Theoretically grounding management history as a relevant and valuable form of knowledge

Abstract

The authors would like to thank Arthur G. Bedeian of Louisiana State University for his helpful comments on this paper.The emergence of The Journal of Management History, swelling numbers of submissions to the Management History Division of the Academy of Management, and a special issue of the Academy of Management Review devoted entirely to the topic of management history are but a few of the indicators pointing to a (re)surging interest in the development and evolution of the management discipline. But, excepting the efforts of a small number of experts who have offered boundaries on the domain of management history (Trent, 1992;Wren, 1994), the discipline is devoid of any systematic framework addressing the subject of historiography. The field is therefore lacking in an overall theoretical examination of management historiography which deals with the following queries: Why is the history of management, as a subject, worthy of study? How should this subject be approached? How might historical data be gathered? What are appropriate historical methodologies? To elucidate these questions, the present manuscript theoretically grounds management history as a unique and valuable "form of knowledge." Identifying "forms of knowledge"The theory of "forms of knowledge" was advanced in 1965 by Paul Hirst (1965, 1975), an educational philosopher interested in developing criteria for justifying the relevance and value of given academic areas. Hirst explicated criteria that define "forms of knowledge." In the absence of conformance with these criteria, it can be argued that a subject is unworthy of study, research, or teaching -for the subject would lack the ability to inform its students. Since its advent, philosophers have often relied upon Hirst's framework to justify the existence of a field of interest when the Zeitgeist questioned its value.In the following sections, the four defining criteria developed by Hirst are identified (see Figure I).

Social capital, gender and careers: evidence from retail senior managers

“…With this in mind the research approach adopted took the form of biographical interviews, a method that rests on the belief that each individual has a unique personal construct system which cannot be fully appreciated through traditional quantitative and qualitative research methods. Story telling is crucial to the articulation of experience (Johansson, 2004) and biographical interviews offer their own structure (Phillips Carson and Carson, 1998) thereby accessing the experiences, memories and interpretations of respondents (Jones, 1992). The nature of the current research was to explore career development issues and the researcher wanted respondents to talk freely about their careers and enable categories to emerge from the data rather than impose a set of rigid questions which might introduce potential subjectivity and bias.…”

It's not what you know, it's who you know

“…Thus, a biographical research approach was adopted. Phillips Carson and Carson (1998) argue that biographical research offers its own structure -the life span of the individual. Respondents are asked to divide their lives into a number of sections from birth to present and then asked to recall key moments, feelings, sensations and experiences (Jones, 1992).…”

“…By telling their story, respondents also provide an interpretation that is historically and culturally grounded (Fisher, 1987). The researcher intertwines the narrative of a person's life with the societal forces that influence pertinent thought processes (Phillips Carson and Carson, 1998). In the context of the current research, adopting a biographical approach enables social and other environmental factors to be linked to career development, something that many other approaches do not offer.…”

“…It was considered that by comparing the narratives and behaviour of men and women in their career progression using a biographical perspective, a clearer understanding of the career development processes, and possibly the glass-ceiling phenomenon, might be reached. A biographical approach, often adopted by historiographers, relies on impressionistic analysis where conclusions are drawn based on narratives that capture mood, feeling, underlying thought processes, and motivations (Phillips Carson and Carson, 1998). This is important as individuals' career development can be researched and the various formal and informal processes of career development (societal/environmental/cultural forces) can be placed into context and used to illustrate how career development is perceived by the individual.…”

Taking an eventful historic turn down the cultural memory lane

“…The "turners"as we refer to themwere especially critical of the presumption that the past can be represented as factual historical knowledge through the reconstruction of its traces . They labeled the "traditional approach" to historical research (Van Fleet, 2008) as orthodoxy that epitomized studies: relying on chronological sequencing of the past events as the developmental "evolution" of management thought (Wren, 1972); protecting the presumably stable cumulative foundation of management knowledge so that its stability could be defended against the myths or misinterpretations inherited from the past (Phillips Carson and Carson, 1998); focusing on the past as a source of drawing lessons of presumed value for an imagined future (Wadhwani and Bucheli, 2014); and re-evaluating past knowledge against extant knowledge to uncover dominant management fads and fashions (Kieser, 1994).…”