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The Unconventional Capitalism That Shapes Business History

by Geoffrey G. Jones

Geoffrey G. Jones reports on a business history conference studying the many shades of capitalism around the world and through time. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

How Helena Rubinstein Used Tall Tales to Turn Cosmetics into a Luxury Brand

Re: Geoffrey G. Jones

Professor Geoff Jones examines the career of Helena Rubinstein, one of the trailblazing female entrepreneurs of the 20th century. Using guile, brilliant branding, and more than a few falsehoods, Rubinstein lifted cosmetics from an accessory item for prostitutes to a great luxury product during the Great Depression. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Green Businesses Are Incredibly Difficult to Make Profitable. Try It Anyway

by Dina Gerdeman

Making a business successful is a challenge in itself, but making a green business profitable is an even harder journey. For society's sake, entrepreneurs must be prepared to make that journey, says Geoffrey Jones. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Oral History and Writing the Business History of Emerging Markets

by Geoffrey Jones and Rachael Comunale

Oral history is a valuable resource to explore how businesses developed and functioned in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, regions with a growing share of global economic activity and the majority of the world’s population. While oral history is not uncritical, it provides openings for opinions, voices, and judgements on events on which there was often silence.

Did Entrepreneur Ernesto Tornquist Help or Hurt Argentina?

Re: Geoffrey G. Jones

Geoffrey Jones examines the career of Ernesto Tornquist, a cosmopolitan financier considered to be the most significant entrepreneur in Argentina at the end of the 19th century. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Sustainability and Green Business in Latin America During Globalization Waves

by Geoffrey Jones

Capitalism has created much wealth, but at the cost of massive ecological destruction. This has been particularly severe in Latin America over the past century. Yet the last three decades have also seen a wave of businesses across sectors ranging from beauty to eco-tourism aimed at greater sustainability.

Has Environmental Sustainability Lost its Relevance?

by Geoffrey G. Jones

Companies have thought for decades about business-focused solutions to fix the deteriorating environment. But judging by continually rising waters and temperatures, we may need a rethink about what sustainability means, suggest participants at a recent conference at Harvard Business School. A report by co-organizer Geoffrey Jones. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Business, Governments, and Political Risk in South Asia and Latin America Since 1970

by Geoffrey Jones and Rachael Comunale

This study shows how perceptions of political risk by business leaders in emerging markets have differed between regions. For Latin Americans, macroeconomic and policy turbulence were the biggest sources of risk. For South Asians, excessive bureaucracy was the biggest source of risk. The study is based on a unique Harvard Business School oral history database.

Creating the Market for Organic Wine: Sulfites, Certification, and Green Values

by Geoffrey Jones and Emily Grandjean

Certified organic wine remains a tiny percentage of the global wine market. This paper provides a case study of failed new category creation, analyzing the challenges for the organic wine market over time, including overcoming an initial reputation for quality, wines being labeled with multiple names (“organic,” “biodynamic,” “natural”), and competing certification schemes.

What We've Learned from 101 Entrepreneurs in Emerging Markets

by Sean Silverthorne

Harvard Business School’s project exploring the evolution of business leadership in emerging economies has reached an important milestone. Project leaders Geoffrey Jones and Tarun Khanna discuss what's been learned from the Creating Emerging Markets study so far. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

International Business and Emerging Markets: A Long-Run Perspective

by Geoffrey Jones

This paper examines how strategies by Western multinational enterprises in emerging markets over the last century have been shaped by context. These strategies evolved from resolving logistical challenges to managing assertive governments. More recently the focus has been to locate activities in the lower end of global value chains, whilst responding to local competitors.

Emerging Markets and the Future of Business History

by Gareth Austin, Carlos Dávila, and Geoffrey Jones

This paper argues that there are important commonalities about the business history of countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America despite differences between countries and within regions of each country. It is possible to discern a distinctive body of scholarship different from that on the West.

First Look at New Research and Ideas, August 15, 2017

Sean Silverthorne

You’ll come around ... Is a deeply religious business culture ready for an acquisition? ... How historians should look at emerging markets

Business History, the Great Divergence and the Great Convergence

by Geoffrey Jones

Among economic historians, the Great Divergence means the rise of the income gap between the West and the Rest since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The more recent Great Convergence is a narrowing of that gap. This paper integrates a business history perspective into debates surrounding these macro transformations. It calls for greater attention to micro processes that generate productive firms and entrepreneurs.

Meet the Oddball Entrepreneurs Who Invented Green Businesses

by Sean Silverthorne

Historians have hardly noticed the fringe-of-society entrepreneurs who gave birth to the green business movement starting in the 19th century. In a new book, Profits and Sustainability: A History of Green Entrepreneurship, Geoffrey Jones chronicles the pioneers of healthy food, alternative energy, and alternative living. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Reputation is Vital to Survival in Turbulent Markets

by Sean Silverthorne

Reputation and resilience are key ingredients that determine whether companies will survive tumultuous markets, according to a new paper by Geoffrey Jones, Tarun Khanna, Cheng Gao, and Tiona Zuzul. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

The Environmental Legacies of The North Face's Doug Tompkins and Patagonia's Yvon Chouinard

by Geoffrey Jones and Ben Gettinger

The contrasting strategies taken by founders of Patagonia and The North Face provide a new lens on current debates about the ability of business to contribute to environmentalism. This paper suggests that the strategies of both founders bring positive environmental benefits but with trade-offs and limitations. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Overcoming Institutional Voids: A Reputation-Based View of Long Run Survival

by Cheng Gao, Tiona Zuzul, Geoffrey Jones, and Tarun Khanna

Why are some firms able to persistently survive challenging, uncertain, and underdeveloped business environments? To address this question, the authors utilize the HBS Creating Emerging Markets project―a novel collection of in-depth, publicly available video interviews conducted by HBS researchers with leaders of emerging market firms that have survived over decades and even centuries. Analyzing these interviews for the first time, the authors theorize that firm reputation is a key strategic driver, and outline how a favorable reputation allows a firm to more fully utilize its existing resources by decreasing uncertainty. They also show that reputation has offensive and defensive properties that make it valuable during both positive and negative economic cycles. Finally, the authors propose new ideas about how reputation facilitates survival and discuss why a reputation-based source of competitive advantage is hard to imitate.

First Look at New Research: January 17

Sean Silverthorne

Should sales people be rewarded daily? ... How do firms survive long term in emerging markets? ... Entrepreneurs try to improve the mattress-buying experience.

Historical Change and the Competitive Advantage of Firms: Explicating the 'Dynamics' in the Dynamic Capabilities Framework

by Geoffrey Jones and R. Daniel Wadhwani

This study contributes to the re-emerging dialogue between business history and strategy by examining how historical reasoning can contribute to the dynamic capabilities framework currently employed by strategy scholars. It explores how three distinct models of historical change—evolutionary, dialectical, and constitutive—were incorporated into the theoretical tenets of the origins, context, and micro-foundations of the dynamic capabilities framework. In each case, recognizing these historical models of change provides opportunities for sharpening the conceptualization of strategy-making processes and designing research to examine them more deeply. The paper argues that given the need for more extensive empirical research on dynamic capabilities, the methodological value of history for dynamic capabilities scholarship is significant.