BUSINESS HISTORY NEWSThe Newsletter of the Association of Business Historians

Autumn 2008

No.36

ISSN 9062-9440

I am delighted to announce that this edition of the Newsletter includes two special features:Youssef Cassis, Walter Friedman and Philip Scranton contribute their thoughts on ‘BusinessHistory after Chandler’, which they originally presented at a round-table discussion on thistheme, held at the 2008 ABH conference in Birmingham. Lina Munoz will contribute herreflections to the Spring 2009 newsletter.

Valerie Johnson, the 2008 Colman prize winner for her thesis on ‘British Multinationals,Culture and Empire in the Early Twentieth Century’, contributes her presentation of the sametitle. The prize finalists, Niall Mackenzie and David Bricknell, will contribute articles to theSpring 2009 newsletter.

I would also like to draw your attention to the various items of news, as well as the new booksannouncements. You will also see that Boydell & Brewer are offering ABH members a 25 %discount on selected titles.

If you have any event or new publication you would like to see included in the next edition ofthe newsletter (due out in April 2009), please do e-mail details to the address below by theend of March.

Last but not least, please do let me have any feedback and / or suggestions about futureeditions of the newsletter.

Laura Ugolini, University of Wolverhampton

HAGRI/HLSSMC 233, Millennium City BuildingUniversity of WolverhamptonWolverhampton, WV1 1LYUKE-mail: l.ugolini@wlv.ac.uk

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CONTENTS

FEATURES

‘Business History After Chandler’ – A round-table discussion, 2008 ABH Conference,University of BirminghamYoussef Cassis, ‘Alfred Chandler, the Historian’ p. 3Walter A. Friedman, ‘On Alfred Chandler’ p. 6Philip Scranton, ‘Beyond Chandler?’ p. 9

Colman Prize 2008 winnerValerie Johnson, ‘British Multinationals, Culture and Empire in the Early Twentieth Century’

p. 13

SPECIAL OFFERS

Boydell & Brewer 25 % discount on selected titles p. 16

INFORMATION AND NEWS

Association of Business Historians conference cfp p. 18Call for Coleman Prize 2009 p. 20Business Archives Council Conference p. 21Business Archives Council Bursary p. 22Centre for International Business Historydoctoral research opportunities p. 23Chord workshop, ‘Health, Well-being and Commerce’ p. 24Chord workshop, ‘Retailing History: Texts and Images p. 25Conference on Historical Analysis andResearch in Marketing (CHARM) conference cfp p. 26Pasold Research Fund grants p. 27‘Understanding Markets: Information,Institutions and History’ conference cfp p. 29Hagley prize in business history p. 30Hagley Fellows call for papers p. 31International Critical Management Conference:Stream cfp p. 32The National Archives Academic Database p. 36EAERCD Conference and call for papers p. 37

NEW PUBLICATIONS

The Routledge Companion to Accounting History p. 38The Soviet Dream World of Retail Trade and Consumptionin the 1930s p. 40The Development of Marketing Management p. 41

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FEATURES

‘Business history after Chandler’ – A round-table discussion, 2008 ABH Conference,

University of Birmingham

Youssef Cassis

Alfred Chandler the historian

Alfred Chandler’s contribution to establishing business history as a proper academic

discipline has been rightly acknowledged and widely commented upon. Here, I should to

stress two other interrelated aspects of his legacy which, I think, are equally positive. The

first is his historical approach, at any rate in his early works –Strategy and Structure (1962)

and The Visible Hand (1977). Chandler’s method was inductive rather than deductive and his

conclusions based on empirical, often archive-based analysis. This historical legacy must not

be lost. The second is his methodology. Chandler’s original methodology, based on the

collective history of the largest companies, has remained unsurpassed. It has enabled him to

link the general and the particular and to tackle big questions, not least that of the

relationships between business and economic development. This legacy must also be

preserved.

The least valuable aspect of Alfred Chandler’s legacy is, in my view, the reverse of the most

positive ones and is more characteristic of the late Chandler. It is, to a large extent, the

abandonment of the historical method, the insufficiently founded generalizations, the assumed

superiority of the United States, used as an ideal-type rather than a real case and proper object

of comparison –all of which lead to historical errors and undermined the value of the so-

called ‘Chandlerian paradigm’.

At the risk of being over-simplistic and leaving aside major issues, I would say that

historically based generalizations about business development are the main lesson we should

learn from Alfred Chandler when trying to define the agenda for the next five to ten years.

I would like to see business history remaining firmly grounded in the historical discipline and

the historical method. Conversely, I wouldn’t like to see business history becoming a subfield

4

of business and management studies in the way that economic history, or part of economic

history, has become a subfield of economics and is running the risk of fading into oblivion.

But I would like to go a step further and see business history play a leading part in general

history –on a par with political and cultural history. Put another way, business history should

be included as a matter of course in any writing of history. We were not far from such a

situation twenty years ago, at least in some countries, at a time when social history and to a

certain extent political history were quite close to business history, and business history

overlapped to some degree with economic history. Business elites, for example, and business

pressure groups, used to form an integral part of general local, national, and even comparative

historical analysis. Since then, business, economic and social history have moved further

apart while history as a discipline has become dominated by political and, especially, cultural

history.

However, the pendulum might well be swinging in the opposite direction and business history

could find itself in a central position within the historical discipline. This will depend on two

factors. One is what is happening in the historical discipline as a whole, which cannot be

discussed here, and which business historians can only influence to a limited extent. The other

is, of course, what happens to business history, and here I would like to raise three points.

First, I think that business history is, on the whole, moving in the right direction. The post

Chandler era has already begun. It is, in fact, well under way – we are a good ten years into it.

A first balance sheet of these early post Chandler years reveals that business history is well

positioned – because of its diversity, and because of its connections and interactions with the

history of all domains of human activity, from the economic to the cultural. Alfred Chandler

is not much help in that respect.

Second, history must remain an essential part of economic history – an economic history

solidly anchored in the historical approach. Alfred Chandler’s legacy should be very helpful

in this context.

And third, in order for business history to play a central role in history, business historians, or

at least a few of them, might have to venture outside their field of specialization. One

suggestion, among many other possibilities, would be to engage in historical writing of a

5

more general kind. A general history, at local, national or international level, written by a

business historian would be different from one written by a political or a cultural historian and

should certainly help promote business history, especially at a time when business issues

account for so much in the problems faced by the modern world.

Youssef Cassis.

E-mail: Youssef.Cassis@histec.unige.ch

Youssef Cassis is Professor of Economic and Social History at the University of Geneva,

Switzerland, and a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

His work mainly focuses on banking and financial history, as well as business history more

generally. His numerous publications on this subject include Big Business. The European

Experience in the Twentieth Century, Oxford, 1997 and Capitals of Capital. A History of

International Financial Centres, 1780-2005, Cambridge, 2006. He was the cofounder, in

1994, of Financial History Review, published by Cambridge University Press, which he co-

edited until 2005. He is also a member of the Academic Advisory Council of the European

Association for Banking and Financial History and past President (2005-2007) of the

European Business History Association.

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Walter A. Friedman

On Alfred Chandler

I met Alfred Chandler shortly after my arrival at Harvard Business School in 1998. As an

editor of Business History Review, I spoke to him often about upcoming articles and special

issues of the journal. I talked to him the day before he went into the hospital for an operation

that he termed minor but that, due to complications, ended his life. At the time, he was at

work on what he assured me was a great story, the biography of his maternal grandfather,

William G. Ramsay (1866-1916), head of the Engineering Department of E. I. du Pont de

Nemours. This manuscript, had he been able to complete it, would have made a fine

bookend to his first published monograph, the 1956 study of his paternal great-grandfather,

Henry Varnum Poor: Business Editor, Analyst and Reformer.

