Abstract

"Lack of Archives: Methodological Implications from Research on the Ge Family Business"

Ian Jones, University of Sheffield (ianjones12345@hotmail.co.uk)

Recently, historical sources and methods have drawn increasing interest amongst scholars outside business history (Aldrich, 2012; Clark & Rowlinson, 2004; Wadhwani, 2015), inspiring a growing interest in methodological clarity (Decker, 2013; Perchard et al., 2017; Heller, 2023), especially in methods for approaching, accessing, and using archives (Decker, 2013; Decker et al., 2015; Lipartito, 2013; Tennent et al., 2020; Tennent & Gillet, 2023). However, it is noted that not all subjects or areas will have accessible or usable archival sources to use (Gasparin et al., 2025). Especially, we engage with conversations on research on Chinese businesses – one of the regions that suffers from a lack of archives (Frost, 2022) – resulting in scarce knowledge of Chinese business history (McWatters et al., 2016), and is often luck-based, depending on the availability of archives (e.g., Lowenstein & Cao, 2023).
Our paper aims to present a method for conducting research when archives are limited or unavailable and to contribute to the understanding of family business in China during the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1912) dynasties. By drawing insights from our reconstruction of the Ge family business history, a Chinese family within the well-known trade group Dongting Shangbang (洞庭商帮), we illustrate a methodological bricolage for researching contexts lacking established and accessible archives and preexisting knowledge. Family businesses were incredibly important in the Chinese economy, with family businesses being the primary form of business that lay behind the prosperity of the Jiangnan economy during the Ming (1368) and Qing (1644) Dynasties (Fan, 2003). Our sources include two privately printed family genealogies (3rd edition, Year 1673; and 4th edition, Year 1924), interviews with family members, fieldwork, and other records. Our research significantly advances the study of family business history methodologically, especially in areas where archival sources are scarce, incomplete, or primarily based on narrative performative sources.