Papers presented by Christopher McKenna since 2019

2025 Atlanta, Georgia

"“Whistle While You Work” The Rise of Labor Protections for Exposing Corporate Misconduct"

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Since the Watergate scandal, whistleblowing has evolved from a career-ending decision to a legally regulated mechanism for exposing corporate misconduct. In my 2025 BHC paper, I will set out how whistleblowing now plays a crucial role in exposing white collar crime through co-opting the modern corporation to regulate itself. Corporate whistleblower protections historically lagged behind state legislation in the United States, For example, Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 False Claims Act, rewarded individuals who exposed fraud by military contractors. Yet before the 1970s, corporate employees routinely faced retaliation for exposing wrongdoing. This substantially changed after the Watergate scandal, which revealed not only widespread political corruption but also corporate malpractice in the defense industry. In response, Congress passed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in 1977, outlawing corporate bribery. At the turn of the 21st century, a series of high-profile scandals in leading public companies led to strengthened whistleblower protection. In 1996, Jeffrey Wigand, a former executive at Brown & Williamson, revealed how tobacco executives had strategically manipulated nicotine levels in cigarettes and, in 2001, Sherron Watkins exposed Enron’s fraudulent accounting. As a result of these giant scandals, the American Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002 to strengthen legal protections for corporate whistleblowers. The push for whistleblower protection did not stop at the American borders. In 2015, Antoine Deltour and Raphaël Halet revealed secret tax avoidance deals with multinational corporations in Luxemburg. The European Union responded by adopting the “Whistleblower Protection Directive” in 2019, prohibiting EU corporate executives from retaliating against whistleblowers. By historicizing the key regulatory protections in the U.S. and EU, this paper will highlight the crucial place of whistleblowing in turning senior executives into the central informants against the modern corporation.

2023 Detroit, MI, United States

"#MeToo: Reimagining the History of Sexual Harassment in Business History"

Abstract:

In 2017, more than a decade after Tarana Burke first coined the phrase “Me Too,” to emphasize women’s experience of sexual harassment, a series of explosive charges against film producer Harvey Weinstein resulted in the term’s rapid adoption on Twitter (#MeToo) and exposed the harassment women regularly experienced. Not surprisingly, the #MeToo movement had a powerful impact on the academic world. Feminist scholars offered theoretical analysis, students demonstrated against sexual harassment on campus, and university administrators were forced to address complaints about senior scholars’ inappropriate behavior. Yet it has been less obvious how to incorporate #MeToo into historical research and teaching. In their proposed paper for the 2023 BHC, Chris McKenna (supported by Mara Keire in Oxford), will offer two perspectives on #MeToo and sexual harassment. For Keire that means addressing how #MeToo adds to the insights of second-wave feminism to address the hierarchical networks of institutional complicity that allowed sexual harassment to flourish within business settings. This is partly based on her recent article in Labor on sexual harassment in Macy’s Department Store from 1910 to 1915. By contrast, the presenter, Chris McKenna, will consider the place of historical case studies – and leadership in businesses – while addressing the history of sexual exploitation. As the editor of a series of business history case studies in Oxford, McKenna has considered this problem via several case studies including the history of Lord Nuffield and Morris Motors in Oxford; the Robert and Ghislaine Maxwell scandals; and the rise of Pixar and the subsequent firing of John Lasseter. To reiterate the BHC’s call for papers: “what questions, methods, and forms should a field like business history, embrace in order to grapple with the big questions we face today?” We strongly believe that #MeToo deserves to those big questions we face today.

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2021 Hopin Virtual Events Platform

"Light Fingers and Visible Hands: Deploying Fidelity Guarantee Insurance to Curb Employee Theft"

Abstract:

Beginning in the 1840s, British employers generally required that workers hold fidelity guarantee insurance against theft as a condition of employment. In order to accurately calculate premiums, insurance companies maintained comprehensive records detailing the circumstances of previous losses. Using these rich archival records, we can gauge the rate and severity of employee fraud as well as the risks of particular occupational groups. For last year’s BHC, we had planned to present our initial findings. Two related counterintuitive conclusions emerged on white-collar crime in the 19th century. First, that employees rarely stole the maximum amount to which they had access; most people stole what they needed rather than what employers feared they might steal. And, second, that bankers, unlike other occupations, stole less frequently but far more money. Since submitting our initial proposal, we have made an important (if disturbing) third discovery that links directly to a century-long debate within sociology. The insurers’ account books reveal that a disproportionate number of employees charged with theft died by suicide once their crimes had been exposed. Building on Emile Durkheim’s On Suicide (1897) – the foundational text in modern sociology – we argue that Durkheim was indeed correct that economic crises led to embezzlers’ social anomie which resulted in suicide rates more than fifty-times the norm. We look forward to presenting our unexpected findings at the 2021 BHC virtual conference this March.

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2020 Charlotte, North Carolina

"Collaboration in Researching and Teaching the Global History of Capitalism at Oxford"

Abstract:

As many in the BHC will know, Rowena Olegario and Chris McKenna have been building an interdisciplinary project in Oxford spanning the business school, history faculty, and a medieval college and spanning research, teaching, and public outreach. We would now like to report on our efforts from the perspective of a co-director (McKenna) and a research assistant (Orr) after more than two years of operations. In teaching, we have built a library of case studies, based on the work of our students (MBAs, Executives, PhDs, and undergraduates) that are taught to these students and bring them into the museums, libraries, businesses, and hospitals across Oxford. Thus the study of management is fused with material culture across historic sites in the context of global business history. Similarly, our doctoral funding crosses disciplinary fields, supporting students in area studies, economics, history, law, and archeology. All students all join Brasenose College, itself a multidisciplinary institution in Oxford. Meanwhile, in our research, the GHoC project supports not only doctoral students but postdoctoral students and pre-doctoral research assistants (cue Becky Orr) who share their research through seminars and conferences and also contribute to building course materials and supporting tutorial teaching. In particular, we will describe our research on “Fidelity Guarantee Insurance” which is supported by an undergraduate who will write a case study on it as part of the undergraduate Business History elective even as Orr and McKenna write an academic version for a journal. Finally, our collaboration has supported the British Academy’s research project on the Future of the Corporation which draws upon global teams of academics and practitioners. All of our work is funded by philanthropy from international donors who view our collaborative framework as incredibly relevant to contemporary debates on capitalism in the modern world. Collaboration at its finest!

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