Business History

Business History

    • 2014
    • Book

    Business History

    By: Walter A. Friedman and Geoffrey Jones

    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.

    • 2014
    • Book

    Business History

    By: Walter A. Friedman and Geoffrey Jones

    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...

    • Article

    Making 'Green Giants': Environment Sustainability in the German Chemical Industry, 1950s–1980s

    By: Geoffrey Jones and Christina Lubinski

    This article examines the evolution of corporate environmentalism in the West German chemical industry between the 1950s and the 1980s. It focuses on two companies, Bayer and Henkel, that have been identified as "green giants," and traces the evolution of their environmental strategies in response to growing evidence of pollution and resulting political pressures. The variety of capitalism literature has suggested that the German coordinated market economy model was more conducive to green corporate strategies than liberal market economies such as the United States. This article finds instead that regional influences were more important, supporting sociological theories about the importance of visibility in corporate green strategies. It identifies major commonalities between corporate strategies in the German and American chemical industries until the 1970s, when the two German firms diverged from their American counterparts in using public relations strategies not only to contain fallout from criticism, but also as opportunities for changes in corporate culture aimed at promoting a positive bond with consumers based on new green brand identities.

    • Article

    Making 'Green Giants': Environment Sustainability in the German Chemical Industry, 1950s–1980s

    By: Geoffrey Jones and Christina Lubinski

    This article examines the evolution of corporate environmentalism in the West German chemical industry between the 1950s and the 1980s. It focuses on two companies, Bayer and Henkel, that have been identified as "green giants," and traces the evolution of their environmental strategies in response to growing evidence of pollution and resulting...

    • Spring 2014
    • Article

    Charting Dynamic Trajectories: Multinational Firms in India

    By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Tarun Khanna

    In this article, we provide a synthesizing framework that we call the "dynamic trajectories" framework to study the evolution of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in host countries over time. We argue that a change in the policy environment in a host country presents an MNE with two sets of interrelated decisions. First, the MNE has to decide whether to enter, exit, or stay in the host country at the onset of each policy epoch; second, conditional on the first choice, it has to decide on its local responsiveness strategy at the onset of each policy epoch. India, which experienced two policy shocks—shutting down to MNEs in 1970 and then opening up again in 1991—offers an interesting laboratory to explore the "dynamic trajectories" perspective. We collect and analyze a unique dataset of all entry and exit events for Fortune 50 and FTSE 50 firms (as of 1991) in India in the period from 1858 to 2013 and, additionally, we document detailed case studies of four MNEs (that arguably represent outliers in our sample).

    • Spring 2014
    • Article

    Charting Dynamic Trajectories: Multinational Firms in India

    By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Tarun Khanna

    In this article, we provide a synthesizing framework that we call the "dynamic trajectories" framework to study the evolution of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in host countries over time. We argue that a change in the policy environment in a host country presents an MNE with two sets of interrelated decisions. First, the MNE has to decide...

    • Article

    Contested Meanings of Freedom: Workingmen's Wages, the Company Store System and the Godcharles v. Wigeman Decision

    By: Laura Phillips Sawyer

    In 1886, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down a law that prohibited employers from paying wages in company store scrip and mandated monthly wage payments. The court held that the legislature could not prescribe mandatory wage contracts for legally competent workingmen. The decision quashed over two decades of efforts to end the "truck system." Although legislators had agreed that wage payments redeemable only in company store goods appeared antithetical to the free labor wage system, two obstacles complicated legislative action. Any law meant to enhance laborers' rights could neither favor one class over another nor infringe any workingman's ability to make voluntary contracts. These distinctions, however, were not as rigid and laissez faire-oriented as depicted by conventional history. Labor reformers argued that principles of equity must supplement these categories of class legislation and contract freedom. This essay explores how legal doctrine helped both sides of the anti-truck debate articulate the contested meanings of liberty. Ultimately, the Godcharles ruling enshrined the specialness of workingmen's labor contracts and rejected the use of equity principles to justify contract regulations, but the controversy also informed future labor strategies, especially the turn to state police powers as the rubric under which workers' safety, morals, and health could be protected.

    • Article

    Contested Meanings of Freedom: Workingmen's Wages, the Company Store System and the Godcharles v. Wigeman Decision

    By: Laura Phillips Sawyer

    In 1886, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down a law that prohibited employers from paying wages in company store scrip and mandated monthly wage payments. The court held that the legislature could not prescribe mandatory wage contracts for legally competent workingmen. The decision quashed over two decades of efforts to end the "truck...

