Skip to main content

CFP: Armageddon and Mammon

The summer of 2014 marks the centenary of the start of the First World War. On July 10-11, 2014, a workshop entitled "Armageddon and Mammon" will consider the war’s impact on international business. It will take place in the City of London at East India House. As the organizers explain,
The First World War had a dramatic and immediate impact on international business, particularly the financial services sector, but the impact quickly spread to other sectors as international trade and investment were disrupted. As the war progressed, the integrated world economy that had emerged during the first great era of globalization disintegrated and liberal assumptions and practices were discarded. The realities of the total war shattered the assumption that it would be “business as usual.” The disruption of international supply chains by the war created threats and opportunities for firms in many countries. The seizure of patents, factories, and other assets in belligerent countries created complex legal issues that lasted for decades. The war challenged the ascendancy of British international business and capital, opening the way for rivals from newly industrialising countries to compete in markets around the world. The impact of the war on international business lasted long after the fighting stopped, due in part to the nature of the peace settlement dictated by the victorious allies, the growth of institutions of global governance, and changes to the international political economy. In particular, the transfer of financial power from the City of London to Wall Street was not matched by a corresponding increase in the willingness of the United States to guarantee the political underpinnings of an integrated global economy. In turn, this change spurred organizational innovation and change among international firms as they adapted their strategies and structures to a changed business environment.
Workshop organizers are seeking contributors who are interested in presenting their research at the workshop and publishing their papers as part of an edited collection. Contributors can be of any nationality and can be from any discipline, although organizers expect that all papers will focus on the impact of the war on international business, will be based on original research, and will expressly engage with and seek to develop historiography and/or reflect on relevant business and management theory.

Proposals, in the form of a 300-word paper abstract plus a short CV, should be sent to Andrew Smith, ab0352@coventry.ac.uk by December 1, 2013.

For a more detailed call for papers and additional information, please see the full conference announcement.

Popular posts from this blog

The Exchange has moved to the BHC's website

  Dear members subscribers of The Exchange   The Exchange, the weblog of the BHC, is now part of our website ( https://thebhc.org ). We migrated the blog to serve our membership and interested parties best since Blogger is discontinuing its email service.   Note that this will be the last message we will send from Blogger .   The Exchange was founded by Pat Denault over a decade ago, and it has become an essential channel for announcements from and about the BHC and from our subscribers and members. Announcements from The Exchange will come up on the News section of our website as they did before. However, if you wish to receive these announcements via email, and you have not done so yet, please subscribe to The Exchange by: Going to our website's homepage ( https://thebhc.org ), s crolling down to the end of the page, and clicking on "Subscribe to the Latest BHC News." Or go to the “News” section of our website's homepage ( https://thebhc.org/ ),   and click on “The

Regina Blaszczyk on the Business of Color

In September, MIT Press published Regina Lee Blaszczyk 's book, The Color Revolution , in which she "traces the relationship of color and commerce, from haute couture to automobile showrooms to interior design, describing the often unrecognized role of the color profession in consumer culture." Readers can see some of the 121 color illustrations featured in the book at the MIT PressLog here and here . The author has recently written an essay on her research for the book in the Hagley Archives for the Hagley Library and Archives newsletter.    Reviews can be found in the New York Times , The Atlantic , Leonardo , and Imprint ; one can listen to an audio interview with Reggie Blaszczyk, and read her posts, "How Auto Shows Sparked a Color Revolution" on the Echoes blog and "True Blue: DuPont and the Color Revolution" on the Chemical Heritage Foundation website . Also available is a CHF video of the author discussing another excerpt from her rese

New resource available: Business history and race: a partial, open bibliography

Business history and race: a partial, open bibliography The Business History Conference is working to facilitate the creation of a bibliography of scholarly work on race and business history. We hope that the bibliography will serve as a resource for those seeking to create more inclusive syllabi and understand the historical context for our present moment of reckoning with structural racism in the United States and across the globe. The bibliography is crowdsourced and draws on the collective expertise of the BHC membership. The BHC wishes to expand the list of references already curated and invites your contributions to the bibliography (The current list of references contains 154 titles). Submit your suggestions by (a) emailing additional references to Anne Fleming of the BHC Electronic Media Oversight Committee <acf80 at law.georgetown.ed> or BHC Web Editor Paula de la Cruz-Fernandez <padelacruzf at gmail.com>, (b) tweeting titles to @TheBHCNews or (c) adding it