Updates this week as we are heading into August: The Elgar Encyclopaedia of HOS is out and it is rich pickings! Even better, as HIO reader, Edward Elgar is giving you a substantial discount on the full price — read below. The provisional programme for the British Academy of Management History Subject Interest Group is out — do note it mentions speakers first, regardless of author order on full paper. (I am actually second author on both papers that I am presenting.) Finally, the granddaddy of business history journals is getting interviewed, or rather one of its editors-in-chief, Walter Friedman, is. If that is not enough summer reading for you, check out the ScholarStack directory. Enjoy!

Contents

1. Elgar Encyclopedia of Historical Organisation Studies now out!

2. Provisional BAM MBH schedule

3. BHR Centenary

4. ScholarStack by Helen Sword - A directory of scholarly writers on Substack

1. Elgar Encyclopedia of Historical Organisation Studies

Elgar Encyclopedias in Business and Management series

Edited by Nicholous M. Deal, Associate Professor of Management and Gabrielle Durepos, Professor of Organisation Studies, Department of Business and Tourism, Mount Saint Vincent University, Canada

Publication Date: 2026 ISBN: 978 1 03533 292 2 Extent: 566 pp

This comprehensive Encyclopedia provides a lexicon of the field of historical organisation studies, tracing its evolution from an emergent movement to an established community of practice. It brings together key concepts, research methods, philosophies, influential thinkers and major publication outlets that are shaping the growing discipline.

I am really pleased to have four co-authored entries and one single-authored entry in the Encyclopaedia:

• 11 Archival ethnography (Stephanie Decker and Alan McKinlay)

• 19 Business History [journal] (Stephanie Decker, Christina Lubinski, and Niall G. MacKenzie)

• 44 Digital archives (Adam Nix, David A. Kirsch, and Stephanie Decker)

• 64 Handbook of Historical Methods for Management (Stephanie Decker, William M. Foster, and Elena Giovannoni)

• 74 Historical imagination (Stephanie Decker)

For more information, click here.

Retails now at £265 for the hardback and £48 for individual e-book copies.

2. Provisional BAM MBH schedule

Presenters are mentioned first, with University affiliation, co-authors follow.

September 7 - Online Session (Virtual Day)

Costly Reversibility as Strategic Commitment: Infrastructure Finance in the British Empire, 1840s–1914
Yasser Alvi, University of Cambridge

September 9 - 2:00 PM-3:30 PM

Covert diplomatic strategies: multinational enterprises and democratic reversals Stephanie Decker, University of Birmingham, Marcelo Bucheli, Thomas DeBerge

The legacy of historical foreign occupation on modern corporate philanthropy Hailin Lu, University of Birmingham

The English Crown/State and the City of London in British West Africa: Longue durée, heterotopia and diplomatic relations, 1558-1820 Nelarine Cornelius, Queen Mary, University of London, Olusanmi Amujo, Ed Legon, Eric Pezet

September 9 - 5:00 PM-6:30 PM

Professional Life after a PhD in Business – Management History

• Anna Spadavecchia, University of Strathclyde;

• Akram Beniamin, University of Oxford;

• Elenia Charalambous, Royal Holloway, University of London;

• Adrian Cozmuta, University of Glasgow and Kyoto;

• Shannon Harris, University of St Andrews;

• Ian Jones, University of Sheffield

September 10 – 8:30-10:30 AM

Making Do and Moving On: Bricolage Dynamics and Strategic Renewal in Times of Prolonged Resource Scarcity Stephanie Decker, University of Birmingham, Guting Shen, Adam Nix

The Dark Side of Direct-Selling: Jacob Factor, Stanley Spiro and the ‘White-Collar Bandits’ of Interwar Britain Matthew Hollow, University of York

Building Rhetorical Histories: Examining How Strategic Organizational Narratives Are Constructed Nicholas Wong, Northumbria University

How Did US Biotech Startups Finance Their Innovation? Three Case Studies from the Dawn of the 1980s New High-Tech Era Viren Mahurkar, London School of Economics

September 10 – 1:30-3:00 PM

A Microhistory of Entrepreneurial Career Change Gerry Kerr, University of Windsor, Francine Schlosser

Building the Best Damn Airplane: Coopetition and the Making of an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Wichita, 1925-1945 Shannon Harris, University of St Andrews

September 10 – 5:00-6:30 PM

Love & the City: placing Romeo and Juliet in between history, arts, organizing and imagination Giulia Achilli, University of Birmingham, Elena Giovannoni, Alessandro Lai, Riccardo Stacchezzini

Institutional marginalisation of gold mining policy: The structural exclusion of local enterprises by a mining industry association Albert Acheampong, Anglia Ruskin University, Swetketu Patnaik, James Tuffour, Ayikoru Maureen

Negotiating Empire — HSBC, Transaction Costs, and Strategic Partnerships in Securing Railway Concessions in Semi-Colonial China, 1898–1911 Xinyu Li, University of Hull, Qing Lu

3. 100 Years of Business History Review: Q&A with Walter Friedman

This year marks the centennial of the Business History Review, a publication that has grown alongside Baker Library’s collections and helped establish business history as a field of study. We sat down with Walter Friedman, director of the Business History Initiative, lecturer, and the journal’s co-editor, to discuss the journal’s origins and its evolution alongside Harvard Business School.

https://www.hbs.edu/news/stories/business-history-review-100

4. ScholarStack! 📚

A compendium of Substack newsletters by, for, and about scholarly writers

This is a neat resource if you want to read more diverse and interesting writing with a scholarly background. I always think of Substack as a wildly unedited magazine covering everything. That can be fun and interesting, but also overwhelming. If you prefer a more focused approach to finding other academics writing in this space, ScholarStack by Helen Sword is a great place to start. It is in an opt-in directory, so by no means comprehensive, but it is definitely worth browse to find your next newsletter.

⚔️ Helen's Word

ScholarStack! 📚

Sharpen your style and find joy in wordcraft with bestselling writing expert Helen Sword…

Read more

a year ago · 17 likes · 2 comments · Helen Sword

Another busy week with newsletters and updates out from several national business history associations and an important summary from the current state of the campaign to ensure that the BBC Archives remain accessible to researchers and the public. Also, call for papers for next year’s BHC in Mexico, and a workshop in Germany (in German), the new issue of Enterprise & Society is out, and the journal has an advance online review of Beckert’s Capitalism by Lipartito. Also an introduction to a Canadian business archive, and CBHA award winners, as well as the German business history association (GUG) on the AGI Symposium — and no, it is no artificial general intelligence!

Contents

1. BBC Written Archives Campaign

2. CfP BHC 2027

3. E&S new issue & advance online

4. Selected announcements

5. CBHA: Award winners

6. CBHA: Canadian business archives

7. AGI Symposium

8. CfP “Trade, insurance and monetary systems in the age of imperialism” [German]

1. Update from the BBC Written Archives Campaign

Welcome to our latest update about the Written Archives Centre campaign. We have news of an important breakthrough for staff and users, as well as some recent press coverage.

The win

A small number of WAC users meet with the BBC archives team three times a year to hear about plans and as a forum in which to raise concerns. As we explained in our submission to the government’s Charter consultation:

“it was confirmed at a user group meeting in November 2025 that staff at WAC - a superb team of professional archivists who assist with queries - have been instructed not to inform users of the existence of unavailable files. We believe this is also intended to minimise workload, as the information could legitimately be used as the basis of Freedom of Information access requests.”

To explain the last point, we are aware that a number of WAC users have been turning to the separate path of FOI in order to attempt to access the files they need for research. This is a legitimate process that has been effective in most cases that we know of but the process relies on the user first having the awareness that emails from WAC archivists will sometimes elide vital information. The staff would simply tell you about available vetted files. As matters stood, if a user then responded and specifically asked for information about unvetted files, the archivist would have to seek permission from a manager before responding. This was needless bureaucracy, delayed the process for the user, and was clearly an infringement on the professionalism of WAC’s archivists.

As was pointed out by users attending the November meeting, this policy - introduced by the Lead Curator - risked making us look foolish years down the track when files were then revealed to have existed all along and which contradicted our published writing on the subject. The Head of Library and Curatorial Services grasped why this was an issue, but it was not until six months later that she sat down with WAC staff in order to hear their views.

It has since been decided that WAC archivists will no longer need to seek permission from managers to share information with users about unvetted files. They will be free to use their discretion. However, it remains incumbent on WAC users to press for information about unvetted material.

Our advice is to keep this new arrangement in mind and consider asking in first instance for the file references and exact titles of both vetted and unvetted material relating to your area of interest. This will not be received as presumptuous or problematic, but an opportunity to give you a full answer.

The reason why we stress the importance of file references and exact titles for unvetted material is so that you can submit an FOI request with a degree of accuracy. However, please do not refer to that directly in your correspondence with WAC staff as it is not something they can get involved with. You are more than welcome to contact us at the campaign group if you need advice on this entirely separate and quite straightforward FOI process.

