Invoking the Past: The Dynamics of Framing Organizational History during Transformation at Ericsson

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
pp. 15262
Author(s):  
Zahra Kashanizadeh ◽  
Henk W. Volberda
Keyword(s):  
Organizational History ◽  
The Past

scholarly journals Rethinking history and memory in organization studies: The case for historiographical reflexivity

2020 ◽  
pp. 001872672092744 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Decker ◽  
John Hassard ◽  
Michael Rowlinson
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Organizational Memory ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Organizational History ◽  
History And Memory ◽  
Methodological Choices ◽  
The Past ◽  
Memory Traces

The historic turn in organization studies has led to greater appreciation of the potential contribution from historical research. However, there is increasing emphasis on integrating history into organization studies, rather than on recognizing how accommodating history might require a reorientation. As a result, key conceptual and methodological insights from historiography have been overlooked or at times misrepresented. We identify four modes of enquiry that highlight distinctions from history about ‘how to conceptualize’ and ‘how to research’ the past. First, historical organization studies research the past primarily through reference to archival sources. Second, retrospective organizational history reconstructs the past principally from retrospective accounts, such as those generated in oral history. Third, retrospective organizational memory uses ethnography and interviews to explore the role of memory in the present. Fourth, historical organizational memory traces the institutionalization of organizational memory through archival research. From the analysis, we argue that historical organization studies are increasingly established, and interest in ‘uses of the past’ has contributed to the rise of retrospective organizational memory. However, historiographical reflexivity – a new concept for organization studies – focuses attention on engaging with both history and collective memory, and on the distinct methodological choices between archival and retrospective methods.

scholarly journals Living up to the past? Ideological sensemaking in organizational transition

Organization ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 543-567 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mairi Maclean ◽  
Charles Harvey ◽  
John A. A. Sillince ◽  
Benjamin D. Golant
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Change ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Organizational History ◽  
Organizational Transition ◽  
The Past ◽  
Top Managers ◽  
Over Time

This article builds upon archival and oral-history research on organizational change at Procter & Gamble from 1930 to 2000, focusing on periods of transition. It examines historical narrative as a vehicle for ideological sensemaking by top managers. Our empirical analysis sheds light on continuities in the narratives they offer, through which the past emerges as a recurrent lever of strategic manoeuvres and re-orientations. This reveals that while organizational history is sometimes regarded as a strategic asset or intrinsic part of collective memory, it is also re-enacted as a shared heritage, implying responsibilities. Executives (re)interpret the past and author the future, maintaining the historical narrative while using interpellation to ensure ideological consistency over time. The interpellative power of rhetorical narrative helps to recast organizational members as participants in an ongoing drama. In this way executives claim their legitimate right to initiate and manage organizational transition.

Taking an eventful historic turn down the cultural memory lane

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholous M. Deal ◽  
Milorad M. Novicevic ◽  
Albert J. Mills ◽  
Caleb W. Lugar ◽  
Foster Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Positioning Theory ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Organizational History ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Past

Purpose This paper aims to find common ground between the supposed incompatible meta-historical positioning of positivism and post-positivism through a turn to mnemohistory in management and organizational history. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on the idea of creative synthesis and positioning theory, the authors interject concepts from cultural memory studies in historical research on business and organizations to encourage management historians and organization theorists interested in joining the dialogue around how the past is known in the present. Using notions of “aftermath” and “events,” the idea of apositivism is written into historical organization studies to focus on understanding the complex ways of how past events translate into history. The critical historic turn event is raised as an exemplar of these ideas. Findings The overview of the emergence of the controversial historic turn in management and organization studies and the positioning of its adherents and antagonists revealed that there may be some commonality between the fragmented sense of the field. It was revealed that effective history vis-à-vis mnemohistory may hold the potential of a shared scholarly ethic. Originality/value The research builds on recent work that has sought to bring together the boundaries of management and organizational history. This paper explains how mnemohistory can offer a common position that is instrumental for theorizing the relationships among the past-infused constructs such as organizational heritage, legacy and identity.

scholarly journals Intertextuality, Rhetorical History and the Uses of the Past in Organizational Transition

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (12) ◽  
pp. 1733-1755 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mairi Maclean ◽  
Charles Harvey ◽  
John A.A. Sillince ◽  
Benjamin D. Golant
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Strategic Change ◽  
Past Experience ◽  
Rhetorical History ◽  
Historical Account ◽  
Organizational History ◽  
Organizational Transition ◽  
The Past ◽  
Invented Tradition

This paper draws upon archival and oral history research on organizational transition at Procter & Gamble (1950–2009), during which P&G evolved from a multinational to a global enterprise. Intertextuality, the ways in which texts appropriate prior works to produce new texts, illuminates the practical workings of rhetorical history, accentuating interpretive agency. The uses of the past at P&G involved an authorized historical account relating to socialization, invented tradition, and lessons from past experience, facilitating change within continuity. We show that in transforming from multinational to global enterprise, recognition of the value of history to strategy intensified, engendering rhetorically intense variations on time-honoured themes. Our main contribution to theory is to demonstrate how sensitivity to intertextuality casts light on the nature of organizational history as historically constructed through language, subject to the agency of skilful interpretive actors who engage in intertextual adaptation in pursuit of strategic change as purposes and contexts evolve.

