著者

木下 なつき

出版者

Business History Society of Japan

雑誌

経営史学 (ISSN:03869113)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.45, no.2, pp.2_57-2_74, 2010 (Released:2014-05-23)

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This paper explores the early history of the life insurance company owned by African-Americans in California, focusing on their marketing strategy. The company, founded in 1925 as the Golden State Guarantee Fund, struggled to survive in the tough situation for Black Business, which was different from other black life insurance companies. California's small and lower-middle black communities made a life insurance business tough. According to the prior studies, successful black insurance business had to have a large and poor black population as in the Jim Crow South, or solidarity as in the ghetto North. They covered the organizational inefficiency that most of black business had.Because of the contrary condition in California, the Golden State Life had to develop their organizational capability in sales and marketing. George A. Beavers, Jr., one of the main founders, was in charge of both public relation and directing agency divisions as young community leader. While introducing some competitive ways to the agency management, Beavers took the advantage of community capitals on which most of their marketing activities were based in its early stages.Going between two opposite elements — competitiveness and community-consciousness, they finally made up their organization — “branch=team system.” While they developed team works inside each branch, all the branches competed the company-wide production contests. The concept came from baseball and other team sports. Organized sports gained high popularity and made an enthusiasm among African-Americans in the early 20th century. They helped the agents unite with each other and learn how to make organizational efforts in business.The Golden State Life's other marketing strategy was breaking into non-black market. Black people often shared residential and commercial spaces with other racial and ethnic groups in California. The company tried to meet the demands of the local communities, which were not limited to the blacks.