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This week, we are making another audio version of an Open Access article available as a podcast. This article appeared in “Business History” advance online in June 2022.
By Niall G MacKenzie, Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow.
Andrew Perchard, Northumbria University.
David Mackay, Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Strathclyde.
George Burt, Stirling Management School, University of Stirling.
Abstract
In this article we examine the development of the Scotch whisky industry since 1945 through the lens of dynamic capabilities. We explain how sui generis acts – novel initiatives outwith the established repertoire of practices of a firm or industry – by external actors joining the industry helped unlock dynamic capabilities at the firm level in the industry which in turn drove change across the sector after a series of takeovers. We detail the key structural changes in the Scotch whisky industry and demonstrate how important external actors can be in effecting sector level change by extending and connecting our analysis to existing debates in business history and strategy research.
Newcastle Business School Northumbria University 29 June 2023
The ABH will hold its tenth annual Tony Slaven Doctoral Workshop on 29 June 2023. This event immediately precedes the 2023 ABH Annual Conference at Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University. Participants in the Workshop are encouraged to attend the main ABH Annual Conference following the Workshop. They will also have an opportunity to participate in the Poster Competition (explained in the main call for papers). The Workshop is an excellent opportunity for doctoral students to discuss their work with other research students and established academics in business history in an informal and supportive environment. It is important to note that this will not be a hybrid event and all participants need to attend the workshop in person. Students at any stage of their doctoral studies, whether in their first year or very close to submitting, are urged to apply. In addition to providing new researchers with an opportunity to discuss their work with experienced researchers in the discipline, the Workshop will also include at least one skill-related session. The Workshop interprets the term ‘business history’ broadly, and it is intended that students in areas such as (but not confined to) the history of management and organizations, international trade and investment, financial or economic history, agricultural history, the history of not-for- profit organisations, government-industry relations, accounting history, social studies of technology, and historians or management or labour will find it useful. Students undertaking topics with a significant business history element but in disciplines other than economic or business history are also welcome. We embrace students researching any era or region of history. Skills sessions are typically led by regular ABH members; in the past these have included ‘getting published’, ‘using historical sources’, and ‘preparing for your viva examination’ sessions. There will be ample time for discussion of each student’s work and the opportunity to gain feedback from active researchers in the field.
How to Apply for the Tony Slaven Workshop
Your application should be no more than 4 pages sent together in a single computer file: 1) a one-page CV; 2) one page stating the name(s) of the student’s supervisor(s), the title of the theses (a proposed title is fine), the university and department where the student is registered and the date of commencement of thesis registration; 3) an abstract of the work to be presented.
If selected for the workshop, you will be asked to prepare a 15-minute presentation that is either a summary of your PhD project (giving an overview of the overarching themes, research questions, and methodologies) or a chapter/paper.
You may apply via email to Dr Michael Aldous at m.aldous[at]qub.ac.uk. Please use the subject line “Tony Slaven Workshop” and submit by 24 March 2023.
Association of Business Historians Annual Conference Newcastle Business School Northumbria University 30 June-1 July 2023
Named in honour of the British business historian Donald Coleman (1920-1995), this prize is awarded annually by the Association of Business Historians to recognise excellence in new research in Britain. It is open to PhD dissertations in Business History (broadly defined) either having a British subject or completed at a British university. All dissertations completed in the previous year (2022) to that of the Prize are eligible. In keeping with the ABH’s broad understanding of business history, applications are strongly encouraged from candidates in economic history, social history, labour history, intellectual history, cultural history, environmental history, the history of science and technology, the history of medicine, or any other subfield. The value of the prize is £500, sponsored by the Taylor & Francis Group, a scholarly publisher. To be eligible for the Prize, finalists must present their findings in person at the Association’s annual conference, held on 29th June-1st July 2023. A complete list of previous winners may be found at: http://www.gla.ac.uk/external/ABH/coleman.html
How to Apply for the Coleman Prize
Supervisors are encouraged to nominate recent PhDs, and self-nominations are also strongly welcomed. Please send a PDF including the title of your PhD dissertation and a brief abstract (up to 2 double-spaced pages) to christine.leslie@glasgow.ac.uk by 24 February 2023. Shortlisted candidates will be requested to submit electronic copies of their theses 17 March 2023. Finalists will be notified by 14 April 2023.
