Business History
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 HistoryRecent Publications
Deeply Responsible Business: A Global History of Values-Driven Leadership
- 2023 |
- Book |
- Faculty Research
The business leaders profiled in this book were motivated by bedrock values and sometimes driven by faith. They chose to operate in socially productive fields, interacted with humility with stakeholders, and felt a duty to support their communities. While far from perfect, each one showed that profit and purpose could be reconciled. Many of their businesses were wildly successful―though financial success was not their only metric of achievement. As many companies seek to coopt more ethically sensitized consumers, Jones gives us a new perspective to tackle tough questions and envisions a future in which companies and entrepreneurs can play a key role in healing our communities and protecting the natural world.
Doing Business in Kigali, Rwanda
- March 2023 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Doing Business in Buenos Aires, Argentina
- February 2023 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Doing Business in Boston, Massachusetts
- February 2023 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Doing Business in Accra, Ghana
- February 2023 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Chari: Exploring Fintech in Morocco
- February 2023 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Doing Business in Istanbul, Turkey
- February 2023 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Doing Business in Santiago, Chile
- February 2023 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Doing Business in Nairobi, Kenya
- February 2023 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Doing Business in São Paulo, Brazil
- February 2023 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research