Business history goes East: An introduction

Abstract

Abstract This article introduces the special issue ‘Socialist Entrepreneurs? Business Histories of the GDR and Yugoslavia’. It starts with a review of the growing literature on the history of business organisation in the Global East, or the Second World in the Cold War. It then argues that mainstream business history struggles to incorporate the findings of this emerging body of work, relying as it does on the traditional view of the Soviet-style firm as primarily a production function. We show that a more nuanced view, exploring a greater variety of experiences in the USSR and beyond it, has now developed, through the use of fresh archival evidence and the combination of business history with other historical and disciplinary approaches. Focusing on the GDR and Yugoslavia, the seven contributions in this special issue showcase new directions in the field and demonstrate how we gain innovative perspectives by taking business history ‘eastwards’.