Among the characteristics of Al Chandler that I most admired was that he was always at work

on a project. In his eighties he maintained the enthusiasm of a graduate student. During the

decade that I knew him, for example, he completed two books: Inventing the Electronic

Century: The Epic Story of the Consumer Electronics and Computer Industries (2001); and

Shaping the Industrial Century: The Remarkable Story of the Modern Chemical and

Pharmaceutical Industries (2005). He also published short pieces in Business History Review

(“Commercializing High-Technology Industries”) and Enterprise and Society (his response to

the symposium “Framing Business History”) and, at age eighty-seven, he produced a lengthy

article for the online journal Capitalism and Society (“How High Technology Industries

Transformed Work and Life Worldwide from the 1880s to the 1990s”).

In his lifetime, Chandler was sole author of six books, including the three mentioned above.

His most famous works, of course, were the ones that focused on the rise of big business and

the coming of a managerial class: Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of

Industrial Enterprise (1962); The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American

Business (1977); and Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism (1990). As

many commentators have acknowledged, these books were so path-breaking in their approach

and so impressive in their depth of research that they set the agenda for the entire field of

business history. My favorite among these books was Strategy and Structure, which analyzed

DuPont, General Motors, Sears, and Standard Oil, and showed in detail how each of these

four companies came to adopt the multidivisional structure. No other book provided such a

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rich account of how big businesses actually worked. No other historian described the point of

view of middle managers and executives as they confronted the complexities of daily business

life, filled as it was with committee meetings, budget decisions, and forecasts. “Only by

showing these executives as they handled what appeared to them to be unique problems and

issues can the process of innovation and change be meaningfully presented,” Chandler wrote.

While most obituary-writers have justly focused on these three core books, historians should

not neglect Chandler’s other works. He co-wrote (with Stephen Salsbury) Pierre S. du Pont

and the Making of the Modern Corporation (1971), a rich primary-source study that is as

much business history as biography. It recounts Pierre’s role in making Du Pont the largest

U.S. chemical and explosives company and General Motors the world’s biggest car

manufacturer. Chandler also edited, or co-edited, another thirty volumes, including Big

Business and the Wealth of Nations (1997). He published sixty articles, many of which are

listed in the bibliography of Thomas K. McCraw’s edited collection The Essential Alfred

Chandler: Essays Toward a Historical Theory of Big Business (1988). One, from 1994, and

hence not mentioned in that volume, is his seventy-two-page, internationally comparative

study in Business History Review, “The Competitive Performance of U.S. Industrial

Enterprises since the Second World War.”

Chandler wrote on many themes and topics: railways, management, global competition,

anthracite coal, the career of Alfred Sloan and other important executives, the nature of

business history, the rise of the computer industry and of biotech and pharmaceuticals, to

name but a few. Intellectually, he kept moving—something many of his critics have failed to

do. In the 1950s, he made the case that firms matter at a time when economists had no

interest in them. Starting in the late 1970s and the 1980s, he turned his scholarly attention to

international business and made a commitment to comparative analysis. He got the idea of

“going global,” as Geoff Jones noted, a lot earlier than most business historians. In the 1990s,

he became fascinated with why some industries failed and others rose in their place:

electronics and computer science, chemicals and pharmaceuticals were some examples.

These topics—crises, failure, and innovation—are now central to the field.

He was not, as some critics have claimed, simply a champion of American industry. Certainly

his most famous works, Strategy and Structure, The Visible Hand, and Scale and Scope,

emphasized the success of American management. But Chandler also objected to many trends

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that were taking place in American management practice in the 1960s, including the

conglomerate movement. In the last decade of his life, he focused on the triumph of Japanese

industry in the second half of the twentieth century. He spoke to me more than once of his

concern that business historians would overlook this story because of the slowdown in

Japanese performance that began in the 1990s.

Chandler’s work had tremendous reach beyond the discipline of history. He made vital

contributions to organizational sociology, global business studies, and to the field of strategic

management. He had the honor of being listed as an eminent scholar by the Academy of

International Business. His wide-ranging influence is demonstrated in the summer issue of

Business History Review, which contains articles on Chandler written by Thomas K. McCraw,

Richard R. John, Neil Fligstein, Mira Wilkins, Richard Whittington, Martin Jes Iversen, Paul

J. Miranti, Marie Anchordoguy, and Mary A. Yeager.

Throughout his career Chandler asked broad and interesting questions: Why did big firms

emerge in some industries and not others? Why did some firms, and some economies,

outperform others? What happens when industries die? His writings display vitality, curiosity,

and ingenious analysis. They exemplify all that scholars can hope to achieve.

Walter A. Friedman.

E-mail: wfriedman@hbs.edu

Walter A. Friedman is a research fellow at Harvard Business School, where he is co-editor of

the Business History Review. He is author of Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of

Selling in America (2004).

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Philip Scranton

‘Beyond Chandler’

Unlike several of my colleagues whose retrospectives are included in this special roundtable, I

did not have a personal relationship with Alfred DuPont Chandler, though during the 1980s

he did invite me to present a discussion of my first book, Proprietary Capitalism, at his

Harvard business history seminar. I also met Dr. Chandler frequently at Business History

Conference meetings, where I found him ever-gracious, indifferent to criticism, and

supportive of diverse projects whether allied with or tangential to his own. Thus here I offer

some reflections on our discipline and its current situation, taking Chandler’s publications as a

point of departure.

From my perspective, Alfred Chandler’s life work was a classic modernist project,

along at least two dimensions. Empirically, Chandler documented and analyzed what he

understood as the means to ‘making the modern’, be it manager, enterprise or economy. From

Visible Hand through the final publications on process industries and electronics, this

enterprise-based, managerially-led dynamic continued to generate industrial revolutions that

mastered mature modernity’s challenges in innovation, complex organization and global

competition. Empirically committed to getting the story right, Chandler seemed theoretically

wedded to the notion that there was a right story, unbiased by the ideological commitments

from right-leaning market fetishizers and left-leaning critics of corporate capitalism. Hence

the massive scale of his volumes, their wide-ranging research and stunning detail, their big

ideas and large structures, and their universalizing purposes – aiming together to provoke not

inquiry but assent, to be definitive and corrective, not tentative and exploratory, carving a

template for others to emulate, to generate teachable units not searching conversations.

Chandler’s work sought to put order into business history, creating a compelling,

foundational narrative for others to ornament and embroider, and in doing so his research

exemplified the high era of what social theorist Zygmunt Bauman calls ‘solid modernity’: ‘a

part of history, now coming to its close [which] could be dubbed… the era of hardware, or

heavy modernity – the bulk-obsessed modernity, “the larger the better” kind of modernity, of

“the size is power, the volume is success” sort.’1 The century after the 1870s was an age in

which conquering and holding space was a ‘supreme goal’, in which ‘wealth and might,

which depend on the size and quality of hardware, tend to be sluggish, unwieldy and awkward

1 Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity, Oxford: Polity, 2002, 113.

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to move’, grounded in logics of power and control/routinization and ‘organized around one

precept: bigger means more efficient’. 2 Through his accounts of America’s largest

corporations and their managerial practices, Chandler provided an origin story for solid

modernity in which rational and rationalizing enterprises are the natural and essential

foundations for progress, for a society of reliable structures, durable careers, and rising

expectations. Yet as solid modernity has vaporized, these concepts and their history become

ever less helpful in linking past and present in ways that make sense of both.

