ПРОМЫШЛЕННЫЕ КОРПОРАЦИИ ДОРЕВОЛЮЦИОННОЙ РОССИИ В НОВЕЙШЕЙ ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННОЙ ИСТОРИОГРАФИИ (1990–2010-Е ГОДЫ)

Abstract

Given the growing need for a better understanding of the history of Russian business, the author suggests that a comprehensive historiographic analysis that logically combines theoretically developed conceptual findings and micro indicators obtained empirically is a particularly useful prospect for studying industrial corporations. Based on the capitalist modernization concept, the author studies how factors at the level of production, ownership, management, and the environment are combined into distinct institutional and organizational forms that spur industrial business. The goal of the article is to (1) highlight the utility of using a complex approach in advancing industrial firms research and (2) promote the use of such an approach to foster a better understanding of the interests of business owners and how these interests may relate to important economic, institutional, organizational and sociocultural characteristics of large joint stock companies. With these goals in mind, the article is a survey of research in extant business history literature that used conceptual characteristics and archival research to describe industrial corporations. Engaging recent studies, the author demonstrates how the analysis of firms helps illuminate the dynamics of economic life in pre-revolutionary Russia. Using the proposed subject-chronological approach to the historiographic study, the article confirms that the academic developments of the 1990s – the 2010s were thematically broader than previously described. Thus, the history of industrial corporations is important for understanding various aspects of Russia’s economic development in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The author presents suggestions for future research using macro- and microanalysis and their applications to the history of industrial corporations.