Author: padelacruzf

In the Absence of Archives: Lessons from Less Developed Countries

Guest Editors: Adam Frost, Marcelo Bucheli, & Grietjie Verhoef

Business history is expanding to encompass a wider array of business forms and a greater plurality of contexts. In the past decade, scholars have begun to frame and synthesize growing bodies of research on the business histories of India (Tumbe 2019), Latin America (Dávila 2013; Barbero & Lluch 2014), China (Zelin 2013; Frost 2021), Eastern Europe (Pikos & Olejniczak 2017), Africa (Verhoef 2017), and the Middle East (Godley & Relli 2008; Pereira et. al, Forthcoming). In addition to illustrating the rich variety of business activities across difficult societal contexts, this research has begun to open exciting areas of inquiry, such as the histories of informal businesses, entrepreneurial diaspora networks, diversified business groups, and collective organizations, that have long been identified as “future agendas” of the discipline (Friedman and Jones 2010; Scranton and Fridenson 2013; Barbero and Puig 2015). However, this scholarship has also called attention to persistent methodological challenges of applying disciplinary tools and frameworks derived primarily from the study of North America, Western Europe, and Japan to the analysis of business in less developed countries (LDCs). The standard toolkit of business history— namely, the inductive analysis of corporate and state archives— is often inadequate to the task of making sense of how business emerged, operated, and evolved in LDCs over time. Further engagement thus requires embracing new modes of inquiry and methods of research.

Scholars have argued that the business history of LDCs (or “emerging markets”) ought to be conceptualized as an “alternative business history,” as shared contextual challenges— e.g., foreign domination, extensive state intervention, social unrest, and institutional inefficiencies— evoked entirely different sets of business responses than those in more developed market contexts (Austin, Dávila and Jones 2017: 537). Equally important though is the impact that these contextual challenges have on the production of historical knowledge. The consolidation of history as a discipline in Western Europe was closely linked with the use of archival sources to understand the past as “it actually happened.” In one of the first handbooks on historical methods published in France in 1898, Leopold Ranke bluntly stated that “history is done with documents … no documents, no history” (Eskildsen, 2008: 451).  While historical research has become increasingly open to different means of interrogating the past, written documents, created at the time when events unfolded, continue to be regarded as the highest standard of evidence. This presents obstacles for those studying societies with limited archival sources and perpetuates the misperception that most of the world lacks history.

Here, we highlight four key challenges:

Absences. So little of the past is recorded in archival records, and that small portion that does is always constructed, partial, and filled with absences (Coats & Dippold 2020). The “survival bias” is more extreme in LDCs, where acute resource constraints on the production and preservation of archival records exist or governments or private institutions lack incentives to take care of old documents. Indeed, many societies lack a tradition of producing corporate archives altogether. Often the only available archives are those of powerful multinational enterprises, which tend to exaggerate the agency of Western actors while downplaying the contributions of indigenous people. State archives are more widely available and sometimes cast light on areas left in the dark by corporate archives. But these too suffer their own absences because of political ideologies, resource constraints, bureaucratic inefficiencies, and institutional biases (Agmon 2021). It is critical, therefore, to “surface” these absences (Johnson 2020: 135) by drawing attention to that which went unrecorded and to read sources “along the grain” (Stoler 2009) to reveal the social epistemologies that guided and biased archival production.

Ruptures. The histories of emerging markets are often punctuated by episodes of foreign domination, political revolution, civil unrest, natural disasters, and other serial ruptures. These periods of turbulence not only disrupt ordinary business activities, but also lead to the dissolution of businesses, the dislocation of populations, and the fragmentation of archives.  While ruptures are not unique to less developed countries (as anyone familiar with European history knows), they are often more acute in societies governed by younger or weaker states. The resulting gaps pose a serious challenge to constructing coherent historical narratives and retracing the evolution of business activities and organizations over time; as a result, discontinuities are too often taken for granted while continuities are left underexplored (Kirby 1990). Ruptures also create conceptual rifts that shape historical memory and are reproduced in periodizations of the past (Cohen 2003). Almost by default, the temporal boundaries of emerging market business histories thus become delineated by wars, revolutions, and regime change, even in cases where businesses successfully navigated and survived these events.

