The Past Speaks

Back in 2004, Peter Clark and Michael Rowlinson called for a “historic turn.” Their seminal article critiqued organization studies for being ahistorical. Their demand for more historical research paralleled calls from others for the integration of “more history” into research and teaching in management schools. Recent years have seen the accumulation of evidence that the historic turn is indeed taking place in a variety of management fields (O’Sullivan and Graham, 2010; Decker, 2010; Keulen and Kroeze, 2012; Rowlinson, 2013; Rowlinson,  Hassard and Decker, 2013; Greenwood and Bernardi, 2013).  The historic turn appears to be taking place. Fingers crossed, it will continue. The fact top management journals such as Academy of Management Review are publishing articles on historical research methods is a very encouraging sign to all business historians.

If you have been involved in the historic turn you may wish to investigate the CFP for the Special Issue of Management & Organizational History Special issue on “Revisiting the Historic Turn 10 years later”, closing 31 March 2015. You can download the Special Issue Call For Papers here.

Greenwood, A., & Bernardi, A. (2013). Understanding the rift, the (still) uneasy bedfellows of History and Organization Studies. Organization, 1350508413514286.

Kroeze, R., & Keulen, S. (2013). Leading a multinational is history in practice: The use of invented traditions and narratives at AkzoNobel, Shell, Philips and ABN AMRO. Business history, 55(8), 1265-1287.

O’Sullivan, M., & Graham, M. B. (2010). ‘Guest Editors’ Introduction’. Journal of Management Studies, 47(5), 775-790.

Rowlinson, M. (2013). ‘Management & Organizational History: the continuing historic turn’. Management & Organizational History, 8(4), 327-328.

Rowlinson, M., Hassard, J., & Decker, S. (2013). ‘Strategies for organizational history: A dialogue between historical theory and organization theory’. Academy of Management Review, amr-2012.