The aim of this paper is to clarify and discuss the various ways firms can make workforce reductions. This aim is accomplished by an in-depth study of an historical case; the downsizing process undertaken in the 1920s by the Swedish Tobacco Monopoly, a state-owned company that had to balance...

The purpose of the paper is to fulfill and to refine the role of consultancy and professional bodies in dissemination of management innovations in the Inter- and Postwar Period that was in these days scientific management in Europe. The proposition is set upon the case of French consultancies...

Business history, while not clearly established or widely recognized, is an open framework that can include in addition to issues related to the evolving economy, business, market and business, other areas of institutional, cultural and social, related to contemporary events resulting from the...

History as a discipline has been accused of being a-theoretical. For business historians working at business schools, however, the issue of methodology looms larger, as it is hard to make contributions to social science debates without explicating one’s disciplinary methodology. This paper...

Over the last decade or so, business history – like many other disciplines – has had to come to terms with far-reaching innovations in scientific knowledge, communication and information, brought about by the arrival and rapid diffusion of the World Wide Web. These changes have had even...

This chapter considers if and how the political action of imperialism and the globalisation of business influenced each other in Belgium between 1870 and 1930. In addition to the role that Belgian King Leopold II played in the territorial partition of Africa and the opening up of China, the...

This paper’s objective is to take a more in-depth look at, and encourage debate on, the mechanism that were in force in the birth, growth and crisis of traditional electrical systems. The merit of Arteta, as with other SMEs in the electrical sector, resided in its ability to provide, almost...

The study of the Irati hydroelectric company aims to show some of the business strategies behind the first stages of the development of electricity in Spain and, in turn, pose new questions regarding the factors and conditioning elements of the country’s regional industrialization processes....

Archival records are a constitutive element of business historical research, and such research, in turn, is fundamental for a holistic understanding of the role of enterprise in modern capitalist societies. Despite an increasing debate within business history circles about the need to theorize...

Today the European welfare states are strongly challenged and it is heavily debated how much social security a society should provide and how much private insurance is possible. This article goes back to the origins of the German welfare state. In the 1830s, industrialists from the district of...