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

Abstract

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.

Power, Archives and the Making of Rhetorical Organizational Histories: A stakeholder perspective

“…The rhetorical history concept is important not only because it breaks with objectivist views of history but also because it can be operationalized. The genealogy of an organization’s historical claims can be unearthed and linked to the pattern of its development, as has been done in a number of cases (Cailluet et al, 2018; Foster et al, 2011; Poor et al, 2016).…”

“…However, as we have seen, Cailluet et al (2018) raise important questions about the extent to which organizational leaders are able to retain control over what they call historical strategic resources. This is because HSRs are necessarily public or semi-public goods and ownership of them is dispersed.…”

“…Cailluet et al (2018) locate the instability of HSRs in the process of reception. This article contributes to the uses of history literature by locating a further source of the instability and contestation of rhetorical histories in the corporate archive.…”

“…These and other effects can lead to strategic competitive advantage (Foster, Suddaby, Minkus, & Wiebe, 2011). The foundational texts in the ‘uses of the past’ strand have not remained isolated, but have generated subsequent work that has either elaborated on or applied the rhetorical history concept (Cailluet, Gorge, & Özçağlar-Toulouse, 2018; Zundel, Holt, & Popp, 2016).…”

“…However, these accounts, in which senior management are able to exert and retain control over rhetorical organizational histories, have been challenged. Cailluet et al (2018) propose the concept of historic strategic resources (HSR) as fundamental building blocks of rhetorical histories. HRSs may consist of stories, images, brands and a range of other attributes that can elicit employee or customer buy-in and bear a close resemblance to the concept of social memory assets (Foster et al, 2011).…”