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Dr Gerben Bakker SAR 509

This course is available on the MRes/PhD in Accounting (AOI) (Accounting, Organisations and Institutions Track), MRes/PhD in Quantitative Economic History, MSc in Accounting, Organisations and Institutions, MSc in Economic History, MSc in Economic History (Research), MSc in Global Economic History (Erasmus Mundus) and MSc in Political Economy of Late Development. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course has a limited number of places (it is controlled access) and demand is typically high.  This may mean that you are not able to get a place on this course.

This course comparatively explores the history of strategies, business organisations and industries since the nineteenth century. Different approaches to analyse this evolution are discussed, as well as the history of thinking about management and organisational structure and how this affected history itself. Introductory lecture(s) set the scene, discuss key concepts and various economic approaches to analyse the evolution of organisations. Subsequently the course looks at the origins of legal forms of organisation - such as the corporation, the private limited liability company and the cooperative - at the development of organisational structures, at the history of thinking about them, and at evolution of the industries.

20 hours of seminars in the LT. 2 hours of seminars in the ST.

This course is delivered through a series of seminars totalling 20 hours across Lent Term. This year, while we are planning for most classes and seminars to be delivered in-person, it is possible that some or all of this teaching may have to be delivered virtually.  Lectures will either be recorded or given in the form of live webinars.

This course includes a reading week in Week 6 of Lent Term.

Students are expected to write two essays or equivalent pieces of written work.

• G. Boyce and S. Ville, The Development of Modern Business (2002);
• C. J. Schmitz, , The growth of big business in the United States and Western Europe, 1850-1939 (1993);
• S. Douma and H. Schreuder, Economic Approaches to Organizations (2002);
• A. Huczynksi and D. Buchanan, 'Organizational Structures', part 4 in Organizational Behaviour (2001 or later edition);
• D. A. Wren, The History of Management Thought (5th ed. 2004);
• O. E. Williamson, The economic institutions of capitalism. Firms, markets, relational contracting (1985);
• A. D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the American Industrial Enterprise (1962);
• J. Sutton, Technology and Market Structure: Theory and History (1998);
• F. Knight, Risk, Uncertainty and Profit (1921);
• J. A. Schumpeter, "Can Capitalism Survive?" in his Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942);
• L. Hannah, 'Marshall's "Trees" and the Global "Forest" in N. Lamoreaux, D. Raff and P. Temin, Learning by Doing in Markets, Firms and Nations (1999);
• J. M. Karpoff, "Public versus Private Initiative in Arctic Exploration: The Effects of Incentives and Organizational Structure," Journal of Political Economy 109 (2001);
• E. Hilt, "Incentives in Corporations: Evidence from the American Whaling Industry," Journal of Law and Economics 49 (2006);
• M. J. Lynskey and S. Yonekura, Entrepreneurship and Organization (2002).

Take-home assessment (100%) in the ST.

Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.