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The opening of international markets following World War II highlighted the differences between territories at regional and national level in terms of the attractiveness of economic activities, investment and human resources. In this context, an important aspect concerned the entrepreneurial process: businesses and entrepreneurs have played a leading role in the activation of the paths of economic growth on the product value, employment and international competitiveness. From this perspective, the study of entrepreneurial dynamics - who the entrepreneurs are, their formation, the path followed for the creation of the enterprise, socio-economic and institutional context in which they acted - becomes crucial to understand the influence of economic and social conditions in the countries of origin as well as the employment and market opportunities, infrastructures and attractiveness of the destination countries. From this point of view, the entrepreneurial path is linked to the migration process and requires a study to highlight the relationship between these two phenomena and their impacts on the development and territorial competitiveness. Starting from the analysis of the literature and researches available at national and international level, in this paper we present the first results of a quantitative and qualitative research at the Archives of the American Chamber of Commerce in Italy, as well as in other American economic institutions. The study aims to highlight the scale of the phenomenon in the Italian-Americans economic relations after World War II, the characteristics of firms with immigrant entrepreneurs, as well as the relationship between immigrant entrepreneurship and entrepreneur training. Even though the two authors share the article’s setting, please note that introduction and paragraph 1 are by Vittoria Ferrandino and paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 are by Valentina Sgro. Both of the authors wrote the conclusions.

Purpose In the mid-1990s, market demands for around-the-clock (24/7) banking and financial transacting began to converge with advances in internet-based technologies. This confluence of forces gave rise to the birth of internet banking. Building upon the relevant literature, this paper aims to develop a set of propositions to address the following questions: what brand strategy or strategies were used at the birth of internet banking roughly 25 years ago? In the years since then, have merger and acquisition transactions involving internet or “direct” banking businesses only come to fruition where the direct bank was previously under a specific brand strategy? And finally, where there have been changes in internet banking brand strategy, have these invariably been in the ultimate direction of one particular brand strategy? Design/methodology/approach Because of the exploratory nature of the research question, this paper uses a case study examination as the research approach. In addition to gaining deeper insight into issues involving internet bank branding as these actually existed, this paper aims to propose preliminary and tentative conclusions that can later be tested empirically with larger sample size. The case studies specifically examine German commercial banks with direct bank businesses. Findings In the examination of the German commercial banks, this paper finds that their internet banking activities some 25 years ago were, in fact, never launched using an umbrella brand strategy but rather with a combined brand strategy or multi-brand strategy. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transactions involving internet-based direct banks were only consummated where the direct bank had previously been operated by the parent bank using a multi-brand strategy. Where the brand strategies of internet-based direct banks have been changed by their parent banks, this has invariably been in the direction of an umbrella brand strategy. Originality/value Within the marketing and banking literature, there are no in-depth examinations of internet banking brand strategies to be found. This paper, in addressing this research topic, marks the first full survey of German commercial banks with internet-based direct banking businesses. This survey, moreover, examines branding not only at the time that internet-based direct banks were first established starting in 1994 but also the subsequent development of internet banking brand strategies to the present day.

El objetivo de este artículo es analizar la evolución del sector de la fabricación y distribución de tractores agrícolas en España (1950-1994). Analizamos distintas empresas, fabricantes y distribuidoras para comprender la función de la oferta en el marco de los grandes cambios tecnológicos de la industrialización de la agricultura durante la Dictadura franquista, la transición y los primeros años de la democracia en España. Partimos de un enfoque elaborado desde la historia agraria, aunque combinando perspectivas con la historia industrial y empresarial, para analizar las distintas estrategias de empresas y multinacionales del sector, el marco regulador estatal y la demanda de tractores. Para la elaboración del artículo recurrimos a fuentes generadas por la Administración del Estado, documentación interna de empresas, revistas divulgativas y, también, entrevistas de historia oral.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine and interpret the characteristics of social responsibility in general, and business responsibility in particular, that were evident during a period in European history that was plagued by widespread social problems and change. Based on that interpretation, the authors explore the lessons those characteristics may have for social responsibility in a contemporary world that is facing similar conditions.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a qualitative analysis of the proceedings of the Bienfaisance Congress held in Frankfurt in 1857, where societal leaders from different nations met to answer the question, who has responsibility for whom, and for what? The authors use grounded theory, as it is operationalized in what is known as the “Gioia template,” to conduct a structured analysis of this particular text, and to in turn produce a theoretical interpretation of how that question was answered.FindingsThe interpretation from this study is that congress participants articulated certain established dimensions of responsibility (individual, organizational, national), as well as one new dimension (international), and did so by differentiating boundaries of responsibility; in turn, the authors suggest that these dimensions and boundaries work together to form a nested system of responsibilities.Research limitations/implicationsThere is limited empirical evidence available that documents the variety of responsibility-based initiatives that were being conducted during the 19th century. An analysis of the congress proceedings allows us to gain a better understanding of how the 19th-century world, particularly the upper echelons of European society, approached the question of under what conditions actors in different domains have responsibility for another. While the implications are limited by the analysis of the proceedings of one congress that was attended by elites, they do provide a snapshot of how Europe sought to articulate a system of bounded responsibilities during a time of widespread social problems and change.Practical implicationsAlthough the nested system of responsibilities framework that emerged from the grounded theory analysis is not applicable to all situations, it should sensitize policymakers and business leaders to the need to address social problems in a systemic way.Originality/valueThe authors both present a systems-based framework for understanding how responsibility is differentiated among actors (individual, organizational, state and international) and demonstrate how a theoretical interpretation of historical documents can be accomplished through the use of grounded theory, as operationalized through the Gioia template.

