Academic Interests

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About

I am Reader in Management at the School for Business and Society at the University of York, UK, where I currently hold the following roles: I am Director of Doctoral Programmes (2023-), Co-Director of the Centre for Contemporary Business History and Society (2022-), and Director of the Sustainable Growth, Business, Work and Economic Productivity (SBE) Pathway at the ESRC White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership (2022-) having previously held the role (2017-2020). Prior to this I was Head of the International Business, Strategy, and Management Group at the Management School, University of York (2013-2017). Before joining the University of York I held academic posts at the University of Liverpool, Durham University, and York St John University, and was a Visiting Research Fellow at Duke University, North Carolina (Spring and Summer 2019).  I hold undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from Durham University and the University of Glasgow. I did my PhD in economic history at Durham University.

I have previously served as the Chair of the Management History Research Group (UK) (2015-2019), and President of the Economic and Business History Society (2019-2020). I am the current Director of the EBHS Doctoral Workshop, and Editor of the open access journal, Essays in Economic and Business History.

Mastodon Feed

I am currently attending the Slaven Doctoral Workshop at the Association of Business Historians. Last month, I attended the YSI-INET Doctoral Workshop at the Economic and Business History Society conference in Porto. At both I have been struck by the quality and breadth of research being undertaken by PhD students in economic history, business history, and related areas. Both workshops were oversubscribed. Implications for hiring and recruitment, IMHO. #histodons #businesshistory (2023-06-29 ↗)

I’m wondering if any other business historians are on hcommons? Hcommons/Mastodon is an interesting platform. (2022-11-08 ↗)

Blog Posts

    Publications

    Articles

    Mollan, Simon and Chris Corker. 2023. Sovereignty and imperialism: international business, finance and the position of Sudan in the British empire, Business History [Accepted].

    Mollan, Simon. 2023. ‘Witch-hunt in Washington’: Ronald Prain, Robert F. Kennedy, the McClellan Committee, and the investigation of international business in the Cold War, Enterprise and Society [Accepted].

    McCann, Leo and Simon Mollan. 2022. ‘Placing Camelot: Cultivating Leadership and Learning in the Kennedy Presidency’, Leadership, 18 (1), 120-139.

    Mollan, Simon and Kristine Sævold. 2021. ‘Loophole capitalism and tax havens: why practice matters more than place’, Journal of Brief Ideas. https://zenodo.org/record/5805587

    Mollan, Simon. 2021. ‘Financialization, financial elites, and the changing genres of financial and banking history’, Essays in Economic and Business History, 39 (1), 188-205.

    Richards, Benjamin and Simon Mollan. 2021. ‘Organizational mythopoeia and the spectacle in postfascist (dis)organization’, Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization, 22 (1).

    Billings, Mark, Simon Mollan, and Philip Garnett. 2021. “Debating Banking in Britain: The Colwyn Committee, 1918.” Business History, 63 (6) 944-965

    Tennent, Kevin, and Simon Mollan. 2020. “The Limits of the Narratives of Strategy: Three Stories from the History of Music Retail.” Management & Organizational History, 15 (3), 273-294.

    Mollan, Simon, Billy Frank & Kevin Tennent. 2020. “Changing corporate domicile: the case of the Rhodesian Selection Trust companies”, Business History, 64 (9), 1600-1622.

    Mollan, Simon. 2020. “Phenomenal Differences: Varieties of Historical Interpretation in Management and Organization Studies.” Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal 14 (4), 498-516.

    Mollan, Simon, and Beverly Geesin. 2020. “Donald Trump and Trumpism: Leadership, Ideology and Narrative of the Business Executive Turned Politician.” Organisation 27 (3), 405-418.

    Mollan, Simon. 2019. “Imperialism and Coloniality in Management and Organization History.” Management and Organizational History 14 (1): 1–9.

    Geesin, Beverly, and Simon Mollan. 2019. “This Sporting Life: The Antithetical Novel’s Revelation of the Organization and Work of Sport.” Culture and Organization 25 (5), 368-382.

    Geesin, Beverly and Simon Mollan. 2018. “Taxis for neoliberalism!? Surveillance and resistance in post-industrial Philadelphia” Competition and Change: The Journal of Globalisation, Financialisation and Political Economy 24 (2), 114-132.

    Mollan, Simon. 2018.  “Management’s Troubling Past and Management Studies’ Troubling Present: Reflections on A New History of Management and The Dark Side of Management: A Secret History of Management Theory.” Academy of Management Learning & Education 18 (3), 517-521.

    Mollan, Simon. 2018. “The Free-Standing Company: A ‘zombie’ Theory of International Business History?” Journal of Management History 22 (2): 156–73.

    Garnett, Philip, Simon Mollan, and R Alexander Bentley. 2017. “Banks, Births, and Tipping Points in the Historical Demography of British Banking: A Response to J.J. Bissell.” Business History 59 (5): 814–20.

