Conference | Workshop

Risk and Entrepreneurship – Old Discussions, Innovative Questions, New Insights

Date: Wednesday 7 June 2023 - Thursday 8 June 2023
Location: Johan Huizinga
Doelensteeg 16
2311 VL Leiden
Room: Conference room (2.60)

Entrepreneurs are often seen as either engines of economic growth or villains exploiting workers to make excessive profits. Yet historically, the role of entrepreneurs in adding value to society has been multifaceted, thus defying this dichotomy. This workshop brings together experts from the University of Exeter and Leiden University, as well as specialists from across the world, to analyse the historical role of the entrepreneur in a comparative and global-historical perspective, particularly in relationship to the management of risk and uncertainty. It compares the historical role of entrepreneurship in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, moving away from a focus on Western firms and instead focusing on individual entrepreneurs, large and small, who through innovative strategies contributed to solving societal challenges.

If you would like to attend or have any questions, please contact: Gijs Dreijer, g.p.dreijer@hum.leidenuniv.nl

Provisional programme, still subject to change(s)

Wednesday 7 June 2023
09.00-12.00: Merchants

Gijs Dreijer, Leiden University - Exploiting the Empire of Others: Dutch Entrepreneurs in the Scramble for Africa (1850s-1910s)
Sarina Kuersteiner, Union College - From Divine Provision to Risk Commodity: Concepts of Future Profit in Geniza papers and Latin contracts, ca. 1000-1550
Rémi Dewière, Northumbria University - Failures and Successes of Canon Technology Transfer in the 18^th-century Mediterranean World: Two French Entrepreneurs in North Africa (1771-1775)
Lakshmi Subramanian, Centre for Social Studies Calcutta - Speculation or Risk Management? Changing Debates around “aunth” in Western India 1750-1920

12.00: Lunch

13:30-16.30: Producers

Lewis Wade, Institute of Historical Research - Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained? Entrepreneurial Uncertainty in the Languedocian Cloth Industry, 1683–1700
Noelle Richardson, Leiden University - Entrepreneurship and imperial transitions: Dutch merchants in the intra-Asian trade (1740s-1808)
Sascha Klocke, Lund University - Rural Capitalists or Entrepreneurs? African Commercial Agriculture and Economic Development under Colonial Rule
Edmond Smith, Manchester University - Working Between World Systems: The Experience of Globalisation for Akan Entrepreneurs from Eguafo to Bitu

16.30-17.00: Coffee Break

17:00-19.00: Keynote prof. Antony Hopkins, Cambridge University

Thursday 8 June
09.00-12.00: Allocation of Labour

Maria Fusaro, Exeter – Title TBC
Audrey Gerrard, Norwegian University of Science and Technology - Between Private Affair and Government Control: The Queensland Plantation Labour Debate 1880-1890
Matthias Lukkes, Leiden University - Managing Risk for whom? Bomba Labour in the Dutch Transatlantic Slave Trade

12.00-13.30: Lunch

13.30-16.30: Investors

Mallory Hope, Harvard University - "To Conserve in their Integrity… The Assets and Rights of their Church": Managing Water and Shared Resources on the Chapter of the Notre Dame's Rural Domaine
Amy Froide, University of Maryland, Baltimore Country - Women, Risk, and Joint-stock Enterprise in Early Eighteenth-century London
John Kegel, Leiden University - Risk, Entrepreneurship and Concessionary Companies
William Deringer, MIT - Hazardous Nature: Coal Mining Engineers, Discounting Calculations, and the Price of Risk circa 1800

16.30-17.00: Coffee

17.00: Closing Remarks

Funders

This workshop is made possible by the generous support of the following funders: Leiden University fund CWB (grant nr. W221373-3-1), University of Exeter European Network Fund 2022-2023 (grant nr. 6.4), the Roots and Routes Network of the Posthumus Institute, and the NWO VICI project Exploiting the Empire of Others (grant nr. VI.C.191.027).