Publications

30 Oct 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, October 30, 2018

in data. ML methods also address several issues raised by scholars pertinent to the norms of empirical research in the fields of strategy and management (such as “p-hacking” View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

2010
Book

Unilever'i Yenilemek: Dönüşüm ve Gelenek [Renewing Unilever: Transformation and Tradition]

Unilever's brands can now be found in one out of every two households in the world. This arresting and impressive fact shows the scope and scale of this unique global corporation. Geoffrey Jones, a leading business historian from the Harvard Business School, takes us... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Business Growth and Maturation; Multinational Firms and Management; Corporate Strategy; Organizational Culture; Globalization; Brands and Branding; Consumer Products Industry

09 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 9, 2019

capital and demonstrates how technology—novel data sources, artificial intelligence, machine learning—will transform the small business lending market. This market has been plagued by frictions: it is hard... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

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

Read Now

11 Dec 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 11, 2018

And it is changing fast. Its size and importance to human, environmental, and economic health means that no system is viewed with as much suspicion View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

04 Dec 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 4, 2018

implications of these relationships for start-up innovation and performance. Value creation in such relationships occurs when assets are exchanged by the parties involved: collaboration allows for passive... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

06 Feb 2023
HBS Seminar

Using Oral History in Business and Management Studies

June 2013 (Revised November 2016)
Case

Goldfinger: Charles W. Engelhard Jr. and Apartheid-era South Africa

By: Geoffrey Jones and Elliot R. Benton

This case considers the strategies of Charles W. Engelhard, an American mining magnate who made large investments in apartheid-era South Africa. Engelhard was widely believed to have been the model for the James Bond villan Auric Goldfinger. During the 1950s and 1960s... View Details

Keywords: Political Economy; Business History; FDI; Corporate Social Responsibility And Impact; South Africa; Mining; Ethics; Globalization; Government and Politics; History; Mining Industry; Africa; South Africa

Educators

19 Dec 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 19, 2017

is likely to have a meaningful effect on health care spending patterns. In addition, precision medicines can change the expected profitability of therapies both by allowing more sophisticated pricing systems View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

08 Dec 2015
Research Event

Research Trends Discussed at India and South Asia Conference

the Business History Initiative. For a detailed summary of the conference, read The Business History of India and South Asia: Recent Trends in Research, written by organizers View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Education

02 Sep 2002
Research & Ideas

Foreign Multinationals in the U.S.: A Rocky Road

of U.S. managers.— Geoffrey Jones Unilever was one of the world's earliest and most widespread multinational firms, and already had a large U.S.... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Johnston & Martha Lagace

April 2011 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Willy Jacobsohn and Beiersdorf: Managing Expropriation and Anti-Semitism

By: Geoffrey G. Jones and Christina Lubinski

This case examines the management of home and host country risk by Beiersdorf during the interwar years. It can be used both in business history courses and more generally to teach political risk management by multinational corporations. Beiersdorf, a German personal... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; War; Business History; Multinational Firms and Management; Global Strategy; Ownership; Government and Politics; Business and Government Relations; Consumer Products Industry; Germany

Educators

2022
Chapter

Capitalism and the Environment

Capitalism drove the environmental decimation of the planet. The environment was seen as a free good, while the consequences of dirty industrial and agricultural processes were seen as external to the firm. Public policies largely allowed this to happen, as politicians... View Details

Keywords: History; Environment; Sustainability; Capitalism; Ethics; Business History; Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology; Pollution; Climate Change

30 Jan 2022
News

Rahul Bajaj: “To Provide Continuity, That Is What an Owner Does”

1987
Book

Banking and Oil

This is the second 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... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Economics; Banks and Banking; Government and Politics; Growth and Development; Business History; Problems and Challenges; Iran; Jordan; Kuwait; Oman; Dubai

December 2015
Article

Entrepreneurial Imagination and a Demand and Supply-side Perspective on the MNE and Cross-border Organization

By: Geoffrey Jones and Christos Pitelis

This article explores the role of entrepreneurial imagination on the international expansion of multinational enterprises. The focus is on supply- and demand-side factors that help explicate cross-border expansion. The article explores how appropriability-informed and... View Details

Keywords: Imagination; Globalization; History; Entrepreneurship; Multinational Firms and Management; Africa; Asia; Europe; North and Central America

Read Now

15 Aug 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, August 15, 2017

sample of M&A deals from 2003 to 2015 to identify four such areas of evolution in current transactional practice: (1) termination fee "creep," which was pervasive in the 1980s and 1990s, seems to have gone away View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2022
Chapter

Crises and International Business

This chapter uses the intellectual journey of the author to suggest that crises have been the norm rather than the exception in the history of international business. Over the last 100 years world wars, regional conflicts, the Great Depression, and decolonization are... View Details

Keywords: Crisis; Multinational Companies; International Business; Emerging Market; Business History; Multinational Firms and Management; System Shocks; War; Emerging Markets; Crisis Management