New Books in Economic and Business History Geoffrey Jones and Sabine Pitteloud eds., "The Cambridge Companion to the History of Multinationals and Society" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
Mar 10, 2026
Geoffrey Jones, Harvard business history professor who studies multinationals and their social and ecological roles, and Sabine Pitteloud, Swiss scholar of multinationals and environmental governance since the 1970s, discuss the global history of multinationals. They cover taxation, corruption, gender, climate impacts, non-Western perspectives, waves of globalization, and the diversity of multinational forms.
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Multinationals Are Shapers Of Society
- The book reframes multinational history around their relationship with society rather than just firm strategy.
- Geoffrey Jones and Sabine Pitteloud collected new research showing impacts on taxation, corruption, gender, and climate across regions.
Link Research To Today's Pressing Problems
- Aim to connect historical research to today's pressing issues like inequality, climate change, and geopolitics when studying multinationals.
- The editors selected contributors for topic expertise and encouraged global perspectives beyond US/Europe despite archival challenges.
Impacts Depend On Institutions And Policy
- The impact of multinationals is neither uniformly positive nor uniformly negative; outcomes depend on institutional contexts and policies.
- The editors advocate a balanced approach that asks 'for whom' and under what conditions firms produce benefits or harms.