We consider this an important win for staff, and a win for the campaign to have affected positive change both for staff and users. It is of course less than ideal, and we continue to seek a restoration of the system of on request vetting, but it will make a positive difference for the time being.

Parliament

We are currently developing a campaign within Parliament as the Charter makes its way through the two houses. For those new to this mailing list we encourage you to look at our previous submissions to the Government consultation and the shorter version to the Commons Select Committee consultation. These documents sum up the campaign so far and the issues at stake.

Please get in touch if you have ideas or contacts who may take an interest in our determination to strengthen the status of the WAC within the next Framework Agreement between BBC and government.

Press Coverage

Finally we can now share with you the full text of the column in the June issue of Sight and Sound by its regular television columnist Andrew Male. Within his wider assessment of how the BBC is using its archive online, he includes comments from us on the situation at WAC.

We’ll be in touch with more updates in the near future.

Ian Greaves, Kate Murphy and John Wyver

2. CfP Business History Conference 2027

The Business History Conference invites submissions for its 2027 annual meeting, to be held March 18–20 at the Sheraton Mexico City Maria Isabel Hotel in Mexico City, Mexico.

The conference theme, Business History and Political Economy, focuses on the role of corporations as political actors that shape and influence the economic and political environments in which they operate. The program committee welcomes panels and papers that examine how firms develop strategies to influence these systems. Submissions addressing emerging or less developed economies, as well as corporations operating across borders, are particularly encouraged. Interdisciplinary approaches drawing on political science, economics, and sociology are also welcome.

The committee prioritizes fully formed panel proposals (3–4 papers, chair, and discussant), though individual paper submissions will be considered and organized into thematic sessions.

Each proposal should include a one-page abstract (300 words) and a one-page CV for each participant. Panel proposals must also include a cover letter with session details and organizer contact information.

Submission deadline: October 16, 2026
Submission instructions: https://thebhc.org/proposal-instructions
Notification of acceptance: December 15, 2026

Graduate students and emerging scholars are encouraged to apply and may be eligible for travel support.

Additional events include the Dissertation Colloquium and the workshop in Spanish, Tercer Taller “Empresariado en América Latina en Perspectiva Histórica y Global”, held prior to the conference.

3. Enterprise & Society new issue & advance online

You can find the new issue here.

I really enjoyed reading this advance online review of Sven Beckert’s Capitalism: A Global History:

Kenneth Lipartito. “Capitalism’s Wild Ride”, https://doi.org/10.1017/eso.2026.10133

Ken considers the book from the perspective of business historians, which I feel is urgently necessary, and he provides a very balanced read. Capitalism has increasingly become a byword for dealing with the economy and economic actors, if you do not want to get bogged down in the details of business and organising, or in national variations.

4. Selected announcements

Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History. The deadline for proposals for the Krooss prize is November 14. Call now open for 2026 dissertations.

Henry Kaufman Financial History Fellowship Program. The deadline for proposals for Research and Dissertation fellowships is November 1 2026.

Hagley Prize and Ralph Gomory Prize Book Nominations. The deadline for publishers to submit new books for consideration for the best book in business history award is November 30. Four copies of each book must accompany the nomination.

The program for the World Congress of Business History is now available: https://unternehmensgeschichte.de/db/app/WCBH2026. As part of our Conference programming, we are excited to offer a series of podcasts about Toronto and its business history.

• Episode One: “A Visitor’s History of the University of Toronto,” is produced by Dr. Steve Penfold and Dr. Louis Reed-Wood and tells a remarkable institutional story in twenty minutes, providing the context for our Conference site.

• Episode Two: “A (Very) Brief History of Toronto,” produced and hosted by Dr. Steve Penfold and Dr. Louis Reed-Wood, gives a wonderful insight of the history of the city and how it has evolved into its modern form in twenty minutes.

• Episode Three: “The Bata Shoe Museum,” takes a look at the Bata Shoe Museum, an absolutely unique and truly fascinating institution located just on the edge of the University of Toronto campus. The Museum is one of the optional events during the Congress. Our hosts talk to Elizabeth Semmelhack, Director and Senior Curator at the Museum, and discuss capitalism, labour, gender, the exhibits at the museum, and what shoes tell us about human history--and also that time when the Ontario Provincial Police brought a shoe mystery to the Museum.

CFA for the John E. Rovensky Fellowships in U.S. Business or Economic History (2026-2027) and the John E. Rovensky Fellowships in International Business or Economic History (2026-2027) is open through July 6th.

Networks of Creative Persuasion in Advertising and Marketing — Conference at the Hagley Library, November 6, 2026. Submit proposals of no more than 500 words and a one-page C.V. to Carol Lockman at clockman@Hagley.org.

19th Annual Meeting of the African Economic History Network — Gothenburg, Sweden, October 23–24, 2026. More information.

IX Congreso Latinoamericano de Historia Económica (CLADHE), que se celebrará en la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Ciudad de México) del 28 de junio al 1 de julio de 2027. CFP here.

First call for sessions for the 2028 World Economic History Congress in Montevideo, Uruguay, is now open. The deadline is in September and sessions can be submitted here.

5. CBHA Annual Award Winners

The Canadian Business History Association (CBHA) is proud to announce four winners in our annual or biannual award categories. We wish to extend our congratulations again to:

Brian Gettler - who was awarded the 2026 Best Scholarly Article in Canadian Business History for his article titled: “The Vincent-Picard Family’s Investments: Wendat Wealth and Notarized Contracts in the Mid-Nineteenth Century.”

Clarence Hatton-Proulx - (a former CBHA Kobrak Fellow) who was awarded an Honourable Mention in the Best Scholarly Article category for an article titled: “The Role of Forecasts in Planning for Energy Infrastructure: A Historical Look at Past Futures in Postwar Quebec.”

Joe Borsato - who was awarded the CBHA’s 2026-2028 Kobrak Fellowship for his post-doctoral research project titled: “Vast Rupert’s Land: Prince Attash’s Voyage and Cree Commerce in the Seventeenth-Century Hudson Bay.”

Letian Wang - who was awarded the 2026 Desautels Research Fund in Private Enterprise, History & Law - for his PhD research currently titled: “Farewell to The Chinese Times” studies the demise of The Chinese Times (Tai Hon Kong Bo) newspaper in Canada.

Congratulations to all, and thank you for advancing the study of Canadian business history!

5. CBHA Archives Spotlight

Archive Spotlight! Explore the Business History Collections at the University of Waterloo

Did you know that Special Collections & Archives (SCA) at the University of Waterloo is one of the largest local history repositories in the Waterloo region? I spoke with archivist Nicole Marcogliese to learn more about their collections, specifically those related to business history in order to give the CBHA network an inside look at what is available to researchers.

Researchers can access SCA’s collections online in two ways: by exploring descriptive records in SCA’s Archives Database, or by browsing a curated selection of digitized materials in the Waterloo Digital Library. Both are excellent starting points for research; however, the Archives Database is particularly useful as it functions like an index and organizes materials into distinct thematic collection strengths that are clearly presented on the homepage.

For those interested in studying business history, be sure to explore SCA’s regional development, industry, and settlement collection strength, which provides access to descriptions of relevant materials. This thematic area includes numerous collections that support research on a wide range of business history topics. I selected two to highlight here:

Dare Foods Limited is a family-owned Canadian food manufacturer producing cookies, crackers, candies, and fine breads across facilities in Ontario, Quebec and South Carolina. The company began in 1889 as a grocery store founded by Charles H. Doerr, evolving into a biscuit and candy manufacturer by the early 20th century. Under Carl M. Doerr (Carl Dare), the company expanded internationally, introducing Dare products to over 40 countries and acquiring several food companies. The Dare Foods Limited collection in SCA documents the company’s operations and growth through records like account books, meeting minutes, letters patent, share registers, financial statements, and photographs as well as biscuit, cracker, and candy formulas and package samples.

Descriptive records for this collection can be found in the Archives Database here and a selection of digitized content from the collection can be viewed online via the Waterloo Digital Library here.

Photo caption: Photograph of John Doerr sitting in the driver’s seat of the Doerr’s Candies delivery car in front of The Gettas Restaurant. Citation: University of Waterloo Libraries. Special Collections & Archives. Dare Foods Limited fonds. C.H. Doerr and Company : Doerr’s Candies delivery car and driver. GA163-31-399.

The Dominion Rubber Company, a division of the Canadian Consolidated Rubber Company based in Montreal, was one of the largest industrial employers in Kitchener-Waterloo during the twentieth century. The company operated the Dominion Tire plant on Strange Street in Kitchener and later became part of Uniroyal. The company played a significant role in the region’s manufacturing growth, producing tires and other rubber products. The Dominion Rubber Company collection in SCA captures the company’s history through photographs, newsletters, administrative records, and other materials related to factory operations, employees, and corporate activities. These records provide insight into both the company’s development and the broader industrial history of the Waterloo Region.

