Publications

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07 Jun 2017
Research & Ideas

How an African History Scholar Became a Modern Righter of Wrongs

traveled to Cape Town, South Africa, where they engaged with 10 global partners on a dozen different design projects. A renowned scholar of colonial-era African history, she isn’t the most obvious candidate for teaching modern business... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

12 Apr 2022
Book

Racism, Colonialism, and Britain's Legacy of Violence

History of the British Empire. Elkins, who has conducted extensive research in Africa and the former British Empire, marshals a decade of research across four continents to illustrate how Britain grew a Victorian-era idea about punishing... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

It Came in the First Ships: Capitalism in America

long-term business histories of all other large countries, has been one of intense and incessant competition. Americans have persistently shown themselves willing to follow market forces with relatively little hesitation. In the early... View Details

Keywords: by Thomas K. McCraw

March 2011
Article

Cheaper Patents

By: Tom Nicholas

The 1883 Patents Act in Britain provides perspective for modern patent policy reforms because it radically changed incentives for inventors by reducing filing fees by 84 percent. Patents increased 2.5 fold after the reform, which was evenly distributed across the... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Global Range; Distribution; Demand and Consumers; Organizational Structure; Business Processes; Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Policy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Fluctuation; Motivation and Incentives; Distribution Industry; United States; Great Britain

Read Now

April 2003 (Revised November 2003)
Case

Creation of the European Union, The

By: J. Gunnar Trumbull

Describes the emergence of the European Union (EU). Focuses on a critical stage in European integration--the period in the early 1990s when member states negotiated the terms of the Maastricht Treaty. This agreement set in motion the project that would eventually lead... View Details

Keywords: International Relations; Alliances; System; Negotiation Participants; Government and Politics; Agreements and Arrangements; Money; Cooperation; European Union

September 1989
Case

Steve Shirley

By: Shoshana Zuboff

Traces the career development of a well-known British entrepreneur who, as a young girl, was forced to flee the Nazi's occupation of Central Europe. Details her early work experiences in the heavily male dominated workplace of post-war Britain and follows the... View Details

Keywords: Work-Life Balance; Entrepreneurship; Gender; Great Britain

April 2021 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Mahatma Gandhi: Changing the World

By: Robert Simons and Max Saffer

This case traces the rise of Mohandas Gandhi from his early days in British-controlled India to the inspirational martyr who, through personal deprivation and leadership, inspired millions and became the catalyst for India to break away from Britain. The case describes... View Details

Keywords: Mission And Purpose; Values And Beliefs; Personal Characteristics; Power And Influence; Diversity; Leadership Development; Work-life Balance; History; Leadership Style; Leading Change; India

19 Apr 2004
Research & Ideas

Birth of the American Salesman

"The development of modern sales management is an uniquely American story." Why do you think this is? Walter Friedman: In the early nineteenth century, many nations, certainly all the European... View Details

Keywords: by Laura Linard

1986
Book

Banking and Empire in Iran

By: Geoffrey Jones

This is the first of two volumes of a business history of a major British bank in the Middle East. Volume 1 traces the history of the bank from its foundation in 1889 as The Imperial Bank of Persia, through the years it was the state bank of Iran, and its development... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; International Relations; Business History; Economic History; Political History; War; Iran; Russia; Great Britain

January 2009
Case

The Federal Reserve and the Banking Crisis of 1931

By: David A. Moss and Cole Bolton

In early October 1931, in the midst of a global economic depression, the U.S. banking system was in crisis—with bank suspensions running at near record levels. At the same time, the broader economy was sputtering, and U.S. gold reserves had come under severe pressure... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Crisis; Central Banking; Business History; Crisis Management; Banking Industry; United States

23 May 2018
Research & Ideas

How to Know If Your Neighborhood Is Being Gentrified

The High Line redevelopment in winter, New York City. sx70 A new study of gentrification shows that the addition of a coffee shop or restaurant in your neighborhood could be an early indicator that housing prices are about to spike. The... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

01 Nov 1999
Research & Ideas

John H. Patterson and the Sales Strategy of the National Cash Register Company, 1884 to 1922

all the benefits of the register, Patterson gave them scripts to memorize. The practice of writing out sales arguments was rare, but not as new as some of Patterson's biographers claim. Booksellers and other canvassers had used scripts prior to the first N.C.R. Primer... View Details

Keywords: by Walter A. Friedman

06 Apr 2010
First Look

First Look: April 6

embellishments, rather than innovative, modern cuts and designs—was not a function only of something inherently and ineffably Indian (as opposed to a modern, Western sensibility), or purely cultural. Rather, it was the result of the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Research Summary

Technology and Knowledge Transfer in the Evolution of China’s Machine Industry

This work-in-progress provides a historical perspective on the role of foreign companies as providers of machinery equipment and facilitators of technology transfer in China from the last decade of the 19^th century to the early 1950s. The project focuses on... View Details

15 Jun 2007
Research & Ideas

Remembering Alfred Chandler

Harvard Business School, where he teaches the (MBA) Foundations business history course, Creating Modern Capitalism. He also serves as co-editor of the Business History Review. Al Chandler is appropriately regarded as the founder of the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

1993
Book

British Multinational Banking 1830-1990

By: Geoffrey Jones

This book provides the first modern history of British multinational banking. It analyses their emergence, growth and performance from their origins in the 1830s until the present day. It is based on a wide range of confidential banking records, which are placed in the... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Multinational Firms and Management; Growth and Development; Information Management; Performance; Great Britain; United Kingdom

12 Mar 2014
Research & Ideas

Entrepreneurship and Multinationals Drive Globalization

Entrepreneurship and Multinationals: Global Business and the Making of the Modern World, and his views on subjects ranging from whether globalism has been a force for good to what Nazi Germany tells us about the difficulty in planning for... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Beauty & Cosmetics; Manufacturing; Consumer Products; Pharmaceutical

November 2010
Technical Note

Technical Note: An Abridged History of the American Corporation

By: Rakesh Khurana, Andrew David Klaber and Eric Baldwin

This note examines the development of the corporate form in the United States from the eighteenth century to the present, focusing primarily on legal issues. It identifies several major trends in the history of the American corporation: the transition of corporations... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Corporate Accountability; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; History; Code Law; Managerial Roles; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Private Ownership; United States

February 2016 (Revised August 2021)
Case

Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Black Voting Rights

By: David Moss and Dean Grodzins

In January 1965, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the most prominent leader of the civil rights movement in the United States, launched a campaign of civil disobedience in Selma, Alabama, to bring national attention to disenfranchisement of black voters in the South. On... View Details

Keywords: Rights; Voting; Race; Government and Politics; Conflict and Resolution; Leadership; History; Alabama