The Great Divergence and the Great Convergence

G.  Jones

Chapter | The Routledge Companion to the Makers of Global Business | 2019

The Great Divergence and the Great Convergence

Abstract

This chapter provides a new lens to the extensive debate among economists and economic historians concerning why the West grew rich and the rest of the world lagged behind as modern industrialization took hold in the 19th century. The literature has focused heavily on quantitative research on comparative income levels, especially GDP per capita and real wage levels as well as on broad brush explanations related to institutions, culture, and human capital development. This chapter argues that there needs to be closer engagement with the processes of how such factors translated into generating productive entrepreneurs and business enterprises. It explores in particular why the development of modern business enterprises in Africa, Asia, and Latin America lagged; how they started to emerge more successfully in the interwar years only to be set back by failed government policies after World War II; and how the second global economy from the 1980s provided many more opportunities for firms outside the West to catch-up with innovation and competitiveness.

Keywords: Globalization; Growth and Development; History; Africa; Asia; Europe; Latin America; Middle East; North and Central America; Oceania;

Format: Print

Citation:

Jones, G. "The Great Divergence and the Great Convergence." Chap. 37 in The Routledge Companion to the Makers of Global Business, edited by Teresa da Silva Lopes, Christina Lubinski, and Heidi J.S. Tworek, 578–592. New York: Routledge, 2019.

The case is concerned with Elia Nuqul, the founder of Jordanian-based Nuqul Brothers, a large diversified business group. It shows how Nuqul, a Christian Palestinian whose family was forced to flee to Jordan after the creation of Israel in 1948, built a business in his new home, first in trading and later in consumer products such as hygienic paper manufacturing. The case shows the challenges of building such an entrepreneurial business in a developing region with high political instability. The case is positioned within the wider context of the regional conflict in Palestine and Israel, and it provides a vehicle for exploring the role and responsibility of entrepreneurs, if any, in such conflicts.

Case | HBS Case Collection | April 2018 (Revised April 2020)

Coco Chanel: From Fashion Icon to Nazi Agent

Geoffrey Jones and Emily Grandjean

This case describes the career of the iconic French fashion designer Coco Chanel who created a transformational business during the first half of the 20th century. Beginning in her early adulthood, Chanel leveraged relationships with acquaintances, friends, and romantic partners to build her fashion business and legendary luxury brand based on understated elegance. Chanel’s famous “little black dress” was accompanied by many other innovations including the use of jersey as material for daytime clothing and her development of the Chanel No. 5 perfume. The case pays close attention to the importance of Chanel’s networks among the cultural elite and European high society. It explores how she embraced the rise of Anti-Semitism among many members of the upper class at that time. During World War II, Chanel lived in the Ritz Hotel in Paris in occupied France, where she entered into a romantic relationship with a high-ranking German intelligence officer. Subsequently, Chanel herself became an intelligence operative for the Nazis. The case ends with Chanel in Switzerland in 1945 after she departed France following the Liberation of Paris by Allied forces. This case can be used to explore multiple issues including creating and building an iconic fashion brand, entrepreneurship, and ethical responsibility of business.

Keywords: Business History; Biography; Entrepreneurship; Relationships; Brands and Branding; Ethics; Fashion Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry;

Citation:

Jones, Geoffrey, and Emily Grandjean. "Coco Chanel: From Fashion Icon to Nazi Agent." Harvard Business School Case 318-139, April 2018. (Revised April 2020.) View Details

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Examines the career of Ernesto Tornquist, a cosmopolitan financier considered to be the most significant entrepreneur in Argentina at the end of the 19th century. Tornquist created a diversified business group, linked to the political elite, which integrated Argentina into the trading and financial networks of the first global economy. Provides an opportunity to understand why Argentina was such a successful economy at this time, and to debate whether its very success laid the basis for the country's subsequent poor economic performance.

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The Great Divergence and the Great Convergence

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