prof.dr. B (Ben) Wubs

Biography

Ben Wubs is Professor of International Business History, at the ESHCC Erasmus University Rotterdam and a Appointed Project Professor Graduate School of Economics Kyoto University. He is engaged in various research projects related to multinationals, business systems, transnational economic regions, Dutch-German economic relations, tax strategies, and the transnational fashion industry. In 2008 he published *International Business and National War Interests. Unilever between Reich and Empire* (Routledge) and in 2009 (with Keetie Sluyterman), *Over Grenzen. Multinationals en de Nederlandse Markteconomie* (Boom). As an Erasmus Fellow (2008 to 2012) he did research into The Dutch Big Four in Germany: AKU, Royal Dutch Shell, Unilever and Philips, 1920-1960. He co-supervised (with Hein Klemann) a NWO funded project on Rotterdam and its German hinterland called Outport and Hinterland, 1870-2000. A synthesis of this project is to be published with Routledge in 2018. Wubs was secretary of RHINe, i.e. a collaborative network of economic, business and technology historians consisting of scholars from various universities in Germany, France, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Japan, Denmark, United States, and the Netherlands. With Ralf Banken he edited "The Rhine Economy. A Transnational Economic History" (Nomos 2017). In addition, he was council member of the European Business History Association. In 2013, his Anglo-Dutch-Norwegian consortium received a HERA II grand to do research into the transnational connections of Fashion industry since 1945. At the Erasmus University he started a subproject: Building brands and fashion fairs. Transnational networks in the fashion industry in Europe which explores Fashion Fairs and Fashion Prediction Companies in Europe after 1945. With Regina Lee Blaszczyk he edited "The Fashion Forecasters: The Hidden History of Color and Trend Prediction" (London: Bloomsbury Publishing 2018). In 2019 he edited with Neil Forbes and Takafumi Kurosawa "Multinational Enterprise, Political Risk and Organisational Change. From Total War to Cold War". In 2022 Wubs received a research grant from the Volkwagen Stiftung for a research project: Historical Tensions between International Business and National Taxation: a challenge for Europe today. This is a joint research project of the Erasmus, Coventry, Bayreuth and Prague universities.

Wubs teaches various subjects at the Erasmus University, including International Business and Nation States, Business History of Fashion, International Economic Relations, Heritage and Fashion, and Histories of Creativities and Innovation. Furthermore, he is a Programme Director of an Erasmus Mundus project GLOCAL (Global Markets and Local Creativities), an International Master set-up by University of Glasgow, University of Göttingen, University of Barcelona, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Kyoto University, Los Andes in Bogota, and Uppsala University.