Business History and Company Histories

How Company Histories Are ‘Made’

Abstract

Histories of Japanese companies are usually written by employees of the company and privately published. While some are written by scholars, their names are rarely showed on a page for publication information. On the other hand, histories of American or European companies are ordinarily written by scholars and published by a publisher, though company executives hold the right to read the manuscripts and make comments on them or request modifications by contracts with authors. This paper also shows how a company history is ‘made’ on the case of hundred-year history of Yamaichi Securities.