    • Article

    Intermediary Functions and the Market for Innovation in Meiji and Taisho Japan

    By: Tom Nicholas and Hiroshi Shimizu

    Japan experienced a transformational phase of technological development during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We argue that an important, but so far neglected, factor was a developing market for innovation and a patent attorney system that was conducive to rapid technical change. We support our hypothesis using patent data, and we also present a detailed case study on Tomogorō Ono, a key developer of salt production technology who used attorneys in connection with his patenting work at a time when Japan was still in the process of formally institutionalizing its patent attorney system. In accordance with Lamoreaux and Sokoloff's influential study of trade in invention in the United States, our quantitative and qualitative evidence highlights how inventors and intermediaries in Japan interacted to create a market for new ideas.

    • Article

    Intermediary Functions and the Market for Innovation in Meiji and Taisho Japan

    By: Tom Nicholas and Hiroshi Shimizu

    Japan experienced a transformational phase of technological development during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We argue that an important, but so far neglected, factor was a developing market for innovation and a patent attorney system that was conducive to rapid technical change. We support our hypothesis using patent data, and...

    • Article

    The Way to Wealth Around the World: Benjamin Franklin and the Globalization of American Capitalism

    By: Sophus A. Reinert

Business History Initiative

The Business History Initiative seeks to facilitate learning from the past through innovative research and course development, employing global and interdisciplinary perspectives.
Business History

Harvard Business School has a long tradition of investing in business history, and of asserting its central role in management education. In 1927, the School created the first endowed professorship in the field. It also founded the field’s first journal, the Business History Review. Since the work of Joseph Schumpeter at Harvard's Center for Entrepreneurial History in the 1940s, the School has taken an interdisciplinary and global approach to understanding business history. Today business historians at the School investigate a broad range of themes, including entrepreneurship, innovation, globalization, and environmental sustainability.

Business History Initiative

The Business History Initiative seeks to facilitate learning from the past through innovative research and course development, employing global and interdisciplinary perspectives.

Business History

Recent Publications

ZEISS: Commercializing Science

By: Maria P. Roche, Carlota Moniz and Daniela Beyersdorfer
  • July 2024 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
Karl Lamprecht, President and CEO of the ZEISS AG Group, mused on how far ZEISS had come in 175 years of being a pioneer in optics, and how the course he had charted since taking the helm of the company could keep it on track. In his role, he oversaw the four core business units of the group, all operating worldwide: Industrial Quality & Research, Medical Technology, Consumer Markets, and Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology (SMT). Previously, Lamprecht had led ZEISS SMT as its CEO through a tough time when troubles with the manufacturing of optical systems capable of handling extreme ultraviolet radiation held the business unit and their partners back. Aware of how dangerous hesitant business decisions could be, ZEISS SMT was, once again, at a crossroads. Should SMT focus on investing in the latest lithography technologies, enhancing established technologies, or reducing costs? While Lamprecht had to determine how to allocate the ZEISS Group’s resources to the different units including SMT, the new CEO of ZEISS SMT, Andreas Pecher, was to decide on how to best position ZEISS SMT for the future. How should they balance what was potentially best for the Group, with what was best for SMT, and for the delicate relationships with their partners they had come to depend on?
Keywords: Business Model; Business Organization; Decisions; Business Strategy; Competition; Business History; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Independent Innovation and Invention; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Knowledge Sharing; Industry Growth; Monopoly; Organizational Culture; Supply Chain Management; Partners and Partnerships; Risk and Uncertainty; Adaptation; Commercialization; Resource Allocation; Corporate Strategy; Semiconductor Industry; Technology Industry; Germany; Europe
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Oral History and Business History in Emerging Markets

By: Geoffrey Jones
  • June 2024 |
  • Article |
  • Investigaciones de historia económica
This article describes the motivation, structure and use of the Creating Emerging Markets (CEM) oral history-based project at the Harvard Business School. The project consists of lengthy interviews with business leaders from emerging markets. By June 2024 183 interviews had been conducted with business leaders in 34 countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Selected interviewees needed at least three decades of experience in business, and they must be assessed as highly impactful. The CEM project was conceived from the beginning as a public goods project. The transcripts of interviews are fully accessible on the project website. They can be downloaded by anyone with an internet connection, and they can be used in research and teaching without permission. The article explains how the CEM database has been employed in multiple academic publications, targeted at both historical and management audiences, and employing multiple methodologies. Examples include a study of gender and skin color stereotypes in the film industries in India, a comparison of how businesses perceived political risk in Latin America and South Asia, an analysis of business investment in education geographies, and a study of spiritual philanthropy in emerging markets. Multiple methodologies have been employed including coding and the application of machine learning to undertake facial and text analysis of CEM interviews.
Keywords: Emerging Economies; Oral History; Emerging Markets; Business History; Research
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Hakluyt: From Corporate Intelligence to Trusted Advisors

