TEACHING BUSINESS IN COMMERCIAL MUSEUMS: REVISITING A FORGOTTEN TEACHING PRACTICE IN FRENCH BUSINESS SCHOOLS

Abstract

Some French universities have recently begun to experiment with setting up management museums. The objective of these museums is to span the boundaries between the science of management and the cultural space of the museum, considered a “temple of knowledge”. This is not the first time,
however, that this connection has been attempted. Yet the history of the previous experience is largely unknown. In the nineteenth century, French business schools installed “commercial museums” for their students. These museums were used not only to display knowledge that was deemed indispensable
to future merchants but also to provide a place for scientific reflection. The promoters of “commerce as a science” sought to use these museums to build the academic legitimacy of the study of commerce on the same bases as were being used to develop experimental sciences. These museums gradually disappeared during the 1940s and 1950s, as they failed to adapt to changes in the discipline that they were championing. Nonetheless, these French schools were among the first to consider business to have historical value.