Bauman (and others 3 ) note that contemporary enterprises inhabit spaces where

business organization is increasingly seen as a never-conclusive, ongoing attempt ‘to form an

island of superior adaptability’ in a world perceived as ‘multiple, complex and fast moving

and therefore as “ambiguous,” “fuzzy,” or “plastic”.’4 Such operations profit through short-

term commitments, through opportunistic shifts in product, focus or locale, and through

avoiding constructing dense and durable structures, physically or organizationally. We now

inhabit an age of ‘liquid modernity’, in which the capacity for rapidly moving on, grasping

the new, new thing, and suddenly redeploying capital or information resources, makes reading,

shaping, and enhancing flows a strategy far superior to building immobile structures and

capabilities. For firms and individuals, moreover, as Bauman summarizes, ‘“Rational Choice”

in the era of instantaneity means to pursue gratification while avoiding the consequences, and

particularly the responsibilities which such consequences may imply’.5

Of what value to managers immersed in the challenges and incentives of currency

arbitrage or financial derivatives (or to their acolytes in business schools) is the business

history Chandler has bequeathed us? Likewise in this context, of what value to them is that

business history, including my own equally ‘solid modernist’ work, fabricated in response to

Chandler’s claims, omissions or errors? History is built anew generation by generation

because the questions needing answers arise from what surrounds historians. Our

surroundings are sharply different, I would aver, from those in the high Chandlerian period,

perhaps from the early 1950s to the mid-1970s, after which stagflation and deregulation,

among other phenomena, emerged to derail a century-long trajectory. On a second count, of

2 Ibid., 115.3 Ulrich Beck, Richard Sennett, Manuel Castells, Bruno Latour, Anthony Giddens, andMichel Foucault, for example.4 Bauman, 117: ‘The long term, thought still referred to by habit, is a hollow shell carrying nomeaning’. (125)5 Bauman, 128. In another vocabulary, and in relation to current day subprime mortgages andmeltdowns in housing’s financial markets, this can also be characterized as privatizing gainsand socializing losses.

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what interest are our solid modernist business histories to other historians, many of whom a

generation ago stepped firmly away from ‘master narratives’ and definitive interpretations to

enter durably, ongoing conversations about language, meaning and practice, past and present?

My sense is that the route toward such conversations in business history begins at the

portal marked ‘Critique’. Other companion fields have preceded us through it: social, cultural,

intellectual, literary, political and gender history, to a degree biography and economic and

technological history. Let me borrow from, and adapt slightly a definition offered by Barbara

Johnson and quoted by Joan Wallach Scott in a recent essay:

A critique of any [discipline] is not an examination of its flaws and imperfections.

It is not a set of criticisms designed to make the [field] better. It is an analysis that

focuses on the grounds of the [discipline’s] possibility. The critique reads

backward from what seems natural, obvious, self-evident or universal in order to

show that these things have their history, their reasons for being the way they are,

their effects on what follows from them, and that the starting point is not a

(natural) given, but a (cultural) construct, usually blind to itself.6

Should we undertake to explore business history’s unvoiced assumptions, uninterrogated

concepts, obvious units of analysis, and taken-for-granted modes of explanation (such as

rationality, strategy, or the firm)?7 I think so, for absent such a searching critique of the

field’s grounds and possibilities, I imagine we will keep creating variants on the wheels and

wagons we know and cherish. Should we arm ourselves in this effort by reading carefully

and collectively works by key theorists and analysts of contemporary capitalism and late

modernity? Yes indeed, for failing this, I expect that any critique will be locked in

frameworks and vocabularies whose utility rested on structures and expectations of a now-

dissolved, solid modern environment, and thus will prove both circular and incoherent.

Overall, I believe that unless business history reframes its question sets and restocks its

conceptual imaginary through sustained critique, the field may well become self-

6 From Barbara Johnson’s introduction to Jacques Derrida, Dissemination. Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1981, xv, cited in Joan Wallach Scott, ‘History-writing ascritique’, in Keith Jenkins, et al., eds. Manifestos for History. New York: Routledge, 2007,23.

7 Ken Lipartito urged just this critical re-visiting of the discipline’s key concepts andassumptions in his incoming Enterprise & Society editor’s seminar at Bocconi University(2005). I hope during my term as editor to assist in developing this effort.

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extinguishing, a consequence of holding fast to visions of a past that rest mute in relation to

present circumstances and looming dilemmas in business and society. The issue is not what

comes ‘after Chandler’, but how are we to step ‘beyond Chandler’ into the uncertain and the

unfamiliar?

Philip Scranton.

E-mail: scranton@camden.rutgers.edu

Reprinted from Enterprise and Society, September 2008, by kind permission of

Oxford University Press.

Philip Scranton is Board of Governors Professor, History of Industry and Technology, at

Rutgers University, Director of Hagley’s Center for the History of Business, Technology and

Society, and editor-in-chief of Enterprise and Society.

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Colman prize winner, 2008

Valerie Johnson‘British Multinationals, Culture and Empire in the Early Twentieth Century’

The focus of my thesis is the relationship between business, culture and the British Empire.

So why choose this as a subject?

Finance and capitalism have been central to theories of empire, from the beginning of the

twentieth century, in the work, for example, of Hobson and Marx, right through to Cain and

Hopkins at the end of it. But business has very much been the poor cousin of this rich work on

economics/capitalism and empire. In imperial historiography, business has often been

overlooked in favour of more conventional groups such as the colonial services or

missionaries. The 'cultural turn' in imperial history has also paid little attention to business,

and though there has been some excellent work on the decolonization period, little attention

has been paid to the earlier period of the rise of the large firm, the end of the nineteenth

century to the second world war.

In business history, the Chandlerian paradigm remains dominant, and the Empire is often

ignored, or an assumption made that companies were 'imperial', without substantive evidence

being offered to support that assertion. There has been little direct attention to the operation of

managerial capitalism in formal and informal Empire at the level of the firm.

As far as culture and business is concerned, discussion often focuses on the board room, and

on behaviours leading to success of failure, founders and heroes, rather than on the wider

cultural contexts. Some innovative and challenging work has been done on the crossover

between culture and economics, for example, by Mark Casson, but there remains a gap in the

coverage of Empire and culture in British business.

The focus in this thesis is therefore on something new. Using case studies of three British

multinationals operating in formal and informal Empire, the thesis examines the extent to

which the companies manifested imperial cultures and the degree to which they helped to

form, and were formed by, concepts of Empire.

Culture and Empire are notoriously difficult to define, and efforts to deal with this can result

in definitions which are either over-precise or over-woolly. To avoid these two extremes, the

methodology chosen was to examine characteristics that might cumulatively be seen to

constitute a British imperial culture: broadly speaking, shared British values and practices of

racial differentiation and inequality in favour of whites; and social, economic and political

14

domination. The focus was on a bottom-up approach: looking at the companies not definitions,

to build up a picture of cultures and see if it could be viewed as 'imperial'.

Three case studies were used: 3 British multinationals from 3 different sectors in 3 different

imperial circumstances. So from the service sector Barclays (Dominion, Colonial and

Overseas) was chosen; United Africa Company from the trading / manufacturing sector; and

Anglo-Persian Oil Company from the extractive sector. Between them the companies covered

a range of imperial arrangements, including areas of formal colonization, white dominion, and

informal empire.

A history and historiography of each company was first provided, showing how by

association or amalgamation, each company had inherited a legacy of past operations in the

British Empire. A chapter on leadership and hierarchy then followed, elucidating the role of

founders and leaders, who were important as cultural influencers within the companies.

Research was also carried out into the imperial connections of chairmen and directors,

showing how wide and deep the imperial nexus was. As well as having importance in their

own right, these leaders also acted as the pinnacle of organisational hierarchies, which, where

trust was only extended to British whites, functioned to embed differentiation and inequality

into firms.

A chapter on employment then described the preference for the recruitment of a particular

type of British man: educated at British public schools and Oxbridge, athletic, and with

'character'. Socialisation embedded company values further, and the practice of internal

promotion meant that little new blood came in to challenge the status quo. Employment also

provided most of the contact with local peoples, who were subject, as employees, to both

direct and indirect discrimination. There was vertical segregation, so that whites were at the

top and local peoples at the bottom of work hierarchies and horizontal segregation, whereby

local people were confined to specific lower status categories of work.

Outside work, there was an assimilation by the companies to a local British lifestyle, and little

or no social mixing with local peoples. In addition, because other facilities were provided

according to work status, white 'superiority' at work was replicated outside work, in that the

British had better housing, sports, medical and social facilities. It was easy for separation to

slide into segregation.

