Unfortunately this year’s Association of Business Historians (ABH) conference in Nottingham did not take place due to the ongoing pandemic. One session that was launched virtually was the Coleman Prize session, via Zoom. It was a strong year with three excellent presentations, which all three candidates on the shortlist agreed to share (see below).
First up, the Coleman Prize winner, Dr Akram Benjamin (University of Reading), who talked about his fascinating research on business networks and the financing of cotton in Egypt.
This was followed by a presentation on organizational corruption at Enron in the California Energy Crisis, by Dr Adam Nix (Aston University, now at De Montfort University).
Finally, the talk by David Paulson (University of Cambridge, now Queens University Belfast) compares SMEs in Britain and West Germany in 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, on the basis of painstaking work in multiple archives.
Organizational History Network 