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This paper aims to retrace the genesis of private share company in Ancient Rome as one of the greatest innovation in the history of management.

Relying on a thorough and systematic analysis of the available historical material, and modern research, the author reconstructs the first known form of private share company and the way it came into being under late Republic and early Empire.

The scope of commercial partnerships and bounds preventing them from concentration of capitals are shown. The popular myth of private corporations allegedly existing in Ancient Rome is debunked. The author reveals how existing business elements (union of co-owners, the module “slave – peculium – free administration” from individual enterprise, and the principle of inseparability of joint ownership) had been combined to form private share company. Are demonstrated its chief differences from corporation, and the untenability of attempts to deny the real existence of private share companies in Ancient Rome. By way of summing up, the pattern of innovations is brought into relief.

The material opens new vistas for historians and allows them to draw an exacter and more comprehensive picture of Roman private entrepreneurship. Experts in management get an opportunity to retrace the background of modern forms of business organizing. A broader circle of researchers may see what the real path of radical novelties – from the need for them to their implementation – is. And altogether, the author’s conclusions provide scholars with a key to understanding breakthrough phenomena of history.

The results obtained may be used in many courses related to the history of economics, business, management, innovations, etc. Besides, they allow practitioners to discern plainly the origins of new business forms and learn how to make for them or facilitate their growth.

The author's conception of viable novelties sheds light on the processes of social development and modernization. It may serve as an effective instrument in planning reforms and managing them.

The framework of Roman private share company and many allied issues are investigated for the first time. This type of enterprise is presented as a response to the functional request from private entrepreneurs. That is why the new organizational form, despite its radical nature, proved to be quite efficient, and caught on in business. The author infers from his findings a generalized pattern of innovations able to get integrated into reality.

The purpose of this paper is to expose the pattern and mechanism of Roman private enterprise as the rudimentary form of capitalistic business.

By means of historical analysis and theoretical reconstruction, the author retraces the background and foundations of business through slave as the initial stage of private enterprise.

A comprehensive view of public and private entrepreneurship at the end of Republic and the beginning of Empire is presented. The riddle of “unnaturally” dear slaves in Rome (as compared with free labor and slaves in other countries of antiquity) is scrutinized. It is shown that “excessively” high demand for them was largely determined by their institutional worth: thanks to dominica potestas, they appeared to be the key organizational resource for expanding private industrial business. The framework of private enterprise securing limited liability for owner and turning “business slave” into a kind of director is brought to light.

The results of this research allow historians to retrace the origins of modern private enterprise to classical antiquity, while economists and managers get an opportunity to better understand its nature and organizational status of those owning and managing it.

Leaders and executives can draw from the paper an object lesson of how, remaining within the existing political system, legal regulation and economic traditions, to make a radical innovation whose true meaning and social potential are so immense and far-reaching that get evident only many centuries later. The findings and conclusions the author comes to may be used in educational courses on economics, entrepreneurship, management, business history and so on.

An instructive model of conciliation of interests is scrutinized. “Directors” – those organizing and managing a business but not owning it – were, as well as workers, recruited by coercion and legal regimentation of their relations with proprietors. The polarization of their institutional roles was at the bottom of private enterprise from the very outset. The state created incentives for initiative and competent business men in subjection to well-offs to work hard, on one hand, and made their masters to use these incentives to public and their own profits. The benefits of all parties were taken into account, though, of course, not to the same degree. Thereby, a kind of social compromise embodied in a novel institution was attained to.

This paper is the first to demonstrate in relief the background and framework of Roman private enterprise as well as the functions and organizational status of its “director.”

The purpose of this paper is to find throughout history examples of wealth management of a family or business families that can be assimilated into the current concept of family offices (FOs). In such examples, the study identifies characteristics associated with the different dimensions of the concept of socioemotional wealth (SEW).

Drawing on the socioemotional perspective, this paper relates significant examples of FOs based on historical stages (ancient history, the middle ages, modern history, the contemporary period and the actual world). Each case is discussed with an effort to identify the dimensions of the SEW that fit and help in understanding the organization studied.

Mainly, FOs allow the management of the family legacy, philanthropy, promotion of entrepreneurship and family wealth preservation for future generations. Autonomy in decision-making, privacy and confidentiality and the achievement of more intangible goals make the FO preferable to other institutions. Through the study of historical cases, the FO constitutes a structure with objectives and activities that have remained consistent from Rome to the present, regardless of historical, political or social context. The results also identify four out of five FIBER dimensions of SEW.

In addition to contributing to the scarce literature on FOs, this paper uses various examples of historical periods to better understand its origin, evolution and current state. A selection of examples at different times allows us to verify that FOs undergo a series of changes throughout history but maintain their characteristics regardless of the historical context. This paper is the first to explore the origin and development of the FO as organization. Building on the findings, the authors present a conceptual SEW framework to deepen in the knowledge of FO. This framework could help researchers and practitioners in future researches providing a conceptual link that demonstrates the components of the SEW perspective best fit the objectives pursued by business families when establishing a family office.

This paper aims to expose the nature, pattern and mechanism of Roman private enterprise as the rudimentary form of capitalistic business. In the second part, it is shown why and how the directorship of slaves in private enterprise appeared and what shape it took.

By means of historical analysis and theoretical reconstruction, the author reveals the pattern and mechanism of business through slaves as the primordial form of private enterprise.

