Rationale and themes
Submissions are encouraged to engage with one or more of the following themes:

Violence, both structural and intentional, remains central to the exertion of imperial power. The concept of ‘slow violence’, described as ‘incremental and accretive’ (Nixon 2011, 2), indicates how the structures of imperialism (including businesses) resulted in the appropriation, exploitation, degradation, and deracination of everything from people, communities and cultures, knowledge, and the natural environment, over different temporalities. Intentional (or personal) violence also has a business history, illustrated, for example, by the people and businesses involved in or benefitting from slavery and the slave trade (Schermerhorn 2015; Rosenthal 2018), the practice of indenturing labour, or otherwise engaging in or facilitating coercion and harm in connection to business activity.

Linkages and transfers within empires, and between colonies and metropolitan imperial powers, are of central importance to the business history of imperialism. Multiple studies have explored the ways in which people, capital, technology, knowledge were organised and managed by businesses operating in imperial contexts. Linkages and transfers both created and sustained imperial relationships through trade, investment, production and consumption. These linkages were, however, not only within empires, but also between empires (for example Dejung 2022). Inter-imperial business history may also be a fruitful new avenue of research.

Informal empire, and the concept of business imperialism, have a deep historiography (Thompson 1992; Miller 1999; Jones 1980) and an important contemporary resonance in relation to the ways in which multinational corporations are able to shape the business environment and/or may act as informal proxies for state power exercised extra-territorially. Much of the scholarship in this area has focused on Latin America, and to a lesser extent China (Clayton 1997; Duran and Bucheli 2017). Studies that revisited these examples, or developed new geographical cases would very welcome.

European and non-European empires, and comparative studies. Much of the business history of imperialism has focused on European imperialism. While we envisage a continuation of studies that examined European imperialism(s), opportunities to look at non-European empires would be particularly welcome. Comparative studies seeking to examine the role played by business in comparison across empires, or across colonies, would also be very useful in illuminating the similarities and differences in cases and contexts. Contributions that reflect on empires found in modern, early-modern, medieval, and ancient-history time periods are welcome.

Institutions. The institutions that supported business in imperial contexts are also of considerable interest. Different kinds of business corporations, such as Free-Standing Companies, multinationals, and trading companies (Mollan 2018; Aldous 2016; Decker 2022; Jones 2000), project organisations (Tennent and Gillett 2024), financial service providers such as banks, insurance companies, accounting firms, and markets (including stock exchanges and commodity markets), all formed institutional components of imperial systems (Decker 2005; Beniamin, Wilson, and Abdelrehim 2024; Lukasiewicz 2024; Mollan and Michie 2012; Jones 1993; Uche 1999; Austin and Uche 2007). Studies of the strategies and operations of these different institutions might prove especially useful.

Legacies. The nature of imperial retreat and withdrawal has contributed to reformulated power relationships in the post-colonial world in what has been described as the ‘imperialism of decolonization’ (Louis and Robinson 1994). The nature of empire building has enduring legacies in the post-colonial world in areas as varied as state capacity, sovereignty and international governance (Mollan and Corker 2024; Rönnbäck and Ngoma 2024). These perspectives open possibilities of explorations that nest business-level research within macro-structural frameworks and multiple temporal frames, including more contemporarily oriented business history where the link to imperialism made clearly.

Contributions
As indicated in a recent editorial of Business History (Decker et al. 2024), there are three kinds of contribution that are sought in submissions to the journal: empirical, historiographical, and theoretical. We would expect all articles in the SI to engage with at least one of these. In the context of the business history of imperialism this is understood as follows:

Empirical studies based on primary data should provide new evidence, so contributing to the wider historiography by widening and deepening the case-studies, examples, geographic scope, and temporal coverage of the business history of imperialism.

Historiographical articles based on detailed discussion of the existing historiography to provide new perspectives and interpretations in relation to the debates and questions relating to business history and imperialism. This might take two forms: first, to explore the ways in which the existing business history literature can be revaluated, revised, or rethought to provide new insights into the role of business in imperialism; and second, to explore the ways in which wider historiographical debates about imperialism and imperial history might have implications for business history. This might engage constructively with management history, the new histories of capitalism, and/or conceptions of racial capitalism (Decker 2013; Mollan 2019; Hilt 2017; Robinson 1983).

