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Business History Conference / Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichtee.V.13.03.2014-15.03.2014, Frankfurt am Main,Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am MainDeadline: 15.09.2013The organizers invite papers and sessions proposals that address boththe micro and macro levels of the virtues and vices of business inhistorical perspective. In keeping with longstanding BHC policysubmissions need not be directly related to the conference theme.The 2014 Program Committee consists of:Ed Balleisen, Duke University (chair); Chris McKenna, University of Oxford; Andrea Schneider, GUG -Society for Business History (Germany); Per Hansen, Copenhagen BusinessSchool (BHC President), and Jan-Otmar Hesse, University of Bielefeld.Is business good or bad, or both? Does business serve private or publicinterests, or both? A variety of theories from the social sciencesfurnish different answers to these questions and, by implication,different ideas about the role of the state in creating the goodsociety. The 2014 BHC annual meeting aims to address these issues from ahistorical and empirical perspective by exploring the virtues and vicesof business across societies from the early modern period to thepresent.Business firms - large corporations, small and medium-sized enterprisesand entrepreneurs - have been decisive in securing economic growth anddevelopment through the First, Second and Third Industrial Revolutions.By constantly innovating, imitating and competing, business has changedthe lives of billions of people all over the world.  Firms have broughtforward new products and services that enrich and improve our lives. Thewider business community, including not just companies but also tradeassociations and informal networks, have fashioned solutions to numerouspressing social problems, whether concerning the environment, health andsafety, discrimination, social isolation, or other aspects of modernlife. One can similarly point to examples of business as a progressiveforce enabling minorities and poor people to shape better lives.Yet, four hundred years of business history are also replete withexamples of abusive and dehumanizing business practices, against otherfirms, individuals, and entire peoples.  In some cases, as withplantation slavery and imperial expansion, the offending enterprisesworked closely with state authorities. In others, the actions ofbusiness entities prompted calls for aggressive state intervention tominimize or end the negative effects of business. The occurrence ofbusiness scandals amid extreme cases of financial crisis offersespecially well known historical instances of this type.  But historyoffers an abundance of examples where business enterprises havegenerated serious externalities, yet nonetheless privatized profitswhile socializing risks born by other stakeholders - and sometimes byshareholders as well. Around the industrialized world, businessinterests have also regularly interfered with politics, sometimessupporting non-democratic regimes, lobbying against the public interestand fighting organized labor.Should we view such episodes of corruption and abuses of economic poweras regrettable costs that society must pay for increases in income andwealth?  Do these unseemly aspects of capitalism merely represent theunavoidable process of Schumpeterian creative destruction? Or should werather understand them as the result of specific, and contingent,institutional frameworks, business networks, and systems of corporategovernance that increase the likelihood and occurrence of businessscandals and crisis?Another set of questions involve the evolution of societalunderstandings about "the good and virtuous," or "the bad and thevicious," that we use to praise or condemn particular markets, firms, orbusiness practices. To what extent should we attribute the more abjectfailings of business, as judged from any particular social vantagepoint, to the decline of old and the rise of new social regimes thatentail changes in discourse, narratives, cultural values, and norms?How have societies tried to set moral boundaries to the domain ofbusiness - either by prohibiting some businesses and markets outright,or by proscribing commercial practices as beyond the ethical pale?  Andhow and why have those moral constraints on business activity changedover time?Must we endure the vices of business so that society may enjoy itsvirtues of business? Do they result from state intervention thatdisturbs the delicate balancing act of markets, or from too littleregulation that allows private business actors to pursue their owninterests regardless of the costs to society? Or should we abandon thedichotomy of state and market altogether and replace it with a morehistorically based view of markets as embedded in social and culturalrelations? Even if one accepts the "embeddedness" of market relations,we continue to face complicated questions about how to strike the bestbalance between private and public interests.  