International Economic Integration and Business Cultures: Comparative Historical Perspectives

"Economic integration" and "business culture," two concepts that are also processes, have great importance in today's international business arena. Contemporary financial literature contains many separate references to each and sometimes, though not as often as one would wish, features discussions of their connections. Many people understandably invoke the notions of economic integration and business culture as convenient shorthand, without analyzing these terms with the comprehensiveness they deserve. Economic integration and business culture are also significant historical phenomena both in themselves and as subjects of scholarly research. But just as these notions have become useful if superficial abbreviations in discussions of today's global business news, so also have they become too compressed as they have been projected back into the past. Analysts take what they think economic integration and business culture mean in the present and read these unspecified efinitions into past situations. Thus, the shorthand of the present becomes the shackles of the past. And it is the future that is the greatest loser, because all evidence suggests that economic integration and business culture, as interrelated processes, will become even more important in the twenty-first century. It is imperative that business historians develop the comprehensive definitions and refined methods for studying these concepts that their historical and contemporary richness deserves.