Silences. In many authoritarian and colonial contexts, archives were explicitly designed as instruments of control (Cohn and Dirks 1988; Dirks 2002) that silenced as much as they documented and preserved. Take, for example, the case of Guatemala, where, during the nation’s bloody civil war (1960–1996), the military used archives as a weapon of surveillance, social control, and ideological management against insurgent communist forces (Weld 2014). Through such processes, archives can perpetuate powerful silences that shape historical memory and conceal the experiences of the disempowered (Schwarzkopf 2012; Decker 2013; Thomas, Fowler, & Johnson 2017). The histories of racial, cultural, religious, and gender minorities tend to get omitted (or are systematically excluded) from the archival record. So too do the activities of a broad host of actors operating in the informal economy who actively cloak themselves from the gaze of the state to avoid becoming targets of persecution. In societies where the informal sector constitutes the largest part the economy (making up as much as 60% of economic activity in India or 80% in Bangladesh), to focus only on formal businesses is to neglect the preponderance of economic life. Working with corporate and state archives in these contexts thus becomes a process of “mastering the institutional matrix in which documents are embedded, and also finding ways of going around or exceeding any limitations that the matrix imposes” (Lipartito, 2014: 293). It also necessitates reading sources “against the grain,” i.e. against the intentions of the people who produced them, to exhume “resistant” readings that draw attention to gaps, silences, and contradictions in the written accounts.

Secrets. In many LDCs, powerful actors assert autocratic control over access to historical records and the production of historical knowledge. For example, in China, after a long trend of increasing archival openness, state archivists have recently begun resecretizing previously accessible collections (Lu 2021) and imposing new barriers to historical research (Greitens & Truex 2020). In countries such as Turkey, corporate archives are controlled by large business groups that have kept most documents confidential (Colpan and Jones 2016). The decision-making processes that determine which archives are to be preserved, which are to be destroyed, which are to be opened, and which are to remain secret (or be resecritized) are often entirely opaque, resulting in a research environment of many unknown unknowns. At the same time, the arbitrary exercise of rules leads to inequalities in access. In some contexts, female scholars or scholars belonging to minority groups may face additional barriers to access. In others, only politically embedded researchers are granted access to records that may concern politically sensitive subjects. Doing business history research in LDCs thus entails navigating a terrain of sensitive and secretized information.

By engaging with these contextual challenges, rendering them explicit, and highlighting strategies to overcome them, this SI attempts to shed new light on the business history of LDC contexts and illuminate new paths forward. Specifically, the SI will explore how scholars of LDCs are drawing on unconventional sources, adapting methods from adjacent disciplines, developing new conceptual tools, and approaching business history from new directions. As we hope to show, the novel methods and frameworks deployed at what is, at present, the geographical and intellectual periphery of our discipline, can be productively integrated into “core” business history research to unlock new possibilities and opportunities.

At the same time, this work serves as a mirror that enables us to critically reflect on the dominant paradigms of the discipline and their corresponding limitations. Through these studies, we might ask, what constraints and path dependencies has the overreliance on corporate archives imposed on business history research? What blind spots have emerged? What actors and organizations have been ignored? Relatedly, who gets to participate in the production of business history? Whose voices are absent? In posing and seeking answers to such questions, we build upon previous calls to counteract biases implicit within the methods of business history research (Scranton and Fridenson 2013: 8), embrace a greater diversity of methodological approaches and research topics (Jones and Zeitlin 2008; Decker, Kipping, & Wadhwani 2015; Wilson et. al. 2022), and explore a larger variety of organizational forms (Amatori & Jones 2003; Wilkins et.al. 2010; Mackenzie et.al 2021).

In line with Business History’s commitment to “widen and deepen its international scope by promoting research on under-researched regions, periods and topics,” we seek to publish methodologically and conceptually bold studies of business in LDCs. Here, we have an explicit bias towards action-oriented research that not only explicates the challenges of doing business history within specific contexts but offers a creative solution to overcoming them. Submissions from scholars based in regions traditionally underrepresented in the discipline are especially welcome.

We ask that those interested produce an extended proposal 5-10 pages (double-spaced) that contains the following:

1. A brief abstract (~150 words)
2. A clear description of the research question and rationale for why i t is important
3. A description of the data collection process, data analysis strategy, and key findings
4. A summary paragraph

Abstracts should be emailed to Adam Frost (af.bhl@cbs.dk).

The guest editors will manage the editorial and review process. Authors who submit a proposal will be invited to a virtual paper development workshop to receive constructive feedback before submitting full papers via Manuscript Central. All papers will be subject to the standard, double-blind review process of Business History. Authors of successful papers will be invited to a final (non-mandatory) in-person paper development workshop that is planned to be held in conjunction with the 2025 annual meeting of the Business History Conference. Papers will undergo a final review by the Editorial Board after conditional acceptance by the guest editors.

