The Business History Society of Japan will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2014. To commemorate this milestone, the organization will hold a special Congress on the theme of “Competition and Cooperation,” focusing on the many facets of the three industrial revolutions—why they came about, how they developed, and what distinguishes them from one another—and the new ventures that business history scholars need to undertake in order to grasp the significance of new business systems. The general session on the main theme, titled “New Horizons in Business History,” will bring together renowned researchers from Japan, Europe, the United States, and Asia to give keynote lectures on challenges facing the discipline and ideal approaches for future progress. The Congress will take place at Bunkyo Gakuin University, Tokyo, on September 11-13, 2014.
Given the 50th anniversary and the increasingly powerful role that globalization continues to play in the realm of research, the BHSJ has decided to schedule English-language sessions on each of the three days. With a scope that encompasses the socioeconomic environment of the entire world, these English sessions will look at why and how “competition and cooperation” within companies, between companies, between companies and government, between companies and other social organizations, and between countries have changed. The BHSJ invites submissions of not only individual, independent papers but also session-specific reports as well. The BHSJ also welcomes any papers that, while not focused specifically on the theme of “competition and cooperation,” deal in some capacity with the pursuit of new horizons in business history research.
For paper proposals, please submit a title, an abstract of no more than 400 words along with a one-page CV to a-terada@bgu.ac.jp by February 28, 2014. Session proposals should include a brief abstract of the session along with a one-page abstract and one-page CV for each participant.For more information, please see the BHSJ call for papers.