A comprehensive view of public and private entrepreneurship at the end of Republic and the beginning of Empire is presented. The origin and advantages of Roman public enterprise acknowledged by the state are brought to light. The way the benefits the corporate status affords were adjusted to a business framework allowed by law is demonstrated. It is just business through slaves that, combining peculium with free administration, secured limited liability for owners and turned the slaves to whom a business was entrusted into a kind of director. This construction enabled masters to become the proprietor of many formally separate enterprises at once, thereby expanding their business into something like a holding.

The results obtained allow historians to retrace the origins of modern private enterprise to classical antiquity, and economists and managers to better understand the nature of private enterprise and organizational status of those owning and managing it.

Leaders and executives can draw from the paper an object lesson of how to make, within the existing political system, legal regulation and economic traditions, a radical innovation whose true meaning and social potential are so immense and far-reaching that show up in full measure evident many centuries later. The findings and conclusions the author comes to may be used in educational courses on economics, entrepreneurship, management, business history and so on.

The paper provides an instructive model of conciliation of interests (social “compromise”). “Directors” – those organizing and managing a business but not owning it – were held subject to proprietors but within legally regulated relations with them. The state created incentives for initiative and competent businessmen in subjection to well-offs, to work hard, on one hand, and made their masters to use these incentives to public and their own profits. The benefits of all parties were taken into account, though, of course, not to the same degree.

The structure and “engine” of Roman private enterprise as well as the functions and organizational status of its “director” are demonstrated in relief for the first time.

Predicting effects of artificial intelligence on service occupations can be supported by a long historical perspective. Historical databases and archaeology help reconstructing the service sector in ancient societies. Here, the purpose of this paper is to analyse occupational specialization within services in cities of ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, as well as how the service sector is reflected in architectural remains, to identify differences and similarities with today’s Europe.

Occupational titles are traced in epigraphical and literary sources, sorted according to ISCO-08. Secondary sources are used for the architectural evidence of service activities, as well as for the role of contests and entertainment in antiquity.

Compared to current European service employment, professionals were fewer in classical Athens and imperial Rome, which had a greater proportion of specialized salespersons. There were few office buildings and no civic hospitals, but heavy investment in facilities for entertainment and well-being. Quality assessments for goods were little developed; contests for cultural and sports activities assessed entertainment service quality.

This study covers two periods in classical antiquity and is restricted to Mediterranean cultures, although findings may help understanding the service sector in poor countries with informal employment.

While particular services provided in ancient cities have been studied, there has been no broad comparative overview of their service occupations. Services in earlier societies with primitive information and communication technologies can provide clues for current developments.

This paper aims to advocate a revised perspective in historical analysis. The author calls for historians to apply the concept of reputation as interpretive lens in the analysis of historical processes and outcomes.

Widely used in management and marketing writing, but also relied upon in political science, the concept of reputation helps predict behaviour of individuals and entities that are bound by political constraints to align their actions to the goal of generating a popular standing. The lens also serves to cast light on the actions engaged in by external stakeholders that are informed by reputational cues. This theoretical contention is illustrated in four case studies resulting from investigations into political decisions and military conflicts, both in the republican and imperial period that ascertain how success and expansion as well as failure and decline of ancient Rome can be viewed and better understood by applying reputation as an instrument to direct and focus historical analysis.

This paper does not only advance complementary angles and alternative answers to issues in ancient Roman history. The cases considered also demonstrate how failure to recognise reputation as a significant concept in historical analysis does not only impair a comprehensive and balanced reflection of personal and organisational stakeholder behaviour but also thwarts a full appreciation of the motivation that drives individual protagonists and institutional agents, whose decisions are central to historical processes and outcomes.

The findings advanced in this paper – informed by four case studies – evidence the need of a new analytical prism in historical enquiry that will define the questions raised and direct the researcher’s attention. It has been shown how the concept of reputation can play a tangible role in sketching out a distinct new angle in historical investigation that leads to reviewing current narrative of past events and phenomena.

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The purpose of this paper is to show and critically discuss the motivations, conflicting narratives, practices and effects around the marketisation of cultural heritage. The work focusses on the exemplar case study of the ancient temple of the Athenian Parthenon, as a proto-brand, to explore ancient, medieval and modern marketing forces and practices through which various stakeholders have promoted, gifted, commercially traded, exchanged, acquired and illegally removed national cultural artefacts and historical monuments.

The study is based on a structured historical periodisation that covers three main eras – classical age, late antiquity and modern period – that triggered the marketisation of the ancient temple in diverse ways. First, historical research was conducted through the use of a range of secondary sources and archives. Second, observation techniques were used to study heritage marketisation practices at the New Acropolis Museum and the Parthenon in Athens and the British Museum in London. Third, visual material further facilitated the analysis.

This paper identifies multifarious institutional forces, political interests, technologies and sociocultural events that shape the commodification of history and marketisation of heritage offering a broader discussion on the evolution of early marketing practices and brands used to promote particular values, cultures and places, as well as the emergence and growth of illicit arts and antiquities markets.

Considering the lack of marketing research on the commercialisation of heritage, the work discloses novel insights around the use of cultural proto-brands and the formation of illegal markets and questionable arts trade practices. It, therefore, questions the ethical, socio-political, economic and aesthetic implications of the extensive marketisation of history and raises issues around the legitimate ownership, promotion and consumption of heritage.