Descriptive records for the Dominion Rubber Company collection can be found in the Archives Database here and a selection of digitized content from the collection can be viewed online via the Waterloo Digital Library here.

Photo caption: Photograph of Dominion Tire employees standing on the factory floor around a large piece of machinery and looking at camera. Left to right: Fred Tremble, Bert Lavigne, Bert Pinnell, unidentified, and Stan Boyes. Citation: University of Waterloo Libraries. Special Collections & Archives. Dominion Rubber Company fonds. Dominion Tire staff. GA335-7-430_016.

These are just two of the many business history collections in SCA at the University of Waterloo! If you would like to speak with SCA staff about these collections or explore them further in person, please find the department’s contact information below. Additional details are available on the Visit SCA page.

Special Collections & Archives

University of Waterloo Libraries

Congratulations to SCA on celebrating 50 years of preserving local heritage this year!

6. AGI Symposium

No, it is not artifical general intelligence, but a new joint symposium between Austria, Germany and Italy - below the description and announcement in German:

AGI-Symposium «Business History in Austria, Germany and Italy» in Rom

Die Gesellschaften für Unternehmensgeschichte in Deutschland (GUG), Italien (ASSI) und Österreich (ÖGU) haben ein gemeinsames Projekt ins Leben gerufen: Das „AustriaGermanyItaly“ (AGI)-Symposium, in dem das Fach Business History im internationalen Kontext diskutiert und weiterentwickelt werden soll. Konkret geht es dabei um eine Darstellung der Forschungsschwerpunkte in den einzelnen Ländern, aber auch um Praxisnähe sowie um Möglichkeiten eines Brückenschlages zwischen Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft. Das erste AGI-Symposium ging am 8./9. April 2026 sehr erfolgreich am Österreichischen Historischen Institut (ÖHI) in Rom über die Bühne. Die ÖGU dankt dem Team des ÖHI rund um Direktor Andreas Gottsmann sehr herzlich für die Gastfreundschaft!

Für 2027 ist nunmehr eine zweite AGI-Ausgabe fixiert, die am 1./2. April in der Deutschen Handelskammer Wien über die Bühne gehen wird.

7. CfP “Trade, insurance and monetary systems in the age of imperialism” [German]

Call for Papers

23. Sitzung des Arbeitskreises Bank- und Versicherungsgeschichte am Freitag, den 27. November 2026 im Hause der ODDO BHF SE, Gallusanlage 8, 60329 Frankfurt am Main

Handel, Versicherung und Zahlungsverkehr im Zeitalter des Imperialismus

Im Zeitalter des europäischen Imperialismus expandierte der internationale Handel in einem bis dahin nicht gekannten Maße und stellte damit nicht nur Kaufleute und Reeder, sondern auch die mit ihnen zusammenarbeitenden Banken und Versicherungen vor wachsende Herausforderungen. Diese betra-fen das erforderliche Wissen über neue Waren und Märkte, über neue Geschäftspartner, ihre jeweili-gen Handelspraktiken, Sprachen und sozialen Konventionen sowie – nicht zuletzt – die Bereitschaft zur Erkundung neuer Handelsrouten über Land und See sowie die Kenntnis der sich unter Umständen rasch wandelnden politischen Rahmenbedingungen. Aber was trieb diesen expandierenden Handel des 19. Jahrhunderts eigentlich an? War es in erster Linie die Initiative und das Gewinnstreben der Kaufleute und Reeder? Welchen Stellenwert besaß die staatliche Handels- und Kolonialpolitik?

In seiner 23. Sitzung möchte der Arbeitskreis Bank- und Versicherungsgeschichte diesen Fragen am Beispiel der Entfaltung des deutschen Handels mit und vor allem auch in Ost- und Südostasien im 19. Jahrhundert genauer nachgehen. Dabei sollen insbesondere die folgenden Aspekte erörtert werden:

▪ Welche Waren wurden von deutschen Kaufleuten und Reedern zu welchen Bedingungen und mit welchen Erträgen im jeweiligen wirtschaftlichen und politischen Umfeld der Länder Ost- und Süd-ostasiens gehandelt? Wie sahen die von ihnen vorgefundenen, veränderten und neu geknüpften Handels- und Schifffahrtsnetzwerke aus?

▪ Wie haben die deutschen Kaufleute und Reeder ihren Handel mit und in Ost- und Südostasien finanziert und versichert? Wie wurde der Zahlungsverkehr mit ihren Geschäftspartnern abgewi-ckelt? Mit welchen Banken haben deutsche Kaufleute und Reeder vor Ort und in Europa bevorzugt zusammengearbeitet?

▪ Welche Zahlungsbilanz- und Währungsprobleme ergaben sich aus dem expandierenden Handel mit und in Ost- und Südostasien? Wie konnten Handels- und Finanzkrisen wie etwa die von 1857 von den beteiligten Handelshäusern bewältigt werden? Welche Rolle spielten dabei die Zentral-banken?

Dieser Call for Papers richtet sich an Historiker:innen, die laufende oder abgeschlossene Forschungs-projekte zum diesem Thema präsentieren wollen. Der Workshop ist für Teilnehmer:innen aller Qualifi-kationsstufen offen, für Doktorand:innen in der Frühphase ihrer Dissertation bis hin zu habilitierten Historiker:innen. Vorschläge zu Vorträgen, die einen oder auch mehrere dieser Aspekte aufgreifen und exemplarisch behandeln, senden Sie bitte inklusive kurzer Angaben zu Ihrer Person (zusam-men etwa eine Textseite) als PDF-Dokument per E-Mail bis zum 17. Juli 2026 an die Ge-schäftsstelle der Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte e.V., zu Händen von Ralph Dieter Tarka, tarka@unternehmensgeschichte.de.

Our introduction to the History Special Issue in the Journal of International Business Studies is finally out (more on the SI later). There are quite a few historical papers and events at the Academy of International Business 2026 conference in Manchester, UK, this week. Also, the Association of Business Historians 2026 conference overlaps with AIB at the end of the week, especially the Doctoral Workshop (programme below) and part of the main conference (programme also below). That’s been slightly inconvenient for me, as I am track chair for research methods at AIB and incoming ABH president, so I am missing my own paper presentation to make it down to Reading from Manchester on Friday. May the gods of traffic smile on me this week…

1. New article alert

Really excited that the introduction for our forthcoming special issue in the Journal of International Business Studies has finally been published! We discuss the areas where IB and historical research differ, and how the two can be brought into closer conversation. The publisher sent me this free link for distribution.

2. AIB 2026 Historical Papers

This year’s Academy of International Business in Manchester offers pretty rich pickings for historians:

The Past, Present, and Future of the Multinational Enterprise: Implications for International Business and Policy

Chair: Jonathan Doh

In honour of the 50th Anniversary of Buckley and Casson’s “The Future of the MNE”

The panel examines which insights from the Future of the Multinational Enterprise are relevant, enduring, and applicable to present day international business and public policy contexts, and those perspectives that require updating, adapting, or abandoning in the present-day global environment. It further projects 50 years into the future, asking what we expect the role of MNEs, governments, and other international organizations to be and how they would compare to the perspectives from the book published a century prior.

Panelists:

• Jonathan Doh, Villanova University

• Peter Buckley, University of Manchester

• Mark Casson, University of Reading

• Sarianna Lundan, Aalto University

• Jun Du, Aston University

Research Methods Qualitative Clinic: Historical Approaches in Management Research

This AIB research methods clinic explores the rich potential of historical methods for advancing management and organizational research. Led by Prof. Stephanie Decker, participants will explore how historical approaches offer unique pathways to theoretical development and empirical insight. Focusing on different approaches to historical research—from using history as an empirical setting to employing historiography as a theoretical resource—the clinic will provide practical methodological insights for international business scholars.

Facilitator:

• Stephanie Decker, University of Birmingham

This session is organized by the AIB Research Methods SIG.

Fellows Café: MNEs and Populist Politics

Fellows Cafés are open to all conference participants. Please join us at this AIB Fellow led small group discussion focused on an IB topic of current and mutual interest.

Participating Fellow(s):

• Klaus Meyer, Western University

Several countries have seen a rise in populist political parties, in some case they attained influence in governments. For MNEs, this changes key aspects of the institutional environment in which they operate. Starting from a historical perspective, the Café will explore the strategic options and ethical challenges MNEs face.

