The Virtues and Vices of Business – A Historical Perspective. 2014 Business History Conference Annual Meeting

The Virtues and Vices of Business – A Historical Perspective. 2014 Business History Conference Annual Meeting

Organisatoren
Business History Conference; Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte e.V. Frankfurt am Main
Ort
Frankfurt am Main
Land
Deutschland
Vom - Bis
13.03.2014 - 15.03.2014
Url der Konferenzwebsite
Von
Christine Strotmann, Institut für Geschichtswissenschaften, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

For its 60th meeting the US-based Business History Conference took to the German city of Frankfurt am Main to discuss “The Virtues and Vices of Business”. With close to 200 presentations in panels from a far range of topics including, for example, “Queer Business in Postwar Britain and America”, “Business Lobbying and Public Relations” and “Gambling and Gaming”, the conference drew international scholars from the field of Business History and beyond. Given the massive scope of the conference, the words that follow will not attempt to give a general overview, and instead merely summarize one of the broader themes debated at this conference: knowledge.

The importance of “knowledge” in the field of business was thoroughly discussed in several panels. One example was “Transatlantic R & D”. ANDREW GODLEY (Reading) opened the panel with a presentation of his joint research project with David Leslie-Hughes (London) on the German Pharmaceutical Company E. Merck and the American Merck and Company. Godley advanced an argument towards adjusting the periodization for R & D (Research and Development). In his view the German chemical industries were leaders in the field not only until after World War One, but well into the 1930s. In his case study of the two Merck companies he argued that they were not two separate entities after 1919, but rather that the American company benefitted from a hidden technology transfer with the German Merck in Darmstadt at least until the late 1930s.

ELLAN SPERO (Cambridge, MA) addressed the related question of how the US chemical industry was eventually able to compete with its German counterpart, by looking at the research institutes Mellon and MIT. She argued that it was mostly due to the combination of teaching and research and also a result of the connection between academia and companies that enabled the development towards R & D in the US. Spero argued that these ideas were conceived in the States around 1900, and were largely based on firsthand experience American scientists had gathered in Germany.

MARGARET GRAHAM (Montreal) also looked at the academic-industrial connections in the field of chemistry, but this time from a more comparative angle. She argued strongly to reconsider levels of success in R & D. ”More money did not necessarily lead to better research,” she pointed out, and emphasized how the 1930s were the most productive years for R & D. Whereas the 1960s – usually seen as being more successful – although featuring more hands-on results, neglected the important groundworks of theoretical chemistry.

In his comment on the session ERIC HINTZ (Washington DC) concluded: “American R & D had a German DNA, but also coevolved with academic development in the US.” Therefore he urged historians not to see this transfer as a one-way street, but rather also to investigate the repercussions of other scientific communities on the German model.

A similar topic, albeit with a very different scope, was covered in the “Technology Transfer” panel. Here speakers focused mainly on the transfer of machinery from developed regions or countries to lesser developed parts of the world. NATHAN D. DELANEY (Cleveland, OH) took the example of two German mining companies operating in 19th-century Mexico. He argued that a decisive factor for the possible impact of a foreign company was often limited by boundaries set by the states concerned. Furthermore, he added that the migrant’s mentality was less important in this context than the institutions that facilitated this exchange. Accordingly he concluded: “A foreign company is as virtuous as the government of the country it operates in.”

The following speakers, NADIA FERNÁNDEZ DE PINEDO, RAFAEL CASTRO (both Madrid) and DAVID PRETEL (Barcelona), asked if, in fact, multinationals already existed in the 19th century, and if so, what was their role in technology transfer. They presented the case of Derosne&Cail, a French company supplying machinery for sugar planters in Cuba. Their research as presented suggested that Derosne&Cail was indeed an early multinational that managed to create a network of “tested machinery” through the distribution of machinery to some planters who, in turn, marketed them, but who also helped spread the necessary knowledge for the operation of the machines. The conclusion of the paper was that this strategy became globally successful because technology transfer in itself is not sufficient, without the experience of on-hand, trained technicians.

KORINNA SCHÖNHÄRL (Duisburg) looked at a case of European transnational business. The Lake Copais Company operated at the Greek lake of the same name using European capital for drainage to create land for agricultural use. Due to instability of agricultural prizes in the 19th-century, the investment proved rather risky. Schönhärl described how these circumstances led to a risk management that consisted of the development of an expert culture aimed at assuring (potential) investors. At the same time the cultural implications of Greece at the core of European civilization were used to market the project. It was ultimately the mix of profit expectations, risk management, but also sentimental emotions that drew investors to finance the project.

In her comment SIMONE MÜLLER-POHL (Freiburg) concluded that all presentations were linked by the question: “What drove foreign investors and companies into the transnational sphere?” For the papers presented she argued that a broad range of motifs was addressed, ranging from policy and infrastructure to colonial fantasies. The main question, however, whether there was a factor beyond profit expectations, maybe even a philanthropist idea, was hotly discussed but ultimately left unanswered.

Another panel dealing with “knowledge”, though somewhat more implicitly, was the panel on “Colonial Intermediaries”. CHRISTINA LUBINSKI (Washington DC) presented Human Resources (HR) policies of German Multinationals active in the Indian market between the 1920s and 1940s. According to Lubinski, not only race relations influenced the work of the HR department. Additionally she highlighted the importance of knowledge about the societal positions of potential employees. By trying to recruit a trained workforce of Indians – at least in parts – the companies always had to be weary of British/White colonial rule. At the same time, the different interests of stakeholders in Germany also had to be taken into account, which often created a challenging environment for HR Management in India.

