New business history?

Abstract

This editorial introduces eight articles for the special issue on ‘New business history?’. Following a workshop on this topic, several submissions with discussions on business history methodology and studies with non-standard historical approaches were received and reviewed. In the editorial we provide an overview of recent debates in the discipline and provide a short introduction to the articles accepted for publication in this special issue.

Acknowledgements

The special issue editors wish to thank the editors of Business History John Wilson and Steven Toms for their support and the opportunity to edit this issue. They thank the York Management School for hosting a workshop on April 12, 2012 on ‘New business history?’, as well as the participants for fruitful discussions. The guest editors thank the following reviewers: Bernardo Batiz-Lazo, Chris Colvin, Ferry de Goey, Mark Egan, Kiran Fernandes, Joost Jonker, Mark Koyama, Eric Nowak, Andrew Popp, John Turner, Hugo van Driel, and one anonymous reviewer. All papers in this special issue have been accepted by Abe de Jong and David Higgins, except for the paper ‘Towards a New Business History?’, which was accepted by Steven Toms and ‘Ownership, Financial Strategy and Performance: The Lancashire Cotton Textile Industry, 1918–1938’, which was accepted by Abe de Jong.

Notes

^1.Toms and Wilson, “Scale, Scope and Accountability.”

^2.Popp, “History, a Useful ‘Science’ for Management?”

^3.Graham and O'Sullivan, “Moving Forward by Looking Backward.”

^4.Jones and Khanna, “Bringing History (Back).”