Revisiting the Past to Understand the Future: Archival Research as a Tool for Advancing International Business Scholarship [3.1.6]

Chair: Emmanuella Plakoyiannaki

Revisiting the Past to Understand the Future: Archival Research as a Tool for Advancing International Business Scholarship

• Stephanie Decker, University of Birmingham

• Giulia Galizzi, University of Vienna

• Eriikka Paavilainen-Mäntymäki, University of Turku

Regulation and Technology

Chair: Shengwen Li

Geopolitical Projects Are What MNEs Make of Them: A Social Constructivist Perspective on Interfirm Relations in the Belt and Road Initiative in Africa

• Simon Züfle, Reutlingen University

Geopolitical Strategy of MNEs: Effects of Corporate Governance Institutions

• Chia-Wen Hsu, National Chung Cheng University

• Yung-Chih Lien, National Taiwan University

• Yen-Hsien Lee, Chung Yuan Christian University

Political Stability, Economic Policy Uncertainty, and High-Growth SMEs in Europe

• Ignacio Requejo, University of Salamanca

• Fadi Hawach, Bethlehem University

• Chao Zhang, Northumbria University

Multinational Enterprises and Democratic Reversals

• Stephanie Decker, University of Birmingham

• Marcelo Bucheli, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Thomas DeBerge, Loyola University Chicago

3. ABH 2026 Tony Slaven Doctoral Workshop in Business History

2nd July 2026, in-person only

Henley Business School, University of Reading

8:30-9:00 Registration and welcome

9:00-10:30 Session 1 (Chair: Nicholas Wong, NU)

Paper 1

Jaclyn Hiebert (UoE) - Heritage brands: How history and sustainability influence the brand narrative

Paper 2

Helen Lu (UoB) - Passing the torch: The historical legacy of colonial occupation on modern corporate philanthropy

Paper 3

Olufunke Olawale (UWS) - Between two worlds: Dual embeddedness, kinship trust, and Nigerian diaspora entrepreneurs in the United Kingdom

10:30-11:00 Morning Break

11:00-12:30 Session 2 (Chair: Niamh Brennan, UCD)

Paper 1

Sophia Wigglesworth (UoY) - Responsibilisation in the pre-paid funeral market

Paper 2

Vanessa Pinheiro (UoY, UECE) - The historical organization of DNOCS in light of Historical Organization Studies and critical organizational history

Paper 3

Matthieu Kwasniuk-Zelazny (PSL) - Represent to control: A historico-ethnographic analysis of American managerial institutions in the twentieth century

12:30-13:30 Lunch Break

13:30-14:30 Session 3 (Chair: Richard Marks, Oxf.)

Paper 1

Simon A.C. Martin (UoS) - Brunel – The father of the high-speed railway, reframing the Great Western Railway through a business management lens (1835–1948)

Paper 2

Yasser Alvi (Cantab.) - Infrastructure finance as British geoeconomics: A comparative Study, 1840s–1914

14:30-15:00 Afternoon break

15:00-16:00 Session 4 (Chair: Simon Mollan, UoY)
Paper 1

Qinxian Zhang (UoG) - Comparison of the impact of the EU and the US antitrust laws on M&A strategies of multinational enterprises in the digital economy era

Paper 2

Carlito Junior (UNIRIO) - Merchant and tileworks owner: The firm Bulhões & Faria, credit relations and production at the Fazenda do Anhangá (Estrela, c. 1850–1882)

16:00-17:00 Joint Plenary Session on Academic Publishing

Chair: Lucy Newton (UoR), Former Associate Editor at Business History
Speakers: Adam Nix (UoB), Associate Editor and outgoing Book Reviews Editor at Business History.

Rosie Nix, Managing/ Administrative Editor, Business History

Michael Heller (NU), Editor of numerous special issues, former editor of the Palgrave Macmillan series Debates in Business History

4. ABH2026 Full conference programme

Main Conference Sessions

Parallel Session 1 1A: Archives, histories and approaches

Friday 3rd July 2026, 09.30-11.00 Room: 108; Chair: TBC

1. Who do archives serve? The organization of historical archives through the lens of historical organization studies and critical organizational history – Vanessa Pineiro (State University of Ceará/University of York), Ana Silvia Rocha Ipiranga (State University of Ceará), Gabriele Ferreira (State University of Ceará)

2. Business History in an other form: the Institute for the History of Aluminium (IHA) at the service of Business History - Léa Rémy (Institute for the History of Aluminium)

3. From Memory to Method: Oral History as a Bridge between Theory and Practice in Business History Education – Michaela Tasotti (University of Graz)

1B: Early Modern trade, finance and innovation

Friday 3rd July 2026, 09.30-11.00 Room: G10; Chair: TBC

1. Trade in Luxuries within the British Empire, 1697-1780 – Karolina Hutkova (London School of Economics), Noam Yuchtman (London School of Economics)

2. How did the 18th century businessman Christopher Wilson move money without using banks? – Richard Senior (University of Cambridge)

3. Who wants to be a Millionaire? Bankruptcy and Failure in the Pursuit of Innovation – Joe Lane (University of Reading)

1C: Retail, infrastructure and logistics in the twentieth century

Friday 3rd July 2026, 09.30-11.00 Room: G15; Chair: TBC

1. Motorways, Juggernauts and Supermarkets: The Transformation of British Freight and Retail 1958-1973 – James Fowler (University of Essex), Roy Edwards (University of Southampton)

2. Bricolage Dynamics and Strategic Renewal under prolonged scarcity: The Case of Sun Sun Department Store in wartime Shanghai, 1937–1945 – Guting Shen (University of Birmingham)

3. Managing Knowledge Across Acquired Stores House of Fraser and the Transfer of Tacit Practices – Yamur Gunduz (University of Reading)

Plenary Panel 1

New Directions and New Opportunities: Joint ABH-BAC Spotlight on UK Business Archives

Friday 3rd July 2026, 11.30-13.00

Room: G11; Chairs: Matthew Hollow (University of York); Mike Anson (Bank of England/BAC)

1. Philippa Mole - Head of Archive, The Guardian Foundation

2. Claire Tunstall - Global Head of Art, Archives and Records Management, Unilever

3. Caroline Gould - Principal Archivist, The Museum of English Rural Life and Special Collections, University of Reading

4. Phyllis Macfarlane – Chair of the AMSR’s Content Committee

Parallel Session 2

2A: Risk, trust and tax avoidance

Friday 3rd July 2026, 14.00-15.30 Room: 108; Chair: TBC

1. Asset Management in the Long Run: The Scottish Investment Trust 1888 – 2021 – Graeme Acheson (University of Strathclyde), Gareth Campbell (Queen’s University Belfast) and Patrick Herbst (University of Stirling)

2. Risk Management and Financial Innovation in Pre-WW1 London: The Case of Option Certificates – Dimitris P. Sotiropoulos (The Open University) and Oluwatoyin Dosumu (University of Manchester)

3. Tax Planning, Avoidance and Evasion: Business Profits in World War One Britain – Mark Billings (University of Exeter)

2B: Banks and banking practices across time and space

Friday 3rd July 2026, 14.00-15.30 Room: G10; Chair: TBC

1. New Zealand banking iconography in London: co-creating wealth in the context of colonialism and the British Empire – Billie Lythberg (University of Auckland) and Lucy Newton (Henley Business School)

2. The Bank of England and the rescue of Armstrongs, 1921-1936 – Valerio Cerretano (Università di Firenze)

3. ‘Emerging from the Shadows’, Britain’s Eighteenth-Century Direct Tax System – Amy Stanning (Lancaster University)

2C: The emergence and evolution of industries

Friday 3rd July 2026, 14.00-15.30 Room: G15; Chair: TBC

1. Football industry in Victorian England: a case study of industry emergence – Alessandro Giudice (Bayes Business School), Alessandro Giudici (Bayes Business School) and Paolo Aversa (King’s College London)

2. The Tyneside industrial cluster, 1840-1910: agency and ‘co-operative competition’ – John F. Wilson (Northumbria University) and Mark Stoddart (Northumbria University)

3. Responsibility in the Pre-Paid Funeral Market: 1980-2026 – Sophia Wigglesworth (University of York)

Parallel Session 3

3A: The State and Industrial Policy

Saturday 4th July 2026, 09.00-10.30 Room: 108; Chair: TBC

1. High tech state venture capital in the UK; the National Enterprise Board and Inmos – Leon Gooberman (CardiC University) and Max Munday (CardiC University)

2. License to Fail: The Rise and Fall of Indian Airlines under Postcolonial State Ownership (1953 – 1991) – Hrick Das (Queen’s University Belfast)

3. Varieties of Decolonisation: A Typology of Business-State Relations in Post-Colonial Contexts – Kondwani Happy Ngoma (Stockholm School of Economics) and Emmet Oliver

3B: Banking, finance and policy in the late twentieth century

Saturday 4th July 2026, 09.00-10.30 Room: G10; Chair: TBC

1. Barclays international expansion in Japan in the 1980s – Ian Jones (University of SheCield), Simon Mollan (University of York), and Ayumu Sugawara (Tohoku University)

2. Policy and access to credit: the Commercial Bank of Greece in the 1980s – Virgina-Anastasia Fournari (University of Thessaly)

3. Verifying the role of industrial policy in the development of the British pharmaceutical industry, 1957-1990 – Tom Buckley (University of Sussex) and Andrew Godley (University of Sussex)