This article deals with the opening of telecommunications to competition and its determinants in Spain, a country seriously committed to the monopoly. It is framed in the general scenario of an accelerated technological change driven by new materials, components and transmission systems, a sharp regulatory change and an extension of the value chain with new products and services, in particular data, mobile telephony and cable. Such properties fit perfectly with the time axis chosen which comprises the two last decades of the 20th century and coincide with a phase in which the protagonist company is facing the challenge not only of liberalisation but also of a profound change in the parameters of the market. The study focuses on Telefónica's response to new regulatory and market requirements. Methodologically, it revolves around the multidisciplinary nature, which integrates the approach of the history of technology understood as a system (Thomas P. Hugues and Melvin Kranzberg) and the economic and business history (Nathan Rosenberg). The text is structured in four sections that examine the persistence of the monopoly of Telefonica and liberalisation, the axes of Telefónica's transformation through global and strategic plans and the broadening of the value chain, focussed on the cable market. Some preliminary historical and technical issues and key elements in the evolution of the sector are addressed. The text attends to the relations between the market structure inherited from the monopoly and the process, from which the advantages of Telefónica with the rest of the companies emanate. The research rests mainly on primary sources of the company studied, twice as valuable because they are difficult to access by researchers and perfectly determined to grasp the company's strategy, as well as on reports from major international institutions and secondary literature. The conclusion deals with the methodological consideration of the close link between supply and demand-related factors.

Purpose Despite its Australian birthplace, the ugg boot industry is now fully dominated by one American company, and the Australian ugg boot industry has been frozen out of global trade. This study aims to consider the impact on the competitive advantage of culturally distinctive but not new, intellectual property (IP) through the historic lens of the Australia–USA battle over the UGG boot trademark. Design/methodology/approach This study uses trademark applications, court documents, annual reports and brand reports to trace the history of the change and growth of the ugg boot industry from a small cottage industry in Australia to a billion-dollar monopoly controlled by an American company. Findings Court documents and trademark applications from 1979 to 2019 indicate that Australian firms underestimated the cultural differences between the USA and Australia and thus failed to adequately protect the generic word “ugg” in foreign markets where it was considered to be distinctive, rather than generic. Practical implications The paper highlights the importance of the first-mover advantage that can be conferred upon a firm by IP that is not new. Trademarks must be distinctive, rather than new, but properly used, they can offer substantial global competitive advantages to firms. Originality/value The in-depth analysis of the development of the UGG brand highlights the importance of intangible barriers in global business. The impact on the competitive advantage these intangible barriers gave US firms over Australian firms in the worldwide sheepskin boot market is discussed.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to reflect back over his career as a management and business historian so far as to consider opportunities for the future of management and business history as a disciplinary area. Design/methodology/approach The paper consists of two segments – the first half is an auto-ethnographic personal reflection looking at the author’s research journey and how the discipline as experienced by the author has evolved over that time. The second half is a prescriptive look forward to consider how we should leverage the strengths as historians to progress the discipline forward. Findings The paper demonstrates opportunities for management and business history to encompass new agendas including the expansion of the topic into teaching, the possibility for the advancement of empirical contributions and opportunities for findings in new research areas, including the global south and public and project management history. Originality/value The paper demonstrates that historians should be more confident in the disciplinary capabilities, particularly their understandings of historic context, continuity, change and chronologies when making empirical and theoretical contributions.

This paper addresses questions seeking to clarify the nature of personal networking between modern Japan’s wealthy economic elite and the Japanese nobility. In particular, to explore whether the so...

The question of what constitutes the discipline of business history has been the focus of ongoing debate for several decades. The output of business history researchers is diverse ranging from company histories to the application of theoretical frameworks used to interpret the many facets of business development. This article, in introducing this special edition of the Australian Economic History Review, provides an overview of the development of the business history discipline and the contribution it has made to understanding the operation of business enterprises and the markets in which they operate.

During the last decade, we have seen an increased opposition to globalization. Within this wave of criticism, firms and more specifically multinational corporations have been major targets, accused of multiple wrongdoings, such as social dumping, fiscal evasion, job cuts, trade deficits, abuses of power, and environmental damages. In many respects, this debate echoes the one that took place during the 1970s with respect to oil shocks, de-industrialization, and imperialism. At that time, several international organizations, such as the OECD, ECOSOC, ILO, and the European Community started to address the issue of multinationals and international investments, and advocated for the creation of guidelines to regulate their activities. The following paper explores the reactions of Swiss multinationals to these attempts, as well as their strategies for protecting their latitude in conducting business. Relying on archival material of the Swiss Union of Commerce and Industry and of the Federal Archives, this paper shows how the biggest companies in the pharmaceutical, machine, and food processing industries—all of them still being global players —decided to create a task force to deal with these emerging regulations at the international level.

Purpose This paper aims to provide a comprehensive record of the development of Thai advertising, which started as being heavily influenced by the West and subsequently evolved with a unique style that fits well with the global advertising trends. Design/methodology/approach The analysis was done based on literature review and content analysis of Thai advertising. In addition, ten in-depth interviews were conducted with executives of the Advertising Association of Thailand and academics. Findings Thai advertising progressed from being influenced by the growth of transnational advertising agencies. This resulted in strong creative foundations that blended well with the unique Thai emotional flair. In addition, consumer protection has grown in importance, leading to a strong commitment in pushing for self-regulation. Research limitations/implications Examination of Thai advertising shows that the strength of Thai advertising lies in its human resources. This exploration of challenges and success of Thai advertising has shed light on how the advertising industry can be developed for creativity leadership in the global arena. The limitation is that the paper misses interviews with digital agencies. Practical implications This paper provides a comprehensive presentation of Thai advertising history in terms of agency development, creativity, and self-regulation. Originality/value This paper aims to provide a better understanding of the Thai advertising industry based on agency ownership and growth, creativity development leading to the unique Thai emotional advertising and self-regulation.