Relations between the three companies and Britain were then examined, in particular, whether

there existed shared values and practices – a shared British culture – with other British groups,

especially central and peripheral colonial political authorities. The research found that though

the relationship could be problematic and fraught with friction, there was mutual co-operation,

15

and economic relations often became indistinguishable from political, national and imperial

ones.

The converse was then examined: were there shared values between companies and local

peoples? Here, the thesis concluded that the companies had a culture distinguished not by

shared practices or values, but by racial differentiation, social and economic domination.

There was resistance within the companies to local power-sharing, though there was some

adaptation to shifts in power as political nationalism grew. In many cases, business was the

main, if not the only, point of direct contact with Empire and imperial Britain, and as a result,

the local viewpoint of the companies was one in which the companies, Britain and the Empire

were not easily distinguishable.

The thesis found that Empire was important for the three case study companies, and

conversely that business was important for the definition and understanding of Empire. The

companies were seen to have a role as part of the non-governmental structure of imperial

power, and the thesis concluded that the business case contains important evidence which is

currently undervalued and unacknowledged in wider debates in business history and imperial

history.

Valerie Johnson

E-mail: Valerie.Johnson@nationalarchives.gov.uk

Valerie Johnson spent a number of years as research officer on the BP History Project, based

at the University of Cambridge, whilst studying part-time for her PhD. She is currently

research manager at The National Archives.

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outcome was not determined by 'gentlemanly capitalists' comprising landowners andfinanciers who dominated the state and denied a voice to industrialists and their workers.Rather, the choices reflected the interplay between all interests, including those of the stateitself.352pp, 978 1 84383 383 3, £55.00, June 2008www.boydell.co.uk/43833832.HTM

Managing British Colonial and Post-Colonial DevelopmentThe Crown Agents, 1914-1974David SunderlandBritain's Crown Agents' Office is a unique development agency. Until the early 1960s, itsclients were colonial governments, and, thereafter, the administrations of dependencies andnewly independent countries. As well as purchasing a large proportion of its customers'imports, it provided them with finance and managed their investments. It was thus one of thelargest buyers of goods in the UK, and, after, the Bank of England, the country's biggestfinancial institution. This book, the sequel to the author's Managing the British Empire: TheCrown Agents, 1833 -1914 (Boydell, 2004), examines the Agents' various development roles,including the disastrous venture into secondary banking in 1967 which collapsed in 1974,then the largest bankruptcy in British financial history. The book contributes to a number ofcurrent debates in development studies, adds to our understanding of the London financialmarket and the competitiveness of British industry, and shows how present day aid agenciescan learn much from the arrangements of the past.13 line illus.; 312pp, 978 1 84383 301 7, June 2007, £50.00www.boydell.co.uk/43833018.HTM

Benjamin Worsley (1618-1677)Trade, Interest, and the Spirit in Revolutionary EnglandThomas LengBenjamin Worsley occupies a unique place in the development of commercial governance inEngland. Employed as secretary to councils of trade by both the Commonwealth and restoredmonarchy, his career reveals the contribution of republican policies to the establishment of anavigation system that governed commercial relations between England and its empire fordecades to come. But Worsley was far more than a faceless public servant. Ally of thereformer and publisher Samuel Hartlib, mentor to the young scientist Robert Boyle, arch-enemy of William Petty, the political arithmetician, Worsley participated in the intellectualculture of his time, but until now his own story has remained untold. As a London apprentice,military surgeon, and projector; jealous observer of Dutch trade, employee of republic andcrown alike, and frustrated surveyor of Cromwellian Ireland; experimental scientist, aspiringalchemist, spiritual seeker, and restoration dissenter, Worsley stood at the juncture of manycrucial historical developments. Bringing together commercial, intellectual and politicalhistory, and ranging from London to Ireland, Amsterdam, and the international trade routes inwhich they were set, this book tells the story of a remarkable character and the revolutionaryage through which he lived.248pp, 978 0 86193 296 2, £50.00, June 2008, Royal Historical Society Studies in HistoryNew Serieswww.boydell.co.uk/6193296X.HTM

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INFORMATION AND NEWS

‘Cities of Business, the Business of Cities…’

Association of Business Historians Annual Conference 2009

University of Liverpool Management School, 3rd-4th July 2009

Call for Papers

In view of the location for this conference, a city once central to Britain’s global businessactivity but one which has subsequently passed through periods of decline and resurgence,we propose that the 2009 ABH conference should focus on the urban nature and context ofmost modern business activity. Cities such as Liverpool have been both an arena forbusiness, a place in which business services, networks, elites, and particular patterns ofurban consumption develop, and a conduit for business activity, linking hinterlands withother regions and with the overseas world through flows of goods, money, people, and ideas.

Themes for the conference may include:

The Role of cities in international business

Urban business networks and elites

Urban consumption: the growth of mass marketing and modern retailing

Municipal and public sector business

Financial centres

Cities as transport and communication hubs

Markets and exchanges

Businessmen, patronage, and philanthropy

Commodity trades and industries

Business and the regeneration of cities

The business infrastructure of cities

The business of sport and leisure

Cities and their hinterlands

Cities, regions and industrial districts

Business and the building of cities, cities and the creation of businesses

Types of business city (financial vs. manufacturing, metropolitan vs. regional)

Businesses big and small in the city

Global cities

The rise and decline of business cities

Interactions with other historical disciplines, e.g. urban history, historical geography

As is traditional, the organizers also welcome papers on any topic related to business history, even

where it does not focus on the conference theme, and on any time period or country.

Proposals are welcome for either individual papers or entire sessions (each normally of one-and-a-

half hours). Each paper proposal should include a short (one-page) abstract, a list of 3 to 5 keywords

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and a brief CV. Proposals for sessions should also include a cover letter containing a Session title and

a brief description of or rationale for the proposed session. If you any questions, please contact

either of the local organizers, Rory Miller and Andrew Popp, at abh2009@liv.ac.uk.

The deadline for submission is 31 December 2008

Please send proposals electronically to abh2009@liv.ac.uk

or by mail to

Andrew Popp, Rory Miller & Stephanie Decker

University of Liverpool Management School

Chatham Street

Liverpool

L69 7ZH

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Call for Coleman Prize 2009Association of Business HistoriansTo be awarded at the ABH Conference3-4 July 2009University of Liverpool Management Schoolwww.busman.qmul.ac.uk/abh

The Association of Business Historians invites submissions for consideration for the 2009Coleman Prize. This prestigious prize is open to PhD dissertations in Business History eitherhaving a British subject or completed at a British University. All dissertations completed inthe calendar years 2007 and 2008 are eligible (with the exception of previous submissions).The value of the prize is £200. Named in honour of the British Business Historian DonaldColeman, this prize is awarded annually by the Association of Business Historians torecognise excellence in new research in Britain. The Prize is now sponsored by AdamMatthew Publications Limited, a scholarly publisher which makes available originalmanuscript collections, rare printed books and other primary source materials in microformand electronic format. It is a condition of eligibility for the Prize that short-listed finalistspresent their findings at the Association's annual conference, to be held at the University ofLiverpool Management School, 3-4 July 2009.

For consideration of your PhD dissertation, please send the title and a brief 200-word abstractto Dr Valerie Johnson by 31 December 2008. A longlist of candidates will be requested tosend hard copies of their thesis by 25 February 2009, from which a shortlist of finalists willbe chosen.

