Friday, January 6, 2012

Business History Classes in Harvard Business School

From the link: http://www.thebhc.org/publications/BEHprint/v028n2/p0153-p0162.pdf

"The Coming of Managerial Capitalism: The United States" is the course taught there w.r.t. Business History. Textbooks:
  1. Management Past & Present
  2. Andrew Carnegie & the rise of big business
  3. American Business: 1920 - 2000. How it worked.
Course Outline is also mentioned in the link above. Course number 1122. Some details below:

Career Focus

For MBAs who want to study the past and present to help guide their thinking about the future.

Educational Objectives

To provide an understanding of the development of entrepreneurship, modern management, business, technology and finance; to examine other institutions that have affected these areas such as governments, unions, and intellectual property rights; and to analyze the evolution of changing attitudes toward American capitalism and their impact on the environment in which business leaders and other stakeholders operate.

Course Content and Organization

This course offers students an opportunity to explore the historical development of entrepreneurship in the United States as the country became increasingly industrial, urban, and technologically and financially advanced. The course covers the founding of the new nation, early entrepreneurial venturing, changes in the strategy and structure of business, the winners and losers from capitalist expansion and the impact of technological and financial revolutions. It also looks to the future of entrepreneurship and capitalist development through an historical mirror.

The course's perspective provides a broad understanding of the long-term impact of technological change, entrepreneurial innovation, and market evolution on U.S. business, managers, the work force, and government. The history of entrepreneurship and managerial capitalism in the United States offers students a comparative point of reference for considering capitalistic development and its long-term impact on material prosperity and collective perceptions of economic activity across time and national boundaries.

Through discussions, readings, and slide presentations, students will encounter several different units of analysis: the individual business leader and entrepreneur, the worker, the company, the industry, and the country.

The course is divided into the following modules:
  1. Historical Foundations of Entrepreneurship
  2. The Emergence of Organization: Railroads, the "Titans" and Managerial Capitalism
  3. Prosperity, Depression and War
  4. Technological and Financial Revolutions
  5. Capitalism at Crisis Point and Beyond

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