Theoretical development. In the context of the business history of imperialism, there are two main ways in which theory development may occur. First, there are historical theories of imperialism (for example ‘business imperialism’ (Jones 1980; Platt 1977) or ‘Gentlemanly Capitalism’ (Cain and Hopkins 2002)), classical theories of imperialism (drawing on Marxist or Hobsonian traditions (Noonan 2017; Timo Särkkä 2009)), and more recent sociological and critical theories of imperialism and coloniality (Faria and Cunha 2022; Wanderley and Barros 2019; Mignolo and Walsh 2018; Motyl 2013). The implications for business history of reflecting on these studies, or using themes or frames, or problematising a piece of research might be a fruitful way to proceed. Second–in line with the development of theoretically fluent business history (Rowlinson, Hassard, and Decker 2014)–theories of management, organization, strategy, business ethics and so on might be deployed to gain a better understanding of the dynamics of imperialism and its relationship to business history. This might refine or extend the contextual applicability (see Welch et al. 2022), and/or the explanatory power of, existing theoretical constructs, as well as the potential for business historical research to contribute to debates around decolonising the curriculum (Boussebaa 2023).

References
- Aldous, Michael. 2016. “Avoiding ‘Negligence and Profusion’: The Ownership and Organization of Anglo–Indian Trading Firms, 1813–1870.” Enterprise & Society 17 (4): 752–62.
- Austin, Gareth, and Uche, Chibuike, 2007. Collusion and competition in colonial economies: banking in British West Africa, 1916–1960. Business History Review, 81(1), pp.1-26.
- Beniamin, Akram, John F. Wilson, and Neveen Abdelrehim. 2024. “Multinational Banking in Egypt: A Case-Study of the Ionian Bank, 1907–1939.” Business History, July, 1–29.
- Boussebaa, Mehdi. ‘Decolonizing International Business’. Critical Perspectives on International Business 19, no. 4 (26 July 2023): 550–65.
- Cain, Peter J., and Anthony G. Hopkins. 2002. British Imperialism: 1688-2000. London: Pearson Education.
- Clayton, David. 1997. Imperialism Revisited: Political and Economic Relations between Britain and China, 1950-54. London: Palgrave.
- Decker, Stephanie. 2005. “Decolonising Barclays Bank DCO? Corporate Africanisation in Nigeria, 1945–69.” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 33 (3): 419–40.
- Decker, Stephanie. 2013. “The Silence of the Archives : Business History , Post-Colonialism and Archival Ethnography.” Management and Organizational History 8 (2): 155–73.
- Decker, Stephanie. 2022. Postcolonial Transition and Global Business History: British Multinational Companies in Ghana and Nigeria. London: Routledge.
- Decker, Stephanie, Christina Lubinski, Niall G. MacKenzie, and Nic Felton. 2024. “Taking Stock and Moving Forward: What Makes a Contribution in Business History?” Business History, June, 1–16.
- Dejung, Christof. 2022. “Cosmopolitan Capitalists and Colonial Rule. The Business Structure and Corporate Culture of the Swiss Merchant House Volkart Bros., 1850s–1960s.” Modern Asian Studies 56 (1): 427–70.
- Duran, Xavier, and Marcelo Bucheli. 2017. “Holding up the Empire: Colombia, American Oil Interests, and the 1921 Urrutia-Thomson Treaty.” The Journal of Economic History 77 (February): 251–84.
- Faria, Alexandre, and Jaeder F. Cunha. ‘Decolonizing Business History: The Case of Unilever Historiography’. Cadernos EBAPE. BR 20 (2022): 118–34.
- Hilt, Eric. 2017. “Economic History, Historical Analysis, and the ‘New History of Capitalism.’” The Journal of Economic History 77 (2): 511–36.
- Jones, Charles. 1980. “’Business Imperialism’and Argentina, 1875-1900: A Theoretical Note.” Journal of Latin American Studies 12 (2): 437–44.
- Jones, Geoffrey. Merchants to Multinationals : British Trading Companies in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2000.
- Jones, Geoffrey. 1993. British Multinational Banking, 1830-1990. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Kleinöder, Nina. 2020. “’A Place in the Sun’? German Rails and Sleepers in Colonial Railway Building in Africa, 1905 to 1914”. Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte / Journal of Business History 65 (1) 1: 1-23.
- Kleinöder, Nina. 2022. “Skilled labour in colonial economies. Recruitment, education and employment in construction companies in German colonial West Africa, c. 1902–1912”. Labor History 63 (5): 568-583.
