Search results

With the presentation of this year's CEMEX show in September the Circuit Equipment and Materials Association has certainly chalked up another success.

For most of us in the industry, and certainly the members of CEMA, 1992 could have been much better. To look back over the black spots would serve only to remind us that we are not yet out of the woods. Despite the continuing recession with its attendant gloom and despondency, the Association has had some high points during the past year.

Trace Instruments have announced that Mr Tony Battaglia has been named central regional sales manager.

During the first half of this year the Association has continued to expand its exhibition programme by increasing its presence at overseas shows. Two DTI sponsored joint venture groups have been formed, one to Nepcon West, the other to Nepcon Beijing. Anaheim saw the biggest UK group for over 10 years, with CEMA taking three separate blocks in different sectors of the show. There is no doubt from the reception we received that CEMA is now firmly established at Nepcon West. We enjoyed tremendous support from both the British Consulate and the British‐American Chamber of Commerce with their President making several visits to the CEMA booth.

Mass markets, bureaucratic hierarchy and impersonal factories have provided the foundation for Western capitalism during the past three to four centuries, but long before this, the Islamic bazaar fulfilled many of these functions effectively if not admirably despite substantial cultural, political and economic challenges. Paradoxically, bazaar-like arrangements are reappearing in some of the most advanced sectors of the postmodern world at the same time they persist or surface in several other settings. The purpose of this paper is to consider the causes of this persistence and what it means for managers?

This paper uses the categories of Geertz’s classic ethnographic description of the Sefrou suq in Morocco buttressed with other relevant sources to compare the attributes of the institutions of classic capitalism described by Weber to the Islamic Bazaar and similar hybrid manifestations found in diverse settings today.

This study suggests five lessons for modern bazaaris: It is never totally about the money – the importance of multiple currencies in creating productive exchanges. The promise and dangers of clientelism – working with trusted collaborators speeds cooperation but poses the danger of stifling innovation. Private lives, public bonds – how the mechanisms of the bazaar permit diverse partners to collaborate successfully. Everyone is a broker – how participants in the bazaar search out creative opportunities for exchange. Creating safe, random interaction – how the physical and social design of the bazaar safely brings together rivals.

These conclusions are drawn from existing ethnographic, historical and theoretical sources.

Contemporary managers dealing with environments where neoclassical markets and hierarchies no longer work or never fully arrived need to do the same, only more carefully, more consistently and more intentionally.

The legacy of the Islamic bazaar as a viable alternative to mass capitalism and a humanizing force has generally not been recognized in mainline management thought, especially in light of the erosion of the dominant metaphors of market and hierarchy in the postmodern world.