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This collection edited by Dave De ruysscher, Albrecht Cordes, Serge Dauchy and Heikki Pihlajamäki considers what size or varieties of business were considered to be the best. The answer to this question depends on the time period under examination, and it also differs between jurisdictions. The chapters in the collection take a broad approach as they collectively cover a long time span and have a wide geographical spread. They consider examples from the Middle Ages, the early modern period and the 19th century. The places examined here are now in the jurisdictions of Germany, Italy, Belgium, Spain and England. As a whole, the chapters address some of the tension between the perceived advantages and disadvantages of big business against the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and also the limited liability corporation in comparison to the unlimited liability partnership form. The edited collection takes a deliberately integrative approach, as it combines concepts and ideas from legal studies with those of economic history, business studies and comparative political analysis. .

This article examines the context in which firms reflect on their own history in order to help form their organizational identity. By undertaking research in business archives, it shows that external change is as important as an internal transition in understanding shifts in the way an organization understands its past. We trace the messages communicated internally through paintings of past chairmen and senior staff when they were displayed inside the head office of Lloyds Bank during the 1960s and 1970s. These portraits generated interest and were an effective means of non-verbal communication which provoked a discussion about the purpose, values and norms in the firm's past, present, and future. The objects retold the story of the bank's success as a privately owned family firm in the midst of on-going political debates inside the Labour party about the nationalization of large banking companies. With the portraits in place, they recognized the bank's history as a capitalist enterprise. The pictures legitimized the tradition of private ownership, helped to form organizational identity, and set future obligations that would see its continuation in what was a period of potential change.

This article considers how the joint-stock banks established trust within the local marketplace. We undertake a new investigation of pictures of senior bank management. Building on the expansion of the art market in the nineteenth century, joint-stock banks used portraits as a public and visual mechanism to commemorate their successes and accomplishments. Portraiture, as a well-established art form, provided enterprises with a historical legacy that for many did not, as yet, exist. Through the use of portraiture, banks attempted to solidify their identity and add to the sitter's social standing, as well as signal the new organization's reputation for high culture, prestige, and professionalism to those who viewed these artworks. These illustrations personified the company and gave a human face to the early joint-stock economy.

The Victorian City of London's financial center expanded and renewed its building infrastructure virtually unimpeded by considerations of urban preservation, conservation, or public opinion. The next phase of massive rebuilding, during the long post-1945 boom, appeared likely to follow the same pattern. However, by the mid-1960s, the freedom of City office owner-occupiers and developers to do as they wished with their buildings had become substantially constrained by rising conservationist sentiment. This paper explores this process through the history of the design, building, and eventual aborted demolition of Gibson Hall, the Bishopsgate headquarters of National Provincial Bank for over a century. This paper charts the life of Gibson Hall, in particular its conception, design, and, ultimately, its attempted redevelopment. We also consider the long-term consequences of the rebalancing between economic and conservation objectives for the nature of British urban redevelopment and the adoption of a "throwaway" business headquarters style—to remove any risk of popular support for preservation.