Dr Valerie JohnsonCorporate Research ManagerResearch and Collections DevelopmentThe National ArchivesKew RichmondSurreyTW9 4DUEngland.Email:valerie.johnson@nationalarchives.gov.uk

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Beyond The OrdinaryStrategies for Sustainable Business Archives

Business Archives Council Annual Conference 2008

This year’s BAC Conference will be held at the Wellcome Library in London onWednesday 12th November 2008. It will focus on the various options for owners ofcollections to consider when looking at the sustainability of their archives in the longterm. Traditionally companies have maintained and run archives within the structureof the company, but now some are looking at alternatives to this by considering amove to create trusts, work in partnership, or donate their collections to other bodiessuch as Universities or public sector record offices. Fundraising has also becomemore of an issue with HLF and other funding bodies being prepared to considerprojects which include business archive collections. The BAC Conference willpresent options which have already been adopted by some archives, with expertinformation and a series of case studies highlighting these strategies. TheConference will be of relevance to all business archivists and also those with aninterest in the sustainability and access to our heritage collections. The speakers willinclude Joan Heggie of the British Steel Collection, Teresa Wilmshurst of theWaterways Trust and Richard Taylor of the National Railways Museum. KateyLogan and John Quail will host the afternoon’s Question Time panel which will focuson the new national business archive strategy. All delegates will be offered theopportunity to submit, in advance, a question to the session and further debate willbe encouraged!The BAC Conference will be followed by the presentation of the Wadsworth Prize forBusiness History which this year is kindly being hosted by Unilever.Booking forms for the Conference are available from the BAC website or from theConference organiser Judy Faraday on 01438 312388 ext 4202.judy_faraday@johnlewis.co.uk

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THE BUSINESS ARCHIVES COUNCIL BURSARY FOR BUSINESSHISTORY RESEARCH

As a result of the generosity of Sir Peter Thompson, former Chairman of the National FreightCorporation, and the Wellcome Foundation, the BAC has instituted a trust fund, the incomefrom which is used to offer annually a bursary to help an individual to further his/her researchinto business history through the study of specific business archives. In 2009 the value of theaward will be up to £1000.

Eligibility

Applicants must be engaged in business history research using British-based businessarchives, normally at least of postgraduate level, with a view to publication of an article orbook. Professional scholars and amateur researchers are equally welcome, but preference maybe given to scholars at the beginning of their careers who are less able to call on otherinstitutions for funding. Applicants studying for a research degree should identify a specificproject based on identifiable archive resources, rather than merely seeking a grant-in-aid oftheir overall research programme.

Undergraduates, those researching commissioned histories and the members of the BAC’sExecutive Committee are not eligible. Family historians and those wishing to work on recordsor archives not generated by business organisations, even to contextualise business historyresearch, will not be eligible.

Applications

Candidates should indicate: the objectives of their research, which will need to be within thebroad field of business history; the nature and location of the specific set of business recordsthey wish to study; a detailed breakdown of costs; the proposed methods of dissemination ofthe results of their work.

All applications should be received by 31 March 2009 at the following address:

Business Archives Councilc/o Karen SampsonLloyds TSB Group Archives5th floor, Princess House,1 Suffolk Lane,London EC4R 0AX

There is no application form. Candidates should include a brief curriculum vitae as well as theinformation indicated above. All applications must be typewritten or word-processed andshould not exceed five sides of A4.

Award

The decision of the BAC is final. The successful applicant will be informed in writing by theend of April 2009. The prize will be awarded at the Annual Meeting of the Association ofBusiness Historians Conference, 3-4 July 2009, University of Liverpool.

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Reading’s Centre for International Business History (CIBH) is one of theleading international centres for research into business history and related areas.

We welcome applicants for doctoral research in any field of business history andare particularly interested in students who might be interested in undertakingresearch on the following topics:

● History of household consumption and consumer goods marketing

● Financial institutions and the development of new/small businesses

● The development of modern retailing

● Financial history● Economic development of the film industry (UK or internationally)● Evolution and growth of consumer goods industries

● Innovation and technological change

A number of bursaries/studentships are available. For further information, pleasecontact Peter Scott (p.m.scott@reading.ac.uk)

Information regarding CIBH and its activities is available via our web-site:http://www.henley.reading.ac.uk/management/research/centres/mgmt-cibh.asp

For information on bursaries and studentships at the Henley Business School,University of Reading see, http://www.henley.reading.ac.uk/management/pg-research/mgmt-pgrfunding.asp

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CHORD Workshop and Call for Papers

Health, Well-being and Commerce1500-2000

25 March 2009

CHORD invites participants to a workshop devoted to a discussion of thecommercial practices and services associated with health and well-being, fromthe early modern to the contemporary period. Well-being is defined broadly,including notions of beauty, hygiene and grooming. Proposals are invited fromany disciplinary perspective and focusing on any geographical area. Topics ofinterest include, but are not limited to:

Chemists & the sale of remedies The drug trade 'Quacks' & 'puffery' Hairdressers & barbers The fitness industry Cleaning products, hygiene & health Beauty & grooming products Alternative remedies Health, marketing & age

The workshop will be held at:the University of Wolverhampton, UK

Please send proposals (including title and c. 200 words abstract) to theaddress below by 23 January 2009. Fee: £ 14. For further information,please contact Dr Laura Ugolini, HAGRI / HLSS, Room MC233, University ofWolverhampton, Wolverhampton, WV1 1SB, UK.E-mail: L.Ugolini@wlv.ac.uk

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CHORD workshop and call for papers

Retailing History: Texts and Images

29 April 2009

CHORD invites participants to a workshop devoted to a discussion of thenature of the texts and images associated with retailing and retailers,including commercial images, artistic and literary representations,photographs and postcards, the printed word and the visual arts.Proposals are invited from any disciplinary perspective and focusing onany historical period. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Photography and visual representations Slogans, catch-phrases and branding Retailing and the visual arts Advertising and promotional material Literary, biographical and autobiographical representations Retailing, nostalgia and the heritage industry Print and press representations, self-presentation and advice

The workshop will be held at:the University of Wolverhampton, UK

Please send proposals (including title and c. 200 words abstract) to theaddress below by 6 February 2009. Fee: £ 14. For further information, pleasecontact Dr Laura Ugolini, HAGRI / HLSS, Room MC233, University ofWolverhampton, Wolverhampton, WV1 1SB, UK.E-mail: L.Ugolini@wlv.ac.uk

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Marketing History: Strengthening, Straightening,and Extending

14th Biennial Conference on Historical Analysis

and Research in Marketing (CHARM)

May 28 – May 31, 2009In 2009 the CHARM conference travels to England, where the esteemed historian LordActon once said “It is by solidity of criticism more than by the plenitude of erudition, thatthe study of history strengthens, and straightens, and extends the mind” (1895).

JOIN COLLEAGUES WHO SHARE AN INTEREST IN MARKETING HISTORY!!

Papers on all aspects of marketing history and the history of marketing thought in allgeographic areas and all time frames are welcome at this friendly and collegial gathering.Methodological, pedagogical, and historiographic submissions are also invited.

All paper submissions will be double-blind reviewed and a proceedings volume will bepublished. Full papers (25 page maximum) or extended abstracts may be submitted.Authors may choose to publish either full papers or extended abstracts in theproceedings. To provide reviewers with sufficient information extended abstracts shouldbe: 1,200-1,500 words in length and include: the research purpose, source material ordata, and sample references.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Monday, December 1, 2008

Outstanding full papers may be invited for publication in the Journal of HistoricalResearch in Marketing or for submission to a special issue of the Journal ofMacromarketing. Full papers are also eligible to be considered for: the Stanley C.Hollander Best Paper Award (best overall paper) and the David D. Monieson Best StudentPaper Award (best paper by a graduate student). The David D. Monieson Best StudentPaper Award eligibility requires that the paper be authored solely by a graduate student(s)and that student authorship be noted on the cover page upon submission.

For paper submission guidelines and additional information about the conference pleasevisit the CHARM website at www.charmassociation.org or contact:

Program Chair: Arrangements Chair:William W. Keep Mark TadajewskiProfessor of Marketing Lecturer in Critical MarketingQuinnipiac University University of Leicester

Hamden, CT, USA Leicester, Englandwilliam.keep@quinnipiac.edu Mt66@leicester.ac.uk

Hosted By:

School of Management

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Pasold Research Fund

Grants

The Pasold Fund promotes and supports research in the history of textiles, broadly defined. Itdoes this by giving financial assistance to researchers, by organising and supportingconferences and workshops and by publishing a monograph series and a major journal, TextileHistory.