History can represent an effective marketing resource because it can establish an emotional relationship with consumers. This article examines trademark applications in order to show how Spanish companies used the past in their branding strategy during the twentieth century. The article analyses which historical themes were used the most, over which periods, for what types of products and services and according to which Spanish regions. The study indicates that this commercial use of the past was closely linked to the spread of Spanish nationalism. Brands try to connect emotionally with consumers by evoking historical national myths and, therefore, their use increased during the periods of intensive nationalist expression. This work was supported by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Government of Spain and the European Regional Development Fund under Grants HAR2015-64769-P and PGC2018-093896-B-I00.

Many scholars in management and business history are using nationality as a core criterion to classify corporations and to explain their behaviour, values, and strategy. In this perspective, being born in a specific country defined by its frontiers and institutions explicates the values and behaviour of its inhabitants—and companies within this context are described as more ‘German’, ‘Italian’, or ‘French’. However, it does not help to analyse in depth the complex and various differences between what is observable in day-to-day business life and what is in underneath. A better understanding of corporation nationality imposes to use the concept of culture. It implies to underline the fact that ‘nation’ is often delimitated by frontiers and most of the time is the result of political choices. If nationality explains some element of corporate culture, it cannot explain all cultural dimensions. One reason is that culture does not stop at national frontiers. This article has several aims: (1) it discusses the use of nationality as a means to describe and analyse the organizational behaviour of companies and their communities; (2) it interrogates ‘nationality’ as a powerful factor which enables to aggregate different communities within large corporations; and (3) it analyzes how ‘nationality’ is influencing managerial practices. Most of the time, ‘nationality’ is mobilized to describe the global strategy or practices of big corporations. The author argues that nationality is a crucial factor for corporate culture in many ways—not as a ‘given’ fact but as a larger part of the institutional design of a company (and its development).

Corporate archives represent the primary source material for business and management historians. Given that many of the most extensive and important business archives are held and managed by the corporations that generated them, maintaining corporate “buy-in” to preserving records and making archives available to researchers is vital to our discipline. However, corporate archives have to justify their existence and are under increasing pressure to demonstrate the value of their function (and, by implication, their records). Meanwhile, corporate archivists often find it particularly difficult to assess, and demonstrate, the value of their collections for academics and other external stakeholders. \ud \ud This article discusses an initiative to provide academic evaluations of the archival resources of companies that were considering increasing the accessibility of their records for external users. The original idea was a response to a request from Marks and Spencer plc for an academic evaluation of their archives, the success of which led to similar evaluations for BT plc and Boots plc. We outline the criteria by which these firms’ archives were assessed, together with how the evaluations informed subsequent decisions regarding the future development of their archives, assisted the firms in gaining external accreditations for their heritage resources, and supported initiatives to boost access, either physically and/or online. We also briefly consider one further consequence of the increased investment in archival resources following these initiatives – the wider interest in, and use of, the archives within the companies concerned - to support a range of business functions and draw on the strengths of their heritage and corporate culture.

This paper draws on the concept of sensemaking and sensegiving to examine how the failure of a project, TAURUS, influenced the successful development of an innovative security settlement system, CREST, which has shaped the computerisation of the wholesale UK financial industry. We use a historiographic interpretative approach to analyse publicly available documents, via three theoretical constructs that have emerged from combining business history and organisational studies literature. First, we define historical sensegiving as the ability to shape contextually the way others make sense of complex historical situations. Second, we establish the sensemaking of failure, which is the ability to make sense of failure in a historical context. Finally, we find that historical enactment supports the creation of structures and events by bracketing them in a historical context. We coin the term ‘creative failure’ to characterise how failure can be reimagined as a route to creative success through a sensemaking process.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the contribution of Benzaemon Inoue and Sumitomo Electric Industries (SEI) in the early development of what came to be known as quality control (QC) circles. This paper analyses archival records including journals, books, documents such as the SEI Deming prize-winning submission of 1962 and private letters sent by Benzaemon Inoue to the author Kenneth Hopper. Methodology/Approach: This paper uses the analytically structured history approach. This methodology is used to interpret and document history as an analytic historical narrative and must describe such things as causation, events and concepts. In addition, the narrative must be framed in the context of the time when the events took place. Findings: There are three main findings: firstly, that SEI first developed QC circles and won the 1962 Deming Prize based on QC circles; secondly that SEI used societal and cultural conditions in Japan to encourage participation by the workers in improving quality; and thirdly, that the most important method of participation for SEI was suggestion systems. Research limitations/contributions: The primary data for this paper have been drawn from various archival records, which are for the most part not peer reviewed. Wherever possible, triangulation of evidence has been undertaken to mitigate the inherent risk of bias. The main contribution is an evaluation of the roles of Benzaemon Inoue and SEI in the early development of QC circles and total quality management (TQM). Originality/value: The originality of this paper lies in examining Benzaemon Inoue's and SEI's contribution to the development of QC circles. The importance in the history of quality management of their Deming Prize winning submission of 1962 has been underestimated.