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Lena Duchene
  • May 2024 (Revised September 2024) |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
Established in 1995 by a group of ex-British intelligence officers, Hakluyt & Company (Hakluyt) was a corporate advisory firm that generated insights by leveraging a unique blend of internal expertise and a global network of well-connected individuals. Since 2019, the firm was under the leadership of Varun Chandra, a young and dynamic managing partner who had steered Hakluyt into remarkable growth and heightened ambition. By 2023, Hakluyt had transformed into a £113.1 million business, boasting 196 employees spread across 13 strategic international offices. However, this rapid expansion and evolving identity engendered some tension within the firm, particularly as Chandra’s tenure as managing partner approached its end. This case study chronicles Hakluyt's transformation from a specialized niche intelligence firm to becoming trusted advisors and details its unique business model, evolution under various leaders, and recruitment and compensation strategies. It also examines the challenges accompanying rapid growth, including implementing leverage, professionalizing operations, addressing long-term equity structures, and preserving the firm's distinct culture.
Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Talent and Talent Management; Capital Structure; Cash Flow; Corporate Finance; Equity; Stock Shares; Corporate Governance; Business History; Compensation and Benefits; Recruitment; Leadership Style; Growth Management; Management Succession; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Networks; Partners and Partnerships; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Transformation; Consulting Industry; Europe; United Kingdom; England; London
Related

Doing Business in Buenos Aires, Argentina

By: Alan D. MacCormack, Nori Gerardo Lietz, Leonard A. Schlesinger, Karina Souza and Zeke Gillman
  • March 2024 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Argentina. It highlights Argentina's economic and political transformation in the decades leading up to 2024. The case gives an overview of some of the main obstacles faced by businesses operating in the country, contrasting these with the efforts undertaken by the government to improve the country's business climate. This is illustrated through the discussion of a business dilemma in which Latam Airlines considers re-entering the Argentinian market.
Keywords: Business History; Business and Government Relations; Corporate Strategy; Transformation; Economy; Air Transportation; Air Transportation Industry; Transportation Industry; Argentina; Latin America; Buenos Aires
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Doing Business in São Paulo, Brazil

By: Laura Alfaro, Hise O. Gibson, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Pedro Levindo
  • March 2024 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
The case gives readers an overview of key factors of doing business in Brazil, including Brazil’s economic transformation since its colonial years until 2023, when leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was sworn in for his third term, after the most polarized elections in the country’s recent history and having to deal with an attack against government buildings in Brasília. The case’s ultimate goal is to foster a discussion about how political and economic uncertainty impacts consumer behavior and companies operating in Brazil. For that, it summarizes the key obstacles faced by these businesses, such as the country’s logistical bottlenecks, complex bureaucracy and arcane tax system. At the same time, the case sheds light on the sectors that are thriving despite these difficulties and on some valuable opportunities offered by Brazil’s huge consumer market and diversified economy.
Keywords: Business Cycles; Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Growth; Economic Sectors; Economy; Macroeconomics; Business History; International Relations; Political Elections; Taxation; Consumer Behavior; Brazil; Latin America; Sao Paulo
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Private Regulation, Institutional Entrepreneurship and Climate Change: A Business History Perspective

By: Ann-Kristin Bergquist and Geoffrey Jones
  • 2024 |
  • Working Paper |
  • Faculty Research
Private regulatory systems, including voluntary efforts by firms to restrain their own behavior are the primary form of global climate change governance. However, when environmental challenges first rose up on the scientific and political agendas during the 1970s, the initial emphasis was on states and government regulation coordinated by the United Nations. This working paper provides a business history perspective on how the privatization of global environmental governance happened and shows how the system of private regulation was put in place before climate change became a priority issue. We argue that there were two separate paths which eventually merged. The first was the growth of certification schemes for emergent categories such as organic food, green buildings and sustainable investment which lacked definitions and legitimacy. Policy makers had no interest in them, or positively disliked them. Institutional entrepreneurs build institutions to create credibility and legitimacy. These entrepreneurs were drawn from outside big business, and were in some cases hostile to it. The second path was the growing engagement of big business pressure groups, notably the International Chamber of Commerce, in the environmental strategies of the United Nations. Institutional entrepreneurs were again important in developing the arguments and concepts around business self-regulation. The two paths merged from the 1990s, as societal pressures for business to act on the environment have grown louder, so greenwashing, green-hushing, and transition washing have diffused throughout the global climate governance system.
Keywords: Certification; Climate Change; Environmental Regulation; Business History; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy
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Firms, Rules, and Global Capitalism