Everyone appearing on the programme must register for the meeting. PhD students whose papers are accepted for the meeting may apply for funds to partially defray their travel costs by applying to the Francesca Carnevali Travel Grant for PhD Students. A limited number of scholarships are available from the Francesca Carnevali fund of the ABH to contribute towards the travel, accommodation and registration costs of students doing a PhD in the United Kingdom, who are presenting in the Slaven Workshop, the ABH conference or the Coleman Prize.
In the 2020s, business history remains ‘in an inventive mood, bursting with multiple futures and paths forward’ (Kipping et al., 2016; 19). Having moved on from the 20th century preoccupation with large corporations, business historians now engage with a multiplicity of themes and topics. While the discipline has yet to make a significant impact on the curricula of most business schools, and few schools of history teach the subject, judged from the perspective of the high ranking of its major journals business history has established a highly credible position across the social sciences and humanities. On the other hand, many have questioned whether the discipline has adapted sufficiently to what remains a highly challenging environment for business historians (Scranton and Fridenson, 2013; Wilson et al., 2022). Are we merely preaching to ourselves? Have we engaged with society’s biggest issues, and thereby limited the opportunities of influencing practice in an effective way? Is the preoccupation with the USA, Europe and Japan restricting our understanding of the many paths taken by business in other socio-cultural and political contexts?
In searching for answers to these questions, the conference will assess the extent to which the discipline ought to be more ambitious in developing its research agendas. This builds effectively on the themes of last year’s ABH conference at Strathclyde, when we debated the theme of ‘Turning points and persistent problems’. Crucially, we need to change the attitudes of senior university managers to the subject by demonstrating its considerable relevance to students’ intellectual development, as well as influencing the worlds of practice that rarely consider historical perspectives. Although this will provide business historians with major challenges, achieving these aims will generate much greater credibility and offer rich opportunities for the discipline. Above all, we want the discipline to have a wider impact, whether this be on other disciplines or the various worlds of practice, thereby extending the barriers that have limited business history’s potential to influence the world around us.
What are the areas into which business historians might delve?
– The Worlds of Practice: In recognition of the ways in which ‘uses of the past’ have infiltrated disciplines such as strategy, corporate identity and human resource management, we need to investigate how business historians can work more extensively with practitioners, whether they be policy-makers, corporate executives or archivists. As impact is such an important issue, especially in the UK, business history must respond to the challenge.
– Emerging Markets: we agree with Friedman and Jones (2017; p. 455), who strongly encourage business historians to engage in research projects that encompass economies outside the United States, Western Europe and Japan; ‘the future of business history rests in part on recognizing the centrality of this alternative business history, rather than treating the business history of Africa, Asia, and Latin America as tangential to the central themes of the discipline’. Scranton (2019, 2020) has already made this move, putting into practice what he and Fridenson (2013) noted in Reimagining Business History.
– Sustainability: while Jones and Lubinski (2014; p. 18) made a strenuous appeal for business historians to analyse ‘why some firms become “greener” than others’, apart from the work of Bergquist (2017) and of Jones (2022), relatively little effort has been made to develop this theme and assess the wide sustainability agenda and corporate responses. The forthcoming book by Jones (2022) will no doubt stimulate much wider interest in the role business has played in accommodating the environmental agenda into corporate strategy and performance, focusing especially on the term ‘deep responsibility’.
– Corporate Ethics and Corporate Governance: while there has been extensive work done in these fields, given the extent of corporate misbehaviour and violations of corporate codes it is vital that business historians participate in these debates. For example, the British Academy’s Future of the Corporation project (2021) would benefit from greater historical insights into context and behaviour.