ELISABETH KOLL (Cambridge, MA) in the same panel presented her research on competition between multinationals for “Managerial Talent” in China from the 1890s to the 1930s. Working in a huge emerging market within a rather complex colonial context, the companies were forced to rely on Chinese intermediaries. Eventually the competition between mostly German and British companies led to knowledge and technology transfer from the firms concerned to their Chinese intermediaries, which in turn helped shape the local market.

Moving on to a more recent timeframe from 1940 to 1960, STEPHANIE DECKER (Birmingham) presented the case of Imperial Business in Ghana and Nigeria. Linking back to Lubinski’s talk, Decker explained that the companies acting in Western Africa often looked to India and drew their knowledge on Human Resources Management (HRM) from there. At the same time however, a major debate about “colonial development” led to an increased interest of the Imperial state in African workers and their welfare. This in turn led to differing and often competing strategies not only from the companies involved, but from the Imperial state in relation to workers’ treatment.

ANDREW SMITH (Liverpool) also focused on racial relations within the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC). He demonstrated that the bank was ultimately a British tool used in Asia. Its workforce was divided and, as such, rigidly separated into the British executives on the one hand and the local “native workforce” on the other. According to Smith, the end of this separation clearly started with the onset of the Second World War, when the bank and its employees had to adapt to the changing political landscape.

Taken together, all of the presentations showed how multinationals acting in foreign (colonial) countries had to cooperate with local intermediaries. They were reliant on local staff at most levels in their workforce, and therefore they were using local networks and local knowledge as well as passing on knowledge and technology to the local actors. These developments helped shape and change the businesses strategies themselves as well as local markets in which they operated.

The opening of the panel “Intellectual Property Regimes” moved away from case studies in favour of a much broader approach to intellectual property as well as its political and financial implications. GERBEN BAKKER (London) opened the panel with an overview covering the period from 1750-2000. In his ambitious project he is trying to link R & D with popular culture “products” by measuring their monetary value. He attempts to find out the value of songs like “Happy Birthday” but also of brands and even people such as movie-stars and their “brand value”.

STEVEN WILF (Storrs, CT) presented on the legal history of intellectual property in 19th-century US. With the enforcement of patent law in the US so called “patent carpetbaggers” entered into a completely new field according to Wilf. Now everyday objects from agricultural technology like gates, drive wells and barbed wired came under scrutiny. In Wilf’s view, therefore, the law itself became a technology.

PATRICIO SÁIZ and RUBÉN AMENGUAL (both Madrid) followed up with a presentation on patents in relation to the Four-Stroke Engine Business. According to them, German, French and Spanish patents in the late 19th century were useless in as much as they failed to give any valid information about construction details. In comparison, they argued that Anglo-Saxon patents were much more precise. Even people registering the same patent in differing countries followed the national conventions, thus giving different information on the product. The results were that in many cases alleged patent infringements had to be brought before a court.

Knowledge was taken as an exemplary topic because it offers an interesting perspective to the Business History Conference since many papers dealt with the German/US industrial competition that is strongly linked with R & D. The broader topic chosen by the organizers, “The Virtues and Vices of Business”, was related to in most papers, albeit often implicitly. The conference itself, with its participants mainly from the US and Germany, but also Europe and beyond, was an appropriate forum for debate on business and its influence on society and vice versa. To examine this up-to-date topic in a historical context was certainly a merit of the conference.

Conference Overview:

Workshop I: Multilingual Business History: Past, Present, and Future

Patrick Fridenson (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales)
Andrew Popp (University of Liverpool)
Philip Scranton (Rutgers University)
Ray Stokes (University of Glasgow)

Workshop II: The Promise and Perils of the Euro

Youssef Cassis (European University Institute)
Jeffrey Fear (University of Glasgow)
Mary O'Sullivan (Université de Genève)
Karin Sagner-Kaiser (Deutsche Bundesbank)

Welcome Address
Uwe Becker (City Treasurer, Frankfurt am Main)

Keynote Address
Frank Partnoy (University of San Diego), Financial Scandals through the Lens of Probability and the Law

1.A Reconsidering Deregulation
Chair and Discussant: Margaret Levenstein (University of Michigan)

William R. Childs (The Ohio State University), Bringing Economics Back In: Business History, Political History, and the Natural Gas Industry

William H. Becker (George Washington University), Theory and Empiricism: Economics and Business History

Marc Levinson (Independent Scholar), 1973 and the Roots of Deregulation

1.B Transatlantic R&D
Chair: Sabine Bernschneider-Reif (Merck Group); Discussant: Eric Hintz (Smithsonian Institution)

David Leslie-Hughes (Huck Foundation) / Andrew Godley (University of Reading), E. Merck of Darmstadt and the Origins of Industrial Research Capabilities in U.S. Pharmaceuticals at Merck & Company

Ellan Spero (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Institutes for Innovation: Bridging Industry and Academy at Mellon and MIT

Margaret Graham (McGill University), German Scientific Connections in Early U.S. Materials R&D

1.C Queer Business in Postwar Britain and America
Chair and Discussant: Daniel Rivers (The Ohio State University)

Justin Bengry (McGill University /Birkbeck College, University of London), A Tale of Two Markets: Accessing the Queer Consumer in Pre-Decriminalization Britain

David K. Johnson (University of South Florida), DSI: The 1960s Gay Consumer Culture Revolution

