Publications

Awards

Phillip Taft Prize for Best Book in Labor History

Winner of the 2015 Phillip Taft Prize for Best Book in Labor History from Cornell University for Empire of Cotton: A Global History (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014). View Details

2022
Working Paper

Multinationals and Varieties of Capitalism: When U.S. Giants Stepped into the Swiss Coordinated Labor Market in the 1950s

By: Sabine Pitteloud

This working paper investigates unintended consequences of U.S. FDI in Switzerland in the 1950s-1960s: the increased competition that U.S. firms generated within the national labor market and the challenge their hiring practices constituted for the institutional... View Details

Keywords: Multinationals; Capitalism; Business ＆ Government Relations; Foreign Direct Investment; Immigration Policy; History; Switzerland; Americanization; R＆D; Labor History; Labor Market Institutions; Tax Havens; ＂USA,＂; Business Interest Association; Lobbying; Labor and Management Relations; Business History; Multinational Firms and Management

SSRN

Read Now

Oct 2016
Conference Presentation

Labor of Love: A Brief History of a Creativity Research Program

By: Teresa M. Amabile

July 1991 (Revised March 1995)
Case

Labor Movement Between the Wars

By: Thomas K. McCraw

A vehicle for a discussion of the growth of organized labor between the World Wars. View Details

Keywords: History; Labor

January 2023 (Revised November 2024)
Technical Note

Legal Analysis: Labor Unions in the United States

By: Reshmaan Hussam, Trevor Fetter and Grace Liu

This note provides an overview of the regulation, mechanics, and history of labor unions in the United States, along with an overview of their place in the early 21st century. View Details

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Labor Unions; History; United States

01 Sep 2023
News

History Matters

The stunning collapse of three high-profile banks in recent months—Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank—churned up a host of headlines and fears: Are these signs of major instability? The first dominos to fall? In the second edition of their... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information

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

Find at Harvard

May 2006 (Revised November 2006)
Case

IKEA's Global Sourcing Challenge: Indian Rugs and Child Labor (A)

By: Christopher A. Bartlett, Vincent Marie Dessain and Anders Sjoman

Traces the history of IKEA's response to a TV report that its Indian carpet suppliers were using child labor. Describes IKEA's growth, including the importance of a sourcing strategy based on its close relationships with suppliers in developing countries. Details the... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Moral Sensibility; Policy; Employment; Contracts; Supply Chain Management; Organizational Culture; Natural Environment; Non-Governmental Organizations; Social Issues

Web

Events - Business History

Economics in Detroit” Nov 7 07 Nov 2022 Business History Seminar Diana Kim (Georgetown), "A Most Durable Inequality: Caste and Untouchable Labor across Post-World War Two Industrializing Asia" Oct 31 31 Oct... View Details

Research Summary

Overview

Dr. Burch’s research focuses on capitalism, work, and gender in the twentieth-century United States. Her work reinterprets the history of direct selling by placing it at the center, rather than on the margins, of narratives about advanced capitalism. Examining the... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Political Economy; Labor History; Gender; Marketing; Sales Force Management; Direct Sales; United States

2014
Book

Empire of Cotton: A Global History

By: Sven Beckert

The epic story of the rise and fall of the empire of cotton, its centrality to the world economy, and its making and remaking of global capitalism. Cotton is so ubiquitous as to be almost invisible, yet understanding its history is key to understanding the origins... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Globalized Markets and Industries; Society; Manufacturing Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

Find at Harvard

Web

Business History - Faculty & Research

Business History Business History 2014 Book Business History By: Walter A. Friedman and Geoffrey Jones This volume contains a selection of 42 foundational articles on the... View Details

Web

Our Curriculum - Business History

Courses Our Curriculum HBS has been offering business history courses since 1927. There are three business history courses currently taught in the MBA curriculum: The Coming of Managerial Capitalism,... View Details

27 Mar 2019
HBS Seminar

Caitlin Rosenthal, UC Berkeley, Department of History

04 May 2010
News

The History of Beauty

Keywords: Prof. Geoffrey Jones; beauty products; grooming; Clothing and Clothing Accessories Stores; Retail Trade

22 Feb 2018
Book

The New History of American Capitalism

types developed by various social scientists during the past two centuries. One of the prime foci of social history, for example, was the history of labor. The history of capitalism picks up that interest... View Details

Keywords: Manufacturing

2023
Article

Bridging the Gap with the ‘New’ Economic History of Africa

By: Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg

This review article seeks to build bridges between mainstream African history and the more historically oriented branch of the ‘new’ economic history of Africa. We survey four central topics of the new economic history of Africa—growth, trade, labor, and inequality—and... View Details

Keywords: Economic Growth; Trade; Labor; Equality and Inequality; Development Economics; History; Africa