Guest Editors' Introduction

Abstract

There are already manifold interactions between business history and management studies but, to date, they have tended to be more particular and patchy than general and systematic. In this introduction we summarize the arguments that scholars from business history, management studies and social science have made for closer contact between these fields which emphasize the benefits to be gained both for theoretical and historical research on business. We highlight how the articles published in this Special Issue show the wide variety of intellectual purposes, approaches, and benefits that closer engagement between business history and management theories might entail. Yet, concerns have also been raised about the value of a closer alliance between business history and management studies and we suggest that they are worthy of further consideration and discussion. To that end, we propose a more deliberate conversation about what it is we do as historians and theorists of business and what we seek to accomplish. Such a discussion would help us not only to better understand the limits to fruitful integration but also how to work together more productively in the collaborations that seem most worthwhile. Copyright (c) 2010 The Authors Journal compilation (c) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies.

Taking Historical Embeddedness Seriously: Three Historical Approaches to Advance Strategy Process and Practice Research

“…Our analysis can also help advance historical research, especially business history. Scholars have recently called for more integration of business history with management research Kipping &Üsdiken, 2014;Leblebici, 2014;O'Sullivan & Graham, 2010;, and we have attempted to do just that in the case of strategy process and practice research. Following the example of others , we have underscored that this should involve a historiographical understanding of the ontoepistemological basis of different historical approaches.…”

“…With due caution, these epistemologically different approaches might even be combined (Hassard, 1991). We have focused on specific historical approaches and methods, but there are many others that strategy scholars can benefit from (see, for example, Jones &Zeitlin, 2008, andO'Sullivan &Graham, 2010). Strategy scholars can also otherwise learn from historical analysis and historiographical reflection.…”

Methodological Openness in Business History Research: Looking Afresh at the British Interwar Management Movement

“…Capitalism is singularly evolutionary in character, and the reporting of discussions at meetings and lectures reveals the unfolding of choices almost in real time. 124 Studying the records of the MRGs, lectures, and dinners provides glimpses of an evolving continual reality playing out over the interwar period. History is sometimes criticized for an in-built bias toward survivorship.…”