Christopher Mitchell (Rutgers University), The Greater Gotham Business Council and "The Gay Market": Entrepreneurial Strategies and the Political Economy of Queer Life in New York City, 1976-1980

1.D National Industrial Policies I
Chair and Discussant: Alfred Reckendrees (Copenhagen Business School)

Michael Heller (Brunel University), "For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?" The General Post Office and the Birth of a British Brand Icon, 1930-1939

Sarah Dietz (University of Bradford), The Temptation to Advance Private Interests at the Expense of Public Duty: The Role of the British Consul in Facilitating FDI in the Nineteenth Century

Joyman Lee (University of Missouri), Chinese Debates on Industrial Policy and the Influence of Japan, 1900-1940

1.E Corporate Social Responsibility and Its Antecedents
Chair and Discussant: Kenneth Lipartito (Florida International University)

Teresa da Silva Lopes (University of York), British Responsibility and the First Forms of Fair Trade

Jeffrey Yost (University of Minnesota), Access Control Software, Corporate Responsibility, and the Origin and Early History of the Computer Security Industry

Kristoffer Jensen (Danmarks Industrimuseum / Syddansk Universitet), Conflicting Interests? Danish Manufacturing in China Today and the Challenge to Be Both Competitive and True to Company Tradition

1.F Failed Boosterism
Chair and Discussant: Shane Hamilton (University of Georgia)

Robrecht Declercq (European University Institute), The Risks and Benefits of Local Business Entrenchment: The Fur Industry as a Local Production System in Leipzig, 1918-1933

Francesca Fauri (Università di Bologna), The "Mussolini Hometown Effect" on Local Industrial Development: The Case of Forlì

David Koistinen (William Paterson University), Business and Regional Economic Decline: The Political Economy of Deindustrialization in Twentieth-Century New England

1.G Policy and the Structure of Markets
Chair and Discussant: Richard R. John (Columbia University)

Torsten Feys (Universiteit Gent), The Battle for the Migrants: The Introduction of Steamshipping on the North Atlantic and Its Impact on the European Exodus

Laura Phillips Sawyer (Harvard Business School), Institutionalist Economics and Managed Competition: The U.S. Experiment with a Coordinated Market Economy, 1920-1940

Simone Selva (Università degli Studi di Napoli L'Orientale), Money Market, Industrial Credit, Foreign Trade: American Assistance Policies and the Shaping of West European Consumer Societies from Bretton Woods through the 1970s Recession

1.H Business Scandals

Chair and Discussant: Christopher McKenna (University of Oxford)

M. Stephen Salmon (Independent Scholar), ". . . she cannot earn anything in Europe": Insider Networks, Marine Investments, and the Failure of the Home Bank of Canada, 1916-1923

William J. Hausman (College of William & Mary), Howard Hopson's Billion-Dollar Fraud: The Rise and Fall of Associated Gas and Electric, 1921-1940

Alessandra Tessari (Università del Salento) / Giambattista Rossi (University of East London), From Calciomercato to Calciopoli: Illegal Practices in the Italian Football Industry, 1950-2006

2.A The "Multinational Dilemma" in the 1970s
Chair and Discussant: Christian Kleinschmidt (Philipps-Universität Marburg)
Thomas Hajduk (Universität St. Gallen), "An Instrument of Moral Persuasion"? Multinational Enterprises and International Codes of Conduct in the 1970s

Alex Gertschen (Philipps-Universität Marburg), Mexico and the "Multinational Dilemma" in the 1970s: Views from the Global Periphery

Francesco Petrini (Università degli Studi di Padova), Public Interest, Private Profits: Multinationals, Governments, and the Coming of the First Oil Crisis

2.B R&D Networks
Chair and Discussant: Philip Scranton (Rutgers University) / Phillip Bradford (Independent Scholar) / Paul Miranti (Rutgers University), Prelude to Statistical Quality Control at the Bell System: Walter Shewhart, Millikan's Oil Drop Experiment, and the Problem of Telephonic Interference

Eric Godelier (École Polytechnique), Innovation and Research in the Steel Industry: A Collaborative Project? (1950-1990s)

Michael Schneider (Universität Düsseldorf), Systems of Values in Conflict? Scientific Research in a Pharmaceutical Firm

2.C Evolution of a Global Supply Chain
Chair and Discussant: Neil Forbes (Coventry University)

Oscar Granados (Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano), Bankers, Entrepreneurs, and Bolivian Tin in the International Economy, 1900-1932

Mats Ingulstad (Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet), Banging the Tin Drum: The United States and the Quest for Strategic Self-Sufficiency in Tin, 1840-1945

Nick White (Liverpool John Moores University), The Trouble with Tin: Governments and Businesses in Decolonizing Malaya

2.D Business and Wartime Patriotism
Chair: Uwe Spiekermann (German Historical Institute-DC); Discussant: Stephanie van de Kerkhof (Universität Mannheim)

Christina Ziegler-McPherson (Empire State College), Keuffel & Esser: German-American Entrepreneurship and Opportunity in Wartime

Lars Heide (Copenhagen Business School), Virtues and Vices of IBM's Subsidiary in Nazi Germany

Marten Boon / Ben Wubs (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam), Property, Control, and Room for Maneuver: Royal Dutch Shell and Nazi Germany, 1933-1945

Corinna Ludwig (German Historical Institute-DC), "Confiscation is always a dirty business": Wartime Expropriations of German Companies in the United States

2.E Responding to Gender Discrimination in America
Chair and Discussant: Mark Rose (Florida Atlantic University)

Johannes Steffens (Universität Heidelberg), The Virtue of Corporate Citizenship: Equal Employment Opportunity Activism of American Business Elites in the 1960s

