The Exchange

Now entering its third year, the "Historical Perspectives in Organization Studies" working group of the European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) seeks to foster interdisciplinary discussions and collaborations between historians and management and organization scholars. The working group will meet during the EGOS conference in Montreal, Canada, from July 4-6, 2013. The theme for the year is "The Handling of History: Methods and Theories." The sub-group, convened by Daniel Wadhwani, Lars Engwall , and Michael Rowlinson, "aims to explore and expand the potential that a historical perspective—understood in the broadest possible sense—might have" for the ways in which organizations are studied. Submissions related to the intersection of history and organization theory are welcome. The deadline for submission of short papers (3,000 words) is January 14, 2013 .     For more information please visit the conference site and see the working group'

Last June the Business History Initiative at the Harvard Business School sponsored a one-day conference on "Teaching Business History: Insights and Debates." The organizers have now posted both a conference report (which contains an overview, papers delivered, and country reports) and a compilation of about 200 syllabi, " Guide to Business History Courses Worldwide ." Both e-publications were edited by Geoffrey Jones and Walter Friedman and prepared for publication by Felice Whittum; the syllabi were collected by Shaun Nichols.

In recognition of the journal's first twenty years of publication, the editors of Industrial and Corporate Change have selected their top twenty articles , all of which Oxford University Press is now making freely available online. Selections of particular interest to business historians include Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., “Corporate Strategy, Structure and Control Methods in the United States during the 20th Century”; Oliver E. Williamson, “Hierarchies, Markets and Power in the Economy: An Economic Perspective”; and Sidney G. Winter, “Toward a Neo-Schumpeterian Theory of the Firm.”

We provide today a series of links to sites offering information and reflections on the history of the Christmas holiday, many with business history relevance. For a large list, see the History News Network's "Hot Topics" list for Christmas , which includes a 2011 Backstory audiocast featuring historian Stephen Nissenbaum, author of The Battle for Christmas Gregory McNamee on "Christmas, Cash, and Commodities" James Sturcke on "The Commercial Roots of Christmas" Other sites : The Mahoning Valley Historical Society, which provides short articles on belsnickles , "putz" houses (Christmas villages), and the Shiny Brite ornament company The company that printed Christmas Seals Albert Sadacca, Thomas Edison, and the invention of Christmas lights The Coca-Cola company and its sponsorship of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" WSJ review of Inventing the Christmas Tree The history of the Christmas "cracker" Louis Pr

The Organization of American Historians (OAH), which will hold its 2013 annual meeting in San Francisco, California, on April 11-14, has now released its program . Two sessions are of particular interest: Friday, 1:45 p.m.: "The 1%?: Business Classes and the Transformation of American Capitalism" Sponsored by the Business History Conference’s Liaison Committee "Global Networks, Metropolitan Terrains: Finance Capital and Urban Populism in the Era of Reconstruction" Noam Maggor, Vanderbilt University "A Grasstops Revolution: Local Business Elites, National Executives, and the Geography of Twentieth-Century Capitalism" Elizabeth Shermer, Loyola University of Chicago "Corporate Power and the Problem of Politics: Business Elites, Social Policy, and Urban 'Democracy' in the Early Twentieth Century" Daniel Amsterdam, The Ohio State University Friday, 3:30 p.m.: Plenary Session: "Corporations in American Life" Chair: Na

"The Unique Railroad of the World: Why the Pennsylvania Railroad Was Different from All of the Others” is the title of the lecture delivered by Albert Churella on November 15, 2012, at the Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware. It is now available on the Hagley website as an audio podcast .     The lecture marked publication of Churella’s book, The Pennsylvania Railroad, Volume 1: Building an Empire, 1846-1917 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). Churella, who teaches at Southern Polytechnic State University, is working on the second volume of his history of the PRR.

