Bourgeois Culture and the Department Store 1869-1920

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The Bon Marche. Bourgeois Culture and the Department Store 1869-1920
Michael B Miller
Manufacturer: George Allen & Unwin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0043303161

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From the Ashes (Bon Marche, Vol 2)
Chet Hagan
Manufacturer: Tom Doherty Assoc Llc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0812583620

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Bon Marche, Dewey Annals Volume One
Chet Hagan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HFNYME

ISTE finds roomier quarters.(Business)(The International Society for Technology in Education will relocate to the former Bon Marche building in downtown): ... from: The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR)

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ISTE finds roomier quarters.(Business)(The International Society for Technology in Education will relocate to the former Bon Marche building in downtown): ... from: The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR)

Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000E6UIO8
Release Date: 2006-01-13

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR), published by Thomson Gale on January 7, 2006. The length of the article is 700 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: ISTE finds roomier quarters.(Business)(The International Society for Technology in Education will relocate to the former Bon Marche building in downtown)
Publication: The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR) (Newspaper)
Date: January 7, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Page: D5

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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BON MARCHE'
Chet Hagan
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000JFA4VG

SOCIETE AU BON MARCHE SA: Labor Productivity Benchmarks and International Gap Analysis (Labor Productivity Series)

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SOCIETE AU BON MARCHE SA: Labor Productivity Benchmarks and International Gap Analysis (Labor Productivity Series)
Ltd. Icon Group
Manufacturer: Icon Group International, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Ring-bound
ASIN: 0597294089

Book Description

This book is designed for human resources managers and directors of personnel who are concerned with labor productivity. It gives benchmarks and gap analyses used to gauge a company's performance vis--vis firms competing firms in the same sector, at the global level. In particular, this report covers CISCO SYSTEMS, INC., SAN JOSE, USA.

With the globalization of markets, greater foreign competition, and the reduction of entry barriers, it becomes all the more important to benchmark a company's performance against other firms on a worldwide basis. Doing so, however, is not an obvious task. First, one needs to find firms competing in the same sector. Second, one needs to control for exchange rate volatility. Finally, one needs use comparable financial standards. This report overcomes these issues and gives full human resources benchmarks vis--vis worldwide competitors who are present in the same narrow industrial classification. Benchmarks cover labor-asset ratios, labor-liability ratios, and labor-income ratios. Since our reports are printed on demand, the figures available are for the latest quarter and are the most up to date available (4 updates are produced each year).

Collection universelle des mémoires particuliers relatifs à l'histoire de France: Tome 8. XV-e siècle

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Collection universelle des mémoires particuliers relatifs à l'histoire de France: Tome 8. XV-e siècle
not known
Manufacturer: Adamant Media Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1421239280
Release Date: 2000-05-30

Book Description

This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1785 edition published in Londres.

SOCIETE AU BON MARCHE SA: International Competitive Benchmarks and Financial Gap Analysis (Financial Performance Series)

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SOCIETE AU BON MARCHE SA: International Competitive Benchmarks and Financial Gap Analysis (Financial Performance Series)
Ltd. Icon Group
Manufacturer: Icon Group International, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Ring-bound
ASIN: 0597125791

Book Description

The goal of this report is to assist managers in gauging a company's financial performance vis--vis firms competing in the same sector, at the global level. In particular, this report covers SOCIETE AU BON MARCHE SA, 75322 PARIS CEDEX 07, FRANCE.

With the globalization of markets, greater foreign competition, and the reduction of entry barriers, it becomes all the more important to benchmark a company's performance against other firms on a worldwide basis. Doing so, however, is not an obvious task. First, one needs to find firms competing in the same sector. Second, one needs to control for exchange rate volatility. Finally, one needs use comparable financial standards. This report overcomes these issues and gives full financial benchmarks vis--vis worldwide competitors who are present in the same narrow industrial classification. Benchmarks cover assets, liabilities, income and ratios. Since our reports are printed on demand, the figures available are for the latest quarter and are the most up to date available (4 reports are produced each year).

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From the Ashes, Bon Marche Vol 2
Illustrated by ` Chet Hagan
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTSNLA

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