Pasold research grants are awarded to fund high quality research, relating to all branches oftextile history. Applications are encouraged for projects where there will be a lasting outcomein the form of a publication or an exhibition or similar. This includes conservation relatedprojects, leading to publications, but excludes the purchase or repair of objects and thepurchase of hardware (eg cameras or computing equipment or computer software).Applications will also be considered where preliminary work is needed for the preparation ofa more substantial grant application to one of the major funding bodies. Applications mayalso be made to fund conference attendance – these applications may come from individualsor from conference organisers seeking funding for a named applicant. However, it isimportant to provide an abstract of the paper and details of the nature of the conference and itssignificance. Where a conference organiser is seeking support for a named delegate details ofthe conference, a CV of the delegate and title and abstract of the paper are required. A copy ofthe full paper should be supplied following the conference.

For more information, see http://www.pasold.co.uk/

All successful grant applicants, where appropriate, will be encouraged to consider submittingthe outcome of their research to Textile History. Publication would of course be subject toeditorial refereeing and decision.

Grants specifically in aid of publication, for a contribution towards illustrations essential tothe quality of research output, will be considered where a clear case is made explaining theway these will enhance the text and why they cannot be funded in other ways.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE PASOLD RESEARCH FUND WILL NOT FUNDSALARIES, ONLY RESEARCH EXPENSES SUCH AS TRAVEL, SUBSISTENCE,PHOTOCOPYING, MICROFILMING AND SIMILAR. WE DO NOT ACCEPTRETROSPECTIVE APPLICATIONS. ALL COSTINGS MUST BE IN STERLING

DETAILS AND DEADLINES FOR RESEARCH GRANTS (please note that some deadlineswere revised in January 2008)

1. Applications for grants under £500 may be made at any time.

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2. There are two deadlines for applications between £501 and £1000: 1 October and 15February. Applicants will be notified of decisions within 3 months.

3. For applications between £1001 and £3000 there is a single application date of 30April. Applicants will be notified within 3 months.

4. Research Grant applications are welcomed from PhD students, registered at UKinstitutions, for grants up to £1000 (see deadlines 1 and 2 above). These must beaccompanied by a sealed letter of recommendation from the supervisor(s). Whereapplicable, a case should be made that explains why such research expenses were notincluded in institutional or research council funding. Applications from PhD studentsfor amounts over £1000 can ONLY be made under the PhD Bursary scheme (seebelow).

5. There is a category of small grants of up to £500 for students on MA programmes.The deadline is 15 April.

We prefer application forms to be submitted electronically to Emily Danversdanverse@cf.ac.uk They can also be posted to the address below:

Professor Pat Hudson,Cardiff School of History and Archaeology,Cardiff University Humanities Building,Colum Drive,Cardiff CF10 3EU

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Understanding Markets: Information, Institutions and History

Sponsored by the Hagley Museum and Library and German Historical Institute

October 30 and 31, 2009 in Wilmington, Delaware, USA.

To recognize the contributions of Austrian immigrant and market analyst Ernest Dichter, andto celebrate the opening of his rich business records, the Hagley Museum and Library inWilmington, Delaware and German Historical Institute in Washington D.C. jointly inviteproposals for the conference, “Understanding Markets: Information, Institutions and History”October 30 and 31, 2009 at Hagley.

Since markets are not transparent to those engaged in them, and change continually over time,understanding markets is a complex process that involves a wide range of individuals andinstitutions. This conference invites historically-grounded contributions that explore thepractices and institutions through which such efforts have proceeded in Europe and NorthAmerica, ca. 1750-2000. Papers may consider many aspects of efforts to understand markets,such as the acquisition, dissemination, cost and reliability of information; institutionalizationof research activities; the impact of secrecy, deception, bias, and misinformation; theinfluence of market research on production and marketing decisions; conceptual or theoreticalfoundations and assumptions; and instructive failures or informative successes. We encourageproposals to address who was engaged in efforts to understand markets, whether individualssuch as salesmen, merchants, researchers, or purchasing officers; organizations, includingfirms, agencies, and consortia; or third party institutions, e.g. trade associations, informationproviders, and governments.

The conveners are Roger Horowitz and Philip Scranton from the Hagley Museum and Libraryand Hartmut Berghoff and Uwe Spiekermann from the German Historical Institute.

Proposals should be no more than 500 words and accompanied by a short cv. Deadline forsubmissions is March 31, 2009. Travel support is available for those presenting papers at theconference. To submit a proposal or to obtain more information, contact Carol Lockman,Hagley Museum and Library, PO Box 3630, Wilmington DE 19807, 302-658-2400, ext. 243;302-655-3188 (fax); clockman@Hagley.org.

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HAGLEY PRIZE IN BUSINESS HISTORY

The Hagley Museum and Library and the Business History Conference offer an annualprize for the best book in business history, broadly defined. The next Hagley Prize willbe presented at the annual meeting of the Business History Conference in Milan, Italy,June 11-13, 2009.

The prize committee encourages the submission of books from all methodologicalperspectives. It is particularly interested in innovative studies that have thepotential to expand the boundaries of the discipline. Scholars, publishers, andother interested parties may submit nominations. Eligible books can have eitheran American or an international focus. They must be written in English and bepublished during the two years prior to the award (2007 or 2008).

Four copies of a book must accompany a nomination and be submitted to the prizecoordinator, Carol Ressler Lockman, Hagley Museum and Library, P.O. Box 3630 – BuckRd. East, Wilmington, DE 19807-0630. Email: clockman@hagley.org.

The deadline for nominations is December 31, 2008.

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HAGLEY FELLOWS CALL FOR PAPERS

The University of Delaware–Hagley Fellows invite scholars to join us in a conversation about"unintended consequences" in the histories of business, technology, consumption, theenvironment, work, and everyday life. Seemingly rational actors make decisions, createinstitutions, shape environments, or develop technologies expecting certain outcomes, butthings do not always go as planned. "Unintended Consequences" seeks to explore theenormous influence of these inevitable yet unexpected occurrences. How can research onunintended consequence contribute to our understanding of the modern world? Who decideswhat consequences are unintended? To what extent do we know the results of ouractions? Why should historians pay attention to unintended consequences?

We invite papers that discuss instances of unintended consequences or address how theresearch of unintended consequences contributes to our understanding of the world since1700. We encourage both graduate students and established scholars to participate. Financialassistance will be provided to all conference presenters.

Please email a 300-word abstract and a one page CV to the Hagley Fellows athagley.fellows@gmail.com by December 31, 2008.

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CALL FOR PAPERS

The 6th International Critical Management Conference13-15 July 2009, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, UK.

Stream: CRITICAL INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT:A PERSPECTIVE FROM LATIN AMERICA

Deadline for Submission: 1st November 2008

Convenors:

Eduardo Ibarra-Colado, Ana Guedes, Alex Faria

Over the last decades management enlarged its boundaries, especially but not only ininternational terms, in an extraordinarily quick fashion. A fast and powerful process ofdissemination of management knowledge from major developed countries – especially theUnited States (US) –, toward developing countries and regions has taken place within the eraof globalization. In parallel, the spread of the neo-liberal project and the correspondinguniversalization/colonization of some practices under the empire of a technical rationality ofthe world have advanced, despite the rather modest development of ‘international’ disciplinessuch as international marketing, international operations and of the underdevelopment of theInternational Management (IM) field.

The narrow standpoint of ‘international management’ in the IM literature in the US does notfit the governance features of ‘international management’ in Latin America. This alsoexplains why we have not observed, for instance, the constitution of sub-areas in IM asinternational management of international organizations and transnational institutions (such asInternational Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization, and United Nations),international management of public-private networks, international management of academicorganizations, international management of public companies, and international publicadministration (or ‘international public management’).

