The 58th Congress of the Business History Society of Japan. Kansai University, Osaka, Japan. September 16-17, 2022

The International Session of the 58th Congress of the Business History Society of Japan (BHSJ) will meet at Kansai University in Osaka, Japan, on September 16-17, 2022. The theme will be “Using history in uncertain times: A Dialogue Between Business Historians and Business Leaders”. The call for papers states:

The current global business is contingent not only on recent world-shaking events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, but also on long-term structural transformations due to, for example, a shift in political and economic power and climate change.
The profound instability of the contemporary world reminds us of the need for continuous adaptation to a constantly changing environment.

This represents a major challenge for business leaders who are now positioned in a global market and therefore face a wide variety of risks. However, the instability of the world is not a new phenomenon.

Therefore, we propose to the business history community to reflect on how business leaders have used - and still use today - the experiences of the past to guide themselves in times of uncertainty. What is there to learn from the past? How can business leaders make practical use of historical knowledge? What historical awareness do they have and what do they do with it when faced with an unstable world? By bringing together researchers working on these questions in case studies from diverse geographical, chronological and cultural backgrounds, the session 2022 hopes to generate fruitful discussions and suggest fresh avenues for future research.

For a much fuller discussion of possible topics and other information, please see the complete call for papers and the BHSJ website (https://bhsj.smoosy.atlas.jp/en/congresses). The deadline for submissions is June 15, 2022.