KEY DATES:

• March 2024: Submission of extended proposal

• April 2024: Paper development workshop with manuscript proposals (virtual)

• August– October 2024: Full paper submissions

• March 2025: Paper development workshop with R&R manuscripts at the BHC

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Special Issue: Socialist Entrepreneurs? Business Histories of the GDR and Yugoslavia; Guest Editors: Vladimir Unkovski-Korica and Saša Vejzagić

TOC Business History 65 7 2023

Augustine, Dolores L. “Management of Technological Innovation: High Tech R&D in the GDR.” Business History 65, no. 7 (October 3, 2023): 1177–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1848489.

Bartha, Eszter. “Workers against Technocrats: The Failed Economic Reform and the Rise of Consumer Socialism in the German Democratic Republic.” Business History 65, no. 7 (October 3, 2023): 1194–1208. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2022.2157403.

Calori, Anna. “Losing the Global: (Re)Building a Bosnian Enterprise across Transition.” Business History 65, no. 7 (October 3, 2023): 1226–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1819242.

Dale, Gareth, and Vladimir Unkovski-Korica. “Varieties of Capitalism or Variegated State Capitalism? East Germany and Yugoslavia in Comparative Perspective.” Business History 65, no. 7 (October 3, 2023): 1242–74. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2022.2134348.

Trecker, Max. “Entrepreneurs as Saviours of Socialism? The Complicated Relationship between East German State Socialism and Entrepreneurship.” Business History 65, no. 7 (October 3, 2023): 1209–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1781818.

Troch, Pieter. “Tensions between Plan and Market in a Political Factory in Socialist Kosovo.” Business History 65, no. 7 (October 3, 2023): 1158–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1733981.

Unkovski-Korica, Vladimir, and Saša Vejzagić. “Business History Goes East: An Introduction.” Business History 65, no. 7 (October 3, 2023): 1119–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2023.2234827.

Vejzagić, Saša. “Persistent Centralisation of Decision-Making in the Age of Industrial Atomisation and Self-Management on the Case of Construction Company Industrogradnja Zagreb (1966–1980).” Business History 65, no. 7 (October 3, 2023): 1137–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2023.2185225.

The latest issue of Enterprise & Society just came out! The TOC of Volume 25 No. 3, with a total of eleven research articles, is available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/enterprise-and-society, or listen to editor Andrew Popp’s audio announcement below.

Volume 65 3, https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/fbsh20/65/3

James Derbyshire’s article “Cross-Fertilising Scenario Planning and Business History by Process-Tracing Historical Developments: Aiding Counterfactual Reasoning and Uncovering History to Come,” shows how the intersection of historical analysis and scenario planning offers valuable insights for work in strategic management. Read it in Business History 65, no. 3 (April 3, 2023): 479–501. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1844667.

Studying reinsurance, in “An Integrative Approach to Investigating Longstanding Organisational Phenomena; Opportunities for Practice Theorists and Historians,” Paula Jarzabkowskia, Rebecca Bednarek, Wendy Kilminster, and Paul Spee emphasize the importance of historical reflexivity and advocate for the integration of historical methods with organization theory and practice theory. Available in Business History 65, no. 3 (April 3, 2023): 414–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1906227.

In the article “Entrepreneurial Relationship Marketing in 19th Century India – The Case of Railway Contractor Joseph Stephens,” Stefan Lagrosen and Achinto Roy highlight the uniqueness of railway contractor Joseph Stephens’ diaries in thinking about historical and modern entrepreneurial practices. Read Business History 65, no. 3, https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1821659.

Kiyotaka Maeda, in “Market-Based Financing for Small Corporations during Early Industrialisation: The Case of Salt Corporations in Japan, 1880s–1910s,” delves into the role and relevance of small corporations in Japanese industrialization. The research is available in Business History 65, no. 3 (April 3, 2023): 502–24, https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1825689.

What are the main networks and pillars of those who insure the insurers? Robin Pearson studies the role of trust and personal relationships in the history of the reinsurance industry. The article “Normative Practices, Narrative Fallacies? International Reinsurance and Its History” is available in Business History 65, no. 3 (April 3, 2023), https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1808885.

In “Infant Company Protection in the German Semi-Synthetic Fibre Industry: Market Power, Technology, the Nazi Government and the Post-1945 World Market” Jonas Scherner and Mark Spoerer study how government intervention shaped the development and evolution of the man-made fiber industry in Germany from the 19^th century to the post World War II period. Read it in Business History 65, no. 3 (April 3, 2023), https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1900118.