– Gender and Race: again, while the literature on women and racial issues in business have expanded over the course of the last thirty years, these remain significant areas for investigation because of the way they open up our understanding of how business and society interact. This would also link with the decolonization agenda that is now sweeping the world. One might also add that masculinity is another neglected area of study; even though sociologists have written extensively about ‘hegemonic masculinity’ (Connell & Wood, 2005), the business history literature has failed to assess how this influenced the achievement and execution of power.
– Social Science Theory: Following the ‘historic turn’ in organization studies (Clark and Rowlinson, 2004) and the recent surge in interest amongst strategy and international business scholars in the incorporation of historical analysis into research agendas (Perchard et al., 2017), a substantial debate has been occupying a lot of space in prominent journals. Although the methodological issues arising from this work have yet to be resolved, it is essential to assess how business historians can engage with theoretical concepts when conducting research.
Needless to say, there could well be other agendas that need to be incorporated into the ambit of business history, an issue that will no doubt be raised at the conference. The key issue here is finding a place for business history in debating the ‘Big Issues’ that face society, applying our skills and knowledge to finding solutions that are both effective and sustainable. By pursuing this strategy, we might better engage with both the worlds of practice and senior university managers, demonstrating our credibility and relevance to the major debates of our time.
Sources:
British Academy (2021), Future of the Corporation, British Academy.
Clark, P., & Rowlinson, M. (2004). The treatment of history in organization studies: Towards an ‘historic turn’? Business History, 46(3), 331–352.
Connell, R.W., & Wood, J. (2005). Globalization and business masculinities. Men and Masculinities, 7(4), 347–364.
Friedman, W.A. and Jones, G. (2017). Time for debate. Business History Review, 85 (Spring), pp.1-8.
Jones, G. (2022). The Search for the Deep Responsibility of Business. Boston, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Jones, G. & Lubinski, C. (2014). Making ‘Green Giants’: Environment sustainability in the German chemical industry, 1950s–1980s, Business History, 56(4), pp.1-14.
Kipping, M., Kurosawa, T., & Wadhwani, R. D. (2016). A revisionist historiography of business history: a richer past for a richer future. In J.F. Wilson, S. Toms, A. de Jong, & E. Buchnea (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Business History (pp. 19–35). Routledge.
Perchard, A., MacKenzie, N.G., Decker, S., & Favero, G. (2017). Clio in the business school: Historical approaches in strategy, international business and entrepreneurship. Business History, 59(6), 904–927.
Scranton, P., & Fridenson, P. (2013). Reimagining Business History. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.
Scranton, P. (2019). Fixing holes in the plan: Maintenance and repair in Poland, 1945–1970. Enterprise et Histoire. 103, pp.54-72.
Scranton, P. (2020). Collaboration, coordination, cooperation and subversive entrepreneurship in Socialist Hungary’, paper given to the Business History Conference.
Wilson, John F. Ian G. Jones, Steven Toms, Anna Tilba, Emily Buchnea and Nicholas Wong (2022), Business History. A Research Overview, Routledge, pp.148.
How to submit a paper or session proposal
The programme committee will consider both individual papers and entire panels. We are keen to encourage both developmental and mature papers. Individual paper proposals should include a one-page (up to 300-word) abstract and brief biographical note. Panel proposals should include a cover letter stating the rationale for the panel and the name of its contact person; one-page (300-word) abstract and author’s CV for each paper; and a list of preferred panel chairs and commentators with contact information. The deadline for submissions is 27 January 2023. Please use the conference e-mail address (below) to submit proposals.
Poster submissions
The ABH also welcomes poster proposals from graduate students on all aspects of business history covering a wide range of periods and countries.
Poster presenters will normally be in either the First or Second Year of their PhD. We also strongly encourage those who have previously presented a poster will submit a paper proposal to the main conference in a subsequent year.
Those wishing to be considered for inclusion in the programme must submit an application by 27 January 2023. This should provide:
Title of your PhD project.
An abstract (300 words).*
A current CV.
*The abstract should explain the background to the poster; the questions addressed; the sources and methods employed; and likely conclusions.
Approved posters must be submitted by 1 June 2023.