Purpose The global financial crisis (GFC) has undermined the legitimacy of orthodox neo-classical economic assumptions, which nevertheless continue to frame the philosophical assumptions of teaching in business schools. The purpose of this paper is to make a case in favour of an expansion of the business school curriculum to incorporate behavioural economics. The paper will also contend that behavioural economics can be connected to social economics, as they are both heterodox in this study and analyse economic phenomenon outside of a neo-classical framework. The aim is to contribute to arguments for an expanded curriculum, beyond the framing assumptions of neo-classical rationalism. This paper will also support its case by reviewing behavioural economics to make the case that this literature can be connected to social economics. This assertion is based on shared connections, including the importance of Kantianism in behavioural economics and in social economics. These connections will be discussed as a common point of reference points, or ties that can serve to broker links between these two economic paradigms. Practical implications (if applicable) the GFC presents an opportunity to re-shape the business school curriculum to acknowledge the centrality of socio-economics and behavioural economics, and consequently to offer an alternative to the dominant ontological assumptions – taken from the economic understanding of rationality – that have previously underpinned business school pedagogy. Design/methodology/approach The paper presents an inter-disciplinary teaching case, which incorporates socio-economic and behavioural economics perspectives. The teaching case concerned a socio-economic understanding of corruption and white-collar crime. It was also inter-disciplinary to include inputs from business history and criminology. The teaching case developed an appreciation among students that corruption, white-collar crime and entrepreneurship can be analysed within a social economics and behavioural economics lens. Findings The teaching case example discussed an alternative socio-economic and behavioural economics understanding to core areas of the MBA curriculum with the potential to be included in other academic disciplines. This enabled students to apply a behavioural economic approach to white-collar crime. The findings derived from this case study are that behavioural economics has the potential to enhance the teaching of socio-economics. Originality/value The originality of this paper is to apply behavioural economics to a socio-economic teaching case, in core subject areas of the MBA curriculum.

We propose an analytical business history approach, informed by new internalisation theory, to study managerial governance adaptation in the multinational enterprise (MNE). We shed new light on the timing and the scale of managerial governance adaptation. These two issues have remained largely unaddressed in mainstream international business theory. We uncover the importance of delayed, larger-scale governance adaptation as a response to cumulative, localised commitment failures. We illustrate our new perspective on managerial governance adaptation by providing a short retrospective of Wilkins and Hill’s (American business abroad: Ford on six continents, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1964) classic historical account of Ford Motor Company’s expansion across six continents between 1903 and 1963. Our brief retrospective highlights the value of in-depth historical analysis, informed by umbrella behavioural assumptions, such as those adopted in new internalisation theory-based research, to gain improved understanding of international strategy and governance trajectories of large MNEs.

This article discusses the storytelling strategies adopted by luxury fashion companies to build global brands from the 1990s onwards. Using the example of Christian Dior, it is demonstrated that heritage is a social construction based on strong narratives rather than the mere outcome of the history of a brand. Storytelling is a powerful instrument used in the context of creating global luxury brands over the last two decades. This makes it possible to emphasize the timelessness of a brand while disregarding the contradictions resulting from a change in its identity over time. As a consequence, this article argues that, although the use of heritage through storytelling is a useful tool for the practice of brand management, it is not an academic concept and should be avoided by scholars.

While entrepreneurs are increasingly recognized as important participants in the medieval economy, their philanthropic activities have received less attention than those of the gentry and nobility. This article identifies the contribution that the study of medieval entrepreneurs can make to broader business history debates surrounding the identity of philanthropists and their beneficiaries, the types of causes they supported, and their impact on wider society. Philanthropic entrepreneurs used the profits of commerce to provide infrastructure, health care, and education to their local communities. Their patterns of philanthropy differed from those of gentry, lawyers, and administrators. Support for municipal infrastructure emerges as a distinctive feature of entrepreneurial philanthropy, reflecting a belief in the importance of trade networks and civic reputation.

The call for a special symposium on ‘The Brand and Its History’ has led to two journal issues that focus on trademarks and brands, respectively. This issue is devoted to trademarks, the more concre...

In his history of Unilever, Charles Wilson stated that cinema advertising was not part of the company’s marketing strategy until the late 1930s. However, despite the paucity of surviving archival s...

This chapter combines approaches from economic and business history with social network analysis to evaluate the challenges faced by a genuinely ‘transnational’ or ‘cosmopolitan’ business trading between Europe and the Indian Ocean world in the eighteenth century. By employing Peter F. Drucker’s differentiation between a ‘multinational’ and a ‘transnational’ enterprise, it evaluates the levels of national preference in the private trading operations of a multinational group of merchants sent by the Prussian East India Company to Bengal in the 1750s. Its findings demonstrate not only the lack of cosmopolitanism of these European traders but also the increased levels of principal-agent problems and moral hazard incurred by transnational enterprises which operated across several national and imperial frameworks. Although headquartered in Emden, Prussia’s eighteenth-century North Sea Port located on the German-Dutch border, and chartered by Frederick II of Prussia, the 1750s Prussian Companies trading to China and Bengal were genuinely transnational enterprises. Their capital, directors, sailing and commercial staff were drawn from Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Flanders, Sweden, France, and the German states. This cosmopolitan make-up posed a distinct set of challenges in terms of governance and firm organization. The focus of this chapter is on a single voyage, that of the ship Henry Prince of Prussia sent out in 1754 by the newly founded Royal Prussian Commercial Company Trading to Bengal. The captain was a Flemming and the three supercargoes in charge of the expedition were Scottish, French, and Flemish respectively. Instead of accomplishing their mission as instructed, the four took over the ship and the company’s funds to finance their own trade along the Coromandel Coast and Bengal in India before their ship sunk in the Ganges mouth a good one and a half years later. The subsequent legal case produced minute evidence that permits us to trace their Indian trading contacts and commercial social network as they developed over time, which in turn gives an insight both into how limited the ‘cosmopolitanism’ of these individual traders actually was and at the same time how even this limited cosmopolitanism posed an insurmountable challenge for a transnational enterprise operating across different legal and political frameworks.

The Emergence of Modern Hospital Management and Organisation in the World 1880s-1930s analyzes core themes from a business history perspective to reach a new understanding about the history of modern large scale healthcare institutions, from the United States to China, with particular attention to Spain.

