Creating Emerging Markets

This page provides selected resources related to the Creating Emerging Markets Oral History Collection, including publications, teaching materials, thematic research, and related archival collections. Together with the oral history interviews, these resources support research and teaching on business history, leadership, governance, and economic development in emerging markets.

For primary source material, browse the full interview collection.

Published Materials

The Creating Emerging Markets project has generated a range of books, articles, and case-related research exploring business history, leadership, and economic development in emerging markets.

These publications draw on the oral history interviews and cover topics such as entrepreneurship, corporate strategy, governance, and institutional change.

Related Archives

Additional archival collections provide complementary perspectives on business history and leadership around the world.

These include collections of:

Business records
Personal papers
Institutional archives

Asia

Godrej Archives
The Godrej Archives features manuscripts, photographs, memorabilia, printed material, and a large oral history collection documenting the history of the Godrej Group. The archive spans over 100 years of the company’s history. In Gujarati and English.

Guftagoo Archives
Bollywood and Beyond: Analyzing the Indian Film Industry through Irfan's Guftagoo Interviews is a research database hosted by the University of Pennsylvania. It focuses on evidence from the popular television series Guftagoo hosted by S. M. Irfan and published by Rajya Sabha Television. Rajya Sabha is the upper-house of the Indian Parliament, and this series of interviews is one of the most original, creative, and reliable sources on the cinema industry.

The Hong Kong Heritage Project
The Hong Kong Heritage Project’s large oral history collection includes many interviews with entrepreneurs and business leaders and includes video clips. The database is searchable by both topic and interviewee name. In English or Cantonese.

Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) Archives
The Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) Archives, formally launched in 2019, preserves institutional memory and periodically disseminates historical information about the institute to the IIMA community and the general public. It holds a large collection of physical and digitized documents related to the foundation and evolution of the institute. The IIMA Oral History project is a key initiative of IIMA Archives that captures the experiences of several people associated with the institute from its formative years. IIMA Archives also holds a collection of documents and directories related to the business and economic history of India. In English.

IIMA Archives on India
The Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad's Archives on India is a digital public good that compiles and maps over 500+ physical and digital archives and repositories relevant to the history and cultural heritage of the Indian subcontinent. This tool is designed to assist historians and archivists in their work.

National Archives of Singapore
The National Archives of Singapore’s collection of 3,453 oral histories is searchable by keyword and includes multiple interviews from 1980 onwards with entrepreneurs and business leaders in Singapore. Transcripts and audio are accessible online. In English.

Reserve Bank of India Archives (RBI)
The Reserve Bank of India maintains a database on the Indian economy, including statics and time-series publications. Resources span the real sector, corporate sector, and financial sector, as public finance and socio-economic indicators. In English.

Tata Central Archives
The Tata Central Archives holds over 150,000 documents, including manuscripts, printed material, and memorabilia. It also holds an extensive multi-media collection including audio and video recordings on Tata institutions and about major figures in the Tata group. In English.

Latin America

Columbia Center for Oral History
The CCOH’s collection includes six interviews made in the 1970s with prominent Argentinean business leaders.

Oregon State University, Special Collections & Archives: Series II (Oral History Sound Recordings) Environmental Movement and Ecotourism in Costa Rica
63 oral history interviews were conducted in 1992 with entrepreneurs and others who contributed to the ecotourism industry in Costa Rica. 11 interviews are transcribed, and 41 audio files have been digitized. The collection includes interviews with Jack Ewing and Barry Roberts, interviewed in 2014 for Creating Emerging Markets. In English.

Programa de História Oral
The Oral History Program CPDOC’s collection of 1,000 oral histories includes a wide range of interviews of entrepreneurs active in São Paulo, the leading business center in the country, from the 1950s. In Portuguese.

Middle East & North Africa

Harvard Iranian Oral History Project
The Iranian Oral History Project’s 134 oral histories of individuals active in Iran between the 1920s and the 1970s includes interviews with prominent business figures. In English or Persian.

The Elite Africa Project
The Elite Africa Project is a Canadian-based global network of scholars working to shift how Africa and its elites are understood through collaborative research and public outreach. The project seeks to disrupt and renew both academic and public discussions of African leadership, and provide tools to researchers, teachers, and students interested in the study of Africa.

Global

Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley
The Bancroft Library’s large collection of business leaders’ oral histories includes interviews of business and philanthropy in Peru and the creation of the Hong Kong textile industry between the 1950s and 1990s.

World Bank Archives
An extensive and searchable oral history collection concerning the operation of the World Bank across emerging markets. The site also has global economic and financial data.

Sustainability Series

The Harvard Business School Business & Environment Initiative published a series of blog posts exploring sustainability themes that emerged from interviews in the Creating Emerging Markets Oral History Collection. Topics include sustainable construction, agriculture, water management, environmental innovation, and business leadership.

Introducing the Creating Emerging Markets Sustainability Series
Lynn Schenk and Maxim Pike Harrell
03 Nov 2022

Creating Emerging Markets Sustainability Series - COP27 and the Climate Crisis
Lynn Schenk and Maxim Pike Harrell
07 Nov 2022

Creating Emerging Markets Sustainability Series - The Future of Green Building
Lynn Schenk and Maxim Pike Harrell
17 Nov 2022

Creating Emerging Markets Sustainability Series - Reducing Plastic Pollution on a Global Scale
Maxim Pike Harrell
14 Dec 2022

Creating Emerging Markets Sustainability Series - Closing the ‘Intention-Action’ Gap
Maxim Pike Harrell
15 Feb 2023

Creating Emerging Markets Sustainability Series - Innovations to Address the Global Water Crisis
Maxim Pike Harrell
10 Apr 2023

Creating Emerging Markets Sustainability Series - Leapfrogging Traditional Agricultural Development in Africa
Maxim Pike Harrell
12 Jun 2023

Creating Emerging Markets Sustainability Series - Opportunities for Green Entrepreneurship in the Face of Policy Inaction
Maxim Pike Harrell
27 Nov 2023

Creating Emerging Markets Sustainability Series - How to Build a Culture of Intrapreneurship
Maxim Pike Harrell
14 May 2024

Teaching Resources

Learn how faculty have used Creating Emerging Markets interviews and related materials in their teaching.

CEM Perspectives on Teaching (PDF): Andrea Lluch
Independent Researcher, CONICET, Argentina
Associate Professor, School of Management,
University of the Andes, Colombia

CEM Perspectives on Teaching (PDF): Sudev Sheth
Senior Lecturer, History
Faculty Lead, Entrepreneurship Initiative,
The Lauder Institute, University of Pennsylvania

CEM Perspectives on Teaching (PDF): Jeffrey Fear
Professor of International Business History
School of Social & Political Sciences,
University of Glasgow, Scotland

CEM Perspectives on Teaching (PDF): Chinmay Tumbe
Associate Professor, Economics Area
Indian Institute of Management,
Ahmedabad (IIMA), India

CEM Perspectives on Teaching (PDF): Marcelo Bucheli
Associate Professor
Gies College of Business,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

CEM Perspectives on Teaching (PDF): Juliana Malagon
Associate Professor
School of Management,
University of the Andes, Colombia