If you have any questions, please contact the Conference Organisers via:
We are running this as a trial to see if having academic articles available as podcast (where the text is just being read out by an automatically generated voice) is a helpful format. Maybe when you are stuck in traffic, or on a really crowded train/bus, or training for a marathon, or your eyes just hurt too much to read another academic article – who knows! Maybe you are more audial then visual in your learning style? Whatever the reason, we’d love some feedback from you if this a good format for OHN, and if so, what kind of content we should make available as podcasts. You can post comments below this blog.
Audio version of the Journal of World Business article:
Introducing the eventful temporality of historical research into international business
By Stephanie Decker
Abstract
Historical research represents an alternative understanding of temporality that can contribute to greater methodological and theoretical plurality in international business (IB) research. Historians focus on the importance of events within their historical context and structure their accounts through periodisation, assume that the temporal distance between the past and present determines the temporal positionality of researchers, and seek to reconstruct past events through historical sources, which require critical interpretation. Historical research provides an alternative methodological approach to temporality, context, and distance with relevance to a range of IB theories.
Keywords:
History – Temporality – Event – Temporal distance – Interpretation
Note:
The whole article is available as a podcast. Check out our new podcast channel, also named Organizational History Network, on Anchor, Spotify and Apple Podcast, for some different types of content:
This issue includes five book reviews, six research articles, and three of them are open access.
TOC 64-8 2022; Key terms: nuclear energy, varieties of capitalism, Cold War, pulp and paper industry, Finland, Spain, multinationals, Italy, entrepreneurial state, technology, Great Britain, West Germany.
[book review] Bátiz-Lazo, Bernardo. “The Rise and Fall and Reinvention of a Global Icon.” Business History 64, no. 8 (November 17, 2022): 1564–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1946221.
[book review] Bonin, Hubert. “China Bound. John Swire & Sons and Its World, 1816-1980.” Business History 64, no. 8 (November 17, 2022): 1560–63. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1941909.
[book review] Davis, James. “Compassionate Capitalism: Business and Community in Medieval England.” Business History 64, no. 8 (November 17, 2022): 1556–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1940544.
De la Torre, Joseba, Mar Rubio-Varas, Esther M. Sánchez-Sánchez, and Gloria Sanz Lafuente. “Nuclear Engineering and Technology Transfer: The Spanish Strategies to Deal with US, French and German Nuclear Manufacturers, 1955–1985.” Business History 64, no. 8 (November 17, 2022): 1435–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1810239.
Jensen-Eriksen, Niklas. “Looking for Cheap and Abundant Power: Business, Government and Nuclear Energy in Finland.” Business History 64, no. 8 (November 17, 2022): 1413–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1772761.
MacKenzie, Niall G., Stephen Knox, and Matthew Hannon. “Fast Breeder Reactor Technology and the Entrepreneurial State in the UK.” Business History 64, no. 8 (November 17, 2022): 1494–1509. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1809653.
Mascolo, Rita. “Tennessee Valley in Southern Italy: How the ENSI Project Was the First and Only World Bank Loan for Nuclear Power.” Business History 64, no. 8 (November 17, 2022): 1460–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1819984.
[book review] Merrett, David. “Managing the Marketplace: Reinventing Shopping Centres in Post-War Australia.” Business History 64, no. 8 (November 17, 2022): 1558–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1941527.
[book review] Ravalli, Richard. “American Blockbuster: Movies, Technology, and Wonder.” Business History 64, no. 8 (November 17, 2022): 1554–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1940471.
