EH463 Half Unit
The Long-Run Analysis of Firms and Industries
This information is for the 2023/24 session.
Teacher responsible
Dr Gerben Bakker SAR 509
Availability
This course is available on the MRes/PhD in Accounting (AOI) (Accounting, Organisations and Institutions Track), MSc in Accounting, Organisations and Institutions, MSc in Economic History, MSc in Economic History (Research), MSc in Financial History, MSc in Global Economic History, MSc in Global Economic History (Erasmus Mundus) and MSc in Political Economy of Late Development. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.
This course has a limited number of places (it is controlled access) and demand is typically high. This may mean that you are not able to get a place on this course.
Course content
This course comparatively explores the history of strategies, business organisations and industries since the nineteenth century. Different approaches to analyse this evolution are discussed, as well as the history of thinking about management and organisational structure and how this affected history itself. Introductory lecture(s) set the scene, discuss key concepts and various economic approaches to analyse the evolution of organisations. Subsequently the course looks at the origins of legal forms of organisation - such as the corporation, the private limited liability company and the cooperative - at the development of organisational structures, at the history of thinking about them, and at evolution of the industries.
Teaching
This course is delivered through a series of seminars totalling 20 hours across Winter Term.
This course includes a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.
Formative coursework
Students are expected to write two essays or equivalent pieces of written work.
Indicative reading
- G. Boyce and S. Ville, The Development of Modern Business (2002);
- C. J. Schmitz, , The growth of big business in the United States and Western Europe, 1850-1939 (1993);
- S. Douma and H. Schreuder, Economic Approaches to Organizations (2002);
- A. Huczynksi and D. Buchanan, 'Organizational Structures', part 4 in Organizational Behaviour (2001 or later edition);
- D. A. Wren,