The Business History Initiative at Harvard Business School is sponsoring a conference on "Varieties of Big Business: Business Groups in the West," to be held at HBS on October 28, 2016. Organized by David Collis, Asli Colpan, and Geoffrey Jones,
The program has not yet been posted, but registration is open. Questions may be addressed to Holly Salter at hsalter@hbs.edu.
This conference will bring together scholars interested in business strategy and organization, governance, and economic development. The discussions will explore the long-term evolution and developmental role of different varieties of large enterprises in the developed economies of North America and Western Europe, focusing on understudied business groups. This conference will also examine nation-specific large-enterprise economies and the diversified business groups within them, and the resilience, stagnation or disappearance of the business group organization in international perspectives.