Suchergebnisse

Volume 1 traces the history of the bank from its foundation in 1889 as "The Imperial Bank of Persia", through the years it was the state bank of Iran, and its development of modern banking in that country, to the ending of its links in 1952. The Bank's history has great importance for an understanding of the economic and political history of Iran, and of Britain's diplomatic and economic relations with Iran. The Bank played a vital role in the region, and in the "great game" between Britain and Russia. During the inter-war years its history was enmeshed with the Pahlavi dynasty and the rise of Iranian nationalism

Cet article utilise les méthodes de la Business History pour souligner l'influence des entreprises sur les idéaux de la beauté humaine. L'homogénéisation de ces idéaux est l'un des traits les plus notables de la globalisation au cours de ces deux derniers siècles. Cette étude suggère que les firmes se plient aux idéaux de beauté autant qu'elles les façonnent. La démonstration s'appuie sur des études de cas concernant trois entreprises importantes. Au xix e siècle, Coty et d'autres entreprises françaises ont fait de Paris la capitale globale de la beauté. Au milieu du xx e siècle, les stratégies déployées par Estée Lauder et d'autres firmes ont impulsé la montée en puissance et en prestige des marques de beauté américaines. Dans un passé plus récent, L'Oréal a favorisé une beauté à nouveau plurielle en faisant l'acquisition de marques américaines et internationales, en offrant aux consommateurs dans le monde toute une gamme d'idéaux de beauté, à la fois globaux et localement personnalisés. L'article conclut que les stratégies des entreprises doivent être plus pleinement intégrées dans les récits historiques qui rendent compte de la mondialisation.

Alfred D. Chandler entered my professional life incrementally rather than dramatically.As a student of economic history at CambridgeUniversity in Britain in the early 1970s, I barely encountered his name. British universities had their own long traditions in business and economic history, including a strong interest in entrepreneurship and in government policies toward industry. Most British scholars were not especially enthusiastic about ideas from across the Atlantic, whether the methodological approach of the new economic history of Robert Fogel, or Chandler's organizational synthesis. Cambridge was an especially closed academic world, with a strong assumption that little that happened outside its delightful campus could be really important. It was not until 1979, when I was recruited by the Business History Unit at the London School of Economics (LSE), headed by Chandler's (then) acolyte Leslie Hannah, that I read Strategy and Structure, nearly two decades after it was published.

This article examines the globalization of the beauty industry between 1945 and 1980. This industry grew quickly. Firms employed marketing and marketing strategies to diffuse products and brands internationally, despite business, economic, and cultural obstacles to globalization. The process was difficult and complex. The globalization of toiletries proceeded faster than cosmetics, skin care, and hair care. By 1980, strong differences remained among consumer markets. Although American influence was strong, it was already evident that globalization had not resulted in the creation of a stereotyped American blonde and blue‐eyed female beauty ideal as the world standard, although it had significantly narrowed the range of variation in beauty and hygiene ideals.

The role of business enterprise in integrating economies is one of the central historical themes of the last two centuries. Although globalization—both in its current iteration and in its nineteenth-century form—has been widely studied, the role of the firm, as opposed to macroeconomic forces, has yet to receive sufficient attention. Many research questions remain, including the role of the United States as a host country, the place of multinationals based in emerging markets, and the importance of understudied sectors such as retailing. Business historians should shift the focus of queries from "why" to "how" and go beyond the discipline's traditional organization along national lines to study the behavior of firms worldwide.