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This study focuses on the efforts of Sir Charles Addis to defend the pre-1914 system of cosmopolitan capitalism. Our central research question is to understand why this merchant banker fought in preserve cosmopolitan capitalism when so many of his peers acquiesced in and even championed its demise. Addis's moral ideal was an international economic order in which the nationality of firms was irrelevant to the strategies of managers. The First World War dramatically increased the salience of firm nationality in international business. Addis, who was a committed classical liberal, fought against this trend to a degree that is hard to explain with reference to economic self-interest alone. The article, which is based on a range of sources including Addis's diary, explores Addis's connections to, and views of, 'German' bankers, his relations with the British government, and the political economy of the reparations imposed on Germany by the Versailles Peace settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutional isomorphism suggests that three forces (normative, coercive and mimetic) create strategic inertia within an institutional field and offers a perspective on firms' behavior when they are confronted with similar challenges. However, we know little about how these forces work over an extensive longitudinal period. This manuscript examines the extent to which factors that drive isomorphism shift over time and identifies the consequent implications for the strategic behavior of firms. Our historical case study of the Japanese beer industry, spanning 60 years, demonstrates how domestic pressures led to homogeneity and convergence in a closed setting from the 1950s to the 1980s, while new industry pressures prompted by globalization resulted in strategic change favouring product differentiation and diversification between 1990 and 2017. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article follows the evolution of biopharmaceutical firms as they bore great uncertainty and risks in their endeavours to commercialise new therapies – through the regenerative medicine industry in the United States, Britain and Japan. Despite its beginnings in the 1970s, regenerative medicines have yet to become a widely accepted form of medicine. A large part of the problem lay with the lack of 'fit' with the broader health context. This article illustrates how the trajectory of the sector was shaped, not only by the nature of the technology, but also by the complex contexts in which firms were embedded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article uses the experience of the Japanese pharmaceutical industry to show how Japan's national system of innovation evolved from a closed, firm-based domestic system toward a more open, networked, global system. This occurred in the face of a crisis of economic and technological dimensions. During the Lost Decades, the nature of innovation in this industry shifted from incremental toward more radical innovation, as the system internationalised and as firms leveraged different environments around the world. This article highlights the varying roles that the components of the system of innovation play in shaping innovative industries. It also shows how institutions can be remarkably malleable in times of crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]