‘Do not expect me to stay quiet’: Challenges in managing a historical strategic resource

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (12) ◽  
pp. 1811-1835 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ludovic Cailluet ◽  
Hélène Gorge ◽  
Nil Özçağlar-Toulouse
Keyword(s):  
Organization Theory ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Organizational Studies ◽  
Organizational History ◽  
Management Framework ◽  
The Past ◽  
Audiovisual Archives ◽  
Strategic Resource ◽  
Charity Organization ◽  
Dimensional Management

In this paper we explore how a historical strategic resource (HSR) could be used by an organization. We propose that within an organization, HSR is both an asset and an arena for power struggle. Our contributions stand at several levels at the crossroads of strategic management and organizational studies. First, we show the importance of various stakeholders in constructing a HSR. Second, we highlight its complexity due to its embeddedness with history. The fact that a HSR could be akin to a public good implies that its rents are difficult to control for organizations. To uncover what is meant by a historical resource, we first present a review of the resource-based theory and the uses of the past in organizations from the perspective of organization theory and organizational history. We then present our fieldwork, which focuses on Emmaus, a major charity organization in France, and its founder, Abbé Pierre. Based on a historical study covering the period 1949 to 2017 drawing on the organization’s archives, online publications and data from the French national audiovisual archives, we identify visual and rhetorical elements that constitute Abbé Pierre and his past as HSR for the Emmaus organization. Eventually, our paper contributes to the literature by offering a four-dimensional management framework for HSR with appropriation, ownership, maintenance and distancing.

Canadian Interuniversity Athletics: A Model and Method for Analyzing Conflict and Change

1987 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dick Moriarty ◽  
Marge Holman-Prpich
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Social Stress ◽  
Time Analysis ◽  
Organizational History ◽  
Organizational Growth ◽  
Organizational Variables ◽  
The Past ◽  
Growth Decline ◽  
Analysis Design ◽  
Growth Development

This paper (a) presents a comparative analysis design for use in tracing organizational history, (b) applies the comparative analysis design to the original Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union-Central (CIAUC) (1905-1955) and the modern Canadian Intercollegiate/Interuniversity Athletic Union (CIAU) (1961 to present), and (c) relates the evolution of the past and present CIAU to Stogdill’s1 theories of cycles of conflict and Katz and Kahn’s2 theories of organizational growth, development, and decline. The comparative analysis design focuses on a number of organizational variables and the interactions among these variables such as goals, conflict, events, individuals and groups, social stress, and constituent strain and change over time. Analysis of these variables and their impact upon the development of an organization reveals the pattern of growth, decline, and restructuring within the organization. The application of the organizational history design to the original CIAUC traces the growth, development, and decline of this organization from 1905 to 1955. A similar pattern is identified in the modem CIAU from 1961 to the present. Involvement of the various regional leagues is recorded, and the transition from a mutual benefit educational sport service association to a highly centralized bureaucratic athletic business organization is documented. A CIAU conflict cube is presented, focusing on issues at the national, regional, and university member levels.

ANTi-History, relationalism and the historic turn in management and organization studies

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabrielle Durepos ◽  
Albert J. Mills
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Past History ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Organizational History ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Relationships ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose This paper develops and provides insights on how researchers can use ANTi-History with a focus on one of its constitutive facets, relationalism. The purpose of this paper is to, first, develop a central facet of ANTi-History called relationalism and to outline how researchers interested in doing organizational history can use ANTi-History insights to undertake relational histories. Design/methodology/approach The authors propose four phases of the historic turn literature and situate ANTi-History and relationalism as an outcome of the fourth phase. The facet of relationalism is then explained and explored through five types of relations that the authors suggest act as sites of oscillation, where the past becomes (an immutable) history. Findings A central implication of the paper involves disrupting conceptualizations of the past and history as fixed. Instead, history is explained as a relational outcome of its constitutive social and political relationships. Originality/value The paper theoretically develops ANTi-History and relationalism while providing practical implications and tools for researchers to use it. Researchers are introduced to the notion of the site of oscillation. They are encouraged to focus their attention on five sites of oscillation: past-history, actor-network, human-nonhuman, researcher-traces of the past, and historical inscription-reading formation. These sites of oscillation are places where politics is at play and history is shaped or transformed.

China's Maritime Customs and China's Trade Statistics, 1859–1948. By Thomas P. Lyons. [Trumansburg, NY: Willow Creek Press, 2003. 171 pp. $34.95. ISBN 0-97291475-7.]

2004 ◽  
Vol 178 ◽  
pp. 526-527
Author(s):  
Hans van de Ven
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Organizational History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Modern Economic

Any historian with a serious interest in China's modern economic history will be grateful for Thomas Lyons's study of the trade statistics produced by the Chinese Maritime Customs Service. Those wishing to use the Customs' statistics will find it indispensable. By means of a detailed demonstration of how to reconstruct statistics for the Fujian tea trade between 1862 and 1948, Lyons shows all the pitfalls and dangers of using Customs data, and how to deal with them.Lyons, who has published on Fujian's and China's economic history in the past, constructs his study as a test of the tea trade statistics used by Robert Gardella and Chen Ciyu. He convincingly demonstrates that both made errors, which in the case of Gardella were of relatively minor consequence but in that of Chen of a much more serious nature. But his study is not a pedantic exercise in cliometric propriety. Rather, Lyons provides us with a sourcebook to the statistical publications of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service. He sets out in brief form the Service's organizational history and its bureaucratic structures. He then explains the Maritime Customs Service's accounts, the statistics it produced, and their dangers. He finally applies the lessons learned to a reconstruction of the Fujian tea trade.

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