Michael Rowlinson

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.

The Treatment of History in Organisation Studies: Towards an ‘Historic Turn’?

There is an increasing call for an historical perspective in organisation studies. In this essay we want to assess the major research programmes in organisation studies in relation to the ‘historic turn’ that has transformed the way other branches of the social sciences and humanities ‘go about their business’. The historic turn is part of a wider transformation that is alluded to in terms such as the ‘discursive turn’, deconstruction and post-modernism. Within history itself this transformation is associated with hermeneutics, the ‘linguistic turn’, and the revival of narrative. However, we feel that the term ‘historic turn’ may prove useful in marshalling support for calls for more history, and a different approach to history, within organisation studies, rather than subsuming it under labels that do not emphasise the historical aspect. An historic turn would represent a transformation of organisation studies in at least three senses. First, it would represent a turn against the view that organisation studies should constitute a branch of the science of society. This would parallel the ‘linguistic turn’ in history, where ‘the question ‘‘how is history like and unlike fiction?’’ has replaced ‘‘how is history like and unlike science?’’ as the guiding question of metahistorical reflection’. The linguistic turn in history is an instance of the general displacement of ‘the Scientific Attitude’ by ‘the Rhetorical Attitude’. Second, as in other fields, an historic turn would involve ‘a contentious and by no means well-defined turn towards history – as past, process, context, and so on’, but not necessarily towards the most adjacent branch of history, which in the case of organisation studies would be business history. Finally, an historic turn would entail a turn to historiographical debates and historical theories of interpretation that recognise the inherent ambiguity of the term ‘history’ itself, which refers to both ‘the totality of past human actions, and . . . the narrative or account we construct of them’. This would necessitate greater reflection on the place of historical narrative in organisation studies. An argument can be made that organisation studies has already become more historical. The new institutional economics of Coasian heritage, as opposed to the old institutionalism of Veblen and Commons, has had considerable influence on the rise of organisational economics, which is certainly more historical than orthodox neoclassical economics. The resource-based view of the firm derived from Penrose and evolutionary economics, with its emphasis on path dependence,

The Invention of Corporate Culture: A History of the Histories of Cadbury

The concept of culture promised to make organization studies more historical. This promise has not been fulfilled. Possible reasons for the failure to integrate business history and organization studies are explored and a synthesis developed, using the historical concept of invented tradition in conjunction with the social cognition biases identified by organizational culture. The major part of the article then demonstrates how Cadbury, a British confectionery company well known for its Quaker traditions, invented its corporate culture by attributing significance to the Quaker beliefs of the Cadbury family retrospectively. A history is reconstructed, mainly from published sources, to demonstrate how the histories constructed by the firm, including a centenary celebration in 1931, were part of the process of giving meaning to the firms labor-management institutions.

Social Remembering and Organizational Memory

Organizational Memory Studies (OMS) is limited by its managerialist, presentist preoccupation with the utility of memory for knowledge management. The dominant model of memory in OMS is that of a storage bin. But this model has been rejected by psychologists because it overlooks the distinctly human subjective experience of remembering, i.e. episodic memory. OMS also fails to take account of the specific social and historical contexts of organizational memory. The methodological individualism that is prevalent in OMS makes it difficult to engage with the rapidly expanding sociological and historical literature in social memory studies, where a more social constructionist approach to ‘collective memory’ is generally favoured. However, for its part social memory studies derived from Maurice Halbwachs neglects organizations, focusing primarily on the nation as a mnemonic community. From a critical perspective organizations can be seen as appropriating society’s memory through corporate sites of memory such as historical visitor attractions and corporate museums. There is scope for a sociological and historical reorientation within OMS, drawing on social memory studies and focusing on corporate sites of memory, such as The Henry Ford museum complex, as well as the mnemonic role of founders and beginnings in organizations. Taking a social constructionist, collectivist approach to social remembering in organizations allows connections to be made between memory and other research programmes, such as organizational culture studies.

Organizational Culture and Business History

The concept of culture promised to make organization studies more historical and to provide theoretical relevance for business history. This promise has not been fulfilled. The conventions at various levels of organizational culture studies prevent them from becoming more historical, and the conventions of business history make it difficult to engage with the concept of culture. Corporate culturism imposes a narrative structure that privileges the role of founders in history. Similarly, corporate sponsorship reinforces the tendency for business historians to endorse the unity and continuity of corporate cultures. The influence of economics in business history reduces culture to a residual variable and subordinates narrative to economic models. Organizational symbolists are suspicious of narrative, which they associate with founder-centred corporate culturism. Instead, ethnographies emphasize verisimilitude and the subjective experience of the author at the expense of verifiable historical narratives. Business historians adopt an objective stance that allows them to write definitive company histories, but makes it difficult to engage with the subjectivism and relativism of organizational symbolism or the scepticism of post-modernism. Unlike organizational culture studies, post-modernism in history is identified with a return to narrative. A serious engagement with organizational culture studies might engender the much-needed critical reflex in business history. We use the rare examples of historical deconstruction in organizational culture studies (Boje 1995) and of deconstruction in business history (Church 1996) to highlight the differences between the two discourses. We argue that a more historical approach in organizational culture studies and a more reflexive engagement with the concept of culture in business history would facilitate the deconstruction of founder-centred narratives of corporate culture.

