Innovating Chinese Business History

18 October

Visit to the Hong Kong University Library: 11am-12pm

Location: Hong Kong University Library 2/F Entrance

Introduction to the Hong Kong Chinese Merchants Collection (in-person attendees only)

(Catalogue:https://archivesspace.lib.hku.hk/repositories/2/resources/17 ;

Digitised Items: https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/hkcmc)

Panel 1: 2pm-4pm:

Chair: Ghassan Moazzin (The University of Hong Kong)

Location: May Hall

Speakers: 

Thomas Larkin (University of Bristol/Lingnan University) – Augustine Heard & Co: The Anatomy of a Bankruptcy in Nineteenth-Century China

Nathanael Lai (University of Cambridge) – In Support of the Zhongzhen: Loans, Textbooks, and the Cold War in 1950s Southeast Asia and Hong Kong

Jackie Wang (University of Chinese Academy of Sciences) – Engendered Entrepreneur: Women and the Politics of Business in Modern China

19 October

Location: May Hall

Panel 2: 10am-12pm

Chair: Li Ji (The University of Hong Kong)

Speakers: 

Matthew Lowenstein (Stanford University) – “Popular Sources” (民间资料): opportunities, challenges, and methodologies

Bill Kelson (University of Georgia) – A Proto-Developmental State? Revisiting the Mines of the Late-Qing Self-Strengthening Movement

Adam Frost (Copenhagen Business School) – Selective Deinstitutionalization: The Dialectics of Institutional Transformation in Maoist China

Lunch: 12pm-2pm (all registered participants)

Panel 3: 2pm-3pm

Chair: Li Yiwen (City University of Hong Kong)

Speakers: 

Puk Wing Kin (Chinese University of Hong Kong) – Licking blood at the blade?: Dispute over lead and zinc mining contracts between the Hunan Mining Bureau and the Carlowitz & Co. (1914-1920)

Billy So (The University of Hong Kong) and Sufumi So (The University of Hong Kong) – The Corporate Governance of the Shanghai Commercial Press in Historical and Comparative Perspective

Roundtable: New Directions in Chinese Business History : 3pm-4pm

Moderator: John Wong (The University of Hong Kong)

Tea Break: 4pm-4:30pm

Keynote Lecture: 4.30pm-6pm

Speaker: 

Elisabeth Köll (University of Notre Dame) – A History of Pawnbroking in China across the 20th Century: Examples of Opportunities for and Challenges in Business History Research