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Abstract: Oral history and businnes history: topics for debate on sources and archives   While studying the history of business the use of oral sources represents both a necessity and an important opportunity. A necessity in that the problem of the organization and the usability of the business archives is still far from finding a solution capable of satisfying scho1ars’ needs. An opportunity because the use of the interpretative paradigm peculiar to the oral source and the exploitation of its subjectivity can keep the research away from dangerous reductionist excesses. A business is a complex social structure that can not be simply reduced to its economic results; it is a composite of relations capable of determining individual behaviour and diffuse cultural aspects, outlooks and life styles. Therefore, the aspect of memory can not be disregarded by a historiography that is attentive to business as a social “fact" in its widest implication. The oral sources have an autonomous status and a use confirmed by social and political history that, with its peculiarities, a history of business must encompass. It is increasingly important to incorporate the oral documentation as part of a broader and more organic effort of systematizing the complex documentation necessary for the study of business: the constitution of the territorial economy archives is the direction in which to move.