How have societiesattempted to strike this complex balance?  What business networks,systems of corporate governance, and cultural, political and socialvalues have historically contributed to achieving this balance mostconstructively?The committee will consider both individual papers and entire panels.Individual paper proposals should include a one-page (300 word) abstractand one-page curriculum vitae (CV). Panel proposals should include acover letter stating the rationale for the panel and the name of itscontact person; one-page (300 word) abstract and author's CV for eachpaper; and a list of preferred panel chairs and commentators withcontact information. Graduate students and recent PhDs (within 3 yearsof receipt of degree) whose papers are accepted for the meeting mayapply for funds to partially defray their travel costs; information willbe sent out once the program has been set. Everyone appearing on theprogram must register for the meeting.The BHC annual meeting has been organized locally by the GUG, and theGUG participates in the program committee. GUG members are encouraged topropose papers for this meeting. The language of the conference will beEnglish. All sessions will take place at Goethe University in Frankfurt,and lodging will be in a number of area hotels.The BHC awards the Herman E. Krooss Prize  for the best dissertation inbusiness history by a recent Ph.D. in history, economics, businessadministration, the history of science and technology, sociology, law,communications, and related fields. To be eligible, dissertations mustbe completed in the three calendar years immediately prior to the 2014annual meeting, and may only be submitted once for the Krooss prize. Ifyou wish to apply for this prize, please send a letter to the KroossPrize Committee expressing your interest along with a one-page CV andone-page (300 word) dissertation abstract. After the Krooss committeehas reviewed the proposals, it will ask semi-finalists to submit copiesof their dissertations. Finalists will present summaries of theirdissertations at a plenary session of the 2014 BHC annual meeting inFrankfurt and will receive a partial subsidy of their travel costs tothe meeting.The K. Austin Kerr Prize is awarded for the best first paper deliveredby a new scholar at the annual meeting of the BHC.  A "new scholar" isdefined as a doctoral candidate or a Ph. D. whose degree is less thanthree years old. If you wish to participate in this competition, pleasenotify the BHC program committee in your proposal. Proposals acceptedfor the Krooss Prize are not eligible for the Kerr Prize.The CEBC-Halloran Prize in the History of Corporate Responsibility isawarded for a paper presented at the annual meeting of the BHC thatmakes a significant contribution to the history of corporateresponsibility. Corporate responsibility is understood to embrace themany ways in which the firm relates to the political realm and the widersociety.The deadline for receipt of all proposals (papers, panels, and KroossPrize competition) is 15 September 2013. Please send them toBHC2014@Hagley.org. Acceptance letters will be sent by 1 December 2013.Presenters are expected to submit abstracts of their papers for postingon the BHC website. In addition, presenters are encouraged to postelectronic versions of their papers prior to the meeting.The Oxford Journals Doctoral Colloquium in Business History will be heldin conjunction with the BHC annual meeting. This prestigious workshop,sponsored by BHC and funded by the Journals Division of OxfordUniversity Press, will take place in Frankfurt Wednesday March 12 andThursday March 13. The colloquium is limited to ten students.Participants work intensively with a distinguished group ofBHC-affiliated scholars that includes at least two BHC officers. Thecolloquium will discuss dissertation proposals, relevant literatures andresearch strategies, and employment opportunities in business history.This colloquium is intended for doctoral candidates in the early stagesof their dissertation projects. If you are interested in beingconsidered for this colloquium, please submit to Roger Horowitz by 15November 2013 to BHC2014@Hagley.org a statement of interest, a CV, apreliminary or final dissertation prospectus of 10-15 pages, and aletter of support from your dissertation supervisor (or prospectivesupervisor). Questions about the colloquium should be sent to itsdirector, Pamela Laird, Pamela.Laird@ucdenver.edu. All participantsreceive a stipend that will partially cover the costs of theirattendance at the annual meeting. The colloquium committee will notifyall applicants of its decisions by 15 December 2014.------------------------------------------------------------------------Carol LockmanBusiness History Conference, Hagley Museum and LibraryP.O. Box 3630, Wilmington, DE 19807-0630 USA001 302-658-2400001 302-655-3188clockman@hagley.org