Contents
Kroos Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History (BHC)
CfP ASSI Annual Conference in Palermo, Italy
Hagley and Gomory Prizes - call for submissions
1. Call for Nominations: Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History
The Business History Conference invites nominations and self-nominations for the Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History, one of the BHC’s longest-running awards for emerging scholars.
The prize recognizes an outstanding dissertation in business history and carries a $500 award and plaque. Dissertations written in English and completed during the three calendar years immediately preceding the BHC Annual Meeting are eligible. A dissertation may be considered for the prize only once. Nominations may come from advisors, departments, colleagues, or the authors themselves.
The Krooss Prize has recognized scholars whose work has gone on to shape the field. Recent recipients include Lillian Tsay (Brown University, 2026), for Sweetening the Empire: Sugar and Western-style Confectionery in Modern Japan and Taiwan; Pablo Federico Pryluka (2025), for Developing Consumers: A History of Wants and Needs in Postwar South America; and Ellen Nye (2024), for Empires of Obligation: Law, Money, and Debt between England and the Ottoman Empire, 1670-1720. Earlier winners include Ghassan Moazzin, Gerardo Con Diaz, Rachel Gross, Caitlin Rosenthal, Louis Hyman, Bethany Moreton, and Christopher McKenna, among many others.
Selected finalists are invited to present their dissertations in the Herman E. Krooss Dissertation Session at the BHC Annual Meeting, giving emerging scholars an opportunity to introduce their research to the international business history community. The prize committee selects a shortlist from the initial nominations, reads the semifinalists’ dissertations, and chooses up to five finalists for the annual meeting.
For the 2026-27 cycle, the committee is chaired by Ellen Nye, Purdue University.
The nomination deadline is November 14. Nominations consist of a cover letter, dissertation abstract, and the author’s CV and may be submitted through the BHC website.
2. ASSI 2026 CONFERENCE
TOURISM, BUSINESS AND TERRITORIES: HISTORICAL TRAJECTORIES AND LOCAL DEVELOPMENT
UNIVERSITY OF PALERMO, 13–14 NOVEMBER
Call for papers
The relationship between business and the local area is particularly significant in the tourism industry. In tourism, economic value does not arise solely within in-dividual businesses but takes shape through a combination of tangible and intan-gible resources: landscapes, cultural heritage, infrastructure, professional skills, place reputations, service networks, relationships with local communities, and the governance capacity of destinations. Tourism competitiveness is therefore the re-sult of a territorial co-production involving accommodation providers, catering, transport, intermediaries, cultural and creative services, destination management organizations, public institutions, digital enterprises, associations, and residents. The classic categories of external economies and territorial proximity, from Mar-shall onwards, remain useful tools for understanding local tourism supply chains today. At the same time, the concepts of embeddedness, social capital, social capabilities, and ecosystem allow us to view tourism as a field of relationships in which cooperation and competition, local roots and international openness, local heritage and global markets are constantly intertwined. In destinations, the suc-cess of an individual business often depends on the quality of the local system as a whole; conversely, the local area is transformed by business decisions, invest-ments, consumption patterns, and tourism development policies.
In recent years, the tourism industry has undergone profound transformations: the digitalisation of distribution channels, online platforms, data-driven destination management, artificial intelligence, new forms of hospitality, changes in mobility, the reconfiguration of value chains, the centrality of the experience, seasonal work and new skills, pressure on natural and cultural resources, climate crises, over-tourism, seasonality reduction and a growing demand for sustainability, authen-ticity, accessibility and inclusion. These phenomena require us to rethink the re-lationship between tourism businesses, local communities, and regional policies. The ASSI 2026 conference aims to discuss the role of the tourism industry in the processes of growth, transformation, and competitiveness of territories, with a particular focus on businesses and destination ecosystems. Contributions from historical, economic, business, sociological, geographical, and interdisciplinary perspectives are welcome, analysing tourism as an industry rooted in specific
places yet simultaneously connected to global markets, flows and platforms. The venue in Palermo, with its rich cultural, economic, and landscape heritage, offers a particularly significant setting for exploring the relationships between heritage, hospitality, entrepreneurship and local development.
Conference objectives
The conference aims to promote a discussion on tourism as a complex territorial industry, capable of generating economic value but also of impacting landscapes, communities, employment, infrastructure, local identities and models of sustain-ability. The aim is to bring together research that places businesses, destinations and institutional contexts, investigating historical continuities, recent transfor-mations and future prospects of the tourism economy.
Themes and research areas
By way of example and without limitation, contributions on the following themes will be particularly welcome:
• History of tourism enterprises, local roots, local networks and internationali-sation processes;
• History of hospitality, hotel and non-hotel accommodation, catering, events and new service models;
• History of cultural, landscape, seaside, spa, food and wine, conference, cruise, religious and inland tourism;
• History and management of cultural and natural heritage, place enhancement, authenticity, heritage management and place branding;
• History of tourism employment (skills, training, seasonality, gender, inclusion and quality of employment);
• History of infrastructure
• resilience of destinations in the face of health, climate, geopolitical and eco-nomic crises;
• finance, property, hotel chains, family businesses, property investment and ur-ban regeneration;
• History of tourism, long-term trajectories of destinations and transformations in travel practices;
• resident communities, conflicts of use, participation, social acceptability and the distribution of tourism benefits from a historical perspective.
Expected approaches and contributions
We welcome theoretical, empirical, comparative, historical and methodological contributions based on case studies, quantitative analyses, business archives, sta-tistical sources, qualitative surveys, territorial mapping, network analysis and in-terdisciplinary research. The conference also encourages session proposals that foster dialogue between scholars of business history, economics, management, sociology, geography, urban studies, heritage studies and tourism studies.
