Archives play a crucial role throughout an enterprise’s lifecycle by supporting business continuity and fostering product innovation, representing their primary value. When enterprises undergo restructuring or their archives reach the end of the retention period and are transferred to national comprehensive archives, the secondary value of these records emerges. At this stage, archives contribute to documenting business history, interpreting product innovation across eras, and shaping collective memory. This study examines the Suzhou Jiameike Button Factory as a case to explore the identification of the value of business archives and the construction of archival narratives. Building on prior archival development efforts at the factory, the research applies theories of archival value and narrative to analyze the multiple layers and dimensions of archival significance. Based on these findings, the study proposes narrative strategies explicitly tailored to business archives. The results indicate that archival narratives in the business context center on “objects” and “events,” reconstructing the history of product and business activities while revealing the formation of social memory. Business archives are actively reused over time, engaging in cycles of production and reproduction. Through this process, they generate new narratives within the domains of economic history, micro-social history, and international communication.

Authors:
Jingyi Zeng, Nankai University, China
Li Niu, Renmin University of China, China
Lei Wang, Sun Yat-sen University, China
Xiaoshuang Jia, Renmin University of China, China

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Posted by James Alexander Gordon

Last updated: 2023-02-23 23:45:00

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