By: Rawi Abdelal
  • Fall 2023 |
  • Article |
  • Business History Review
Every organization of the world economy has been unstable. Each system is necessarily composed of trade-offs. Opportunities emerge, and disappointments abound. Nothing lasts; nothing is finished; and nothing is perfect.
Keywords: Globalization; Business History; Balance and Stability
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(Un)principled Agents: Monitoring Loyalty after the End of the Royal African Company Monopoly

By: Anne Ruderman and Marlous van Waijenburg
  • Summer 2023 |
  • Article |
  • Business History Review
The revocation of the Royal African Company's monopoly in 1698 inaugurated a transformation of the transatlantic slave trade. While the RAC’s exit from the slave trade has received scholarly attention, little is known about the company’s response to the loss of its trading privileges. Not only did the end of the company's monopoly increase competition, but the unprecedented numbers of private traders who entered the trade exacerbated the company’s principal-agent problems on the West African coast. To analyze the company’s behavior in the post-monopoly period, we exploit a series of 292 instruction letters that the RAC issued to its slave-ship captains between 1685 and 1706, coding each individual command in the letters. Our database reveals two new insights into the company’s response to its upended competitive landscape. First, the RAC showed a remarkable degree of organizational flexibility, reacting to a heightened principal-agent problem. Second, its response was facilitated by the infrastructure of the transatlantic slave trade, which gave the company a monitoring mechanism by virtue of the slave-ship captains who continually sailed to the West African coast.
Keywords: Slavery; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business History; Monopoly; History; Business and Government Relations
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LALIGA—From a Soccer Competition Organizer to a Global Player in the Sports and Entertainment Industry

By: Stephen A. Greyser, Kenneth Cortsen and Juan Fuentes Fernández
  • 2023 |
  • Working Paper |
  • Faculty Research
LALIGA, the first- and second-tier professional soccer league (known as “football” outside of the U.S. and Canada) in Spain, enters its 100th soccer season later this decade. The most popular game in the world (Giulianotti, 2012) has gone through many changes since LALIGA began play in 1929 (O’Brien, 2022). Therefore, the purpose of this Working Paper is to describe the development of LALIGA since its initiation in 1929. However, the emphasis of the paper is to explore and analyze LALIGA’s evolution towards becoming an influential global business and brand in the contemporary world of the business of sports. Expansion, progress and improved sporting and commercial maturity go hand in hand with the recognized achievements observed by the league’s local, regional, national, and global fan bases. Soccer fans from every corner of the globe are aware of the accomplishments made on the pitch by the league’s globally recognized competitive powerhouses, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. Yet, these triumphs are complemented by off-the-pitch strategies and corporate ideas and actions, which have transformed LALIGA into a global organization with more than seven hundred employees spread all around the world. Consequently, LALIGA is positioned to take its next steps as a key player in the competitive industry and business of sports and entertainment. With a global presence covering offices and delegations in 41 countries. LALIGA has applied different strategies to boost growth in its main revenue stream (broadcasting rights), to nurture and grow its fanbase in Spain and abroad, and to evolve its product range and brand equity in order to overcome new challenges in the fast-changing and competitive sports entertainment nexus. In total, LALIGA’s international efforts span 90 countries, including 11 offices in key locations and three joint ventures in the United States, in China, and in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)—LALIGA’s top-priority markets overseas. In addition, LALIGA has strived to improve its digitalization efforts and to implement new technologies in various phases of its value chain (competition management, fan engagement and content enhancement) while diversifying its business offerings and value proposition. Thus, LALIGA is cognizant about building future-proof financial “fitness” via generating new revenue streams intended to help expand its branding footprint globally. As an entity representing 42 teams in the first and second divisions, LALIGA has recently signed and negotiated “Boost LALIGA,” a €1.994 billion capital injection in the Spanish soccer ecosystem from the investment fund CVC. The investment aims to “soften” the negative economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, but mainly to accelerate corporate growth in the league and its clubs, by providing the respective soccer clubs resources to invest in such areas as soccer infrastructure, digitalization, and international development.
Keywords: Soccer; ＂Sports Organizations,; Business History; Strategy; Brands and Branding; Technology Adoption; Sports Industry
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Deep Responsibility and Irresponsibility in the Beauty Industry

By: Geoffrey Jones
  • July 2023 |
  • Article |
  • Entreprises et histoire
This article employs the concept of deep responsibility to assess the social responsibility of the beauty industry over time. It shows that many of today’s problems with the industry have deep historical roots. Products have too many ingredients that are potential health hazards. Exaggerated claims have been made to all consumers and ideals of beauty that are very restrictive have damaged the self-esteem of more vulnerable consumers. The environmental impact of the industry has been highly negative. The article shows how the beauty industry has done more harm than good within the communities it addresses. Alternative and more responsible behavior has existed in the past in the industry and it is argued that this type of behavior needs to become the norm once again.
Keywords: Business History; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry
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