H. N. Andersen - a Global Entrepreneur: Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the Increasingly Globalised World in the Late 19th Century

The case describes the development of a historical entrepreneur who in 1897 founded East Asiatic Company (EAC). EAC was to become the largest and most important Danish corporation in the first half of the 20th century. The case is intended for use in classes which bridge economic history and entrepreneurship, where it can be used to introduce the role of entrepreneurship in economic history with a micro-historic focus on the specific life story of a global entrepreneur in the late 19th and early 20th century. The case lends itself, further more, to the introduction of the critical relationship between entrepreneurship and finance. With the focus on the dialectic relation between HN Andersen and the bank manager Isak Gluckstadt the case points at a relationship which has been important in the theories of entrepreneurship since Joseph Schumpeter’s early works namely the relationship between the banker and entrepreneur. The case is intended for bachelor level students.