During World War II, the organization Training Within Industry (TWI) developed programs to help industry cope with the flood of new and unskilled war workers. Guided by representatives of the new profession of personnel management and assisted by university-based social scientists, the organization developed innovative methods of industrial training that drew on both the scientific management tradition and the newer human relations approach fostered by the Hawthorne experiments. The introduction of the human relations approach was severely criticized in the postwar era for its manipulative potential, but the wartime training program on which it wasbased did not exhibit that tendency. Moreover, management, which theoretically should have embraced TWI programs, was unsupportive, and organized labor, which had reason to be suspicious, wasvery responsive. Workplace reform, not the psychological conditioning of workers, drove the TWI programs.

The increase in volume of explosives and other hazardous materials transported by rail during the nineteenth century resulted in a growing number of accidents. In response, the Pennsylvania Railroad developed some of the first regulations governing the transport of such materials. In the twentieth century, a combination of enforcement difficulties and competitive pressures led the company, working through the American Railway Association, to press for industry-wide rules and enforcement, which resulted in the Association's, Bureau of Explosives. Similar motives impelled the carriers to seek federal regulation, which began in 1908. The Interstate Commerce Commission provided the legal authority in this public–private partnership, whilethe bureau took the lead in inspecting shipments, encouraging improvements in shipping techniques, and developing rules that formed the basis of all modern regulations of hazardous shipments.

Two British land companies, the Canada Company and the British American Land Company (BALC), were active during the nineteenth century in settling what are now Ontario and the Eastern Townships of Quebec. Both purchased large tracts of land from the British government, with two goals: to provide funds for the governors of Canada and to relieve Britain of its surplus population. The Canada Company worked closely with the government to meet these objectives, whereas BALC indulged in land speculation and made immigration a secondary priority. One was successful, and the other struggled throughout its existence. Their success or failure was the directresult of how well they dealt with both the changing economic climate and the British and Canadian political situation.