Accounting for the dark side of corporate history: Organizational culture perspectives and the Bertelsmann case

History and Organizational Change

“…There are clear constraints to the degree to which the past can be revised, as the German corporations Bertelsmann and Volkswagen discovered in their attempts to revise their historical narratives in order to deny affiliations with the Nazi regime (C. Booth, Clark, Delahaye, Procter, & Rowlinson, 2007). However, the change literature, particularly techniques that use scenario planning, reinforce the powerful role played by selective reconstruction of the past as a means of facilitating change in the present.…”

Using history in the creation of organizational identity

“…We suggest discrepancies between speech acts invoking historical events and character and the wider audience's commitments concerning these historical conditions are likely to generate identity problems as audiences become unclear about the present problem being addressed by the selective isolation of specific historical events and characters, to the ignorance or deliberate exclusion of others. One such example is the German publisher Bertelsmann (Booth et al 2007), for whom a historical narrative was cultivated suggesting the company's neutrality, if not resistance, to Nazi influence. In a post-Nazi Germany, this historical account served for a long time as a means of gaining public commitment.…”

Uso de documentos para narrar a história de organizações: reflexões e experiências

“…Ao mesmo tempo que organizações são objetos relevantes para o estudo do social é possível afirmar que há espaço para trabalhos que se valem da pesquisa histórica em administração (Rowlinson, 2013), contabilidade (Booth, Clark, Delahaye, Procter, & Rowlinson, 2007) ou na chamada história empresarial (business history) (Barbero & Lluch, 2014). Neste sentido, a partir de revisões teóricas e experiências de pesquisas realizadas, abordase questões sobre a pesquisa histórica acerca de organizações.…”