Roitto, Matti, Pasi Nevalainen, and Miina Kaarkoski. “Fuel for Commercial Politics: The Nucleus of Early Commercial Proliferation of Atomic Energy in Three Acts.” Business History 64, no. 8 (November 17, 2022): 1510–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1845316. Rubio-Varas, M., J. De la Torre, and
The BHC invites applications for the paid, part-time position of Program Coordinator for the new Henry Kaufman Fellowship Program. This new BHC program is funded through a generous donation from Dr. Henry Kaufman. It is intended to encourage emerging scholars to pursue research on topics related to financial history, broadly conceived. The program includes Kaufman Research Fellowships to be awarded annually to PhD candidates who need funds for travel to archives for projects related to financial history, Kaufman Dissertation Fellowships to provide support for PhD candidates who are writing their dissertations, and Kaufman Post-doctoral Fellowships to provide support for PhD recipients within five years of receipt of their degree. The new Program Coordinator will provide support for the recipients of these Kaufman fellowships. Supervised by the BHC Secretary, the Program Coordinator will also interface with the selection committee to ensure the larger goals of the program are met. The new position also works with the Treasurer, who is responsible for the disbursement of funds, while the BHC trustees and their designees have full authority over the Kaufman Fund and its disbursements. Desired Qualifications: Candidates who are professionally engaged in business history and involved in the BHC are preferred. The candidate should also have excellent organization and management skills, be detail oriented, and have strong communications abilities and a track record of responsiveness.
Responsibilities of the Role:
Receive and organize applications for the Kaufman program for review by the Kaufman Committee.
Maintain a database of applicants and recipients of Kaufman fellowships, for use by the Kaufman Committee and for reporting purposes.
Coordinate with the Kaufman Committee chair and BHC Secretary in communicating with applicants.
Monitor recipients to ensure that funding was used for designated purposes, including maintaining processes for inbound reporting, reviewing these reports, and analyzing data for the Kaufman Committee and BHC Secretary.
Coordinate ongoing conversations between Kaufman Committee and treasurer regarding budgeting for the program’s support and marketing needs.
Maintain all data and records with regard to the program.
Aid in the development of the Kaufman Program’s annual report for submission to the BHC Secretary.
To apply: Please send a current CV, cover letter, and a list of three references to the BHC Secretary, Dr. Vicki Howard at vickihowardbhc[at]gmail.com
Business history is a thriving field of research. As was noted already by Geoffrey Jones and Jonathan Zeitlin in their introduction to the Oxford Handbook of Business History, published back in 2007, the field of business history is “wide-ranging, dynamic and has generated compelling empirical data which sometimes confirms and sometime contests widely held views in management and the social sciences.” This is no less true today. Business historians hold important seats at prestigious universities and business school across the globe. Business history research is probably broader in scope than ever before and has also gained ground in the social sciences. Several large companies in many countries have found value and relevance in hiring professional business historians to write their history, trusting them both with a unique access to archives and the freedom to do independent research in line with basic principles for the writing of academic history.
The many strengths of business history as a field of research should no doubt be saluted. But there are also challenges looming in the near future. The organisers of the 2023 EBHA congress invites you to reflect on these challenges. It particularly invites critical reflection on business history’s relevance in relation to the broader field of history, to other academic disciplines, to business and society, and to students.
Business history seems to play a less important role in many history departments compared to most other subfields of history. One way to look at this challenge is to humbly ask other historians to better integrate business in the broader field of history. Another way is perhaps to integrate broader strains of history within business history, to assume a more ambitious role.
Business history has in recent years been increasingly more integrated into other academic disciplines, such as organisation and management studies, strategy, international business, and entrepreneurship studies. However, this integration has not been unproblematic. One question for further exploration is how these disciplines have understood and integrated methods and conceptual frameworks from business history. Another challenge is to make sure that business history not simply becomes a support discipline for various strands of the social sciences.
A third challenge relates to the fact that many business historians work in business schools and must teach traditional business school subjects such as management or strategy. How can the value and usefulness of teaching proper business history to business school students, be more efficiently and successfully communicated?
Becoming accepted as a valuable academic discipline might come at the expense of another important challenge faced by business historians; namely the need to increase the relevance of the field in society. This raises the question: how do business historians frame and convey their findings to convince business practitioners and society at large about their practical relevance?
On this basis, the organizers of the European Business History Association’s 2023 congress challenge you to reflect on how the future relevance of business history can and should be developed. We encourage papers, panels sessions and roundtable discussions dealing with the challenges facing the field of business history in terms of its academic, societal, and educational relevance.
