This course comparatively explores the history of strategies, business organisations and industries since the nineteenth century. Different approaches to analyse this evolution are discussed, as well as the history of thinking about firms and organisational structure and how this affected history itself.

Introductory lecture(s) set the scene, discuss key concepts and various economic approaches to analyse the evolution of organisations. Subsequently the course looks at the origins of legal forms of organisation—such as the corporation, the private limited liability company and the cooperative—at the development of organisational structures, at the history of thinking about them, and at evolution of industries.