Reshaping work : the Cadbury experience

Preface Introduction Part I. Cadbury Ltd and its Context: 1. Cadbury Ltd in its sector 2. The Bourneville factory: from greenfield development to maturity 3. Strategic development since the Second World War Part II. The Accomplishment of Innovations: 4. Technical change and the investment programme 5. Organisational structure, occupational control and autonomy 6. The management of industrial relations 7. The hollow goods project 8. The automatic packing of boxed assortments Part III. Cadburys and Themes in Work Organisation: 9. The context and process of Cadburys transformation 10. Managerial strategies at Cadburys Notes References Index.

Foucault and History in Organization Studies

There is an increasing call for an historical perspective in organization studies. Clegg, Jacques and Burrell in particular combine this call with a Foucauldian reformulation of organization studies. But Foucauldians in organization studies have largely ignored the criticisms of Foucault from historians. We rehearse six main criticisms of Foucault from historians: (1) impenetrable style; (2) avoidance of narrative; (3) ambivalence to truth; (4) errors in historical facts; (5) neglect of relevant historiography; and (6) questionable historical explanations. We then apply these criticisms to the work of Clegg, Jacques, and Burrell. Clegg makes serious historical errors, and neglects criticisms of labour process historiography. The historical sources and historiography cited by Jacques are insufficient. Burrells interpretation of the connection between modernity and the Holocaust is questionable in the light of recent historiography. We conclude that so far, the invocation of Foucault has exacerbated the problematic treatment of history in organization studies.

From Labor Process Theory to Critical Management Studies

Abstract Critical management studies scholars occupy a tenuous pos/tlOn in business schools. Their location and intellectual trajectory needs to be understood in the political context of the historical defeat of the Left since its highpoint in 1968. One of the tributaries of critical management studies is labor process theory, which derives from Braverman’s (1974) classic critique of the degradation of labor in capitalist work organization. Whereas Braverman attempted to restore confidence in the potential of the working class to fulfill its Marxist destiny to lead a revolutionary transformation of society, any such confidence in the second coming of communism has long since evaporated from critical management studies. Instead of adhering to Marx’s or Braverman’s historical visions critical management studies scholars have increasingly turned to Foucault or critical theorists such as Adorno or Marcuse, who provide the basis for a deconstruction of Marxian eschatology. This is presented as an intellectual progression in critical management studies, but we argue that it is a manifestation of the defeat of the Left and the need to temper our radicalism in the context ofneo-liberal hegemony.

The genre of corporate history

Purpose – This paper seeks to identify and define the genre of corporate history within the pervasive historical discourse produced by and about organizations which tells the past of an organization across a multiplicity of texts: published works – commissioned and critical accounts, academic tomes and glossy coffee-table books – as well as web pages, annual reports and promotional pamphlets. Design/methodology/approach – The approach takes the form of systematic reading of historical narratives for 85 mainly British and US companies from the Fortune Global 500. For these companies, a search was carried out for US printed sources in the British Library and a survey was conducted of historical content in web pages. Findings – From extensive reading of the historical discourse, recurrent formal features (medium, authorship, publication, paratext and imagery) and elements of thematic content (narrative, characters, cultural paradigms and business success), which together define the genre of corporate history, have been identified. Such a definition provides competence in the reading of historical narratives of organizations and raises questions regarding the role of history in organizational identity, memory and communication. In conclusion it is argued that the interpretation of corporate history cannot be reduced to its promotional function for organizations. Research limitations/implications – The list of the formal features and thematic content of corporate history detailed here is by no means exhaustive. They are not variables, but signs, which, in various combinations, compose the narrative and signify the genre. Practical implications – It seems likely that coffee-table books will increasingly replace academic commissioned histories, with consultants professionalizing the discourse and formalizing the genre of corporate history. Originality/value – The genre of corporate history has hitherto been neglected in organization theory, where the linguistic turn has led to a preoccupation with talk as text. The use of genre to analyse corporate history represents a textual turn to literary organizational texts as text.

How come the critters came to be teaching in business schools? Contradictions in the institutionalization of critical management studies

How is it that a collection of working class drifters, sociology graduates, and ex-leftist politicos have ended up teaching in UK business schools? Understanding the predicament of these ‘critters’ helps to explain the ironic contingencies that provide the conditions of possibility for institutionalizing critical management studies (CMS), in particular the historic ‘defeat of the Left’ and the lack of more practical activities for radical management academics. Unlike labour process theory (LPT), CMS has come to terms with its institutional location within business schools and has taken the opportunity provided by the continued expansion of research oriented UK business schools to institutionalize itself as a recognized business school constituency. This has even led to the creation of one or two critically oriented business schools in the UK, where the contradictions of CMS are played out. One such contradiction is that having provided an opening for a wider academic and leftist intellectual community to enter the business school, CMS now finds itself faced with an autonomist critique which insists that the mainstream management curriculum is ‘worthless’ and calls for nothing less than the abolition of business schools. Consideration of this critique provides an opportunity to explore the identity of critters and the cultural performativity of CMS in providing a sign for their disaffiliation from the business school.