3C: Industry during the nineteenth century

Saturday 4th July 2026, 09.00-10.30 Room: G15; Chair: TBC

1. Entrepreneurs and Empires: Role of Business Associations in the Rise and Fall of Sugar Industries in 19th Century Empires – Karolina Hutkova (London School of Economics)

2. Late Entry, Shared Know-how: The Czech Sugar Industry in the Nineteenth Century – Lucie Mařanová (Prague University of Economics and Business)

3. City Bankers, Iron Rails, and the Khedivate: Foreclosing on the Egyptian State Railways – Yasser Alvi (University of Cambridge)

Parallel Session 4

4A: Interdisciplinary connections within Business History

Saturday 4th July 2026, 11.00-13.00 Room: 108; Chair: TBC

1. Acid communism hippie libertarianism? Interpreting the business history of the Grateful Dead – Simon Mollan (University of York)

2. A Five Stage Model of the History of Internal Communication in the United Kingdom – Michael Heller (Newcastle Business School)

3. From under the system to part of the system: workers’ experience of scientific management in the twentieth century – Michael Weatherburn (Imperial College London)

4. Business History in the Mobilities Paradigm: Interdisciplinary Brokerage as Disciplinary Amplification – Simone Fari (Universidad de Granada)

4B: Institutions, regulation and networks

Saturday 4th July 2026, 11.00-13.00 Room: G10; Chair: TBC

1. Nineteenth Century Royal Charters: A Comparative Analysis of Four Charters – Sean Bradley Power (MBS School of Business) and Niamh M. Brennan (University College Dublin)

2. From Acts to Indices: A Policy–Based Measure of State–Business Relations in Britain, 1968–1990 - Maks Ludzinski (London School of Economics)

3. New data on the City-Industry divide debate: networks, financial elites, and industrial connections – Simon Mollan, Phillip Garnett, Chris Corker, Kevin Tennent, (University of York), Mark Billings (University of Exeter)

4C: Entrepreneurship, identities and society

Saturday 4th July 2026, 11.00-13.00 Room: G15; Chair: TBC

1. Gendering Enterprise: Jewish Women’s Social Activism in Early Twentieth-Century – Angelina Palmén (Uppsala University)

2. Sources for the Study of Chilean (Santiago-Based) Women Entrepreneurs in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: Possibilities and Limitations – Cecilia Morán (Universidad San Sebastián)

3. Survivors, Refugees, Entrepreneurs: Jewish Refugee Entrepreneurs in Britain, 1933-1971 – Scott Cairns (Liverpool John Moors University)

4. The failure of social enterprises: a historical analysis of social imprinting vs institutional pressure – Xiaoqing Li (Brunel University of London) and Zoi Pittaki (University of Dundee)

4D: Roundtable on Business History PhDs in the Business School: Interdisciplinary Challenges and Opportunities

Saturday 4th July 2026, 11.00-13.00 Room G11; Chair: Stephanie Decker

1. Beyond Context: How History Produces Theoretical Insight – Yamur Gunduz (Henley Business School)

2. Why History in Business Schools? Reflections from a PhD Researcher – Guting Shen (University of Birmingham Business School)

3. Perspective Taking: Understanding Business History Through A Japanese Lens – Jaclyn Hiebert (University of Exeter Business School)

4. Bridging Methods and Disciplines: A Quantitative Researcher’s Perspective - Hailin Lu (University of Birmingham Business School)

5. Doing Qualitative Business History Research in (an Increasingly Quantitative) Economic History Department – Tom Learmouth (London School of Economics)

6. Title TBC: Jessica Lomas (Henley Business School)

Plenary Panel 2

Business History and the Classroom: Reflections on Historical Informed Education

Saturday 4th July 2026, 14.00-15.30 Room: G11; Chair: Peter Miskell

1. Decolonizing Business History Pedagogy: Critical Perspectives for Learning and Education – Stephanie Decker (University of Brimingham)

2. Responsible Management and Business History: A Missing Conversation? – Adam Nix (University of Birmingham)

3. Business History Education in a STEM University Context – Michael Weatherburn (Imperial College London)

4. Recognising the Value, Purpose and Function of Teaching Cases in Business History – Nicholas Wong (Northumbria University)

History in Organizations now has over 600 subscribers! It never ceases to amaze me — when I started this, I did not think that there would be that many readers for this kind of blog. A big THANK YOU to everybody!

Contents

1. BAM-CABS Guide to running inclusive events

2. New book alert! Global Enterprise in Australia

3. Hagley Center Fellowships and Grants announcement

1. All Welcome Guide to inclusive, accessible and sustainable events

After my rant last week, a colleague and friend reminded me that there are plenty of free resources out there to support people who actually want to run inclusive, accessible and, increasingly, sustainable events. The key one is the brief “All Welcome” guide published jointly by the British Academy of Management and Chartered Association of Business Schools. It’s free to download, just follow the link: https://www.bam.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/inclusive-accessible-and-sustainable-events.html

2. New book alert: Global Enterprise in Australia

Global Enterprise in Australia

International Business Down Under since Federation

By Simon Ville, Pierre van der Eng, André Sammartino, David Merrett, Monica Keneley

ABSTRACT

For two centuries, multinational enterprises (MNEs) have arrived in waves on Australia’s shores. Highly visible and influential household names among them – Ford, IBM, Kodak, Electrolux, ANZ – but also many smaller, lesser-known enterprises. Foreign MNEs in Australia today account for almost half of our top 2,000 firms and control over A$1.4 trillion of assets. There is much we do not understand about these important institutions, why they chose to invest here, how they entered, and why some firms survived for long periods, while others exited.

The history of MNEs, more than most topics, is inextricably connected to international experience. Across half a century of research, their history has emerged as a vibrant field of investigation in North America, Europe, and, increasingly, Asia. MNE activity in Australia, briefly referenced in some of these studies, formed an important part of the global presence of many firms. This is the first history of foreign MNEs in twentieth-century Australia, filling a major gap in the economic and business history literature of Australia and of the history of international business globally. It integrates the important and distinctive Australian experience with an extensive international and comparative scholarship on big business and MNEs.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

International Business in Australia Since Federation

The Contours of Multinational Enterprises and Their FDI in Australia Since 1900

Australia as a Multinational Host

The Evolution of Multinational Enterprise Engagement with Australia

The Design and Management of Australian Subsidiaries

Industry Dynamics

Inside the Enterprise

Conclusion and Prospective

3. Hagley Center Fellowships and Grants announcment

The Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware is pleased to announce the recipients of grants and fellowships awarded April 2026. Please note that the next deadline for applications for the exploratory grant and Henry Belin du Pont is June 30th. Here is the link on Hagley Museum and Library’s website for further info and to apply….https://www.hagley.org/research/grants-fellowships.

Exploratory Grant

Louis Bissieres, Associate Professor, Universite Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle: Banking in the Countryside in the Early Republic

Hsiao-Yun Chu, Professor, San Francisco State University: Exquisite Boredom: Ladies fancy work boots and the birth of the leisure crafts

Charlie Colenutt, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Cambridge: Multinational Contractors and the Political Economy of Anglo-American Imperialism, 1880-1918

Adia Cullors, Ph.D. Candidate, New York University: Black Powder: Medicine and Militancy in the Black Atlantic, 1741-1897

Adam Fertig, Teaching Assistant, NYU: Development’s groundwork: American business and environmental review, 1970s-1990s

Leo Garofalo, Professor, Connecticut College: Coca and Opium Counterpoint: Economic Racialization of Products and Laborers in the Andes

Sofia Grant, Ph.D. Candidate, Johns Hopkins University: Designing for Autoimmune Disease: Universal Design, Patients’ Knowledge, and Embodied Experience in Twentieth Century America

Henry Jacob, Ph.D. Candidate, Yale University: A Corridor of Capitalism: A History of Ships and Shipping through the Panama Canal

Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Ph.D. Candidate, George Washington University: A Global Environmental History of U.S. Space Infrastructure

Kathleen McHugh, Ph.D. Candidate, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill: Home Economics is the Solution to all Your Problems: Home Economics, Feminism, and Activism in Twentieth-Century Americs

Flor Isabel Palomino Arana, Independent scholar: Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Photographers and their Aesthetics, Techniques and Subjects, Peru, Chile and United States

Mariela Pichardo, Yale University: DuPont (China) Inc.

