Category: General

BAFA Accounting History Special Interest Group

Steph

Inaugural Workshop on Accounting History

Aston Business School

Thursday 13th December and Friday 14th December 2018

Overview

Historical research enables us to reflect on the past in meaningful ways, provides an opportunity to reconstruct that past based on the information encountered and the experiences reflected, and offers lessons and cases that may be relevant to the present day. Historians “find” their stories from the information they gather from the archives and other documentation from and of the past. The aim of this workshop is to demonstrate the relevance of accounting history to the present day, to provide various methods for carrying out accounting history research, and reflects on the issues faced when exploring the past.

 Workshop programme

The one-day workshop includes sessions by accomplished business historians, as well as the opportunity to workshop ideas and issues in accounting history research. The Guest Presenters are:

  • Professor Stephanie Decker, Aston University – Co-Editor Business History.
    • Topic – “Research Strategies in Organization History”

Stephanie Decker is a Professor in Organization Studies and History at Aston Business School, where she has been working since 2010. She is currently the Associate Dean for Research for Aston Business School. Stephanie’s research interests include the use of historical analysis for management and organization studies. This focuses on integrating historical approaches, primarily archival research influenced by postcolonial theory, ethnographic history and microhistory into social scientific research data analysis techniques such as documentary and process-based qualitative studies. Stephanie is a co-editor of Business History.

  • Professor John Singleton, Sheffield Hallam University – Professor of Economic and Business History
    • Topic: “Pitfalls and benefits of working with organisations”

John Singleton has been a Professor at Sheffield Hallam since 2011, following 17 years at Victoria University of Wellington (NZ). While his PhD thesis was on the decline of the Lancashire cotton industry in the mid twentieth century, his main interest is British and world financial and economic history over the last 100 years. In NZ he was commissioned to write histories of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and the Audit Office. Recent books include those on Central Banking in the Twentieth Century and Economic and Natural Disasters since 1900.

  • Dr Mike Anson, Bank of England – Archivist
    • Topic: “The role of archivists and how to approach archives”

Mike Anson is Archive Manager, at the Bank of England Archive. He joined the Bank in 2004 as researcher on its official history project and was previously at the Business History Unit, London School of Economics working on commissioned histories of British Rail, and the Channel Tunnel. He has been a Trustee of the Business Archives Council since 2004, and was elected Chair in 2013. Mike is also Chair of the Conference Committee of the Archives & Records Association UK & Ireland, and external examiner at the Centre for Archives & Information Studies, University of Dundee.

 

Target audience

The workshop is for accounting and finance researchers who are either currently working in the accounting history field or interested in doing so in the future. We welcome faculty and PhD students. This is an opportunity to learn, share and receive feedback on research ideas, and discover more about conducting research and publishing in accounting history.

Further details

The workshop will be preceded by an informal dinner at 7pm on 13th December 2018 (participants’ own cost), offering an opportunity to network and establish contact with others interested in accounting history. Details of the venue will be circulated to everyone who registers for the workshop.

The workshop will run formally from 9:00-16:30 on 14 December 2018 and costs £55 for BAFA members, which includes all presentations, refreshment breaks and lunch on the Friday.

See https://www2.aston.ac.uk/about/directions for travel information.

Details of accommodation options are available on request from the local host, Professor Carolyn Cordery, at c.cordery@aston.ac.uk

Registration

Registration is available through the BAFA website: http://bafa.ac.uk/ 

Information Ecosystems

Steph1 Comment

24th Colloquium in the History of Management and Organizations

March 27th-29th 2019 in Nice

[Conference Website]

Organised by the French Association for the History of Management and Organizations (AHMO) and Université Côte d’Azur – EDHEC Business School, GREDEG (UMR 7321) and MSHS Sud-Est (USR 3566)

« Like pipes in a wall crucial to having running water in a home, the informational infrastructure was nearly invisible. Use of information proved so routine, indeed mundane, that like using a faucet or bathroom fixtures, people did not think about it, because it was always present. It is information’s pervasive, embedded nature that perhaps accounts for why we […] have not paid much attention to it. But now we should, because as happens, once a phenomenon is named or is made obvious, it becomes easier to optimize its use. »[1]

In his book on the history of information in the United States, James W. Cortada argues for the need to understand evolving characteristics of information ecosystems. Cortada defines these ecosystems as facilitators of three activities of our contemporary societies: ‘appreciating what needs to be understood, seeing how this understanding should be developed, and seeing how it could be used’[2].

Since World War II, the amount of information stored and processed in organisations has grown exponentially, giving rise to a new category of ‘knowledge workers’ performing in horizontal information structures[3]. Based on the assumption that each firm and each industry develop idiosyncratic knowledge, organisation and strategy scholars of the 1970s introduced information as a fourth factor of production. Then, in the 1980s, the information ‘revolution’ shook up traditional industrial structures with changes in competitive rules and the introduction of new forms of competitive advantage[4].