The theme of the Oral History Society 's next annual meeting should be of particular interest to business historians; it is "Corporate Voices: Institutional and Organisational Oral Histories." The meeting will take place July 5-6, 2013, at the University of Sussex. According to the call for papers , the conference will "explore the hidden histories of private companies and business, public institutions, hospitals, universities, museums, public utilities, local and national governmental, campaigning bodies and charities," and "bring into dialogue historians of business, education and health with oral historians who have been commissioned to work with and within institutions to create and document their oral history." For a fuller list of topics and concerns, please see the complete call for papers.     Each proposal should include: a title, an abstract of between 250-300 words, submitter's name (and the names of any co-presenters or panelis

The European Association for Banking and Financial History (EABH) e.V. invites the submission of paper proposals on the topic "Foreign Financial Institutions and National Financial Systems," its 2013 Young Scholar Workshop, to be held at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on March 3, 2013. The call for papers states: Many of today’s banks trace their origins to the long nineteenth century’s processes of globalisation, nationalism and colonial expansion. To facilitate transfers, in search of profits or to finance overseas trade many banks crossed borders by hiring correspondents or opening branches, and acting as foreign institutions’ representative agents at home. Banks’ foreign experiences varied. They were often welcomed as important innovators and the financiers of progress, but frequently suspected of serving the interests of foreign governments, too. At times of war they faced control and expropriation. This year’s Young Scholar Workshop will explore the history o

Those looking for historical audio files for classroom use or personal research will find a wide variety of sources on the Web, several of them with a specific focus on business and economic history topics. The following links provide just a sampling and are heavily weighted toward American sources: Historical Voices (Michigan State University, Matrix), including the sub-galleries:     American Voices (including the Flint Sit-Down Strike Audio Gallery )     Earliest Voices (In addition, the large holdings of the Vincent Voice Library at MSU are catalogued and searchable on-line, though not all are available for download and listening.) The Library of Congress has several sites devoted to preserving American history via sound; see especially:     Voices from the Dust Bowl     Edison Sound Recordings     Voices from the Days of Slavery     American Leaders Speak     Working in Paterson Free Information Society (mp3 recordings of speakers ranging from Joseph Goebbels

The December 2012 issue of Enterprise & Society is now available on-line . The issue contains Margaret Levenstein's presidential address , "Escape from Equilibrium: Thinking Historically about Firm Responses to Competition," and four dissertation summaries, as well as three regular articles and numerous book reviews. Contents include: Dissertation Summaries Christy Ford Chapin , "Ensuring America’s Health: Publicly Constructing the Private Health Insurance Industry, 1945–1970" Xaq Frolich , "Accounting for Taste: Regulating Food Labeling in the 'Affluent Society,' 1945–1995" Noam Maggor , "Politics of Property: Urban Democracy in the Age of Global Capital, Boston 1865–1900" Alexia Yates , "Selling Paris: The Real Estate Market and Commercial Culture in the Fin-de-siècle Capital" Articles Wendy A. Woloson , "Wishful Thinking: Retail Premiums in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America" Tore C. Olsson , "

The 2013 British Academy of Management (BAM) conference will be held by the University of Liverpool at Aintree Racecourse on September 10-12, 2013.  Organizers are seeking submissions for the Management and Business History Track , which is chaired by Kevin Tennent. This track "aims to encourage the growing number of management and business historians who work in business schools and social science departments to engage in constructive debate with other social scientists." In relation to the 2013 conference theme, "Managing to Make a Difference," attention is drawn to the historical impact of management practice within society. Papers on the relationship between management and the community, whether from the perspective of community perceptions of business, or with an interest in how business has shaped a particular community over time, are especially welcome, as are those dealing with the legacy of the past, and how it has shaped present-day businesses and comm

The fifth edition of the Eurhistock Workshop (History of European Stock Exchanges) will meet on May 23-24, 2013, in Antwerp, Belgium. The workshop aims at providing a meeting point for financial and economic historians as well as financial economists interested in the long-term changes in European financial markets. Papers for presentation from all fields of financial history and finance are welcome as long as there is a financial and historical perspective. Work in progress will be considered, and both junior and senior researchers are invited to attend. Professor William N. Goetzmann (Yale School of Management) will present the keynote speech.     Full papers written in English should be sent (as a pdf) by email to Jeannine.Luyten@ua.ac.be no later than March 15, 2013 . The email should contain an abstract of the paper, not exceeding 300 words, and contact information (name, affiliation, email) for all authors. Authors of papers accepted for presentation will be notified by the en

In November 2011, the Program on the Study of Capitalism at Harvard University, chaired by Sven Beckert and Christine Desan, hosted a conference on "Teaching the History of Capitalism." A group of scholars in the field convened at the university to reflect on how the history of capitalism might enhance the college curriculum. Conference co-organizers Sven Beckert and Noam Maggor have now posted a report on the conference, as well as links to a number of syllabi collected in response to the meeting. Tip of the hat to the Culture of the Market Network .