Hannah Scott Deuchar, Senior Lecturer, Queen Mary University of London: The Arabic Typewriter: Toward a Global History

Andrew David Allan Smith, Associate Professor, Birmingham Business School: Federalizing the Quarter: SEC Reporting Rules and the Rise of Shareholder Primacy of the 1970s

Patrick Sullivan, Assistant Professor, Texas A&M University: Signal by Signal

H.B. du Pont Fellowship

Peter Astras, Assistant Teaching Professor, Syracuse University: The Life and Mind of Hudson Maxim

Jasper Cattell, Ph.D. Candidate, Brown University: The World Without Work? The Regulatory Politics of the Work/Environment Divide

Nida Kadayifci, Ph.D. Candidate, Harvard University: The Small Business Smokescreen: A Historiographical intervention into Employment Law Exemptions through Family and Medical leave Act, 1984-`993

Anca Lasc, Associate Professor, Pratt College: Toward a Unified Aesthetic of Window Design--the Art, Science, and Business Venture of Window Dressing at the turn of the Twentieth Century

Jonathan Robins, Associate Professor, Michigan Technological University: Forgotten Fibers: Biomaterials in Industry before and after Synthetics

Yen Nie Yong, Senior Lecturer, Kyoto University: Unnaturally Caring: Shaping Female Bodies for Service Labor in Southeast Asia

Brandywine Dissertation Fellowship

Charlotte Leib, Ph.D. Candidate, Yale University: An Environmental and Energy History of the New Jersey Meadowlands

Exploratory Grants

Hagley Exploratory Research Grants

These grants support one-week visits by scholars who believe that their project will benefit from Hagley research collections, but need the opportunity to explore them on-site to determine if a Henry Belin du Pont Fellowship application is warranted. Priority will be given to junior scholars with innovative projects that seek to expand on existing scholarship. Applicants should reside more than 50 miles from Hagley, and the stipend is $400. Application deadlines: March 31, June 30 and October 31

Henry Belin du Pont Fellowships

These research grants enable scholars to pursue advanced research and study in the collections of the Hagley Library. They are awarded for the length of time needed to make use of Hagley collections for a specific project. The stipends are for a maximum of eight weeks and are pro-rated at $400/week for recipients who reside further than 50 miles from Hagley, and $200/week for those within 50 miles. Application deadlines: March 31, June 30 and October 31

The Brandywine Dissertation Fellowships

Brandywine Dissertation Fellowship is designed for graduate students who are actively working on their dissertation. A residential fellowship for three to four months duration, it provides $10,000 and free housing on Hagley’s grounds along with an office and other amenities. Brandywine Dissertation fellows are expected to work at Hagley at least four days weekly and to participate in events organized by Hagley’s Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society.

We invite applications from Ph.D. candidates whose research on important historical questions uses Hagley’s research collections. Applications should demonstrate superior intellectual quality, present a persuasive methodology, and show that the dissertation makes significant use of Hagley research materials. Research in Hagley’s collections may take place prior to the fellowship residency. Potential applicants are strongly encouraged to consult with Hagley reference staff at askHagley@Hagley.org prior at to submitting their dossier.

Application Deadline: March 31

It’s like Groundhog Day – it feels like it was only yesterday (actually it was 2024) that the AOM Management History Division featured three men-only panels. And they are at it again – not sure why I am even surprised; same cast of characters. (Just to be clear, I admire the work of these individuals, which frankly makes this way more disappointing.) I‘m sure they tried (I was asked, but I’m not going – see the FT) and many people are not going to AOM this year, especially from overseas. But this also suggests that there are apparently barely any senior women in the field in the US. Let that sink in and what that says about this field. Because it is all nice and well that I am (yet again) the only one making a point of calling out what is a largely unacceptable practice elsewhere in academia. (I know that some male colleagues in sociology refuse to join male-only panels as a matter of course. At BAM, we have clear policies on this, and a PDW like this would simply not have been accepted.) But it’s not about me being pissed off. It’s about historical research in management looking to all intents and purposes like a retrograde field where you go when the modern world is a bit too much for you. Anyway, info under point 1, and I added a Hoff for you. More excitingly, we have a new CfP on Indigenous Entrepreneurship in Business History, and the next BAM MBH Publishing Historical Research seminar has been announced for 1 October – this time we are talking to Dr Anastasia Sergeeva, University of Bath, about her work on Magnum Photos.

Contents

1. Yet another Manel at AOM MH Division

2. SI CfP for Business History

3. NEW MBH Publishing seminar announced 1 October

1. Another Manel at AOM

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: AOM 2026 PDW

Developing Theory from Historical Research

Sponsors: MH, OMT, TIM, STR, RM

Saturday, Aug 01, 2026 from 8:00 AM to 10:30 AM ET

Submission Deadline: Friday, July 17, 2026

Who is this PDW for?

If you are:

engaged in (or interested in) conducting research with historical data, and doing inductive/abductive (i.e. theory-building) work, and hoping to publish your work in top management journals then this is the PDW for you!

Overview

This PDW brings together a distinguished panel of scholars to stimulate an interactive and developmental exchange on conducting inductive research using historical data. Our core focus will be on the theory-building / theoretical contribution part of the research process – how do we understand the past to inform the present? How do we move from the setting being studied to higher-level conceptualisations, while maintaining a balance between generalisation and contextualization?

Importantly, our aim will be to focus on these questions from a practical standpoint, taking away useful advice that scholars can adopt in their research practices. And for those of you who have the opportunity to discuss ongoing projects with the panelists, you will also get tailored advice for your specific projects.

Panelists

· David Kirsch, University of Maryland

· Andrew Nelson, University of Oregon

· Ryan Raffaelli, Harvard Business School

· Roy Suddaby, University of Victoria

Organizer: Rohin Borpujari, University College London

Structure

1. Panel Talk and Group Q&A: For the first part of the PDW, our panelists will lead exchanges around topics such as which research questions are best suited to historical case studies; how to balance the needs for contextualization vs. generalization in theorizing; how to write up a historical case study for publication in management journals, etc.

2. Roundtables and Individual Feedback: Pre-selected participants will have the opportunity to engage in quick, entrepreneur-style “pitches” to the experts (separated into 4 different roundtables), with a view to receiving developmental feedback specific to their projects.

Each participant will have 20 minutes in total – 10 minutes to describe their project (or project idea) and what areas they would like feedback on, and 10 minutes to receive feedback / engage in discussion with the expert.

How to Apply

Part 1 is open to all attendees and does not require any application in advance.

For Part 2, in order to ensure quality interactions with panelists, we are limiting the number of “pitches” to 16 (i.e. 4 per panelist). If you are interested in receiving feedback on a project that you are currently working on, please submit your interest to r.borpujari@ucl.ac.uk by 11:59 pm ET (Eastern Time) on Friday July 17, 2025.

Specifically, please submit an abstract or overview of your project, including two questions that you would like to ask the panelists to receive feedback about that project. Please keep this document limited to 1 page, single-spaced, in PDF format.

In addition, in your email, please rank order your preference for which panellist roundtable you would like to be a part of (with the number “1” referring to your first choice panellist and “4” referring to your fourth choice panellist).

Note: In addition to the 1-page abstract, you may, if you wish, submit a theoretical model or diagram that you are working on in case your project is at a more advanced stage and you would like comments on the theoretical model you are building.

If you have any questions about the PDW or the application process, please feel free to reach out at r.borpujari@ucl.ac.uk

------------------------------

Rohin Borpujari

UCL - University of London

LONDON

2. Special Issue for Business History

Indigenous Entrepreneurship under Colonialism and Beyond:

Institutional Negotiation, Exclusion and Resilience

CFP Launch Date: 1 June 2026

Overview

This Special Issue examines Indigenous entrepreneurial agency under colonial rule, treating colonial institutions as both economic constraints and sociopolitical structures that shaped market access, legal standing and accumulation strategies. Defining Indigenous peoples is challenging given their diversity and presence across every continent. Scholars have nonetheless identified a number of broadly shared characteristics, including prior inhabitation of a territory before the arrival of later settler or dominant populations, some form of subjugation by those populations, the retention of distinct socio-cultural practices and institutions, a deep attachment to ancestral lands and resources, economic arrangements that are often, though not always, oriented around subsistence, and an association with distinctive languages (Peredo et al., 2004, pp. 5–6).

We invite business historical accounts of how entrepreneurs in colonised societies navigated, contested and reworked the rules of commerce, especially where access to courts, licensing, property rights, banking and credit markets was restricted or selectively enforced. Building on recent scholarship calling for a rethinking of entrepreneurship (Lubinski et al., 2025), growing attention to Indigenous and social entrepreneurship in the Global South (Colbourne, Peredo, & Henriques, 2024; Prouchet, 2025), and calls to engage more directly with colonial and postcolonial contexts and legacies in business history (Austin, Dávila, & Jones, 2017; MacKenzie et al., 2021, 2023; Decker, 2022), the Special Issue brings institutions and agency into the same analytical frame.

Objectives and Scope

Submissions should engage one or more of the following questions:

• Entrepreneurship under legal and financial exclusion: How did Indigenous entrepreneurs respond to constraints in courts, licensing, taxation, banking, property rights, labour regimes and credit markets? Relevant submissions might examine colonial courts, licensing, taxation and property rights as constraints or resources for Indigenous enterprise; financial exclusion and entrepreneurial responses through credit markets, banking, informal and hybrid finance; and the emergence of early Indigenous entrepreneurial projects and their historical significance in the context of colonialism and beyond.

