BAM2021 Conference in the Cloud, Lancaster University Management School.
31st August – 3rd September 2021
BAM2021 Key Dates and Deadlines
- Paper submission site opens (15th January)
- Deadline to submit paper (5th March)
- Review process starts (12th March)
- Paper acceptance notification (29th April)
- Deadline for at least ONE author to register for the Conference (28th May)
- Final paper upload (18th June)
- Asynchronous paper presentation deadline (16th July)
Link to Conference and Paper Submission Guidelines: https://www.bam.ac.uk/events-landing/conference.html
Track:Management and Business History
Track Chairs: James Fowler, University of Essex James.Fowler@essex.ac.uk
Roy Edwards, University of Southampton r.a.edwards@soton.ac.uk
Track description: This track encourages the growing number of management and business historians who work in business schools and social science departments to engage in constructive debate with a wide range of management scholars. The 2021 conference theme, ‘‘Covid Economy Recovery and the Role of Responsible Management’’, is a superb opportunity to explore the value of historical study for current management. This year the conference will remain online, but we are keen to offer the opportunity for all accepted papers to be presented live online and to receive the kind of commentary and feedback that would normally be expected at a face to face conference.
In this track we specialize in chronologically or longitudinally motivated research. Histories of organizations, industries and institutions give us the opportunity to understand how managers have dealt with crises in the past. History is replete with disasters of varying magnitude. We would welcome papers that explore how economies and wider society have responded to extreme circumstances – from war to natural disasters and economic collapse, humanity has been remarkably resilient in dealing with adversity. But how has this happened? What has been the role of the private and public sector in dealing with emergency?
We welcome papers, symposia or workshop proposals either using new and innovative methodologies or applying archival methodology to a new disciplinary context. We are also interested in context specific papers using more traditional historical methodology but which take innovative approaches to relate their findings to wider social science concerns including the diversity of experience in present day businesses, regions and communities. While the main conference theme ought to feature prominently in all submissions, we encourage cross-disciplinary papers and workshop submissions that link different Tracks.
As a group we are inherently multi-disciplinary and believe in the application of theory to historical analysis, and there is no single epistemology for approaching this. We aim to encourage theoretically orientated social science history with a clear relationship to present day debates in the management discipline. Contributions might focus on but are not limited to: the economic or social history of business, historical case studies for theory building, theoretical contributions on the relevance of history to management studies, the uses of history, history as a method for management studies. Please note that while we are open-minded work not featuring a historical dimension, broadly defined, will not be accepted.
This article is a useful initial point of reference:
Tennent, K. (2020). Management and business history – a reflexive research agenda for the 2020s. Journal of Management History. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMH-09-2020-0061.
These articles offer commentary on the ‘dual integrity’ of business history methods as a combination of social science and historical craft:
Decker, S., Usidken, B., Engwall, L. & Rowlinson, M. (2018). Special issue introduction: Historical research on institutional change. Business History, 60(5). pp613-627. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2018.1427736
Maclean, M., Harvey, C. and Clegg, S.R., (2016). Conceptualizing historical organization studies. Academy of Management Review, 41(4), pp.609-632. DOI:
10.5465/amr.2014.0133
Rowlinson, M., Hassard, J. & Decker, S. (2014). Research Strategies for Organisational History: A Dialogue between Historical Theory and Organisation Theory. Academy of Management Review, 39(3), pp250–274. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2012.0203
Organizational History Network 