Publications

Educators

07 Nov 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Business and Sustainability: New Business History Perspectives

Keywords: by Ann-Kristin Bergquist

28 May 2014
Research & Ideas

Building Histories of Emerging Economies One Interview at a Time

The corporate histories of Apple, Coca-Cola, and Honda are well-documented stories that offer a window into the nuances of business in a particular place, at a particular time. As such, they're invaluable resources for research that... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

2018
Book

American Capitalism: New Histories

By: Sven Beckert and Christine Desan

The United States has long epitomized capitalism. From its enterprising shopkeepers, wildcat banks, violent slave plantations, huge industrial working class, and raucous commodities trade to its world-spanning multinationals, its massive factories, and the centripetal... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; History; Finance; Trade; Economy; Policy; United States

December 2016
Article

Impact Investing: A Brief History

By: Brian Trelstad

Over the last decade, impact investing has become an increasingly-discussed topic in the realms of both business and public policy. Impact investors are motived by a desire to advance social or environmental goals and an intuition that pursuing two goals at once -... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Investment; Ethics; Strategy

SSRN

16 Nov 2009
Research & Ideas

The Times Captures History of American Business

by story, the reporting is very thoughtful and careful. At this moment in history when we wring our hands about the future of newspapers, readers who care about the importance and contribution of newspapers... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Journalism & News

2021
Chapter

International Business History and the Strategy of Multinational Enterprises: How History Matters

By: Geoffrey Jones and Teresa da Silva Lopes

This chapter provides an overview of the evolution of international business over the long-run as well as the strategies of MNEs. It highlights how strategies became more complex over time with MNEs moving from being coordinators of resources and managers of... View Details

Keywords: Multinational; International Business; Internalization; Globalization; Theory; Multinational Firms and Management; Business History; Africa; Asia; Europe; Latin America; Middle East; North and Central America

11 Dec 2018
Research & Ideas

Free Trade Needs Nurturing—and Other Lessons from History

Question: What patterns emerge from history that can help us better understand where we are today? Sophus Reinert: To many people, globalization is teleological, something that necessarily becomes stronger over time and leads to an... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Auto; Aerospace; Chemical; Consumer Products; Electronics; Energy; Industrial Products; Manufacturing; Shipping; Transportation

2018
Introduction

Introduction: History and Political Economy

By: Sophus A. Reinert and Robert Fredona

This volume offers a snapshot of the resurgent historiography of political economy in the wake of the ongoing global financial crisis, and suggests fruitful new agendas for research on the political-economic nexus as it has developed in the Western world since the end... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Government and Politics; History

Article

Organizational Innovation in the Multinational Enterprise: Internalization Theory and Business History

By: Teresa da Silva Lopes, Mark Casson and Geoffrey Jones

This article engages in a methodological experiment by using historical evidence to challenge a common misperception about internalization theory. The theory has often been criticized for maintaining that it assumes a hierarchically organized MNE based on knowledge... View Details

Keywords: Internalization; Multinational Strategy; Business History; Organization And Management Theory; Globalization; Entrepreneurship; Governance; History; Organizations; Theory; Africa; Asia; Europe; Latin America; North and Central America

March 1998
Book Review

Review of 'Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System' by Barry Eichengreen

By: Huw Pill

October 2009
Article

Negotiation Analysis: From Games to Inferences to Decisions to Deals

By: James K. Sebenius

Exemplified by the pioneering work of Howard Raiffa and often expressed in the pages of the Negotiation Journal, the emergent prescriptive field of "negotiation analysis" progressively developed from Raiffa's early contributions to game theory and to his later... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Negotiation Participants; Negotiation Preparation; Negotiation Process; Negotiation Tactics; Game Theory

Book Review

Review of Consuming Power: A Social History of American Energies, by David E. Nye

By: Nancy F. Koehn

Keywords: Society; History; United States

Summer 2021
Book Review

Review of Music and Capitalism: A History of the Present by Timothy D. Taylor

By: Scott Duke Kominers

Article

How History Shaped the Innovator's Dilemma

By: Tom Nicholas

In 1993, four years prior to the publication of Clayton Christensen’s highly influential book, The Innovator’s Dilemma, the Business History Review (BHR) published an article by Christensen titled “The Rigid Disk Drive Industry: A History of... View Details

Keywords: Clayton Christensen; Impact; Innovation and Invention; Disruptive Innovation; Research

16 Dec 2011
Research & Ideas

Reintroducing Intellectual Ambition to the Study of Business History

The 85-year-old Business History Review, published quarterly by Harvard Business School, is the acknowledged leading peer-reviewed journal in the field. (BHR has recently been made available online through... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones & Walter Friedman

2013
Chapter

Capturing History: The Case of the Federal Radio Commission in 1927

By: David Moss and Jonathan Lackow

In the study of regulation (and political economy more generally), there is a danger that historical inferences from theory may infect historical tests of theory. It is imperative, therefore, that historical tests always involve a vigorous search not only for... View Details

Keywords: Capture; History By Inference; Economic Theory Of Regulation; Federal Radio Commission; Theory; Economics; Media and Broadcasting Industry; United States

2009
Article

An Evolutionary Approach to Financial History

Financial history is not conventionally thought of in evolutionary terms, but it should be. Traditional ways of thinking about finance, dating back to Hilferding, emphasize the importance of concentration and economies of scale. But these approaches overlook the rich... View Details

Keywords: History; Transformation; Finance