The Danish entrepreneur Laurits Andersen (1849-1928) lived most of his life in China, where he became one of the leading figures in the establishment of the country’s modern tobacco industry. This thesis presents a chronological account of his life while also challenging existing constraints on the historical business biography and proposing new ways to expand the genre’s methodologies.
Social network analysis is one such methodology. While this methodology has been in use for decades and has developed a set of sophisticated tools made accessible through modern software programs, the methods have mostly been used on contemporary cases, whether in entrepreneur studies or outside. This thesis proposes to apply it more actively on historical cases as well.
The thesis proposes ways to make data of a sufficient detail and granularity available through new means of mining existing historical sources for useful information. It advocates using traditional sources such as letters and newspapers in combination to tease out new data in sufficient amounts to enable quantitative methods to reach new insights.
At the same time, the thesis argues that a mixed methodology will provide the fullest account of historical matters. The methodology is mixed not only in combining qualitative and quantitative research but also by mixing historical and social science theories and approaches in analyses of past periods and people.
Based on these methodologies, this thesis concludes that Andersen was successful in China through his skillful, strategic operation of the various social networks he was part of, as he leveraged an ever-evolving set of skills to deploy a variety of resources, especially of a technological nature, at the same time as he positioned himself centrally to control information flows within his networks.
The thesis proposes that, partly due to the quantitative nature of much of the methodology adopted, the insights gained about Andersen’s life and career can be generalized to the level of the class of western entrepreneurs in China at the turn of the 20th century, thus enriching the genre of historical biography.