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...