Cemil Ozan Soydemir and Mehmet Erçek, in “State and Transforming Institutional Logics: The Emergence and Demise of Ottoman Cooperatives as Hybrid Organizational Forms, 1861–1888,” provides the latest research on cooperatives in a setting, the 19^th century Ottoman Empire, largely unexplored by business and economic historians. Read it in Business History 65, no. 3 (April 3, 2023), https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1802429.

In “Entrepreneurial Strategies in a Family Business: Growth and Capital Conversions in Historical Perspective,” Nicholas D. Wong and Tom McGovern delve into William Rushworth II’ strategies in transforming Rushworths Music House through the lens and theoretical framework of Bourdieu’s theory of practice. Read Business History 65, no. 3 (April 3, 2023), https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1807952.

Guess editors: Marten Boon, Espen Storli

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Aldous, Michael. “From Traders to Planters: The Evolving Role and Importance of Trading Companies in the 19th Century Anglo-Indian Indigo Trade.” Business History 65, no. 5 (July 4, 2023): 803–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2019.1623787.

Boon, Marten, and Espen Storli. “Creating Global Capitalism: An Introduction to Commodity Trading Companies and the First Global Economy.” Business History 65, no. 5 (July 4, 2023): 787–802. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2023.2172163.

Declercq, Robrecht. “Natural Born Merchants. The Hudson Bay Company, Science and Canada’s Final Fur Frontiers (1925–1931).” Business History 65, no. 5 (July 4, 2023): 920–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2019.1625331.

DuBois, Thomas David. “Branding and Retail Strategy in the Condensed Milk Trade: Borden and Nestlé in East Asia, 1870–1929.” Business History 65, no. 5 (July 4, 2023): 902–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2019.1688302.

Linneweh, Bastian. “Global Trading Companies in the Commodity Chain of Rubber between 1890 and the 1920s.” Business History 65, no. 5 (July 4, 2023): 863–79. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2019.1693544.

Mizuno, Hiromi, and Ines Prodöhl. “Mitsui Bussan and the Manchurian Soybean Trade: Geopolitics and Economic Strategies in China’s Northeast, ca. 1870s–1920s.” Business History 65, no. 5 (July 4, 2023): 880–901. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2019.1687688.

Papadopoulou, Alexandra. “Foreign Merchant Businesses and the Integration of the Black and Azov Seas of the Russian Empire into the First Global Economy.” Business History 65, no. 5 (July 4, 2023): 821–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2019.1676232.

Stambach, Amy. “Sourcing and Shipping Museum Objects from East Africa to the Smithsonian, 1887–1891.” Business History 65, no. 5 (July 4, 2023): 848–62. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2019.1687687.

TOC of Business History Issue 65-4 https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/fbsh20/65/4?nav=tocList

Issue 65 – 4 2023

Berbenni, Enrico. “The Pitfalls of Multinational Banking: The Case of Italian Banks in Egypt before WWII.” Business History 65, no. 4 (May 19, 2023): 719–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1918675.

Díaz-Morlán, Pablo, and Miguel Á. Sáez-García. “The Paradox of Scrap and the European Steel Industry’s Loss of Leadership (1950–1970).” Business History 65, no. 4 (May 19, 2023): 740–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1820988.

Hussain, Simon. “The Development of the Chartered Financial Analyst in the United States during the Twentieth Century.” Business History 65, no. 4 (May 19, 2023): 606–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1830063.

Keneley, Monica J. “The Shifting Corporate Culture in the Financial Services Industry: Explaining the Emergence of the ‘Culture of Greed’ in an Australian Financial Services Company.” Business History 65, no. 4 (May 19, 2023): 583–605. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1821660.

Lu, Qing, Steven Toms, and Yingqi Wei. “From Light Touch to Top Management Control: HSBC’s Integration of Its First Two Acquired Subsidiaries 1960-1980.” Business History 65, no. 4 (May 19, 2023): 656–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1883000.

Meeks, G., and G. Whittington. “Death on the Stock Exchange: The Fate of the 1948 Population of Large UK Quoted Companies, 1948–2018.” Business History 65, no. 4 (May 19, 2023): 679–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1893696.

Mourlon-Druol, Emmanuel. “Banking on Détente: Barclays, Paribas, and Société Générale in Poland, 1950s-1980s.” Business History 65, no. 4 (May 19, 2023): 699–718. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1907347.

Quinn, William, and John D. Turner. “Bubbles in History.” Business History 65, no. 4 (May 19, 2023): 636–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1844668.

San Román, Elena, Nuria Puig, and Águeda Gil-López. “German Capital and the Development of the Spanish Hotel Industry (1950s-1990s): A Tale of Two Strategic Alliances.” Business History 65, no. 4 (May 19, 2023): 762–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1821658.