Susan Yohn (Hofstra University), Cooperation over Confrontation? Working Collectively or Individually? Debating the Problems of Women in the Corporation

Pamela Walker Laird (University of Colorado Denver), Where the Legislative Model Failed: Civil Rights Enforcement and the Glass Ceiling

2.F The Business of Health
Chair and Discussant: Dominique Tobbell (University of Minnesota)

Liselotte Eriksson / Lars Fredrik Andersson (Umeå Universitet), Exploring the Mechanisms of Gender Discrimination: Swedish Mutual Health Insurance, 1901-1910

Kevin Moos (University of California, San Francisco), Is Good Health "Good Business"? Perspectives from the History of Medicine on the Virtues of Business, Profits, and Public Health

Elizabeth Ann Semler (University of Minnesota), Public Health or Industry Health? U.S. Government Responses to the 1970s Dietary Cholesterol–Heart Disease Controversy

2.G Investors, Creditors, and Information
Chair and Discussant: Susie J. Pak (St. Johns University)

B. Zorina Khan (Bowdoin College), Related Investing: Corporate Ownership and the Dynamics of Capital Mobilization during Early Industrialization

Claire Brennecke (Yale University), Strategies of Information Acquisition: Evidence from Nineteenth-Century U.S. Credit Reports

Janette Rutterford (Open University) / David Green (King's College London) / Carry van Lieshout (University of Nottingham) / Dimitris Sotiropoulos (Open University Business School), Spreading the Net: Distance, Shareholding, and the Geography of Risk in England and Wales, 1870-1935

2.H "Piracy" on Sea and Land
Chair and Discussant: Mark Jakob (Universität Marburg)

Fei-Hsien Wang (University of Cambridge), Protecting Private Interests under the Shadow of the Law: Shanghai Booksellers' "Copyright" Regime, 1905-1949

Karen Cannell (SUNY), Fashion Copying as Virtue or Vice: An Examination of André Studios as a Case Study

3.A Transnational PR and Marketing after World War II
Chair and Discussant: Ingo Koehler (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)

David B. Sicilia (University of Maryland), Public Relations Revolution after World War II: Counter-Organization and Transnationalism

Fabio Lavista (Università Bocconi), Public Relations, National Development, and Foreign Policy: Italian State-Owned Enterprises in the 1950s

Shawn Moura (University of Maryland), Try It at Home: Avon and Gender in Brazil, 1958-1975

3.B Historicizing "Open Source"
Chair and Discussant: Alessandro Nuvolari (Università degli Studi di Pisa)

Joris Mercelis (Universiteit Gent), Stages of Openness in the Development of Photographic Technology in Nineteenth-Century America

Gabriel Galvez-Béhar (Université Lille 3), Knowledge Sharing in War and Peace: Patents, Inventors, and the Arms Industry in France, 1816-1914

Ann Johnson (University of South Carolina), Subversion or Cooperation? The Exchange of Proprietary and Patentable Knowledge among Corporate Engineers

3.C Financial Markets in the Early Twentieth Century
Chair and Discussant: Janice Traflet (Bucknell University)

David Hochfelder (University at Albany / SUNY), Microfinance: A Transatlantic Progressive Reform

Natacha Postel-Vinay (London School of Economics), Debt Dilution in 1920s America: Lighting the Fuse of a Mortgage Crisis

3.D Cartels and Competition Policy
Chair and Discussant: Martha Olney (University of California, Berkeley)

Josef Lilljegren (Umeå Universitet), Head-on Harmful Cooperation—Why Firms Cooperate When It's Bad for Them: The Case of Swedish Property Insurance, 1855-1949

Howard Cox (Worcester Business School) / Simon Mowatt (Auckland University of Technology), Monopoly, Power, and Politics in Fleet Street: The Controversial Birth of IPC Magazines, 1958-1963

Malin Dahlström (Göteborgs Universitet), Why Did the Swedish State Regard the Cement Monopoly as Beneficial?

3.E Going Green
Chair and Discussant: Ole Sparenberg (Universität des Saarlandes)

Frank Oberholzner (Allianz SE Munich), Insurance as a Successful Adaption Strategy against Natural Hazards: The Development of German Crop Insurance, 1800-1914

Ann Kristin Bergquist (Umeå Universitet) / Kristina Söderholm (Luleå Tekniska Universitet), Strategies for Energy Transition: The Swedish Pulp and Paper Industry, 1973-1990

Yin Li (Georgia Institute of Technology) / Matt Hopkins (University of Massachusetts Lowell), The Rise of the Chinese Solar Photovoltaic Industry: Firm, Government, and Global Industry

3.F Labor Relations
Chair and Discussant: Karl Lauschke (Technische Universität Dortmund)

Irina V. Shilnikova (Higher School of Economics, Moscow), Labor Conflicts in Russian Industries at the End of the Nineteenth and Beginning of the Twentieth Century: Entrepreneurs' Strategies

James Wolfinger (DePaul University), Humanizing the Capitalistic System: Thomas Mitten, the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company, and the Labor Question in the Early Twentieth Century United States

Allison Elias (University of Virginia), A Cooperative Approach to Employee Relations: Office Automation, Worker Alienation, and Human Resources in the 1970s and 1980s

3.G Technology Transfers
Chair and Discussant: Simone Müller-Pohl (Universität Freiburg)

Nathan D. Delaney (Case Western Reserve University), Transnational Liberalism: Two German Mining Firms in Nineteenth-Century Mexico