This paper debates the ongoing processes of digital transformation enhanced by the 4th industrial revolution in successful companies which have a long time business history and an international presence. The aim is analyzing how what they have experienced and learned in the 2nd and 3rd industrial revolutions represents key elements that have shaped their DNA and continue to inspire their transformation to the point that the gradual radical change concept is preferred to the concept of disruption. Such learning processes are primary values to transfer in companies’ digital transformation in order to implement it efficiently and effectively creating new opportunities at an international level. The paper leverages on an explorative research based on the empirical setting of three international Italian manufacturing companies that have experienced challenges of the 2nd, 3rd and are now facing an important digital transformation process in a worldwide landscape. A qualitative constructive multiple case research design is conducted to evaluate the conceptual model and some considerations emerged from the analysis. The paper also benefits from 30 years of experience of one of the Authors as Business Development Director of big multinational companies accompanying many enterprises during their digital transformation. This study presents an interpretative framework that provides an exploration of main heritages coming from the past industrial revolutions according to three aspects: business drivers, supply view and entrepreneurial model. The emerged evidences can be taken as lessons by international manufacturing companies in order to implement digital transformation enhancing their international competitiveness.

The integration of historical reasoning and corporate social responsibility (CSR) theorising has recently received remarkable cross-disciplinary attention by business historians and CSR scholars. But has there been a meaningful interdisciplinary conversation? Motivated by this question that presumes significant limitations in the current integration, I survey existing research for the purpose of sketching and shaping historical CSR studies, ie an umbrella that brings together diverse approaches to history and CSR theorising. Drawing from the recent efforts to establish historical methodologies in organisation studies, I first reconcile discrepant disciplinary and field-level traditions to create a meaningful intellectual space for both camps. Secondly, I provide a synthesis of the history of CSR from three different meta-theoretical perspectives in the context of three maturing knowledge clusters. To bridge past and future work, I finally set a research agenda arising from current research and drawing on different sets of assumptions about history and CSR. peerReviewed

Disaster management is a neglected area of British business history. Industrial disasters led to significant loss of life and imposed considerable costs on firms involved. This article examines the emergence of a network of mine rescue stations across UK coalfields in the early twentieth century, making use of previously overlooked records of mine rescue station boards. Pioneering mine rescue stations were established in Yorkshire at coalowners’ initiative in 1901 and 1902, a few years before provision of rescue stations and breathing apparatus became mandatory. As well as rescue operations, these facilities were used to put out colliery fires and restore damaged mines. The involvement of coalowners in mine rescue also signalled that the industry was interested in miner safety at a time of growing unrest. The article concludes that there is scope for much more research into the early years of disaster management in the mines and in other industries

This chapter describes the experiences in computational and digital history of economic and business historians who for decades have been forerunners in digital history data gathering and computational analysis. It attempts to discuss the major developments within this area internationally and, in some specific cases, in Finland in the fields of digital economic and business history. It concentrates on a number of research projects that the authors have previously been involved in, as well as research outcomes by other economic and business historians within Finland and elsewhere. It is not claimed that the projects discussed are unique or ahead of their time in the field of economic and business history—on the contrary they are representing a more general state of the art within the field and used as illustrative cases illuminating the possibilities and challenges facing historians in the digital era.

This unconventional history relates the engaging and unusual stories of three families in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries whose involvement in the peppermint oil industry provides insights into the perspectives and concerns of rural people of their time. Challenging the standard paradigms, the book focuses on the rural characters who lived by their own rules and did not acquiesce to contemporary religious doctrines, business mores, and political expediencies. The Ranneys, a secular family in a very religious time and place; the Hotchkisses, who ran banks and printed their own money while the Lincoln administration was eliminating state banking; and the Todd family, who incorporated successful business practices with populist socialism, all highlight the untold story of rural America's engagement with the capitalist marketplace. The families' atypical attitudes and activities offer unexpected perspectives on rural business and life.

This introductory chapter offers an overview of the entire book on the management transformation of Huawei. Huawei is now China’s most prominent multinational company and a leader in 5G mobile telephone technology, which will be rolled out across the world in the next few years. What makes Huawei interesting is its rate of growth and the level of detail in which we can observe not only the creation of routines but also the breaking of routines across most the major functional areas (Management, Product Development, HR, Supply Chain, Finance, R&D, Intellectual Property, and International). This makes Huawei an ideal case to advance the theory of routines and dynamic capabilities to change routines. Hence the book will particularly appeal to academics in the field of strategy, management, and business history.

Huawei has become China's most prominent multinational company and a leader in the ICT sector. Given unprecedented access to the company, the authors of this book examine the management transformation of Huawei from its inception in 1987 until 2019, observing in detail not only the creation of its organizational routines but also the breaking of routines across most major functional areas: Management, Product Development, HR, Supply Chain, Finance, R&D, Intellectual Property, and International Business. 'Dynamic capabilities' are central to theories of competitive advantage and this book highlights Huawei as an ideal case study for the successful implementation of change routines and change-supporting values. The chapters cover all the major change initiatives the firm has undertaken since 1996 to import best practices from the West, with the help of consultants. The insights presented in the book will be particularly interesting for academics in the field of strategy, management, and business history.