Business History Issue 65-2, 2023, Special Issue in Brokers of the wealthy (Transnational business associations) https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/fbsh20/65/2.

Grace Ballor in ‘Liberalisation or protectionism for the single market? European automakers and Japanese competition, 1985–1999’’ explores how the European automobile industry lobbied for protection and influenced the European Union trade relations with Japan in the 1980s and 1990s. Read it here: Business History, 65(2), pp. 302–328, https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.2025218.

‘’A world parliament of business’? The International Chamber of Commerce and its presidents in the twentieth century’ by Thomas David and Eichenberger focuses on the history and role in creating transnational business networks of the International Chamber of Commerce; read it in Business History, 65(2), https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.2025219.

Who are the brokers of globalization? Pierre Eichenberger, Neil Rollings, and Janick Marina Schaufelbuehl provide some answers and insights about the role of international organizations in shaping the global economy in the introduction to the Special Issue “Brokers of the Wealthy”. Read ‘The brokers of globalization: Towards a history of business associations in the international arena’, Business History, 65(2), at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2022.2112671.

In ‘Fighting for a neoliberal Europe: Swiss business associations and the UNICE, 1970–1978’ Ludovic Iberg explores the actions and strategies that BusinessEurope, known before as Union des Industries de la Communauté Européenne (UNICE), pursued to influence economic policy in the process of European integration.  Read Business History, 65(2), available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1892643.

Read more about how the ‘Interlaken Conferences’, a Swiss Federation of Commerce-initiated meetings of leaders from the Industrial Federations of the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Switzerland that sought to represent the interests of different industrial groups in the context of European integration in Sabine Pitteloud’s article ‘Let’s coordinate! The reinforcement of a “liberal bastion” within European Industrial Federations, 1978-1987’, Business History, 65(2), available at https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1905797

The article by Neil Rollings ‘The development of transnational business associations during the twentieth century’ provides an overview and historical trends of international non-governmental organizations working in subjects such as pacificism, law and administration, labour, education, feminism, sport and tourism, religion, humanitarianism and much more.  In Business History, 65(2), available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1958783.

Janick Marina Schaufelbuehl’s ‘Becoming the advocate for US-based multinationals: The United States Council of the International Chamber of Commerce, 1945–1974’, explores the rise to prominence of the United States Council for International Business (founded in 1945 as part of the International Chamber of Commerce) in in defending and promoting international direct investments by American companies. Read in Business History, 65(2), pp. 284–301. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1877273.

Glenda Sluga’s afterword ‘Business transnationalism, looking from the outside in’, comments on key concepts like methodological cosmopolitanism, transnational business, business associations, integration of economic life, and more. Available at: Business History, 65(2), pp. 382–388, https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2022.2130896.

Benjamin Waterhouse, in ‘The Business Roundtable and the politics of U.S. manufacturing decline in the global 1970s’, studies how this key industry representative, the Business Roundtable, failed to create or defend a forward-thinking industrial policy, hindered by outdated analysis and a fixed political vision. Read more in Business History, 65(2), pp. 329–344. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1863949.

The new deadline for submissions for the Special Issue “Women in the Economy Since the 1950s: Change and Transformation in Expected and Contested Roles” has been extended to June 20th, 2023.

More information about the journal can be found here: https://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB/index

Call for Papers

This Special Issue seeks studies that explore the roles (leaders, workers, consumers, shareholders or investors, amongst others) that women have actively assumed while participating in the economy since the 1950s. The editors of this SI are particularly interested in research articles that identify change and transformation over time of these roles, in either an economic sector or an industry or within a particular organization, whether this refers to sectors or sizes -micro, small and medium-sized companies and large national and transnational companies. We welcome theoretical and empirical pieces that question culturally informed assumptions that women in Global North have more power and access to greater roles in the economy. The time period is limited to the second half of the twentieth century with the aim of understanding how historical processes and changes in the workplace and education, such as the 1970s shift in women’s labor to work outside the home and the greater number of women in higher education, or the 1960s US and European protests and social unrest, affected the ways in which women became business actors during the time.

Women around the world are not exclusively defined by gender, instead they need to be conceptualized in all their complexity as economic and social subjects (Hills Collins, 2015). We consider that the perspective of intersectionality is a valuable resource to understand women’s identities and societal inequalities through the multiple interlocking social categories such as race/ethnicity, class, age, sexual orientation or ability/disability, among others (see the reviews of Hills Collins, 2015 and Viveros Vigoya, 2021). We also reckon that the contributions of management and business history studies (see the reviews of Barbero and Lluch, 2014; Cárdenas de Sanz de Santamaría, Franco and Sandoval, 2014; and Ripoll, 2014) are useful for understanding that the context in which women constitute economic actors is heterogeneous and shape women’s participation and access to business and opportunities over time.