Keywords
tourism industry; hospitality; destinations; destination management; territorial competitiveness; sustainability; digital transformation; smart tourism; cultural heritage; entrepreneurship; territorial ecosystems; local communities; innovation; tourism employment; resilience.
Conference languages
The conference will be held in Italian and English.
How to submit proposals
Proposals for individual presentations, consisting of an abstract of approximately 2,000 characters and a CV, or proposals for sessions, consisting of the session title, names, CVs and abstracts of the participants, must be submitted by 1 Sep-tember 2026 to the following address: segreteria@assi-web.it. The Organising and Scientific Committee will consider session proposals that include no fewer than three and no more than four speakers. Decisions will be communicated by 15 September 2026.
Speakers of accepted papers must submit a paper of 40,000–50,000 characters or a long abstract of 8,000–10,000 characters by 30 October 2026.
Participation
Attendance at the conference is free for ASSI members who have paid their mem-bership fee for 2026. For non-members, the registration fee is €50.
Organising and Scientific Committee
Luciano Segreto (chair), Patrizia Battilani, Marco Bertilorenzi, Veronica Binda (secretary), Valerio Cerretano, Mario Perugini (secretary), Roberto Rossi, Mar-cantonio Ruisi, Fernando Salsano, Donatella Strangio.
3. Hagley and Gomory Prizes by Hagley Library and Museum
Hagley Prize
Hagley Museum and Library and the Business History Conference are pleased to announce the 2026 winners of the Hagley Prize: James Michael Buckley, University of Oregon, for his book, City of Wood: San Francisco and the Architecture of the Redwood Lumber Industry, University of Texas Press, 2024 and Ana María Otero-Cleves, University of York, for her book, Plebian Consumers: Global Connections, Local Trade, and Foreign Goods in Nineteenth-Century Colombia, Cambridge University Press, 2025. Hagley Museum and Library and the Business History Conference jointly offer the Hagley Prize awarded to the best book in Business History (broadly defined) and consists of an award of $2,500. The prize was awarded at the Business History Conference annual meeting held in London, UK, March 26-28, 2026.
The prize committee encourages the submission of books from all methodological perspectives. It is particularly interested in innovation studies that have the potential to expand the boundaries of the discipline. Scholars, publishers, and other interested parties may submit nominations. Eligible books can have either an American or an international focus. They must be written in English and be published during the two years (2025 or 2026 copyright) prior to the award.
Four copies of a book (no digital copies please) must accompany a nomination and be submitted to the prize coordinator, Carol Ressler Lockman, Hagley Museum and Library, PO Box 3630, 298 Buck Road, Wilmington DE 19807-0630, Email: clockman@hagley.org.
The deadline for nominations is November 30, 2026. The 2027 Hagley Prize will be presented at the annual meeting of the Business History Conference to be held in Mexico City, March 18-20, 2027.
Gomory Prize
The 2026 Ralph Gomory Prize of the Business History Conference was awarded to Katherine Parkin, Monmouth University, for her book, The Abortion Market: Buying and Selling Access in the Era Before Roe, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025, at the Business History Conference held in London, UK March 26-28,2026.
The Ralph Gomory Prize for Business History (made possible by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation) recognizes historical work on the effect business enterprises have on the economic conditions of a country in which they operate. A $5,000 prize is awarded annually. Eligible books are written In English and published two years (2025 or 2026 copyright) prior to the award. The 2027 Prize will be presented at the annual meeting of the Business History Conference to be held in Mexico City, March 18-20, 2027.
Four copies of a book (no digital copies please) must accompany a nomination and be submitted to the Prize Coordinator, Carol Ressler Lockman, Business History Conference, PO Box 3630, 298 Buck Road, Wilmington, DE 19807-0630 USA. Email: clockman@hagley.org.
The deadline for submission is November 30, 2026.
4. HISTORY IN THE DIGITAL AGE
Academic Association of Historians in Business Schools (AAHBS) 17th Annual Conference, 16-17 February 2027
Macquarie University City Campus, 24/123 Pitt Street,Sydney
Call for Papers
The Macquarie University Business School, Australia, will be hosting the 17th Annual Conference of AAHBS on the 16-17 February 2027. To foster our tradition of conversation and collaboration, the conference will be presented in person and not virtually via Zoom.
You are invited to submit abstracts addressing the conference theme, which covers both the history of the digital economy and the impact of digital technology on historical research. Beyond this theme, we invite abstracts relating to accounting history, business history, economic history, intellectual history, labour history, management history, marketing history, tourism history, transport history and other areas of interest relating to historical research in business schools. We also invite panel suggestions relating to business and labour history.
We welcome abstracts from researchers outside business schools who have an interest in these fields of study.
The Ray Markey Memorial Plenary speaker will be Emeritus Professor Graeme Dean from the University of Sydney. For further details about our speaker see Graeme Dean | About | The University of Sydney
Abstracts will be published in online conference proceedings.
Please submit a 500 word abstract for review by Friday 2 October 2026 to Nikki Balnave at nikki.balnave@mq.edu.au.
The abstract will provide: -
A summary of the argument of the paper
A summary of the findings of the paper
A selected list of references for the paper Abstracts should follow the Harvard style.
Registration:
Registration will be offered for either single-day or full two-day attendance. The venue is conveniently located near a range of cafés and dining options for lunch. Morning and afternoon tea will be provided. Tickets for the conference dinner may be purchased at an additional cost. Postgraduate research students with accepted abstracts will receive complimentary registration (conference dinner not included). Full registration details will be released once the program is finalised.