Author Abstract
This working paper highlights the benefits that rigorous use of oral history can offer to research on the contemporary business history of emerging markets. Employing the unique database generated by Harvard Business School’s Creating Emerging Markets project, the paper explores how oral history can help fill some of the major information voids arising from the absence of a strong tradition of corporate archives in most countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Oral history also permits a level of nuance that is hard to obtain even if written documents exist and are accessible in corporate and governmental archives. Oral histories can provide insights into why events did not occur, as well as why companies chose certain industries over others. Oral history can shed light on hypersensitive topics, such as corruption, which are rarely formally documented. While the methodological challenges of oral history are considerable and fully acknowledged, oral history can still be seen as a critical source of data on opinions, voices, and judgements on events in which there was often silence in written records.
Paper Information
- Full Working Paper Text
- Working Paper Publication Date: November 2018
- HBS Working Paper Number: HBS Working Paper #19-056
- Faculty Unit(s): General Management
