The Prospects for Collaborative Research in Business History

Abstract

After reflecting on the thematic evolution of business history as a field over the past 50 years, this revised presidential address invites readers to consider the potential payoffs of expanding the contexts in which business historians work together on research projects, as well as with colleagues from cognate fields and with students. In addition to charting the steady growth in collaborative research among business historians since 2000, the essay also identifies areas that especially lend themselves to this mode of historical inquiry, including comparative or transnational analysis that requires detailed knowledge of multiple societies, the development of oral history projects, and the use of data science techniques. It concludes by exploring the advantages of incorporating interdisciplinary research teams into curricular structures, using the example of the Bass Connections program at Duke University.