Before the deposit of digital records of the British population censuses, quantitative studies on long-term economic and social trends in nineteenth-century Britain relied on published aggregate tabulations of the census, case studies that consulted individual records, or the valuable but necessarily restricted 5 percent sample of the 1851 census (Anderson et al., 1979). The deposit of digital records of the full population census data for 1881 (Schürer and Woollard, 2000), and the censuses for 1851-1911 in the Individual Census Microdata database (I-CeM) (Schürer and Higgs, 2014; Higgs et al., 2015; Schürer et al., 2016), have opened up the potential for full-population aggregate-level, and individual-level analysis for all years 1851-1911 (except for 1871, which is yet to be deposited). Just like the impact of the Minnesota Historical Census projects (Ruggles and Menard, 1995), the availability of census digital microdata has made possible new insights in British demographic, economic and social history. Over the past five years, the I-CeM data containing census records of the full population of England, Wales, and Scotland have been used to develop new interpretations of childhood mortality (Jaadla and Reid, 2017; Atkinson et al., 2017), family structure (Schürer et al., 2018), fertility (Garrett and Reid 2018; Reid et al., 2019), business proprietors (Bennett et al., 2018; Bennett et al., 2019; Van Lieshout et al., 2019), business partnerships (Bennett, 2016), agriculture (Montebruno et al., 2019a), women’s occupations (You, 2019), portfolios in farming (Radicic et al., 2017), migration (Schürer and Day, 2019; Smith et al., 2019), and urban structure (Smith et al., 2018), and have been visualised and further made available in the online atlas Populations Past (Reid et al., 2018). These analyses have considerably improved on scholarship based on the only source that was previously available with national coverage: the published tabulations created by the census administrators (the General Register Office: GRO) at the time of the censuses.

Author(s): Ballor, Grace | Advisor(s): Berend, Ivan T | Abstract: Much of the existing scholarship on the history of the European Union presents twentieth century European integration as a political process. While this narrative rightly acknowledges the immeasurable impact of nation states, European Union institutions and visionary federalists, it is not complete. In response to globalization in the 1970s and 1980s, large European corporations sought to compete with their American and Asian rivals by establishing a pan-European single market without barriers to cross-border business. At times responding to policy changes and at times driving them, these firms adopted a regional strategy and invested broadly across Europe, particularly in the markets of the European peripheries, which offered both cheap, skilled labor and a huge consumer market with pent-up demand, all at close proximity to firm headquarters. By establishing value chain and subsidiary networks across the region, firms from every sector of the economy - including the French investment bank Paribas, German auto manufacturers Volkswagen and BMW, British retailer Tesco and Belgian retailer Delhaize - contributed to the integration of economies and facilitated the practical achievement of a common European market. Thus, motivated by their own profit interests, multinational firms facilitated the achievement of the four freedoms integral to an economically-united Europe: the free movement of goods, services, capital, and labor across a single, common market. This dissertation analyzes the role of multinational firms as agents of European integration from the 1970s to the early 2000s. Methodologically, it engages with the practices of both economic and business history and draws evidence from archives, including those from both firms and EU institutions. It equally makes use of oral history interviews with EU commissioners and members of parliament, lobby groups, and executives from leading European multinational corporations. Its aim is to intervene in the current body of European Union scholarship and contribute to a nuanced understanding of the history of European integration by including the role of the private sector.

West Africa has become a magnet for oil companies from all over the globe. More than 500 oil (and gas) expatriate firms are participating vigorously in the region’s upstream and downstream energy sector. These external stakeholders consist of states, investment and equity firms, multilateral agencies, and an eclectic mix of well-established oil companies and various Africa-specialist upstart companies. They are engaged in funding, exploring, drilling, monitoring, and setting the policy agenda that shapes the region’s oil commercial activities. Their collective investment portfolios, commercial activities, and policy strategies have turned West Africa into not just one of the most promising oil zones but also one of the most heavily contested hydrocarbon provinces in the world. This chapter deals with the expatriate business history of West Africa’s oil ventures, tracing its cartel-like beginnings at the turn of the twentieth century, through the colonial period, into the independence and post-independence era. The key finding here is that because of their depth of technological experience, influence, wealth, and global reach, the role of external actors is key to understanding West Africa’s modern resource extraction environment. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the wider implications of expatriate business activities for the sub-regions status in the global oil industry.

This perspectives article surveys publications in business history and constructs a conceptual framework for researching fraud and other dubious financial practices, their determinants and their consequences. The prevalence and nature of the practices studied are mainly determined by individual traits, firm governance and control, the economic environment, and regulation. Contemporaries make sense of dubious practices by constructing narratives, possibly framing them as scandals, which are likely to lead to attempts at regulatory change. It is primarily the socio-economic impact of dubious practices that determines whether regulation becomes fundamentally stricter. Existing agendas for reform strongly influence the substance of regulatory responses.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the application of the fast fashion business model outside the apparel industry. The study reviews the business history of Swatch and investigates its business model at the time when the brand was introduced to the market. Swatch repositioned the watch as an accessory or a fashion item, rather than a timepiece, initiating a dramatic strategic shift within a rigid and traditional Swiss watch industry. Design/Methodology/Approach – Due to the limited availability of studies researching applications of the fast fashion business model outside the apparel industry, this study is explorative in its nature and utilizes the case study method. The data necessary for developing a case study originates from secondary sources and from a series of in-depth interviews. Findings and implications – Swatch developed a completely new business model to the watch industry. As the case analysis discusses, this model consisted of several elements commonly related to the fast fashion business model. This extended the fast fashion model across the traditional boundaries of the apparel industry. Limitations – Due to a focus on one case study, which assumes industry specific factors, generalization of findings are limited. Originality – Fast fashion related research is primarily focused on the apparel industry, as the environment in which the model was originally developed. This study extends fast fashion as a concept with valid applications outside its traditional industry., Svrha – Svrha ovog rada jest istražiti primjenu poslovnog modela brze mode (fast fashion) izvan odjevne industrije. Ovaj rad analizira poslovnu povijest marke Swatch te istražuje njezin poslovni model u trenutku ulaska na tržište. Swatch je repozicionirao ručni sat kao modni dodatak, odnosno dio mode, nasuprot tradicionalnoj percepciji mjerača vremena. Taj je potez uzrokovao dramatičnu promjenu strategije unutar nefleksibilne i tradicionalne švicarske industrije satova. Metodološki pristup – S obzirom na ograničenu dostupnost znanstvenih studija koje bi obrađivale aplikacije poslovnog modela brze mode izvan odjevne industrije, ova je studija eksplorativnog karaktera i primjenjuje metodu studije slučaja. Podaci potrebni za razvoj studije slučaja prikupljeni su iz sekundarnih izvora te kroz seriju dubinskih intervjua. Rezultati i implikacije – Swatch je razvio potpuno nov poslovni model unutar industrije satova. Kao što analiza poslovne studije sugerira, riječ je o modelu koji se sastoji od nekoliko elemenata koji se vežu uz koncept brze mode (fast fashion). Ovo zapravo predstavlja slučaj korištenja modela brze mode u kontekstu izvan tradicionalnih granica modne industrije. Ograničenja – S obzirom na usredotočenost na jednu studiju poslovnog slučaja koja uključuje faktore specifične za dotičnu industriju, ograničena je generalizacija rezultata istraživanja. Doprinos – Istraživanje poslovnog modela brze mode primarno je usredotočeno na modnu industriju kao okruženje u kojem je navedeni model razvijen. Ovaj rad pristupa brzoj modi kao konceptu koji može funkcionirati i izvan svog tradicionalnog okruženja.