- Louis, W. M. Roger, and Ronald Robinson. 1994. “The Imperialism of Decolonization.” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 22 (3): 462–511.
- Lukasiewicz, Mariusz. 2024. Gold, Finance and Imperialism in South Africa, 1887–1902: A View from the Stock Exchange. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.
- Mignolo, Walter D., and Catherine E. Walsh. 2018. On Decoloniality. On Decoloniality. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
- Miller, Rory. 1999. “Informal Empire in Latin America.” Winks, Robin W., The Oxford History of the British Empire 5.
- Mollan, Simon. 2018. “The Free-Standing Company: A ‘zombie’ Theory of International Business History?” Journal of Management History 22 (2): 156–73.
- Mollan, Simon. 2019. “Imperialism and Coloniality in Management and Organization History.” Management & Organizational History 14 (1): 1–9.
- Mollan, Simon. 2020. Imperialism and Economic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Economic and Business History of Sudan. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Mollan, Simon, and Chris Corker. 2024. “Sovereignty and Imperialism: International Business, Finance and the Position of Sudan in the British Empire.” Business History, 1–22.
- Mollan, Simon, and Ranald Michie. 2012. “The City of London as an International Commercial and Financial Center since 1900.” Enterprise and Society 13 (3): 538–87.
- Motyl, Alexander J. 2013. Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Nixon, Rob. 2011. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
- Noonan, Murray. 2017. Marxist Theories of Imperialism: A History. Bloomsbury Publishing.
- Platt, D. C. M. 1977. Business Imperialism, 1840-1930: An Inquiry Based on British Experience in Latin America. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Robinson, Cedric J. 1983. Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. London: Zed Press.
- Rönnbäck, Klas, and Kondwani Happy Ngoma. ‘Regulatory Capture in the British Empire: The British South Africa Company and the Redefinition of Property Rights in Southern Africa’. Business History 0, no. 0 (May 2024): 1–22.
- Rosenthal, Caitlin. 2018. Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
- Rowlinson, Michael, John Hassard, and Stephanie Decker. 2014. “Research Strategies for Organizational History: A Dialogue between Historical Theory and Organization Theory.” Academy of Management Review. Academy of Management 39 (3): 250–74.
- Särkkä, Timo. 2009. Hobsonʻs Imperialism: A Study in Late-Victorian Political Thought. Jyväskylä: Jyväskylä Studies in Humanities.
- Schermerhorn, Calvin. 2015. The Business of Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism, 1815-1860. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
- Tennent, Kevin D., and Alex G. Gillett. 2024. “Conceptualising Historical Project Studies – a Complementary Partnership.” International Journal of Project Management, June. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2024.102601.
- Thompson, Andrew. 1992. “Informal Empire? An Exploration in the History of Anglo-Argentine Relations, 1810–19141.” Journal of Latin American Studies 24 (2): 419–36.
- Uche, Chibuike, 1999. Foreign banks, Africans, and credit in colonial Nigeria, c. 1890-1912. Economic History Review, pp.669-691.
- Uche, Chibuike, 2015. Lonrho in Africa: The unacceptable face of capitalism or the ugly face of neo-colonialism?. Enterprise & Society, 16(2), pp.354-380.
- Wanderley, Sergio, and Amon Barros. 2019. “Decoloniality, Geopolitics of Knowledge and Historic Turn: Towards a Latin American Agenda.” Management and Organizational History 14 (1): 79–97.
- Welch, C., Paavilainen-Mäntymäki, E., Piekkari, R. and Plakoyiannaki, E., 2022. Reconciling theory and context: How the case study can set a new agenda for international business research. Journal of International Business Studies, 53(1), pp.4-26.

For Submission Instructions see:
https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/business-history-and-imperialism/

Please send any queries to the Guest Editors at businesshistoryimperialism@gmail.com.

Timetable

Pre-submission paper development workshop (PDW):
Submission of Extended Abstracts (2,000-3,000) words to businesshistoryimperialism@gmail.com – 15 January 2025
Paper Development Workshop – 20 March 2025 – University of Leiden, Netherlands.

Article Submission:
Open Submission to the Special Issue – 1 August 2025
Publication – Spring/Summer 2026