2020 Coleman Prize

Despite the many disruptions everyone has faced this year, the Association ensured that the Coleman Prize proceeded as planned. On Thursday 25th June, three finalists for the prize made their presentations, all neatly moved online. The prize is awarded annually by the ABH (kindly sponsored by Taylor and Francis) to recognise excellence in new research in Britain. It is open to PhD dissertations in Business History (broadly defined) either having a British subject or completed at a British university.

The finalists for 2020 were:

Akram Beniamin, "Cotton, Finance and Business Networks in a Globalised World: The Case of Egypt during the first half of the Twentieth century ".

Adam Nix, "The Social Foundations of Organisational Corruption".

David Paulson, "Small and medium sized Enterprises in Britain and West Germany c.1949-1979".

The ABH are delighted to announce that the 2020 prize was awarded to Akram Beniamin for his dissertation "Cotton, Finance and Business Networks in a Globalised World: The Case of Egypt during the first half of the Twentieth century." Akram is a Teaching Fellow in International Business & Strategy at Henley Business School and his dissertation was supervised by Professor Mark Casson and Professor Lucy Newton. Akram outlined his thesis below.

Historians have addressed the first global economy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from different perspectives. Yet, the role of firms and entrepreneurs in explaining the phenomenon remains under researched. On the other hand, historians of the formerly colonised countries have been concerned with investigating the political, social, and sometimes economic, implications of the legacy of foreign colonisation. The imperial framework has been of great influence on history writing in Africa, Asia and Latin America. When firms entered the debate, the narrative has been, from a narrow lens, on the politics of business. Firms have often been employed as a tool to prove or refute certain theories. In this sense, firms and entrepreneurs have only been depicted as a transmitting mechanism for political and economic development / underdevelopment. This came at the expense of examining the firm itself, as a business enterprise, which has received little attention. The limited research on firms and entrepreneurs as drivers of the first global economy on the one hand, and the lack of business history account of these actors in developing countries on the other provide a good opportunity to scrutinise the micro dimensions of this wave of globalisation from a developing country perspective.

My thesis investigates commodity networks, foreign banking and business networks, as three manifestations of the first global economy, in Egypt. The country was integrated into the world economy by exporting cotton, importing foreign capital, and hosting a large foreign community. Using the notion of economic coordination, the thesis shows that the Egyptian cotton network was sophisticated, as market participants were spatially dispersed. The network was instrumentally coordinated by foreign banks that provided the crucial functions of intermediating the flows of cotton, finance, and information. Departing from the literature that portrays foreign banks in developing countries as manifestations of imperialism and exploitation of host countries, the thesis demonstrates that the history of these banks in Egypt does not conform to this rhetoric. The case of the Ionian Bank, a British overseas bank, reveals that foreign banks in Egypt were businesses that sought profits and faced many risks and challenges. Some risks were uncontrollable and negatively affected banks’ performance, which was shaped by trade-off between opportunity and risk appetite. Employing theories of entrepreneurship and information economics and applying social network analysis to the Egyptian corporate and elite networks, the thesis shows that these networks, predominantly controlled by local foreigners, served as a basis for coordinating and maintaining collective interests. The structure of the elite network presumably fostered entrepreneurial activities that were funded by foreign capital. The analysis documents the gradual rise of indigenous entrepreneurs at the expense of foreigners.

My thesis brings to light some missing pieces of the historiography of Egypt and shows how the country’s integration into the first modern globalisation was facilitated by foreign firms and entrepreneurs. The study contributes to the historiography of Egypt that has never been narrated from a business history perspective. Furthermore, the line of argument seeks to rebalance the political narrative of foreign colonisation by offering an alternative view. The thesis demonstrates the value of articulating research on firms and entrepreneurs in a developing country context capitalising on hitherto unemployed theories, methodologies and techniques of analysis. My thesis establishes that generalisations about the history of foreign businesses and foreigners are not always accurate; other perspectives could reveal different realities. In addition, the thesis contributes to the limited business history scholarship on the Middle East and furthers our understanding of the complex nature of globalisation.

Personally, I have always been interested in business history. Unfortunately, little business history research has been done about Africa and the Middle East - places and contexts less frequently studied by business historians. Therefore, I challenged myself to write a historical piece on one of these countries. It is a fantastic feeling when you see that hard work pays off. As a PhD student, I experienced moments of doubt about what I was doing. When I came to know that the Coleman Prize Committee, consisted of distinguished scholars in business history, awarded me the Prize for this year, I realised I am in the right direction with regard to my research agenda.