More recently, some important authors criticized the universal approach given to‘management’ in the US and its subsequent automatic conversion into ‘internationalmanagement’. Despite the importance of the concern with this disciplinarian problem of IM,their arguments fall into the trap of universalism they aim to criticize. They do not take aspecific geopolitical or geographical standpoint to criticize the ‘universalistic’ feature of IMas such they fail to escape from disciplinarian interests of the central economic/politicalpowers. The recent developments undertaken by Critical Management Studies (CMS)researchers from a perspective of post-colonialism seem to suffer from the same problem.CMS researchers seems not to conceive the possibility of development of geopolitical orgeographic positions in IM when arguing that colonized ‘others’ must be respected and (even)supported. The resulting universalistic position is based on the argument that, in the end, weall are hybrids; this position seems to be explained by a historical fear that the emergence of aparticular position from the standpoint of the colonized other could result in a scenario ofviolence and preclusion of dialogue.

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This specific trait of ‘epistemic coloniality’ – i.e., a historical fear that those who are locatedoutside the borders will act in a barbarian or primitive fashion when ‘encountering’ thecolonizer – seems to affect more the ‘insiders’ who have classified the world by regions or bydegree of civilization than the ‘outsiders’. This helps explain why CMS researchers failed toproblematise their geo-positions and also the geopolitics of knowledge in their recent attemptsof dismantling the universalistic feature of IM.

We understand that a critical position in IM must go beyond the borders of ‘epistemiccoloniality’ that constrain the dominant field of management – which to some extent includesCMS – in order to indicate not only the problems of this kind of universalistic approaches butalso to understand and explain the geopolitical dimension of the US and other economic andpolitical powers (i.e., European Union).

We understand that such complex problems that both affect and are caused by IM must beunderstood from a post-disciplinarian point of view. Such point of view must challenge thetype of ‘epistemic coloniality’ that bounds the critical arguments of both mainstream andCMS researchers. Such de-colonial project requires an epistemology more from the ‘outside’rather than from the ‘inside’. In accordance with the concept of ‘critical border thinking’ suchpoint of view should be grounded in the experiences and positions of the colonies. This pointof view must go beyond the idea that ‘we all are hybrids’ and put into question theexpectation of a symmetrical dialogue across the border.

“‘Critical border thinking’ (…) is grounded in the experiences of the coloniesand subaltern empires. Consequently, it provides the epistemology that wasdenied by imperial expansion. ‘Critical border thinking’ also denies theepistemic privilege of the humanities and the social sciences – the privilege ofan observer that makes the rest of the world an object of observation (fromOrientalism to Area Studies). It also moves away from the post-colonialtoward the de-colonial, shifting to the geo and body-politics of knowledge.”(Mignolo and Tlostanova, 2006, p. 206)

In parallel to the spread of the era of globalisation, we have observed two majortransformations within the Anglo-American academy of management that justify the urgentneed of developing critical IM from a Latin American perspective that reinforce the post-disciplinarian point of view of ‘critical border thinking’. First, we observed over the 1990s theincreasing importance of global markets, global strategies, global management, globalacademy, and global corporations to academics, especially in the US, at expense of concernswith ‘globalization’ itself and the corresponding ‘universalistic’ perspective. Second, weobserved the emergence of a critical approach in the field of management in the 1990s -especially the CMS in the United Kingdom - with a rather timid concern, from a postcolonialstandpoint, with the international dimension of management in broad terms and with IM inspecific terms.

This has led to the increasing importance of fostering and criticizing the ‘global perspective’in mainstream IM literature from a top-down ‘universalistic’ perspective as much as theemergence of critical arguments about the US dominance within IM and the worldwidespread of the neo-liberal rationality from a bottom-up ‘universalistic’ perspective.

In this stream we wish to break the ‘universalistic’ perspectives in IM by taking a particulargeopolitical and geographical position. Drawing upon the concept of ‘Latin America’ – which

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has been officially created by Europe and the US – we would like to receive contributions thatchallenge both the conversion of ‘management’ into ‘international management’ from a top-down ‘universalistic’ perspective and the emergence of postcolonial critique from a‘universalistic’ bottom-up perspective fostered mainly by CMS.

We understand that such challenging perspective in IM should be accompanied by criticalquestions such as:

To what extent would such perspective from Latin America be against or infavour of other potential perspectives from other regions?

To what extent would it be possible to have a common perspective across thecountries that take part into what we are used to call ‘Latin America’?

To what extent such perspective would be different from the universalisticperspectives given the colonial interests of governments and transnationalcorporations from (and into) Latin America in the era of globalization?

To what extent could it be possible to have a common perspective in IM withindifferent countries of this region?

To what extent is it possible to develop such a perspective in IM without thepolitical and economic support of both international organizations (andtransnational institutions) and national governments from the region?

Those questions have not been addressed by IM researchers in Latin America because of theeffects of ‘epistemic coloniality’ within Organizations and Management Studies. They havebeen not addressed either by critical researchers because of the same sort of ‘epistemiccoloniality’, which affects their own arguments and the arguments they aim to criticize. In theend such ‘epistemic coloniality’ in IM blocks pluriversalism and the problematisation of thegeopolitics of knowledge.

“Border thinking and the de-colonial shift cannot be reduced to anabstract universal (e.g. critical theory, semiotics of culture, ornomadology for everyone on the planet) that will account for allexperiences and geo-historical violence and memories. Pluriversality,and not universality, is the major claim made by border thinking and thejustification for the de-colonial shift. Once again, there is nopluriversality from the perspective of theo- and ego-politics ofknowledge. Pluriversality is only possible from border thinking, that is,from shifting the geography of reason to geo- and bodypolitics ofknowledge” (Mignolo and Tlostanova, 2006, p. 209-210).

Accordingly, this stream might be taken as a renewed step toward the construction of a LatinAmerican perspective in IM and also a potential contribution to the development of ‘CriticalInternational Management Studies’ in other parts of the world from a more ‘pluriversalistic’than ‘universalistic’ standpoint.

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Given the recognition of the geopolitics of knowledge from such post-disciplinary standpointwe wish to engage not only with researchers from Latin America and from other regions butalso with practitioners, governmental authorities, and members of civil society from LatinAmerica in order to challenge the US dominance in IM as much as the ‘universalistic’perspectives embraced by both mainstream and critical academics. We also aim at engagingwith the ‘centre’ as we understand that such perspective enables the possibility of creatingalternatives within, for, and along with the ‘centre’.

In sum, we aim at fostering the new constitution of knowledge production aroundcomplex/diachronic issues instead of specific fields of knowledge, and on the organization ofresearch projects as co-operative ventures of multiple voices and orientations instead ofindividual isolated efforts from a singular discipline.

Submission Instructions: Abstracts (maximum 1000 words, A4 paper, single spaced, 12 pointfont) should be submitted to desin@correo.cua.uam.mx; ana.guedes@fgv.br or afaria@fgv.br

Further information regarding the conference is available at http://group.wbs.ac.uk/cms2009

Convenors:

Eduardo Ibarra-ColadoHead of the Department of Institutional Studies at the Autonomous Metropolitan University,Campus Cuajimalpa. Ph.D. in Sociology, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He isNational Researcher of the Mexican National System of Researchers, and regular member ofthe Mexican Academy of Sciences. He has published a large number of contributions in thefields of Organization Studies and Higher Education Studies in Mexico and Internationally.Recent publications include “Mexico’s Management & Organization Studies Challenges inthe 21st Century” (Management Research, 2006), “Organization Studies and EpistemicColoniality in Latin America: Thinking Otherness from the Margins” (Organization, 2006),“The Ethics of Managerial Subjectivity” (co-authored, Journal of Business Ethics, 2006), and“The Ethics of Globalization” (Routledge, 2006). E-mail: desin@correo.cua.uam.mx andibarra57@gmail.com

Ana Lucia GuedesPh.D. in International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science, UnitedKingdom. She is Associate Professor at the Brazilian School of Public and BusinessAdministration, Getulio Vargas Foundation (EBAPE/FGV). Chair of the International StudiesResearch Group at EBAPE/FGV and has published in the fields of International PoliticalEconomy, International Business and International Management. E-mail: ana.guedes@fgv.brAlex FariaPh.D. in Business Administration, University of Warwick, United Kingdom. He is AssociateProfessor at the Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration, Getulio VargasFoundation (EBAPE/FGV) and Researcher of the National Research Council in Brazil(CNPq). Chair of the Strategy & Marketing Research Group at EBAPE/FGV and haspublished many contributions in the fields of Strategy, Marketing, International Managementand Critical Studies in Management in Brazil and abroad. E-mail: alex.faria@fgv.br

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The National Archives Academic Database

The Research and Collections Development (RCD) Department at The National Archivesrecently launched an academic contacts database. The aim is to improve liaison with theacademic sector by building up a representative database of academic contacts, particularly inhistory, the social sciences and information management and related disciplines. Throughmore effective liaison, we can ensure that the views of academics are represented in policydecisions at The National Archives.

