What is it about?
This article explores the history of American trucking through the story of the last legacy carrier - ABF Freight. Tracing the company's history from the early days of trucking through the Motor Carrier Act era to today's technology-advanced logistics, it investigates how entrepreneurial processes and management strategies of its leadership enabled the Arkansas-based carrier to survive when all other unionized common carriers failed.
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Why is it important?
This article offers a case study of corporate longevity and the managerial strategies that enabled ABF Freight to survive in a turbulent industry driven by price competition despite labor-related cost disadvantages. In doing so, it challenges presumptions that union labor is necessarily a hindrance to innovation, while also highlighting how local commitments and a broader conception of successful enterprise embedded in a local community can encourage competitive behavior. Finally, this article applies the New Entrepreneurial History framework to demonstrate how the expanded conception of entrepreneurship envisioned by Wadhwani and Lubinski allows us to consider the wide range of values that go into an entrepreneur's conception of success and it's importance for a corporation's development. In summary, the article is important because it proves that long-term corporate success can be built on historical values, union labor, and "creative processes" rather than just aggressive cost-cutting or scale.
Perspectives
Rural America and small cities are often not thought of as centers for innovation or entrepreneurial thinking. This article, in my mind, recovers how the personal aspect of small town business doesn't necessarily lead to a parochial mindset. Something that impressed me throughout this project is the legal creativity, adaptation, and political processes that went into ABF's survival. More importantly, I was also surprised by how much a commitment to the local community of the Ozarks and employees appeared to drive the company's motives in remaining competitive and innovative, just as much as profitability. Overall, I think this article suggests some of the ways we might rethink how entrepreneurial ventures can meet community and social objectives while also contributing to economic development.
Nathanael Mickelson
University of Georgia
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: “Salt of the Earth:” ABF Freight and Entrepreneurial Processes in American Trucking, Enterprise & Society, February 2026, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/eso.2026.10115.
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