Papers with other foci will of course be considered as well. Topics such as responsible business, sustainability, risk, innovation, entrepreneurship, economic growth, taxation, and similar ideas are more than welcome. In addition to proposals for individual papers, scholars can send full panel sessions, which will create more coherence within the conference program. For panels, we strongly recommend integrating a variety of comparative national, regional, or sectoral differences.
EBHA awards a prize for the best paper on European business history presented at its annual congress. The prize consists of a certificate and a cash prize of €250.00. The winner will be announced, and the prize presented at the congress dinner. More details will be specified at the congress website.
Online submission will open November 1, 2022, through January 30, 2023. Please see below the requirements for paper and panel proposals.
We also invite other formats such as workshops, debates, discussions, and poster presentations. Journals can also propose fast-track session. Please send your proposals directly to the organizers (ebha2023@bi.no.)
We are very much looking forward to meeting you in Oslo, Norway, at the EBHA 2023 Congress.
Building on the 30-year legacy of the Hagley Research seminar, The Hagley Seminar on Business and Culture will feature innovative work in progress essays that expand the boundaries of studies using business history sources. The seminar seeks unpublished papers that place commercial activity, and the institutions that generate and regulate such, within the dynamics of the cultures in which they are embedded.
Papers should be empirically rich, conceptually framed, and offer an original argument or set of insights. Ideally papers will be at a point of development that the author will be able to change the text in response to seminary comments. Papers eithers accepted or under consideration for publication are not eligible. While we look forward to sharing work that makes use of Hagley’s research collections, papers need not do so to be considered for inclusion in the seminar series.
The papers will be pre-circulated to seminar participants and commentators. It will meet virtually, facilitating the participation of scholars outside of the immediate neighborhood of Hagley’s Wilmington, Delaware campus. It will meet from noon until 1:30 EST to facilitate participation of scholars from a range of time zones.
To propose a paper, please submit a draft of between 4,000 and 14,000 words (including notes); if you plan to expand the text for the seminar, also include information on your plans to do so. Please also include a 150 word abstract, brief summary of sources used, and a cv of no more than 2 pages. These materials should go to Carol Lockman, clockman@Hagley.org. Suggestions for commentators on the paper are welcome. Currently we are scheduling papers for our spring 2023 series, but proposals will be considered on a rolling basis and the author is encouraged to suggest a good month for them to present.
The BHC Doctoral Colloquium (DC) in Business History will be held on March 8th and 9th, 2023. The participants will be invited for a welcome dinner in Detroit on March 7th. During the days of DC, there will also be professional development sessions scheduled.
Typically limited to ten students, the colloquium is open to doctoral candidates who are pursuing dissertation research within the broad field of business history from any relevant discipline (e.g., from economic sociology, political science, cultural anthropology, or management, as well as history). Most participants are in year 3 or 4 or their degree program, though in some instances applicants at a later stage make a compelling case that their thesis research had evolved in ways that led them to see the advantages of an intensive engagement with business history.
We welcome proposals from students working within any thematic area of business history. Topics (see link for past examples) may range from the early modern era to the present, and explore societies across the globe. Participants work intensively with a distinguished group of BHC-affiliated scholars (including the incoming BHC president), discussing dissertation proposals, relevant literatures and research strategies, and career trajectories.
Applications are due by Friday December 9th, 2022, via email to Carol Lockman (clockman@Hagley.org). Questions about the colloquium should be sent to its director, Prof. Eric Godelier (eric.godelier@polytechnique.edu). Applicants will receive notification of the selection committee’s decisions by Monday January 16th (2023). If they travel to Detroit, all participants will receive a stipend that partially defrays travel costs to the annual meeting.
Colloquium participants have a choice of pre-circulating one of the following:
· a 15-page dissertation prospectus or updated overview of the dissertation research plan; or
· a draft dissertation chapter, along with a one-page dissertation outline/description.
Participants should choose the option they feel will most assist them at this stage in their research and writing. We will need either the prospectus/overview or a chapter draft and outline by February 27th. Those will then be posted on a Colloquium webpage on the BHC website and shared with all participants to read in advance.
Organizational History Network 