“At the Margins of Business: Edges, Wastelands, Borders, Third Places, Innovation”
3rd International Conference on Business History in France
SAVE THE DATE: Paris Dauphine University – June 23-26, 2026
Key dates:
September 15, 2025: Call for papers opens
December 15, 2025: Deadline for submission of proposals (papers, sessions, posters)
March 2, 2026: Notification of acceptance
June 5, 2026: Submission of extended abstracts
June 23, 2026: Conference begins with the doctoral workshop and keynote lecture
We invite you to mark these dates in your calendars now!
3rd INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BUSINESS HISTORY IN FRANCE
(PARIS, June 23-26, 2026, Paris Dauphine University)
AT THE MARGINS OF BUSINESS AND COMPANIES: EDGES, WASTELANDS, BORDERS, THIRD PLACES, INNOVATION
In France and around the World, Business historians, and more generally studies on the history of major companies and business history, have mainly focused on the origins, evolution, key players, and functioning of companies, with fewer focusing on a set of objects, rationales, or players on the margins. What qualifies for being considered as marginal? One example is subcontractors (in value chains), often SMEs, which are impacted by the strategies of their clients. But we can also mention areas of cooperation and competition, fields of monitoring or foresight, the place of individuals or groups considered, in various ways, to be marginal, and more generally third places, middlegrounds, edges, and border objects of all kinds.
The Paris 2026 conference project is built on a spirit of intellectual and disciplinary openness. It aims to bring together as wide a range of researchers as possible from different traditions in the humanities and Social Sciences and from different countries. we look for contributions that approach their topic from a historical perspective or that they address issues related to the historical dynamics of companies. In addition to collaborations and exchanges between French and foreign teachers and researchers, the aim of this conference is also to promote exchanges between the academic world and public or private economic actors interested in the history of business and companies, their positioning and functioning, their performance, their structures and strategies, and, more broadly, that of organizations and all those who live and work in them. The aim is to encompass both the more traditional study of companies and firms as well as marginal actors, alternative organizational forms, informal sectors and relations between larger more central firms and frontiers and boundary objects.
While we mainly encourage proposals on the themes presented below, papers dealing with any other subject related to business and corporations history, particularly from a comparative perspective, will also be considered by the program committee. In this context, contributions from the fields of history, management, sociology, law, political science, and, where applicable, other disciplines are welcome. The conference does not intend to limit itself to research exclusively focused on the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Individual or collective proposals dealing with French and foreign companies operating in France are eligible. Proposals dealing with French or foreign companies operating abroad in relation to France (e.g., within the French-speaking world or former colonies, etc.) are also eligible. Both individual papers and proposals for complete sessions are eligible. Of course, papers dealing with other places and countries are also welcome, as far as there is a link with France and its cultural or economic zone of influence (Subsidiaries of foreign companies implemented in France or in its former colonial zone, Companies doing business with France, Companies employing French staff even abroad, etc.)