Since then, the use of information with respect to accounting, finance, personnel, prices, logistics or customers significantly expanded, especially with the increasing computerisation that helped people to better store, process and share information to improve strategic decisions[5]. These recent changes have led to new forms of science that became necessary to support professional managers’ decisions and to develop new knowledge-based approaches.

The 24th Colloquium in the History of Management and Organizations aims to generate a historical perspective to our understanding of the use of these different forms of information in organizations. Papers aligned with four sub-themes are particularly welcomed:

  • The evolution of the use of information for organisations: While accounting information is often considered as one of the first languages in organisations, other accounts (relative to finance, personnel, price, logistics and customers) appeared relevant to store with the aim to assist decisions and strategic choices made by firms. What have these evolutions been? For which types of information? And for what aim?  
  • The history of scientific knowledge and its diffusion in management and organisation studies: The rise of information in organisations has coincided with the professionalization of managers who express the need to formalise and transfer their managerial knowledge. The diffusion of knowledge in accounting[6], finance[7], marketing[8], human resources management[9], logistics[10] or strategy[11] has attracted the attention of scholars. What trajectories have taken these diffusions? For which type of knowledge? In which institutional contexts?
  • The account of information as an intangible asset in organisations: given the immaterial nature of information and tacit knowledge, the challenge to transform this asset in value creation has long questioned scholars. Currently, the idea to re-materialise or to make more visible these information infrastructures has led to new issues and to new research avenues aligned with sociological oriented approaches dealing with materiality in organisations. Concerns related to security and standardization could also be considered[12].
  • Digital transformation and new forms of value for information: Considered by some scholarsas a fourth industrial revolution, current digital transformation is seen as a phenomenon based on unprecedented technological changes such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality and the Internet of Things. The consequences of these technological innovations, despite being very uncertain regarding their social impacts,put the user at the heart of innovation processes providing value to personal data and disrupting traditional business models. To what extent are these current transformations part of a longer history of computer science and of management information systems[13]?

These sub-themes are non-exhaustive and given the main theme of the colloquium, pluridisciplinary research is particularly encouraged (within management studies or with other sciences such as computer science, law, sociology, economics, psychology, etc.).

Keynote Speaker: James W. Cortada is a business historian and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Minnesota.  Dr. Cortada spent nearly 40 years working at IBM in sales, consulting, management and executive positions.  He is the author of both ICT management books and business history.  He is the author of All the Facts: A History of Information in the United States Since 1870 (2016) and IBM: The Rise and Fall and Reinvention of a Global Icon (2019).

Doctoral workshop

The Colloquium will start with a doctoral workshop organised on 27 March at EDHEC Business School. Ph.D. students who seek to present their work should send a ten-page document presenting research area (theme, research questions), theoretical framework, methodology, first results and main bibliographical references.

First- or second-year Ph.D. students or Ph.D. students incorporating a historical dimension in their dissertation in management are strongly encouraged to apply. 

Important deadlines

  • Submission of Papers: Short papers (3000 words) written either in English or French should be submitted no later than 14 December 2018. Full texts will be accepted.
  • Notification of Acceptance: Notification of papers accepted for inclusion in the conference program will be made by 25 January 2019.
  • Final version of papers(30,000 in 50,000 signs): 22 February 2019. Final papers should be written either in English or French with summaries in French and English.

Scientific Committee

Lise Arena, Université Côte d’Azur

Régis Boulat, Université de Haute-Alsace

Ludovic Cailluet, EDHEC Business School

Muriel Dalpont-Legrand, Université Côte d’Azur

Mathieu Floquet, Université de Lorraine

Patrick Fridenson, EHESS

Gérald Gaglio, Université Côte d’Azur

Eric Godelier, Ecole Polytechnique

Hélène Gorge, Université Lille 2-Skema Business School

Nicolas Guilhot, Université Lyon 3, IFROSS

Pierre Labardin, Université Paris-Dauphine

Eve Lamendour, Université de La Rochelle

Cheryl McWatters, University of Ottawa

Nathalie Oriol, Université Côte d’Azur

Paulette Robic, Université de Nantes

Béatrice Touchelay, Université Lille

Philippe Véry, EDHEC Business School

Elisabeth Walliser, Université Côte d’Azur

Proposals should include:

  • A research question;
  • A fieldwork / primary sources or a corpus

Proposals should be sent to: jhmo2019@gmail.com

[1] Cortada, J.W. 2016. All the Facts – A History of Information in the United-States since 1870. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[2] Ibid: 303.

[3] Regarding this, cf. pioneering work conducted by M. