Dr Rowena Olegario

I am a historian of business and, more broadly, of global trade and capitalism.  What interests me is the way that people and organisations created (or had thrust upon them) the institutions and mechanisms that allowed them to establish businesses, trade with others, lend, borrow, innovate, grow, fail, and (sometimes) start again.  I also study the larger contexts in which these activities took place, including the political regimes, social structures, and cultural norms that served as the ‘rules of the game’. I am also interested in the topic of reputation and its relationship with commercial trust. This interest was sparked by my time as research fellow of the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation, Said Business School.  In that role, I coordinated the multidisciplinary work of scholars in the field and contributed a historical perspective to the scholarship.  

As a research fellow in the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation, Said Business School (2009-2019), I was committed to embedding history and historical approaches to the study of reputation.  With Christopher McKenna, I co-edited a special issue on the topic for Business History Review (2013). I also co-edited an interdisciplinary symposium on corporate reputation and accountability for the Journal of Business Ethics (2019).