Nadia Fernández de Pinedo / Rafael Castro (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) / David Pretel (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), An Earlier Experience of Transfer of Knowledge and Technology: The Case of Derosne & Cail in Cuba in the Nineteenth Century

Korinna Schönhärl (Universität Duisburg-Essen), The Lake Copais Company: Risky Foreign Investment in Greek Agriculture in the Nineteenth Century

3.H Exploiting the Information Revolution
Chair and Discussant: Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo (Bangor Business School)

Richard K. Popp (University of Wisconsin), Telephone Exchange: WATS, Direct-Response Selling, and the Marketization of the American Telephone, 1960-1973

Benjamin Schwantes (German Historical Institute-DC), Selling E-Mail to America: MCI Mail and the Commercialization of Computer-Based Electronic Communication

Mirko Ernkvist (Ratio: Näringslivets Forskningsinstitut), The Discontinuous Shift to Digital Exchanges in Sweden, 1985-1992

4.A Intellectual Property Regimes

Chair and Discussant: Margaret Graham (McGill University)

Gerben Bakker (London School of Economics), Public Goods or Business Opportunities? Ideas, Intellectual Property Rights, and Business History

Steven Wilf (University of Connecticut), Patents, Markets, and Discontent in Late Nineteenth Century America

Patricio Sáiz (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) / Rubén Amengual (Independent Scholar), Invention, Imitation, Patent Practices, and the Four-Stroke Engine Business

4.B Race and Plantation Management
Chair and Discussant: Caitlin Rosenthal (University of California, Berkeley)

Justene G. Hill (Princeton University), Slave Economies and the Paternalist Ideal in Antebellum South Carolina

Ferry de Goey (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam), Consul General Ferguson and the Ethics of the Chinese Coolie Trade, 1850s-1890s

Henderson Carter (University of the West Indies, Cave Hill), Business Practices and the 1937 Revolt in Barbados

4.C Shaping the Welfare State
Chair and Discussant: Francesco Boldizzoni (Università degli Studi di Torino)

Carol-Ann Hudson (McMaster University), Business and Poverty: A Modern History of Business and Social (Liberal) Reform in Canada

Natascha van der Zwan (Amsterdams Instituut voor Arbeids Studies), Capital Scarcity, Ideational Change, and the Pension Free-for-All

Michael McCarthy (Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung), Neoliberalism from Below: Evidence from the Rise of 401(k)s

Thomas Paster (Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung), Business and the Welfare State: Bringing Power Back In—A Literature Review

4.D Reevaluating FDI
Chair and Discussant: Kristoffer Jensen (Danmarks Industrimuseum / Syddansk Universitet)

Adoración Álvaro-Moya (Colegio Universitario de Estudios Financieros) / Núria Puig (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Did Inward FDI Promote Spanish Managerial Talent? A Study of Two Companies, Bayer and ITT, 1880-1975

Pierre-Yves Donzé (Kyoto University), Multinational Enterprises and the Globalization of Medicine: Siemens and the Construction of Hospitals in Emerging Markets in the 1950s and 1960s

Duncan Ross (University of Glasgow), Electronics in Scotland: Savior or Villain?

4.E Environmental Challenges
Chair and Discussant: Ray Stokes (University of Glasgow)

Matthias Mutz (RWTH Aachen Universität), The Ecological Basis of the Industrial Enterprise: Resource Management in the German Pulp and Paper Industry, 1850-1930

Thilo Jungkind (Universität des Saarlandes), Becoming Evil: The Seveso Chemical Incident and Hoffmann-La Roche, 1976-1996

David Celetti (Università degli Studi di Padova), Industrial Growth, Management Strategies, and Death in the Workplace: The Case of the Officine Meccaniche Stanga

4.F Varieties of Corporate Philanthropy
Chair: Peter Miskell (University of Reading)

Elizabeth Harmon (University of Michigan), The Commercialization of Charity: Progressive Era Debates about Philanthropic Foundations

Kenneth Bertrams (Université Libre de Bruxelles), The Circulation of Corporate-Based "Scientific" Philanthropy in Europe and the United States, 1880-1940

Lauren Klaffke (University of Minnesota), The Changing Nature of Corporate Philanthropy in Response to Growth and Conflict: A Case Study of Alcon Laboratories

4.G Structuring Credit Markets
Chair and Discussant: Andreas Fahrmeir (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt)

Patrice Baubeau (Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense), The Banque de France's Privilege as a Balancing Tool between Private Vices and Public Virtues, and Vice Versa

Riina Turunen (University of Jyväskylä), Bankrupts' Destinies: The Social and Economic Effects of Business Failure in a Small Finnish Urban Community at the End of the 1870s

Rowena Olegario (University of Oxford), In Credit We Trust: Lending, Borrowing, and the Building of America

4.H National Industrial Policies II
Chair: Torsten Riotte (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt); Discussant: Takafumi Kurosawa (Kyoto University)

Mustafa Erdem Sakinç (Université Montesquieu-Bordeaux IV), The Discord between Strong Government Presence and Contrasting Business Practices in the Commercial Aircraft Industry

Andrés Cárdenas O'Farrill (Universität Bremen), State and Innovative Enterprises: The Case of the Cuban Biopharmaceutical Industry

Sabine Chretien-Ichikawa (Shanghai Normal University), The Chinese Fashion Industry, an Industry under Control: How to Develop a Creative Industry in a Planned Economy

5.A Beer Migrations: Business, Technology, and Brewing
Chair: Eline Poelmans (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)