• Institutional negotiation and boundary work: How did entrepreneurial actors exploit institutional gaps, navigate plural legal orders, reinterpret colonial rules, and/or mobilise intermediaries and brokers? Submissions might address entrepreneurial boundary work across plural legal orders; and brokerage and intermediation in the politics of market access, including gender, race, caste and ethnicity as cross-cutting dimensions.

• Resilience as strategy: What specific mechanisms sustained enterprise under constraint and with what distributive consequences? Submissions might explore cooperative, mutual-aid and associational forms as economic strategy in late-colonial settings; diasporic, kinship and inter-regional networks in trade, production and credit under colonial regulation; and moments of late-colonial economic nationalism and early decolonisation (c. 1940s–1970) as sites of institutional reconfiguration.

• Innovation as resistance: What were the mechanisms of technology adoption and adaptation through which entrepreneurs offered alternatives that subverted or circumvented colonial hegemony? Relevant submissions might, for example, address technology, innovation and entrepreneurial market response in early and late industrial colonial capitalism (1880–1940), as well as comparative or connected histories that explicitly engage the shared conceptual lens across cases.

Methodologically, we welcome submissions grounded in business historical approaches, including archival research, oral history, biography, microhistory, and comparative or connected history, that make clear empirical and interpretive contributions to the Special Issue’s themes. Engagement with postcolonial scholarship, subaltern studies, and critical perspectives on firms, markets and institutions is welcome, but not required.

We particularly encourage contributions that draw on a wide range of primary sources to recover Indigenous actors, experiences and strategies, such as company records, court records, licensing files, banking archives, trading accounts, petitions, newspapers and vernacular-language materials. Authors wishing to discuss unconventional sources or strategies for overcoming archival silences are warmly invited to contact the guest editors.

Timeline

Informal enquiries welcome: June-September 2026

Abstract / proposal deadline (800–1,000 words): 1 October 2026

Decisions on abstracts: 1 November 2026

Paper-development workshop(s): Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University

Full paper submission deadline: 1 May 2027

First-round peer-review decisions: September 2027

Revised paper deadline: 1 February 2028

Final revision deadline: 1 May 2028

Final acceptance target: June 2028

Expected online publication and launch: Autumn 2028

Expected print publication: Early to mid-2029

References

Austin, G., Dávila, C., & Jones, G. (2017). The alternative business history: Business in emerging markets. Business History Review, 91(3), 537–569.

Colbourne, R., Peredo, A.M., & Henriques, I. (2024). Indigenous entrepreneurship? Setting the record straight. Business History, 66(2), 455–477.

Decker, S. (2022). Postcolonial transition and global business history: British multinational companies in Ghana and Nigeria. Routledge.

Lubinski, C., Prouchet, L., Ferri, C., Jepsen, N.C. & Lei, W. (2025). Rethinking the histories and ideologies of entrepreneurship. Management & Organizational History. Online First.

MacKenzie, N.G., Perchard, A., Miller, C., & Forbes, N. (2021). Business–government relations and national economic models. Business History, 63(8), 1239–1252.

MacKenzie, N.G., Perchard, A., Miller, C., & Forbes, N. (Eds.) (2023). Varieties of capitalism over time. Routledge.

Peredo, A.M., Anderson, R.B., Galbraith, C.S., Honig, B., & Dana, L.P. (2004). Towards atheory of indigenous entrepreneurship. International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 1(1/2), 1–20.

Prouchet, L. (2025). Connecting the dots: Business history research on social entrepreneurship in the Global South. Business History. Online First.

Submission Requirements

Authors are invited to submit an extended abstract or proposal for initial consideration. Submissions should be approximately 800–1,000 words and clearly set out the article’s research question, historical scope (including timeframe and location), sources and methodology, and anticipated contribution to the literature. Please also provide a tentative title, author name(s), affiliation(s), and contact information.

Proposals should be sent by 1 October 2026 to himadri@xlri.ac.in, with the other editors copied in: marktadajewski@gmail.com, andrew.perchard@otago.ac.nz, and zpittaki001@dundee.ac.uk. The email subject line should read: “CFP – Indigenous Entrepreneurship under Colonialism and Beyond Special Issue.”

Formatting and Length: Final papers should adhere to Business History guidelines (typically in the range of 8,000–10,000 words, including notes and references). Authors will be provided detailed instructions for manuscript preparation upon acceptance of proposals. We welcome informal inquiries if you have questions about the fit of a topic or the preparation of your proposal. All articles will be submitted through the Submission Portal for the journal in order to be peer-reviewed before acceptance for publication.

Guest Editors

Himadri Roy Chaudhuri, Ph.D. in Marketing (University of Calcutta, India) is Professor of Marketing and Consumer Culture at the Xavier School of Business (XLRI), India. Dr. Chaudhuri has published widely in leading international journals, including the Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Macromarketing, Journal of Consumer Affairs, Journal of Homosexuality, and the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, among others. His scholarship contributes to critical perspectives in marketing, often bridging cultural theory, ethics and policy concerns.

Mark Tadajewski, Ph.D. in Marketing (University of Leicester), is Honorary Professor of Marketing at the University of York, Visiting Professor at the Open University, and Visiting Professor at Royal Holloway, University of London. His research critically interrogates the foundations of marketing theory and practice, with particular attention on how geopolitics shape the discipline. In business history, his work has examined alternative forms of business education and their influence on sales and managerial practice.

Andrew Perchard, PhD in History (University of Strathclyde) is Honorary Research Professor at Otago Business School, Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka / University of Otago, Dunedin, Aotearoa–New Zealand, and Visiting Professor, Birkbeck, University of London, and Honorary Visiting Professor, Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, both UK. His research has focused particularly on the subject of business–government relations and corporate political activity, deglobalisation and globalisation, as well as regional development and energy and industrial policy.

Zoi Pittaki, PhD in Economic History (University of Glasgow) is a Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Dundee School of Business. Her research interests include entrepreneurship and institutions, entrepreneurship and growth, social entrepreneurship and historical institutionalism.

3. Publishing Historical Research in Management Journals 4

Staged by the BAM Management and Business History Special Interest Group

10am – 11.30am BST1 October 2026

Description

Join us for our next MBH webinar on publishing historical research in top journals in management and business history! This interactive event will feature scholars who share their experiences of successfully positioning their historical work for key journals. Participants will have the opportunity to learn more about how to develop approaches and strategies for publishing in top journals and build knowledge and skills around how to position historical research in management and business history journals.

We will be joined by Dr Anastasia Sergeeva, whose research focuses on entrepreneurial reasoning and value-laden aspects of innovating and organizing.

Her co-authored article in the Strategic Management Journal is available open access here: https://sms.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smj.3727 Please read the article in advance of the webinar for an in-depth discussion with the author and other participants.

Provider Information

BAM Management and Business History Special Interest Group

Who Should Attend?

The event speaks to Sections A1 and A2, as detailed in the BAM Framework.

Speakers

Dr Anastasia Sergeeva

Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor), University of Bath School of Management

Guting Shen

PhD Student, University of Birmingham

Facilitator

Professor Stephanie Decker

Professor of Strategy, Birmingham Business School

Dr Nicholas Wong

SIG Co-Chair

Dr Anna Spadavecchia

SIG Co-Chair

Benefits of attending

• Develop strategies to publish historical research;

• Build knowledge and skills how to position work for different types of journals;

• Gain deeper insights into review and editorial processes.

Contact

Please contact the BAM Office at eventsandcommunications@bam.ac.uk with any queries.

Event Fee

BAM Members and Student Members: Free
Non-Members: £60

If you are booking multiple paid events as a Non-Member, it may be cheaper for you to purchase a BAM Membership as nearly all BAM Events are free or at a discounted rate for Members.

For more information about Becoming a BAM Member, please visit BAM Membership

Registration closes on 30th September 2026 at 23:59 BST

This week’s catch up features a campaign update regarding the campaign to ensure researcher access to the BBC Written Archives Centre (not looking too good), table of contents for the most recent issue of Business History, and some interesting journalistic takes on organizational history in Management Today and the Financial Times. We close with some forthcoming events and calls for contributions.

Contents

1. BBC Written Archives Centre Campaign Update

2. New issue of Business History out now: Volume 68, Issue 3

3. Historical topics in the press

4. Events and calls for papers

BBC Written Archives Centre Campaign Update

This is the latest update from the BBC Written Archives Centre Campaign.

We recently submitted evidence to the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. Our contribution is an abbreviated version of the previous submission to DCMS with minor updates. You can read it here and we understand it will be published by the Committee at a later stage. We hope that its message of strengthening the Charter and Framework Agreement will be reflected in their final report.