To join, you need only fill out a short form giving brief contact details and areas of interest.We will then be able to keep you informed of developments and events at The NationalArchives, such as seminars and exhibitions, which are relevant to your area of interest. Youcan also use the form to sign up for our research e-newsletter, which will keep you informedof research developments at the National Archives.

The academic contacts database is part of a wider initiative of The National Archives toimprove liaison with the academic sector. You can find a copy of our academic strategy athttp://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/academic/strategy.htmFor a copy of the contact database form, email daniel.gilfoyle@nationalarchives.gov.uk.

The database conforms strictly to the Data Protection Act.

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European Association for Education and Research in CommercialDistribution (EAERCD) Conference and call for papers

The 15th Conference of the European Association for Education andResearch in Commercial Distribution (EAERCD) will be held from Wednesday15 July to Friday 17 July 2009 and hosted at the School of Management,University of Surrey, UK.

Further details and a call for papers are available at:http://www.som.surrey.ac.uk/eaercd2009

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PUBLICATIONS

The Routledge Companion to Accounting History

Edited by John Richard Edwards and Stephen P. Walker

Publishers: Routledge/Taylor and Francis, xvii + 619ppISBN10: 0-415-41094-0

The Routledge Companion to Accounting History provides a comprehensive overview of the currentstate of historical knowledge in accounting. Part of its purpose is also to convey to the academiccommunity, within and beyond accounting, the extent to which accounting history has advancedbeyond a narrow concern with accounting as technique: a calculative method found predominantly inthe realm of business.

The Companion contains, as shown below, 28 thematic-based chapters classified under sevensectional headings. Each chapter is international in scope, provides a balanced overview of currentknowledge based on a comprehensive review of the literature, identifies key issues raised byresearchers and discusses the major debates in accounting historiography. Authors also reflect onwhere the research agenda is likely to advance in the future.

The Companion reveals that the seemingly innocuous practice of accounting has pervaded humanexistence in fascinating ways at numerous times and places; from ancient civilisations to the modernday, and from the personal to the political.

Placing the history of accounting in context with other fields of study, the Companion gives invaluableinsights to subjects such as the rise of capitalism, the control of labour, gender and familyrelationships, racial exploitation, the functioning of the state, and the pursuit of military conflict.

Including chapters on the important role played by accountancy in religious organisations, a review ofhow the discipline is portrayed in fine art and popular culture, and analysis of sharp practice andcorporate scandals, the Companion has a breadth of coverage that is unmatched in this growing areaof study.

Bringing together the leading writers in the field, this is an essential reference work for any student ofaccounting, business and management, and history

Chapters and authors

Part 1: The discipline1 Structures, territories and tribes Stephen P. Walker2 Historiography Christopher J. Napier3 Subjects, sources and dissemination John Richard EdwardsPart 2: Technologies4 Ancient accounting Salvador Carmona and Mahmoud Ezzamel5 Bookkeeping David Oldroyd and Alisdair Dobie6 Mechanisation and computerisation Charles W. Wootton and Barbara E. KemmererPart 3: Theory and practice7 Financial accounting theory Thomas A. Lee8 Financial accounting practice Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh9 Management accounting: theory and practice Richard Fleischman10 Auditing Josephine MaltbyPart 4: Institutions11 Professionalisation Chris Poullaos12 Practitioners, work and firms David J. Cooper and Keith Robson13 Education Fiona Anderson-Gough14 Regulation Alan J. Richardson and Eksa KilfoylePart 5: Economy 33915 Capitalism Steven Toms16 National accounting Ignace de Beelde

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17 Finance and financial institutions Janette Rutterford18 Railroads Dale L. Flesher and Gary J. Previts19 Scandals Thomas A. Lee, Frank L. Clarke and Graeme W. DeanPart 6: Society and culture20 Gender Rihab Khalifa and Linda M. Kirkham21 Race and ethnicity Marcia Annisette22 Indigenous peoples and colonialism Susan Greer and Dean Neu23 Emancipation Sonja Gallhofer and Jim Haslam24 Religion Salvador Carmona and Mahmoud Ezzamel25 Creative arts Sam McKinstryPart 7: Polity26 The state Philip Colquhoun27 Military Warwick Funnell28 Taxation Margaret Lamb

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The Soviet Dream World of Retail Trade and Consumption in the 1930s

Amy Randall

Description

In the early 1930s Soviet authorities launched a campaign to create "socialist"retailing. They also endorsed Soviet consumerism. Paradoxically, Communistleaders promoted a new politics of retailing and consumption even as scarcitypersisted and the economy continued to prioritize industrial production at theexpense of daily necessities for consumers. How did the Stalinist regime reconcileretailing and consumption with socialism? In exploring this question, this bookexamines the discourses of trade and consumption, trade policies, social identities,gender roles, and consumer practices that the Stalinist regime's new approach toretailing and consumption engendered. By situating Soviet retailing and consumerculture in a broader comparative context, this book sheds light on how modernindustrial states and societies in the interwar era responded to the challenges ofmass distribution and consumption.

Contents

IntroductionA New Approach to Retailing and Consumption: The Campaign for Soviet TradeThe 'Perestroika' of the Retail Sector: Visionary Planning for Revolutionary RetailingLegitimizing Soviet Trade: Gender and the Feminization of the Retail Workforce'Revolutionary Bolshevik Work': Stakhanovism in Retail TradeThe 'Kontrol' of Soviet Trade from Above and from BelowThe Making of the New Soviet ConsumerSoviet Retailing and Consumer Culture in Comparative PerspectiveEpilogue

PublisherPalgrave. See: http://www.palgrave.com/Products/Title.aspx?PID=281500

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The Development of Marketing Management: The Case of the USA, c.1910-1940

Kazuo Usui, Saitama University, Japan and University of Edinburgh, UK

Description

There has been much discussion about the origin of marketing and marketingthought, and whether it was truly American in origin. Nevertheless, it is true that USmarketing management thought was very influential throughout the world in the latterhalf of the twentieth century, becoming dominant after the Second World War. Inorder to recognize why and how this kind of thought developed in the USA, it isnecessary to explore the historical contexts in which the marketing managementthought was produced and developed at this time, as well as the contents of thethought.

This work argues that while doubts about the US origin of marketing are acceptable,marketing management thought, which especially appeals to mass producers suchas the USA, developed according to their particular needs. This book looks at therelationship between theories of marketing and the historical context in which theywere developed, rescuing them from later generalizations that failed to take intoaccount contemporary social and economic factors.

Contents

Introduction; An archetype of marketing management: Butler's ideas and theirbackground; Scientific management and sales management: the McDonaldization ofsales activities; Scientific management and marketing management: 'science inbusiness' for marketing; 'Merchandising' as a missing concept in the history ofmarketing management thought; The redesign movement and development ofproduct policy: a meeting of marketers and industrial designers; Development of theidea of channel selection and distribution structure between the 2 World wars;Concluding remarks; Bibliography; Index.

Publisher: Ashgate. See http://www.ashgate.com