Malcolm Purinton (Northeastern University), A Golden Flood: The Spread of the Pilsner in the Late Nineteenth Century

Susan Gauss (University at Albany / SUNY), The Business of Consumption: Beer in Early Twentieth Century Mexico

Jeffrey Pilcher (University of Minnesota), The Brewery as Laboratory: Asians in the Beer Brewing Profession, Early Twentieth Century

5.B Fraud and Corruption in the Neo-Liberal Age
Chair: Rowena Olegario (University of Oxford)

Hartmut Berghoff (German Historical Institute-DC), From the Watergate Scandal to the Compliance Revolution: The Fight against Corporate Corruption in the United States and Germany, 1972-2012

Christopher McKenna (University of Oxford), The International Origins of the American Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977

Edward Balleisen (Duke University), American Fraud Policy in the Age of Deregulation

5.C Transnational Ethical Challenges

Chair and Discussant: Andrew Popp (University of Liverpool)

Timo Särkkä (University of Jyväskylä), The Birth of the Copper-Mining Economy in Northern Rhodesia and Katanga, 1899-1914

Pablo del Hierro (Universiteit Maastricht), "The Bank Job": La Banca Nazionale del Lavoro and Its Activities in Spain, 1941-1946

Kristoffer Lund Langlie (Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet), Pushing the Boundaries of Integrity? Det Norske Veritas and South Korean Shipbuilding, 1976-1986

5.D Making Global Environmental Policy
Chair and Discussant: Gerhard Fuchs (Universität Stuttgart)

Christian Marx (Universität Trier), Environmental Responsibility and Industrial Production: German Chemical Enterprises and the Discovery of the Ozone Depletion, 1974-1995

Yda Schreuder (University of Delaware), Enron and the Kyoto Protocol: U.S. Climate Change Policy in the Making in the 1990s

Khalid Hossain (RMIT University, Melbourne), From GCC's Skepticism to WBCSD's Advocacy: The History of Corporate Response to Climate Change

5.E Business Lobbying and Public Relations
Chair and Discussant: Benjamin Waterhouse (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

Marcelo Bucheli (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) / Xavier Durán (Universidad de los Andes), The Colony Strikes Back: Colombia, Jersey Standard, and the American Payment of Reparations for the Loss of Panama

Caroline Jack (Cornell University), Sponsored Film and Subtle Salesmanship: John Sutherland Productions' Cartoon Films for Economic Education

Erik Lakomaa (Handelshögskolan i Stockholm), The Advertising Industry and the State: The Case of Sweden

5.F Challenges of Banking Expansion
Chair and Discussant: Youssef Cassis (European University Institute)

Victoria Barnes / Lucy Newton (University of Reading), The Virtues and Vices of Branch Banking: Joint-Stock Banks and the Spread of Banking in England and Wales, 1826-1880

Laurence B. Mussio (McMaster University), Canada's "Reputational Capitalists": Virtue, Vice, and Reputation at the Bank of Montreal, 1817-1840

Christopher Kopper (Universität Bielefeld), The German Banks and the Europeanization of Banking during the 1980s

5.G Coping with War
Chair and Discussant: Mark Wilson (University of North Carolina, Charlotte)

Lindsay Schakenbach (Brown University), The Origins of the Military-Industrial Complex: The Federal Government, Diplomacy, and the Origins of American Industry, 1790-1840

Mark Billings (University of Exeter), Managing Risk or Appeasing the Nazis? British Banks and Standstill Debt in the 1930s

Espen Storli (Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet), The Cold War as a Business Opportunity: Metal Traders and PL480

Jocelyn Wills (CUNY), The "Proper Meshing": Geopolitics and the Commercialization of Space

6.A Post–World War II Fashion
Chair and Discussant: Regina Lee Blaszczyk (University of Leeds)

Véronique Pouillard-Maliks (Universitetet i Oslo), Innovation and the Role of the State in French Postwar Fashion Industries, 1946-1960

Ingrid Giertz-Mårtenson (Centrum för Näringslivshistoria, Stockholm), From Fast Fashion to Luxury in the Fashion Business: The History of the H&M Designer Collections, 2004-2013

Thierry Maillet / Ben Wubs (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam), Building Competing Textile Fashion Fairs in Europe, 1970-2010: Première Vision (Lyon/Paris) vs. Interstoff (Frankfurt)

Mariangela Lavanga (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam), The Changing Role of International Fashion Fairs: The Case of Pitti Immagine in Florence

6.B IBM and the Evolution of Corporate Virtue
Chair and Discussant: Walter Friedman (Harvard Business School)

Thomas Haigh (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee), IBM as the Very Model of a Modern Major Corporation

Steven Usselman (Georgia Institute of Technology), In Good Times and in Bad: IBM and the Federal Government

Andrew Meade McGee (Washington & Lee University), Combating the Urban Crisis, One Computer Technician at a Time: IBM, the Urban League, and the Business of Social Responsibility through Job Training

Corinna Schlombs (Rochester Institute of Technology), "World Peace through World Trade": IBM's Corporate Diplomacy before and after World War II

6.C Reassessing Shareholder Value
Chair and Discussant: Jonathan Levy (Princeton University)

Neil Rollings (University of Glasgow), The Dividend Prejudice in Postwar Britain

Marie Carpenter (Télécom School of Management) / Bob Bell (University of California, Berkeley) / Henrik Glimstedt (Handelshögskolan i Stockholm) / William Lazonick (University of Massachusetts), Cisco Systems and the Virtues and Vices of the New Economy Business Model

Daniel Raff (University of Pennsylvania / NBER), What Became of Borders?

