Charles Booth

Management and organizational history: Prospects

Abstract We outline the prospects for Management & Organizational History in the form of a 10-point agenda identifying issues that we envisage being addressed in the journal. 1.The ‘Historic Turn’ in Organization Theory – calls for a more historical orientation in management and organization theory. 2. Historical Methods and Styles of Writing – alternative methods and diverse styles of writing appropriate for studying organizations historically. 3. The Philosophy of History and Historical Theorists – the relevance for management and organization theory of philosophers of history such as Michel Foucault and Hayden White. 4. Corporate Culture and Social Memory – the historical dimension of culture and memory in organizations. 5. Organizational History – the emergence of a distinctive field of research. 6. Business History and Theory – the engagement between business history and organization theory. 7. Business Ethics in History – the meaning and ethics of past business behaviour. 8. Metanarratives of Corporate Capitalism – historiographical debate concerning the rise of capitalism and the modern corporation. 9. Management History and Management Education – the link between the history of management thought and the teaching of management and organization theory. 10. Public History – the relation between business schools and the increasing public interest in history.

Networks and Inter-Organizational Learning: A Critical Review.

The paper is concerned with alliances and learning. It provides an overview of recent contributions to the emergent literatures on knowledge management and organizational learning, identifies similarities and differences between the two, and highlights the implications of these for academics and practitioners. The paper explores the significance of networks, alliances and inter‐organizational relationships for organizations and considers the nature and importance of learning in and through such relationships. A modified version of Coghlan’s (1997) model of organizational learning as a dynamic interlevel process is then presented to reflect these developments.

Counterfactual history, management and organizations: reflections and new directions

Abstract This article reflects on the papers published in the Symposium on ‘Counterfactual History in Management and Organizations’. After describing the background to the symposium we review some important themes in the multidisciplinary domain of counterfactuals.We discuss each of the papers published in the symposium and set out our views on future directions for counterfactual history in the management and organization studies discipline.

Great Briton An interview with the author and illustrator of a new graphic biography of I.K. Brunel

Abstract 2006 marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of the celebrated and controversial engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Many events were held across the UK and elsewhere to celebrate the bicentenary. Many of these were organized, funded or facilitated by Brunel200, an organization based in Bristol, UK, a city closely associated with Brunel and his work. Among the events organized for the bicentenary celebrations was the publication of Isambard Kingdom Brunel: A Graphic Biography (Byrne and Gurr 2006). Following a brief discussion of Brunel and his bicentenary, we publish the text of an interview with Eugene Byrne and Simon Gurr, author and illustrator of the book.

Термен не мрет: a fractional biography of failure

Peter Hitchcock has described the subject of this paper as ‘the story of the twentieth century’. Lev Termen (commonly anglicized as Leon Theremin) was a musician, inventor, entrepreneur and espionage agent who developed the Theremin, an early electronic musical instrument that is played without physical contact by the musician, and the first radio-controlled electronic bugging device, among many other electronic instruments and technologies. Despite this inventive fecundity, however, none of his inventions were marketed successfully, at least in a conventional sense. This paper is an unconventional dual biography of Termen and the Theremin, in which I juxtapose a linear, inventor-centred account of the technologies, exemplified by my sources, with a narrative focusing on some of their multiple meanings, uses and developments; and on the multiple, fractional, yet connected identities of their inventor. The paper concludes with a discussion of the substantive and methodological implications of this ‘fractional biography of failure’, drawing on some aspects of the work of Walter Benjamin.