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2011/2012  BA-HAF_VIHI  History of Business

English Title
History of Business

Course Information

Language English
Point 7,5 ECTS (225 SAT)
Type Mandatory
Level Bachelor
Duration One Semester
Course Period Spring
Time Table Please see course schedule at e-Campus
Study Board
Study Board for BSc/MSc in Business Administration and Philosophy
Course Coordinator
  • Alfred Reckendrees - Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy
Main Category of the Course
  • Economic and organizational sociology
Last updated on 29 maj 2012
Learning Objectives
After having followed the course the student is expected to
  • demonstrate evidence of comprehensive knowledge of the business historical cases
  • demonstrate comprehension of the theories and concepts from the syllabus
  • apply theories and concepts thoroughly to the case studies
  • analyze a case or problem from different theoretical perspectives
  • discuss the case or problem in a comprehensible, structured and precise manner
Business History:
Assessment Oral Exam
Marking Scale 7-step scale
Censorship Internal examiners
Exam Period May/June
Aids With time for preparation
Duration 20 Minutes
Prøven er en 20 minutters mundtlig eksamen med 20 minutters forberedelse. Alle skriftlige hjælpemidler er tilladte i forberedelsestiden. Eksamen bedømmes af to eksaminatorer ud fra 7-trinsskalaen. Det er muligt at gå til eksamen på dansk
Course Content

The overall objectives of the course are, firstly, to develop a general knowledge and understanding of the development of capitalism with particular emphasis on large companies of four major economies, secondly, to demonstrate how institutional arrangements, culture and history have influenced the companies’ development over time and have shaped a variety of capitalisms, and thirdly, to deepen their understanding of economic theories.
The course will develop these topics on two interrelated levels: On the one hand, the students will discuss theoretical texts of leading scholars on entrepreneurship and economic change including entrepreneurial theory, New Institutional Economics, cluster and network theories. On the other hand, the students will relate the theories to empirical cases. The focus point of the comparative analysis is the micro level of the entrepreneur and the company in its respective institutional environment. By means of case study discussion the students deepen their understanding of economic change and strategic decision making in changing environments and evaluate the explanatory qualities of the theories in question.

Teaching Methods
The teaching methods will be lectures combined with classroom discussions, case discussions, group discussions and short student presentations.
Student Workload
Deltagelse i forelæsninger 36 hours
Forberedelse (herunder læsning af pensum og forberedelse af øvelser 72 hours
Løbende opgaver og fremlæggelser 24 hours
Eksamensforberedelse 93 hours
Literature

Thomas McCraw (ed.), Creating Modern Capitalism. How Entrepreneurs, Companies, and Countries Triumphed in Three Industrial Revolutions, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 1997

Chap.: T.K. McCraw: "Introduction", pp. 1-16, and notes.

N.F. Koehn: "Josiah Wedgwood and the First Industrial Revolution", pp. 17-48 + notes.

T.K. McCraw/R.S. Tedlow: "Henry Ford, Alfred Sloan, and the Three Phases of Marketing", pp. 266-300 + notes.

J. Fear: "August Thyssen and German Steel", pp. 185-226 + notes.

D.A. Moss: "The Deutsche Bank", pp. 229-63 + notes.

P. Botticelli: "Rolls-Royce and the High-Technology Industry", pp. 94-132 + notes.

J.R. Bernstein: "Toyota Automatic Looms and Toyota Automobiles", pp. 398-438 + notes.

J.R. Bernstein: "7-Eleven in America and Japan", pp. 492-530 + notes.

R. Olegario: "IBM and the Two Thomas J. Watsons", pp. 351-95 + notes.

A.D. Chandler, jr. (1988): "Scale, Scope and Organizational Capabilities", in: T.K. McCraw (ed.), The Essential Alfred D. Chandler. Essays toward a Historical Theory of Big Business, Boston 1988, pp. 472-504.

M. Granovetter (1985): "Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness", in: American Journal of Sociology, vol. 91, 1985, no. 3, pp. 481-510.

P.A. Hall/D. Soskice (2001): "An Introduction to Varieties of Capitalism", in: Hall, P.A./Soskice, D. (ed.), Varieties of Capitalism. The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2001, pp. 1-35.

D.C. North (2005): "Institutions and the Performance of Economies over time", in: Menard, C./Shirley, M.M., Handbook of New Institutional Economics, Dordrecht 2005, pp. 21-30.

M.E. Porter (2000): "Locations, Cluster and Company Strategy", in: Clark, G.L. / Feldman, M.P. / Gertler, M.S., Oxford Handbook of Economic Geography, Oxford 2000, pp. 255-274.

J.A. Schumpeter (1944): "The Process of Creative Destruction" (Chapter), in: Schumpeter, J.A., Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, London 1944, pp. 81-6.

J.A. Schumpeter (1947): "The Creative Response in Economic History", in: Journal of Economic History vol. VII (1947), no. 2, pp. 149-159.

O.E. Williamson: "The Economics of Organization: The Transaction Cost Approach", in: The American Journal of Sociology 87 (1981), no. 3, pp. 548-577

M.J. Iversen / A. Arnold: "Carlsberg. Regulation of the home market and international expansion", in: S. Fellman et al. (eds.), Creating Nordic Capitalism. The Development of a Competitive Periphery, London 2000, pp. 365-391.