    Linsley, Philip, Alex Linsley, Matthias Beck, & Simon Mollan.  2016. Employing neo-Durkheimian institutional theory in cross-cultural accounting research. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal 29 (8), 1270–1293.

    Mollan, Simon, and Kevin D. Tennent. 2015. “International Taxation and Corporate Strategy: Evidence from British Overseas Business, circa 1900–1965.” Business History 57 (7): 1–28.

    Garnett, Philip, Simon Mollan, and R Alexander Bentley. 2015. “Complexity in History: Modelling the Organisational Demography of the British Banking Sector.” Business History 57 (1)181–201.

    Mollan, Simon, and Ranald Michie. 2012. “The City of London as an International Commercial and Financial Center since 1900.” Enterprise and Society 13 (3): 538–87.

    Mollan, Simon. 2010. “S. Hoffnung and Co: The Case of a Market Intermediary in Australia, 1851-1980.” Consumption, Markets and Culture 13 (1): 7–30.

    Mollan, Simon. 2009. “Business Failure, Capital Investment and Information: Mining Companies in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1900–13.” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 37 (2): 229–48.

    Mollan, Simon. 2008. “Business, State and Economy: Cotton and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1919-1939.” African Economic History 36: 95–124.

    Mollan, Simon.  2002. “Recruitment to the Sudan Medical Service, 1900 – 1938.” Sudan Studies 29, 35–54.

    Monographs

    Mollan, Simon. Imperialism and Economic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Economic and Business History of Sudan. 2020. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 306pp.

    Edited volumes

    Smith, Andrew, Kevin Tennent, and Simon Mollan (eds). 2016. The Impact of the First World War on International Business. London: Routledge.

    Stephen Gibson and Simon Mollan (eds). 2012. Representations of Peace and Conflict. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapters

    Mollan, Simon, Beverly Geesin, and Benjamin Richards. 2024. ‘Conspiracy, Conspiracy Theory, and Conspiracism’, in Bozkurt, Odul, Rachael Finn, Edward Granter, Carolyn Hunter, Nina Kivinen,  Arun Kumar, Leo McCann, and Brian Wierman (eds), Encyclopedia of Critical Management Studies. London: Edward Elgar.

    Mollan, Simon and Benjamin Richards. 2024, ‘History’, in Bozkurt, Odul, Rachael Finn, Edward Granter, Carolyn Hunter, Nina Kivinen,  Arun Kumar, Leo McCann, and Brian Wierman (eds), Encyclopedia of Critical Management Studies. London: Edward Elgar.

    Billings, Mark and Simon Mollan. 2022. ‘The City of London as an industrial cluster since 1980’, in Wilson, J. F., Corker, C. & Lane, J. (eds.) Industrial Clusters in Great Britain: Knowledge Creation, Innovation Systems and Sustainability. London: Routledge.

    Mollan, Simon. 2018. “Economic Development and the British Empire.” In The British Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia, edited by Mark Doyle. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

    Mollan, Simon, Andrew Smith, and Kevin Tennent. 2016. “Introduction.” In The Impact of the First World War on International Business. London: Routledge.

    Mollan, Simon. 2016. “The ‘Impact’ of the First World War on Business and Economic Development in Sudan.” In The Impact of the First World War on International Business. London: Routledge.

    Mollan, Simon, and David K. Kelsey. 2012. “An Overview of the Business History of the International Mining Industry.” In Contemporary Issues in Mining, edited by Nigel Finch. Sydney: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Mollan, Simon. 2012. “International Banking and Asia: Some Evidence from Correspondent Banking Links.” In International Banking in Asia in the 19th and 20th Centuries, edited by Ranald Michie and Shizuya Nishimura, 217–29. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

    Other publications

    Mollan, Simon. 2018. “ Arts-Based Methods and Organizational Learning.” Management Learning. 1350507618787251. doi:10.1177/1350507618787251.

    Michie, Ranald, and Simon Mollan. 2012.  “British and American Banking in Historical Perspective: Beware of False Precedents.” History and Policy, 2012.

    Mollan, Simon. 2004. International Banking Database, 1912 and 1938. [data collection]. UK Data Service.

    Projects

    My research explores how business and finance are constitutive of power relationships. I primarily use historical research methods. Current projects include….

    1. Banking history. With co-authors I am currently working several banking history projects that examine, variously, mergers and acquisitions in UK banking, the Eurocurrency market, and banking elites.

    2. International development and development finance. I have recently begun a project which will explore how the UK undertook development banking activity in the post-war period, and how this was connected to international development, decolonization, the Cold War, and international business.

    3. Business history. I continue to undertake work on various topics including on on the role that taxation plays in shaping the international business environment, retail history, and counter-cultural business organizations.

    4. Leadership and management theory. With co-authors I am undertaking work that examines the historical development of leadership theory and management theory.

    Simon Mollan

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