As editors of this SI, we seek to broaden the understanding of the role that women have played as leaders, different from high-level corporate positions (see for example, De la Cruz-Fernandez, 2021; Ginalski, 2022;  Lluch and Salvaj, 2022; Tumbe, 2022; Wright, 2021). For this, we encourage studies that focus on the construction of meaning about women and the expected or contested roles they play in the economy and other interrelated domains (see for example, Fernández and Hamilton, 2007, Berkers, Verboord, and Weij, 2016; Milanes-Reyes, 2011; Richards, 2007; Rodriguez-Martinez, 2022; Skalli, 2011, and Tribín-Uribe, Pirela-Ríos and Gómez-Barrera, 2022), incorporating novel sources and methods.

This SI aims to include papers that examine the following issues:

• The diversity of paths that women have undertaken to be part of industry and business, as leaders, workers, consumers, shareholders or investors and the ways in which their cultural, social, and economic background has helped or has been an obstacle to their pursues.
• Female entrepreneurship in different geographical regions and the diverse outcomes of their endeavors to understand the variety of contexts and organizations that women work and manage.
• The impact that the press and the new digital media have had in the construction of women as economic actors and how they have reflected upon it.

The Journal of Evolutionary Studies in Business is an open access publication with two issues per year, with an external and international academic peer review process of evaluation, with the sponsorship of RCUB (Revistes Científiques de la Universitat de Barcelona) gratefully acknowledged.

All submissions will undergo a peer review process to select up to 8 accepted papers. Please follow the submission guidelines: https://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB/about/submissions

Calendar

September 30th, 2022: Open call for papers
June 20th, 2023: Deadline for full paper submission
June 21st – September 15th, 2023: New round of reviews
November 15th, 2023: Final submission
January 2024: Expected publication

Guest editors

Beatriz Rodriguez-Satizabal (Universidad del Pacífico), bh.rodriguezs@up.edu.pe. She is a business historian, lecturer at Universidad del Pacífico (Perú) and member of the History, Business and Entrepreneurship (GHE) research group of Universidad de los Andes (Colombia). Doctor in Business and Management (PhD, QMUL, 2021) holds degrees of Economics (BSc, UniAndes, 2003) and Economic History (MSc, LSE, 2010). She is currently studying women entrepreneurs in Peru from 1980 to 2022, a research based on interviews and newspapers.

Laura M. Milanés-Reyes (Scholar), lmilanes@alumni.albany.edu. She is a cultural sociologist who is currently working on gender and media in Andean countries. Ph.D. in Sociology (University at Albany, SUNY) and a former Fulbright Grantee. Laura has analyzed the representation of CEOs in the personal profiles appearing in the U.S. press during the 1990s-2000s, focusing on gendered meaning making patterns. Her dissertation compared news coverage of two economic crises: The Great Recession in the U.S. and Colombia’s crisis (1998).

Paula de la Cruz-Fernández (Scholar), padelacruzf@gmail.com. She is a gender and business historian, digitization and archives specialist, bilingual editor, and a scholarly communications consultant. Currently, Paula manages projects that focus on outreach and the wide promotion of academic research via digital media like websites, podcasts, blogging, and social media.  She is the digital editor of the Business History Conference and co-editor of New Books Network en español.

References

Barbero, María Inés, and Andrea Lluch. 2014. “Business History and Women’s History in Argentina. A Brief Historiographical Essay-Review.” History, Business and Entrepreneurship Newsletter 5: 8-13. https://administracion.uniandes.edu.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/05-boletin-newsletter-ghe-ago-2014.pdf.

Berkers, Pauwke, Marc Verboord, and Frank Weij. 2016. “«These Critics (Still) Don’t Write Enough About Women Artists»: Gender Inequality in the Newspaper Coverage of Arts and Culture in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States, 1955-2005.” Gender & Society 30(3): 515-39. doi: 10.1177/0891243216643320.

Cárdenas de Santamaría, Maria Consuelo, Valentina Franco, and Daniela Sandoval. 2014. “Women in Management Positions in Colombia: An Illustration.” History, Business and Entrepreneurship Newsletter 5: 14-18. https://administracion.uniandes.edu.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/05-boletin-newsletter-ghe-ago-2014.pdf.

