Business History

Walter A. Friedman; Geoffrey  Jones

Book | 2014

Business History

by Walter A. Friedman and Geoffrey Jones

Abstract

This volume contains a selection of 42 foundational articles on the discipline of business history written between 1934 and the present day by scholars based in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. A wide-ranging editorial introduction describes the formation and evolution of the discipline from its origins at the Harvard Business School in the late 1920s. Over the following century, the editors show that the discipline and its practitioners often found themselves on the margins of academic discourses and their own institutions. There was a constant struggle to define the borders of the field and the central research questions that it sought to answer. However, the commitment to engage with the complexities of business and the disinclination to rely on models with simplistic assumptions about business behavior also enabled business history to be highly creative and, at times, to exercise a huge impact on management studies more generally, especially strategy and the study of entrepreneurship.

Keywords: Economic History; business history; History;

Format: Print

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Citation:

Friedman, Walter A. and Geoffrey Jones, eds. Business History. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2014.

The case is built around video clips from top business leaders in emerging markets who were interviewed for Harvard Business School’s innovative Creating Emerging Markets oral history project. The case is focused on the issue of innovation in emerging markets from a business perspective. It considers the nature of innovation, the challenges of accessing knowhow and technology, and leapfrogging. The Video Supplement to the case contains short excerpts from eleven business leaders in India, Kenya, Malaysia, Peru, South Africa, Sudan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates addressing these issues.

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Business History

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