Ruth Handler (1916-2002), who famously invented the Barbie doll, is regarded as one of the earliest and most successful woman entrepreneurs. Her figure, recently returned under the spotlight following the release of the Barbie live-action film this year, has also been studied by Valeria Giacomin of the Bocconi Department of Social and Political Sciences and Christina Lubinski (Copenhagen Business School) in their article “Entrepreneurship as emancipation: Ruth Handler and the entrepreneurial process ‘in time’ and ‘over time’, 1930s–1980s”.Published on Business History, the article aims at drawing an unbiased picture of her approach to business and providing insight into the very essence of entrepreneurship. This has been made possible by exploiting Handler’s large legacy of interviews, speeches and other autobiographical accounts, which the authors have collected and indexed.

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