Publications

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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

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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

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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”

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

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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

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

June 2012 (Revised December 2017)
Case

Marc Rich and Global Commodity Trading

By: Geoffrey Jones and Espen Storli

Examines the career of Marc Rich, the world's leading commodity trader before his criminal indictment in the United States in 1983. The case surveys the historical growth of commodity trading, especially in metals, from the late nineteenth century, and its evolving... View Details

Keywords: Commodity Market; Natural Resources; Metals and Minerals; Business History; Entrepreneurship; Service Industry; Mining Industry; Africa; Europe; Middle East; North and Central America; Israel; South Africa; Iran

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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

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

2019
Chapter

Origins and Development of Global Business

This chapter explores how business enterprises have been powerful actors in the spread of global capitalism between 1840 and the present day. Emerging out of the industrialized Western economies, global firms created and co-created markets and ecosystems through their... View Details

Keywords: Global Business; Multinational; Globalization; Business History; Strategy; Africa; Asia; Europe; Latin America; Middle East; North and Central America; Oceania