o_19heefouak9i9v4do11ac41pi7a.pdf

GREEK TRADERS IN BRITISH INDIA, 1840-1920
development. Taking as point of departure the theory of the firm 41 and its applications
to the study of the Greeks in India might be initially revealing –it enables us,
in fact, to detect specific modes of conducting business in loco– but in the end this
would result in a sterile exercise unable to account for socio-cultural determinants of
economic performance. Moreover, business history as such does not yet seem to
have achieved a broad circulation within Greek scholarship 42 , and even Greek scholars
who have been greatly interested, in the last three decades, in the Greek commercial
Diaspora, producing many excellent works on the topic, have usually opted
for a more traditional approach mainly focused on network analysis.
Perhaps a twofold line of enquiry should be taken into consideration when dealing
with Greek traders in India: in effect, a line of enquiry which combines the behavioural
theory of the firm with network analysis centred on the overriding role of
a network-based organization in the making of the activities of Greek traders would
be a convenient and balanced way to deal with them, avoiding the risk of focusing
too much on one aspect at the expense of other equally important elements. Such a
combined approach could be further strengthened by devoting room to inter-firm
cooperation. A strand of scholarly inquiry has recently concentrated on the cooperative
relations that one firm is able to construct with other firms in certain economic
sectors 43 . Investigating informal mechanisms favouring cooperativeness among
Greek firms in India could produce unexpectedly fruitful results.
A combined approach to the business activities of Greek firms in the Indian context
would probably be able to highlight a wide range of aspects in a more balanced
way. It would simultaneously detect divergences and convergences in the patterns
of firms' structure and management. In doing so it would unveil crucial issues
about the dynamic within the firm, without ignoring or underestimating all the
non-economic factors that have marked the life and development of Greek companies
in India. But the application of a combined approach to the study of Greeks in
India is only the second step towards a better understanding of their business activities.
The first crucial step that should be taken is a more comprehensive and exhaustive
reconstruction of their businesses in India. From this point of view there is
still much left to do. The data at our disposal are few and far from complete. What
41 Putterman, L. (ed.), The Economic Nature of the Firm, Cambridge, 1996; Cyert, R. and
March, J. Behavioral Theory of the Firm, Oxford, 1963; Kantarelis, D., Theories of the firm, 2nd
edition, Geneva, 2007.
42 Dritsas, M., ‘Business history in Greece: the state of the art and future prospects’, in
Amatori, F. and Jones, G. (eds), Business History around the world’, Cambridge, 2003.
43 Hite, J.M., Hesterly W.S. ‘The Evolution of firm networks: From emergence to early
growth of the firm’, in Strategic Management Journal, vol. 22, No. 3 (Mar 2001), pp. 275-86;
Richter, F.-J., Strategic networks: the art of Japanese inter-firm cooperation, London, 1999; Roessl,
D., ‘Family businesses and Inter-firm Cooperation’, in Family Business Review, Vol. 18, No. 3,
(Sept. 2005), pp. 204-14; Farrell, H., ‘Trust and Political Economy: Institutions and the
Sources of Inter-firm Cooperation’, in Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 38, No. 5, (Jun. 2005),
pp. 459-83.
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