Our campaign is now focused on the Parliamentary process of the Charter Review, but we remain in conversation with the BBC. A number of users attended the newstyled ‘information sharing session’ on 20 March. BBC representatives trailed the April release of files, but due to their rather esoteric nature it seems the press office was less keen on promotion. As expected it is a smaller selection than December’s release - c.800 compared to c.50,000 - and is outlined here.

The BBC has now made clear they have no intention of publishing even a basic list of the 50,000 files released just before Christmas. This is a truly baffling position, especially when there must have been a list made in order to do the release in the first place.

The government has published a new strategic vision for archives, commissioned from the National Archives. It is a modest but welcome document, and John Wyver in a recent blog considers how the WAC measures up against this new yardstick. We were pleased to see the Royal Historical Society promote this blog to its followers on Bluesky.

We have had some coverage lately including Times Higher Education and its follow up in the Times newspaper itself. Even the local BBC service is getting in on the act.

As ever, we are happy to hear from you if you need advice on using WAC during these challenging times, or if you just have an idea about how to advance the campaign. Collaborations with concerned organisations are particularly welcome.

With best wishes

Ian Greaves, Dr Kate Murphy and Professor John Wyver

Business History, Volume 68, Issue 3

Research Articles

Management and social order in ancient India

Jim Rooney & Vijaya Murthy

Convenience store retailing – The embedding of a new approach in the British retail landscape

Andrew Alexander

Ireland in a Danish mirror: A microlevel comparison of the productivity of Danish and Irish creameries before the First World War

Eoin McLaughlin, Paul Sharp, Xanthi Tsoukli & Christian Vedel

Freedom of contract and company freedom. Corporate governance in Norway, 1890–1930

Knut Sogner & Victoria Ciobanu Austveg

An entrepreneurial turf war: Travel agencies, ICEM, and the migration industry since the 1950s

Ioannis Limnios-Sekeris

From imposition to concession, from compliance to resistance: Creating a Harvard Business School clone in a Turkish university, 1954–1965

Behlül Üsdiken

Colonial capitalisation and business investment in the Federated Malay States in the interwar years

Mohd Shazwan Mokhtar

Why are corporations terminated? A century of evidence from the Netherlands

Christopher L. Colvin, Abe de Jong, Philip T. Fliers & Florian Madertoner

Kneeling to violent men: Investors and insurrection in Imperial Russia

Christopher A. Hartwell

Book Review

Bankrolling Empire: Family Fortunes and Political Transformation in Mughal India

By Sudev Sheth. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2024, xxiii + 353 pp., 22 figures (hardback) ISBN 9781009330268

Michael O’Sullivan

Playing the Percentages: How Film Distribution Made the Hollywood Studio System

By Derek Long, Austin, University of Texas Press, 2024, 296, photos, $55.00 (print), ISBN 9781477328941; $55 (epub), ISBN 9781477328965

Peter Miskell

Small, medium, large: How government made the U.S. into a manufacturing powerhouse

By Colleen A. Dunlavy, Polity Press, Cambridge UK and Hoboken NJ, 2024, pp. xiii 226, £25.00, ISBN 13 9781509561735 (hardback); £17.99 ISBN 9781509561728

Leslie Hannah

Business Power and the State in the Central Andes: Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru in Comparison

by John Crabtree, Francisco Durand, and Jonas Wolff, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 2023, xiv + 265 pp, £29.50 (paperback), ISBN 978-0822947899

Edwin Lopez-Rivera

Management Today 60th Anniversary

Management Today publishes a piece on the history management featuring a veritable roll call of mostly UK-based business historians — check it out here.

In the FT, Soumaya Keynes explores whether economic history demonstrates that deeper economic links mean that war is less likely.

Gift article

Upcoming events and call for papers

Workshop. “Mujeres en la Historia de la Economía y la Empresa” || “Women in the History of Economics and Business” Badajoz (Spain) (hybrid), 15 - 16 October 2026, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Universidad de Extremadura. CFP deadline is May 30 2026.

Networks of Creative Persuasion in Advertising and Marketing — Conference at the Hagley Library, November 6, 2026. Submit proposals of no more than 500 words and a one-page C.V. to Carol Lockman at clockman@Hagley.org.

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Contents

1. News briefing: Scholars urge BBC to rethink changes to archive access

2. Job Advert: 2 Postdoctoral Positions in the Global History of Rubber

3. Announcement: 16th OAP Workshop announces keynote speaker

Scholars urge BBC to rethink changes to archive access

Historians say their ability to study material held in ‘mother lode of all 20th-century archives’ diminished by long suspension of vetting requests

Full article in Times Higher Education.

Call for Applicants: 2 Postdoctoral Positions in the Global History of Rubber

The Institute of History at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) is recruiting 2 postdoctoral researchers for the ERC Consolidator Grant Project ‘WILDHIST – Wild Rubber in the Industrial Age: A Global History of Production’, led by Dr. David Pretel.

Postdoc 1. The history of rubber production in the Amazon rainforest.
Postdoc 2. The history of rubber production in the Congo Basin.

Please send your application to david.pretel@csic.es and andrea.yanez@csic.es

Project Description

The Project WILDHIST aims to offer a comprehensive, multi-sited and multi-scale global history of wild rubber production during the industrial age. It investigates the hypothesis that wild rubber industries in the tropical rainforests of Africa and Latin America were key sites in the broader dynamics of industrialisation and scientific research from the early 19th century to the Second World War, forming an integral part of the era’s expanding global networks of knowledge exchange. The project moves beyond plantations to focus on wild production and smallholders’ cultivation in rainforests, emphasizing production processes rather than consumption or trade, and placing much stronger emphasis on the study of exploration, extraction, processing, transportation, experimentation, and manufacturing than has been typical of historical research on rainforest commodities.

WILDHIST combines an analysis of contrasting non-plantation histories of rubber production in the Amazon, Congo Basin and so-called Maya Forest with broader histories of transnational interaction. The project rethinks and rewrites the global history of wild rubber by systematically and critically exploring a rich array of written, visual and oral sources located throughout the world. Its trans-local, interdisciplinary, comparative, digital and visual methodology will provide a comprehensive historical account of how rubber was transformed into commodities and then final goods for local, regional or global markets. Beyond academia, WILDHIST contributes to discussions about bioprospecting, sustainability and labour in rainforests. To address the challenge of writing more inclusive histories of science, technology, and industrialisation, the project also considers collective memory as represented in museums, material culture, and industrial heritage.

The project has three objectives:
1) Studying the actors, techniques, skills, knowledge and relations of production at rainforests’ rubber frontiers;
2) Reconstructing, mapping and analysing the transnational chains of rubber production, including networks of science and expertise;
3) Exploring the visual representation of rubber production throughout the world using tools of digital and spatial humanities.

https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101171213

Requirements

Research Field
History

Education Level
PhD or equivalent

Skills/Qualifications

• PhD in history, history of science, economic history or associated fields (Latin American studies, African studies, science and technology studies, anthropology, digital humanities), and a strong interest in the project.

• Good command of written and spoken English and, depending on research specialisation, Portuguese, Spanish and/or French.

• Be based in Madrid for the duration of the project.

• Expected to publish articles, book chapters, and/or a book manuscript / edited volume.

• Ability to collaborate within a team and to work independently

Languages
ENGLISH, good level

Research Field
History

Additional Information

Benefits

• A three-year contract (full-time).
• A gross salary of 43,827 EUR.
• A fully equipped workspace at the Institute of History.
• Funding for research-related purposes, participation in international conferences, and organisation of events.
• Mentorship in applying for tenure-track and tenure positions at CSIC.

Additional comments

HOW TO APPLY:
Your application must include the following documents:
• Motivation letter (1 page).
• Research proposal outlining the work you would undertake while on the WILDHIST project (1 page).
• Curriculum Vitae.
• Writing sample: PhD thesis, article or book chapter.

Please send your application to david.pretel@csic.es and andrea.yanez@csic.es
Application deadline: 24 April 2026.

16th OAP Workshop announces keynote speaker

Dear colleagues,

We are delighted to announce that Professor Andrew Pickering will be the opening keynote speaker of the 16th OAP Workshop, taking place on June 3–4, 2026 at CBS.

This year’s edition promises to be particularly rich and engaging, featuring two panels, three keynote lectures, around sixty presentations, and dedicated sessions for the 10th Dauphine Philosophy Workshop (program online very soon). OAP 2026 will once again bring together a vibrant international community to discuss cutting-edge research across a wide range of topics.

We warmly invite you to register and secure your participation via the following link:
https://www.tilmeld.dk/oap2026

In addition, we are pleased to highlight a special pre-event that will take place on June 2 at the French Embassy in Copenhagen: the first GeoHos Workshop. This event will focus on historical and geopolitical perspectives and theories of organizations. Registration is open and free, and can be completed here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdYGOecxcRSV2oRCt2_KbWwYydLWQq0NYCmlZKsO_6wcEJqIw/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=100923006067412553031

We very much hope to see many of you in Copenhagen for these exciting events.

Best regards,

The OC of OAP 2026

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