The Past Speaks

Business historians Dan Raff and Phil Scranton have published an interesting new edited collection that explores the intersection of business history, business strategy, and entrepreneurship. Published by OUP, The Emergence of Routines includes a series of historical case studies examining the origins of organizational order in firms. The book includes a conceptual introduction and an intriguingly titled concluding chapter on “learning from history” that should be of interest to readers of this blog.

From the OUP Site’s Description:

This book is a collection of essays about the emergence of routines and, more generally, about getting things organized in firms and in industries in early stages and in transition.

These are subjects of the greatest interest to students of entrepreneurship and organizations, as well as to business historians, but the academic literature is thin. The chronological settings of the book’s eleven substantive chapters are historical, reaching as far back as the…