Business and Labour History
Summary
Business and labour history investigates the development of enterprises and workforces from early artisanal production through industrialisation to today’s service economies. Its scope includes the emergence of factory systems, the evolution of managerial hierarchies and corporate governance, and the transformation of labour relations through collective bargaining, trade unionism and labour legislation. Researchers trace how technological change, market expansion and state policy have shaped firm structures and worker experiences, examining patterns of labour migration, gendered divisions of work, and the interplay between formal and informal employment. By situating corporate strategies alongside workers’ agency, this field illuminates the forces that have driven capital accumulation, social mobility and economic inequality, offering vital lessons for understanding contemporary challenges in employment security, workplace rights and sustainable business practice.
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Business and Labour History publication trend
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Technical terms
Business group: A coalition of legally distinct firms under common control that coordinates resources, strategy and workforce deployment.
Internal labour market: A system within a business group enabling the transfer and reassignment of employees among affiliate companies.
Domestic labour: Unregulated household work—such as cleaning, cooking and caregiving—typically provided by live-in or live-out workers.
Placement agency: An intermediary that recruits, trains and matches domestic or care workers with private households, shaping labour conditions.
Live-out arrangement: A form of domestic employment in which workers reside off-site and commute daily to employers’ homes.
References
- Business groups’ internal labour markets and SME labour productivity. Small Business Economics (2023).
- Placement agencies for care-domestic labour: Everyday mediation, regimes of punishment, civilizing missions, and training in globalized India. Modern Asian Studies (2022).
- Contestation and constraint: commuting domestic workers and their employers in contemporary Kolkata. South Asian History and Culture (2022).
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