William Lazonick (University of Massachusetts), Innovative Enterprise and Shareholder Value

6.D Business of Empire
Chair and Discussant: Erik Grimmer-Solem (Wesleyan University)

Philip J. Stern (Duke University), Corporate Responsibilities: Company, City, and Colony in the Early Modern British Empire

Michael Aldous (London School of Economics), Avoiding "Negligence and Profusion": The Failure of the Joint-Stock Form in Anglo-Indian Trade, 1813-1870

Laird Jones (Lock Haven University), White Privilege or Transactions Costs? Early Colonial Attempts to Regulate the Lake Victoria Rice Trade

6.E Entrepreneurial Freedom in the Third Reich
Chair and Discussant: Harold James (Princeton University)

Ralf Banken (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt), The Room for Maneuver for Firms in the Third Reich

Roman Köster (Universität der Bundeswehr München), Sewing for Hitler? The Clothing Business during the Third Reich

Tim Schanetzky (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena), Big Steel and World War II: German-American Perspectives

Pål Thonstad Sandvik / Jonas Scherner (Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet), Why Germany Did Not Fully Exploit the Nickel Industry in Occupied Norway: IG Farben and the Political Economy of Nickel in the Third Reich

6.F Gambling and Gaming
Chair and Discussant: Ann Fabian (Rutgers University)

Jan-Otmar Hesse (Universität Bielefeld) / Ralf Nohr (Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig), Playing Business: Strategic Computer Games in Management Education

Carolyn Biltoft (Georgia State University), The Risk of Noise: "Talkies," Market Speculation, and Dangerous Animal Spirits

6.G The Culture of Savings
Chair and Discussant: Sharon Murphy (Providence College)

Tiina Hemminki (University of Jyväskylä), Saving without Banks? Rural Creditors on Both Sides of the Gulf of Bothnia, 1796-1830

Eoin McLaughlin (University of Edinburgh), Philanthropy, Fraud, and Contagion: Microfinance in Ireland, 1836-1860

Linda Perriton / Josephine Maltby (University of York), Working-Class Households and Savings in England, 1850-1920

Dan Bäcklund / Kristina Lilja (Uppsala Universitet), Changing Savings Behavior in Relation to Market Changes, Sweden c. 1900

Krooss Dissertation Plenary Session
Chair and Discussant: Duncan Ross (University of Glasgow)

Fahad Ahmad Bishara (College of William & Mary), A Sea of Debt: Histories of Commerce and Obligation in the Indian Ocean, c. 1850-1940

Joyman Lee (University of Missouri, St. Louis), Where Imperialism Could Not Reach: Chinese Industrial Policy and Japan, 1900-1940

Heidi Tworek (Harvard University), Magic Connections: German News Agencies and Global News Networks, 1905-1945
7.A Standardization and Its Discontents
Chair and Discussant: Sigrid Quack (Universität Duisburg-Essen)

Stephen Mihm (University of Georgia), The Nuts and Bolts of Modernity: Standard Screw Threads and the Industrial Economy of the United States

JoAnne Yates (MIT) / Craig Murphy (Wellesley College), The Role of Firms in Industrial Standards Setting: Virtue and Vice

Lee Vinsel (Stevens Institute of Technology), Virtue via Association: The National Bureau of Standards, Automobiles, and Political Economy, 1919-1940

Andrew Russell (Stevens Institute of Technology), Accreditation and the Boundaries of Computer Science, 1984-1999

7.B Personal Capitalism
Chair and Discussant: Andrea Colli (Università Bocconi)

Monika Poettinger (Università Bocconi), Business Forms, Capital Democratization and Innovation: Milan in the 1850s

Changkeun Lee (University of Michigan), Elite Family Business and Southern Capitalism in the North Carolina Cotton Textile Industry, 1900-1935

Juanjuan Peng (Georgia Southern University), A Big Business in China: The Wartime Expansion of the Yudahua Business Group

7.C Moral Economies in Employee-Controlled Enterprise
Chair and Discussant: Patrick Fridenson (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales)

Anne Sudrow (Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam), "To Fit Industry to Human Needs": The Scott Bader Commonwealth and the Creation of an "Industrial Common Ownership Movement" in Britain

Uwe Sonnenberg (Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam), Radical Politics Versus a "Mindset of Economic Survival": The Left Book Trade Association in West Germany

Jens Beckmann (Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam), The Case of LIP in Besançon, France: From Industrial Work-in to a Set of Worker Cooperatives

Christiane Mende (Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam), More Than a Phenomenon of Economic Crisis? Impact, Practice, and Meaning of "Workers' Control" in the Glass Factory Süßmuth, West Germany

7.D Social Identity and American Business
Chair and Discussant: Mary Yeager (University of California, Los Angeles)

Nancy Marie Robertson (Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis), Capitalism with a Woman's Face: Women's Departments in American Banks at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Crystal Moten (Dickinson College), "Jobs to Fit My People": Saint Charles Lockett, Ethnic Enterprises, and the Meaning of Economic Justice in 1970s Milwaukee

Simone Drake (The Ohio State University), Hip Hop Genealogies and Black Entrepreneurship in the Worlds That Marcus Garvey and Jay-Z Made

7.E Reconsidering Credit, Currency, and Reputation
Chair and Discussant: Anders Ravn Sørensen (Copenhagen Business School)

Richard Yntema (Otterbein University), Balancing Private and Public Interests: Trade Credit and Collective Action in Holland's Early Modern Brewing Industry