The literature on the financial revolution and the rise of the English fiscal-military state frequently gives the impression that a singular set of reforms emanating from the Glorious Revolution of 1688 changed the entire landscape of English army finances, allowing a fundamental shift from patchwork solutions based on short-term credit and managed through a system of wholesale venality to a solid system of long-term funded loans raised on an impersonal market. This article focuses on the crucial role that merchant networks and the personal connections of financial intermediaries continued to play in international troop payments arranged by the English state through the Dutch Republic. Even when the English or Dutch treasuries could find the necessary money to pay and provision the troops in time, getting the money to the military commanders in the field or to their distant suppliers often depended on long and complex credit lines. Short-term loans acquired in making military expenditure – consisting of unpaid bills to suppliers, payments advanced by officials and officers, and temporary loans contracted by financial intermediaries – as well as the widespread reliance on commercial credit in the form of bills of exchange as a way to transfer funds effectively formed the life thread of army finance. The ability to finance the military in times of exploding costs and permanent emergencies without defaulting rested not only on the capacity to draw on financial resources at home, but also on the strength of commercial and financial networks abroad. In doing so, closeness to the centres of emerging international financial capitalism seems to have been of greater importance than a specific set of institutional innovations.

Based on empirical material in the form of case studies prepared at Harvard Business School and Kozminski University, the article analyses the content of teaching materials in the field of business history. The Harvard case studies served as a model for the Polish ones. In contrast to the United States, at Kozminski University and in other Polish business schools, business history is not taught as a separate subject. The article puts forward the thesis that history education could provide an opportunity for future managers to broaden their knowledge of the social environment in which they will operate and to shape attitudes of responsibility for the social consequences of decisions made. However, this opportunity remains largely untapped in both the United States and Poland. American teaching materials are still influenced by the Chandlerian paradigm, and therefore they focus on the evolution of structures and changes in the strategy of large multinational corporations. These materials present students with role models of successful entrepreneurs and companies. Their social environment is presented in a sketchy manner, and questions about the motivations of human actions or hierarchies of values are rarely asked. The teaching materials also shy away from questions about the social consequences of managerial decisions. This is so, despite the fact that scientific publications are moving away from concentrating solely on the centre of global capitalism, the history of the largest corporations, and the treatment of the social environment as a variable on which the entrepreneur or company have no influence. Business history as a scientific discipline in Poland is still at an early stage of development. However, one can notice a gap between research and teaching similar to the one that exists in the USA: there are works critically analysing the period of transformation and showing the peripheral character of Polish capitalism as well as the social consequences of this peripheral nature that are completely ignored in teaching. Publication of English-language versions of the volumes of the "Annales. Ethics in Economic Life" financed through contract no. 501/1/P-DUN/2017 from the funds of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education devoted to the promotion of scholarship.

The last five years have seen is an increasing emphasis on research transparency in many disciplines. Unfortunately, the field of business history is being bypassed by the movement for the creation of research transparency institutions. The article begins by showing why it is important for the business history community to engage with the research transparency movement by embracing the principle of Open Data. The article then argues that Active Citation is the right variant of Open Data for the business–history community and that the widespread adoption of Active Citation in the field of business history would be promoted by the creation of a specialised repository for business–historical research data. The challenges involved in establishing such a repository are discussed. The article concludes by arguing that business historical journals and monograph publishers should not require authors to use Active Citation; rather, contributors should merely be required to state whether they have made the data underlying their article available online.

Purpose The paper examines the birth of trend forecasting in the USA and position trend forecasters and professional futurists within the wider history of marketing, market research and advertising. Design/methodology/approach The study is based upon archival research, interviews and close readings of primary and secondary literature. Findings Trend forecasters split from traditional market and opinion research in the early 1970s, as concerns about the future became paramount for businesses. At this time, entrepreneurial trend forecasters such as Faith Popcorn started firms, adopting futurological methods to make predictions about the future of culture. The field continued to grow into the 1990s as it developed or modified a host of mostly qualitative research methods, including environmental scanning, consumer ethnography and scenarios. Trend forecasting reveals the complexity of the relationship between business and “the future” and how trends aimed to predict as well as direct that future. Originality/value The article is among the first academic treatments of trend forecasting, drawn from original interviews and exclusively accessed archival research. It contributes to a theory and a history of the concept of a trend, which is understood here as a way to package the movement of culture as sellable. It likewise offers a unique exploration of the relationship between futurology and business.

