IBM's Early Adaptation to Cold War Markets: Cuthbert Hurd and His Applied Science Field Men

Abstract

The International Business Machines Corporation adapted early on to the opportunities created by the cold war economy in the United States. This account of IBM's adjustment to the circumstances of that time unveils the detailed process by which a firm situated outside the traditional defense industries forged new institutional allegiances between business and government and between science and industry. Beginning in 1949, IBM's Applied Science Department, under the leadership of Cuthbert Hurd, enabled the company to enter new technical markets that had been created by federal research and defense expenditures. But there were also broader consequences to IBM's decision to embrace scientific culture, among them the transformation of its traditional sales and product development strategies in ways that were not indisputably functional.