Manuel Bautista González (Columbia University), Making Monies in the Global South: Foreign and Domestic Currencies and Monetary Circuits in Antebellum New Orleans

7.F Forms of Corporate Governance
Chair and Discussant: Mary O'Sullivan (Université de Genève)

Sebastian Demel (Universität Mannheim), In Good Company? How to Introduce Morals into Business: A Case Study of the Carl Zeiss Foundation

Arun Kumar (Lancaster University), Building the Modern Nation? Tata's Philanthropy and Development in India

Andrew Linden (RMIT University, Melbourne), Can Democratizing the Firm Strengthen Democracy? How History Can Help the Anglosphere Better Understand What Has Happened on the Other Side of the Participation Rubicon in Germany and Why It Is Important to Us Now

7.G Legitimating "Vice"
Chair and Discussant: Mara Keire (Oxford University)

Matthew J. Bellamy (Carleton University), The Public Relations Committee of the Ontario Brewers and the Defence of Brewing and Beer-Drinking during the Second World War

Jo Ann Oravec (University of Wisconsin, Whitewater), "A Cesspool of Crime" and "Robbery by Appointment": Craigslist and the Ethics of Internet Advertisements

Devin McGeehan Muchmore (Yale University), "I object to the term smut": "Adult-Type" Businessmen and the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, 1969-1970

8.A IBM and Technological Nationalism
Chair and Discussant: Barbara Hahn (Texas Tech University)

Pierre Mounier-Kuhn (Université Paris-Sorbonne), Staying with IBM, Shunning National Champions: Users' Choice in Major French Organizations

Petri Paju (University of Turku), The Virtue of Flexibility: IBM World Trade's Multifaceted Identity

Ross Bassett (North Carolina State University), Foreign Computers in 1960s India: Job Eaters, Consumers of Foreign Exchange, or Export Creators?

8.B The Problem of Money and Finance in America
Chair: David F. Weiman (Barnard College); Discussant: Scott Nelson (College of William & Mary)

Andrew David Edwards (Princeton University), Money and Crisis: Rethinking the Transition to Capitalism with the Stamp Act Crisis

Judge Glock (Rutgers University), The Long-Term Interest Rate, John Maynard Keynes, and the Creation of U.S. Housing Policy

Sean Vanatta (Princeton University), Protecting Plastic: Credit Card Fraud and the Defense of America's Credit Currency

8.C The Rise and Fall of Non-Profit Businesses
Chair and Discussant: John Wilson (University of Liverpool)

Alexia Blin (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales), Cooperation: A Virtuous Business Model? The Case of Wisconsin Cooperators, 1870s-1930s

Christy Ford Chapin (University of Maryland Baltimore County), Virtue and Vice? Non-Profit and For-Profit Healthcare Companies

Anitra Komulainen / Sakari Siltala (University of Helsinki), Business, Politics, and Ideology in the Age of Extremes: A Case Study of the Finnish Consumer Co-Op HOK-Elanto, 1905-2004

8.D Colonial Intermediaries
Chair and Discussant: Jeffrey Fear (University of Glasgow)

Christina Lubinski (German Historical Institute-DC), Politics, Race, and Nationalism: German Multinationals' HR Policy in India, 1920s-1940s

Elisabeth Koll (Harvard Business School), The Scarcest Resource: Strategic Competition among Foreign and Multinational Companies for Managerial Talent in China, 1890s to 1930s

Stephanie Decker (Aston Business School), The Impact of Colonial Development Debates on the HR Policies of Imperial Business in Ghana and Nigeria, 1940-1960

Andrew Smith (University of Liverpool), The 1946 Outlook and the Reconstruction of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation

8.E Management and the Uses of History
Chair and Discussant: Mads Mordhorst (Copenhagen Business School)

Anna Soulsby (Nottingham University Business School), The Construction of Management History in Post-Communist Organizations

R. Daniel Wadhwani (University of the Pacific / Copenhagen Business School), The Uses of History in the Entrepreneurial Process

Elizabeth Brake (Duke University), Historical Methods and the Study of Innovation in Action: A Collaborative Research Project on Innovation Management

8.F Varieties of Governance
Chair and Discussant: Boris Gehlen (Universität Bonn)

Hiroshi Shimizu (Hitotsubashi University) / Yusuke Hoshino (Musashino University)´, Exploration Needs Stable Shareholders? Ownership Structure and R&D Strategy: The Case of the Electronics, Steel and Iron, and Pharmaceutical Industries in Japan

Gail Triner (Rutgers University) / Huancheng Du (American University), Capitalizing Petroleum in Brazil

Gerarda Westerhuis (Universiteit Utrecht) / Abe de Jong (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam) / Joost Jonker (Universiteit Utrecht), Origins, Adaptation, and Diffusion of Anti-Takeover Defenses in the Netherlands

8.G Business in the Age of Neoliberalism and Financialization
Chair and Discussant: Christine Zumello (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3)

Rémi Gilardin (European University Institute), A Policy (Still) in Search of a Rationale? Accounting for British Telecom's Privatisation

Natalya Vinokurova (Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania), When Analogies Fail the Test of Time: The 2008 Mortgage Crisis as a Case of Analogical Lock-In

Melih Yeşilbağ (Binghamton University), Ideological Accumulation by Dispossession: Changing Hegemonic Strategies of Business in Turkey before and after the Neoliberal Era

Presidential Address
Per H. Hansen (Copenhagen Business School), From Master to Servant and Back Again: A Cultural Perspective on 150 Years of Financial History