Purpose Archival research is a much under-rated and under-utilized method of research in management studies. Yet multi-disciplinary undertakings being observed in recent times, such as in knowledge management (KM) systems, business history and social network studies, among others, indicate that there is a lot of potential to be explored. The purpose of this paper is to highlight this point and make a case for its inclusion in the researcher’s toolkit in the future. Design/methodology/approach The authors follow a two-stage method here: the first stage being an improvised process to benchmark articles for this review; while the second stage involves content analysis and synthesis of the same. Findings The authors have dealt with the intricacies of the archival research methodology by minutely examining the fieldwork steps, proxies generation, other related processes of triangulation, etc. With the discussion on “multi-disciplinary undertakings,” the authors offer not only a selective bibliography of works that have effectively harvested this family of methods, but also critique the nuances involved. Finally, coming into more contemporary concerns and developments, the authors undertake an in-depth look at technological applications in the domain of KM, in case study mode. Methodological richness leads to substantive granularity. As such, the authors argue that archival methods contribute to the robustness, contextuality and holism of any research endeavor, more so in the study of business and organizations. Research limitations/implications This paper is based on the literature review. Practical implications This paper makes a case for archival method’s contribution toward the robustness, contextuality and holism of any research endeavor, more so in the study of business and organizations. Originality/value This paper re-positions the method of archival research as a viable and sophisticated tool for researchers to employ effectively in singular or mixed method studies.

The current state of Nordic business history is by certain estimates better than ever. Nordic business historians publish extensively in leading international journals and have a strong presence at international business history conferences. Still, in this discussion article we raise a yellow flag of warning for the future of Nordic business history. We argue that the subject field is challenged along three important dimensions: (i) lack of relevant teaching, (ii) continued reliance on commissioned history and (iii) limited recruitment. The article discusses these challenges and seeks to place them in a historical perspective. For each challenge, we develop a set of concrete proposals to address the problems identified. A common theme in our proposed solutions is to intensify Nordic collaboration, particularly through the establishment of common, externally funded Nordic research projects. To create meeting grounds for the development of such projects, The Scandinavian Society for Economic and Social History – the formal collaborative body for Nordic economic historians and the owner of Scandinavian Economic History Review – should be reinvigorated.

Heeding calls to generate a creative synthesis between business history and organisation studies, this article analyses the emergence, institutionalisation and digitalisation of record pooling practices through the lens of institutional work. By developing an ‘analytically structured history’, this article contributes to the field of business history by demonstrating the value of practice and boundary work as organising categories. Practice and boundary work capture the continuous, recursive relations between structure and agency when constructing narrative explanations. It also contributes to neo-institutionalist history by demonstrating the embeddedness of institutional work – the everyday motivations and actions to revise practices and boundaries are shown to be intimately shaped by the conditions and affordances of historically-situated technologies.

Publishing industry is an almost neglected topic for business history. Widely analysed by other such as cultural or literary studies, the peculiar characteristics of this cultural industry, one of ...

This paper sets out to accomplish three things: introduce Madeleine Parent (1918-2012) as a key but neglected figure in the development of management thought and practice in Canada; offer a novel a...

Purpose This paper takes a long-term view of how the US public and private sectors have been viewed in relation to each other. It notes that since the time of approximately the Nixon Administration, each sector has not been viewed favourably by the public. Over the past 40 years, the private sector has been perceived as being run by the unscrupulous and the public sector by incompetents. The essay argues that Donald Trump was able to exploit these circumstances to win the 2016 election. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents a polemic. It relies on archival research and data to create a new view of historical eras in US business history. The object of analysis is the idea of relative legitimacy, the public image of the State vis-a-vis business and business managers. Findings Although the paper addresses business history, a novel argument is presented about the 2016 US Presidential election. It is proposed that Trump took advantage of unique historical circumstances; therefore, his win had more to do with the moment than with him personally. Research limitations/implications The paper interprets the 2016 Presidential race as the end-point of a 250-year journey. It sets a new agenda, in that previous analyses have mostly viewed the ascendancy of Trump as pertaining to distinctively post-industrial twenty-first-century phenomena. Social implications In analysing the 2016 Presidential race, the emphasis is largely removed from issues of personality or partisan politics. Originality/value The paper takes a view of the 2016 election which has not hitherto been adopted. It proposes a new concept – relative legitimacy – as having a substantial explanatory value.

Defining the concept of family business is an ongoing challenge. The debate around it is here discussed from the point of view of business history and family business theories as developed in the last fifteen years. Historians are interested in reflecting changes in family businesses at different periods and within different societies, and focus their research work on ownership and control within family firms. For their part, family business theorists still understand the concept as a compound or a circular scheme consisting of elements such as business, family and owners or power (governance and management participation), experience (generation in charge) and culture (family and business values).

When the Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of Standard Oil in 1911, it marked the end of an unsuccessful campaign by the company to improve its public standing. Standard Oil's failure to mollify public opinion in the aftermath of Ida Tarbell's muckraking masterpiece, “The History of the Standard Oil Company,” has resulted in a historiographical record that negatively assesses the company's response. This article reassesses the company response by placing it within the wider context of business history in the early twentieth century. It offers a detailed exploration of the public relations initiatives of Standard Oil from 1902 to 1908. Additionally, the article views the affair through the lens of standard corporate practices of the early Progressive Era, when large businesses had only begun to promote favorable public images. It argues that progressive reform inadvertently aided the rise of big business by teaching corporations the importance of promoting favorable public images. This wider context reveals that Standard Oil's public relations response, if unsuccessful, was not as aloof as others have argued. In fact, the company made a concerted effort to change public opinion about its business practices.