De la Cruz-Fernández, Paula. 2021. Gendered Capitalism: Sewing Machines and Multinational Business in Spain and Mexico, 1850–1940. Routledge: New York.

Fernández, Paloma, and Eleanor Hamilton. 2007. “Gender and family firms: an interdisciplinary approach.” UB Economics – Working Papers [ERE] WP E-Eco07/171. Barcelona: University of Barcelona. http://diposit.ub.edu/dspace/handle/2445/11961.

Ginalski, Stéphanie. 2022. “How Women Broke into the Old Boys’ Corporate Network in Switzerland.” Business History. doi: 10.1080/00076791.2022.2034788.

Hill Collins, Patricia. 2015. “Intersectionality’s Definitional Dilemmas.” Annual Review of Sociology 41(1): 1-20. doi: 10.1146/annurev-soc-073014-112142.

Lluch, Andrea, and Erica Salvaj. 2022. “Women May Be Climbing on Board, but Not in First Class: A Long-Term Study of the Factors Affecting Women’s Board Participation in Argentina and Chile (1923–2010).” Business History. doi: 10.1080/00076791.2022.2063275.

Martínez-Rodríguez, Susana. 2022. “Diana (1969-1978): The First Women’s Finance Magazine in Spain.” Feminist Media Studies. doi: 10.1080/14680777.2022.2055606.

Milanes, Laura. 2011 “Media Representation of Chief Executive Officers: Personal Profiles in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, 1990s-2000s” Master in Sociology, State University of New York at Albany.

Richards, Patricia. 2007. “Bravas, Permitidas, Obsoletas: Mapuche Women in the Chilean Print Media.” Gender & Society 21(4): 553-78. doi: 10.1177/0891243207304971.

Ripoll, Maria Teresa. 2014. “Women Entrepreneurs in Colombia: Is Gender Relevant in the Study of Entrepreneurial Performance?” History, Business and Entrepreneurship Newsletter 5: 19-26. https://administracion.uniandes.edu.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/05-boletin-newsletter-ghe-ago-2014.pdf.

Skalli, Loubna H. 2011. “Constructing Arab Female Leadership Lessons from the Moroccan Media.” Gender & Society 25(4): 473-95. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243211411051.

Tribin-Uribe, Ana Maria, Ana Pirela-Rios, and Alan Gómez-Barrera. 2022. Informe Quanta cuidado y género: Diferencias de género en los medios de comunicación digitales: Un análisis empleando minería de texto. Colombia: Universidad de los Andes, PNUD, Quanta y Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. https://cuidadoygenero.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Genero-medios-digitales.pdf.

Tumbe, Chinmay. 2022. “Women Directors in Corporate India, C. 1920–2019.” Business History. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2022.2038139.

Viveros Vigoya, Mara. 2021. El oxímoron de las clases medias negras. Movilidad social e interseccionalidad en Colombia. Guadalajara: Editorial Universidad de Guadalajara, Centro María Sibylla Merlan de Estudios Latinoamericanos Avanzados en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales (CALAS). https://editorial.udg.mx/gpd-el-oximoron-de-las-clases-medias-negras-9786075712765.html.

Wright, Claire E. F. 2021. “Good Wives and Corporate Leaders: Duality in Women’s Access to Australia’s Top Company Boards, 1910–2018.” Business History. doi: h10.1080/00076791.2021.1994948.

Volume 65, 3 (2023) of Business History, with four book reviews, seven articles, and one comment, has just been published. TOC is available below, or browse here https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/fbsh20/65/3

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TOC 65 – 3, 2023

Paola Lanaro and Chistophe Austruy’s L’Arsenale Di Venezia. Da Grande Complesso Industriale a Risorsa Patrimoniale, reviewed by Isabelle Cecchini, Business History 65, no. 3 (April 3, 2023): 576–77. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2022.2053048.

Derbyshire, J. “Cross-Fertilising Scenario Planning and Business History by Process-Tracing Historical Developments: Aiding Counterfactual Reasoning and Uncovering History to Come.” Business History 65, no. 3 (April 3, 2023): 479–501. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1844667.

Eshter Sahle’s Quakers in the British Atlantic World, 1660-1800, reviewed by Sheryllyne Haggerty, Business History 65, no. 3 (April 3, 2023): 580–81. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2022.2053371.

Jarzabkowski, P., Bednarek, R., Kilminster, W. and Spee, P. “An Integrative Approach to Investigating Longstanding Organisational Phenomena; Opportunities for Practice Theorists and Historians.” Business History 65, no. 3 (April 3, 2023): 414–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1906227.

Lagrosen, S. and Roy, A. “Entrepreneurial Relationship Marketing in 19th Century India – The Case of Railway Contractor Joseph Stephens.” Business History 65, no. 3 (April 3, 2023): 525–40. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1821659.

Maeda, K. “Market-Based Financing for Small Corporations during Early Industrialisation: The Case of Salt Corporations in Japan, 1880s–1910s.” Business History 65, no. 3 (April 3, 2023): 502–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1825689.

Lomang Wang’s Chinese Hinterland Capitalism and Shanxi Piaohao: Banking, State, and Family, 1720-1910, reviewed by Ghassan Moazzin, Business History 65, no. 3 (April 3, 2023): 572–73. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2022.2046383.

Pearson, R. “Normative Practices, Narrative Fallacies? International Reinsurance and Its History.” Business History 65, no. 3 (April 3, 2023): 397–413. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1808885.

Scherner, J. and Spoerer, M. “Infant Company Protection in the German Semi-Synthetic Fibre Industry: Market Power, Technology, the Nazi Government and the Post-1945 World Market.” Business History 65, no. 3 (April 3, 2023): 541–71. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1900118.

Soydemir, C. O. and Erçek, M. “State and Transforming Institutional Logics: The Emergence and Demise of Ottoman Cooperatives as Hybrid Organizational Forms, 1861–1888.” Business History 65, no. 3 (April 3, 2023): 423–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1802429.

Klas Rönnbäck and Oskar Broberg’s Capital and Colonialism: The Return on British Investments in Africa, 1869–1969, reviewed by Nicolaas Strydom, Business History 65, no. 3 (April 3, 2023): 574–75. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2022.2049042.

Wong, Nicholas D., and Tom McGovern. “Entrepreneurial Strategies in a Family Business: Growth and Capital Conversions in Historical Perspective.” Business History 65, no. 3 (April 3, 2023): 454–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1807952.

Business History Volume 65, Issue 2 is now available. It is a Special issue: “Brokers of the wealthy (Transnational business associations)”, edited by Pierre Eichenberger, Neil Rollings, and Janick Marina Schaufelbuehl.

The list below also includes the book reviews published in the issue. Full online TOC here. 

Ballor, G. (2023) ‘Liberalisation or protectionism for the single market? European automakers and Japanese competition, 1985–1999’, Business History, 65(2), pp. 302–328. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.2025218.

Diana Kelly’s The Red Taylorist: the life and times of Walter Nicholas Polakov, reviewed by Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo. Business History, 65(2), pp. 391–392. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.2021612.

David, T. and Eichenberger, P. (2023) ‘’A world parliament of business’? The International Chamber of Commerce and its presidents in the twentieth century’, Business History, 65(2), pp. 260–283. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.2025219.

Eichenberger, P., Rollings, N. and Schaufelbuehl, J.M. (2023) ‘The brokers of globalization: Towards a history of business associations in the international arena’, Business History, 65(2), pp. 217–234. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2022.2112671.

Iberg, L. (2023) ‘Fighting for a neoliberal Europe: Swiss business associations and the UNICE, 1970–1978’, Business History, 65(2), pp. 366–381. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1892643.

Emily Erikson’s Trade and nation: how companies and politics reshaped economic thought, reviewed by William Pettigre, Business History, 65(2), pp. 395–396. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2022.2043641.

Pitteloud, S. (2023) ‘Let’s coordinate! The reinforcement of a “liberal bastion” within European Industrial Federations, 1978-1987’, Business History, 65(2), pp. 345–365. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1905797.

Edmond Smith’s Merchants: The Community That Shaped England’s Trade and Empire, reviewed by Alka Rama, Business History, 65(2), pp. 393–394. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2022.2039443.

Rollings, N. (2023) ‘The development of transnational business associations during the twentieth century’, Business History, 65(2), pp. 235–259. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1958783.

Schaufelbuehl, J.M. (2023) ‘Becoming the advocate for US-based multinationals: The United States Council of the International Chamber of Commerce, 1945–1974’, Business History, 65(2), pp. 284–301. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1877273.

Sluga, G. (2023) ‘Business transnationalism, looking from the outside in’, Business History, 65(2), pp. 382–388. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2022.2130896.

Stephen R Wenn and Robert Barney, The Gold in the Rings: The People and Events That Transformed the Olympic Games, reviewed by Kevin Tennent, Business History, 65(2), pp. 389–390. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.2018156.

Waterhouse, B.C. (2023) ‘The Business Roundtable and the politics of U.S. manufacturing decline in the global 1970s’, Business History, 65(2), pp. 329–344. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1863949.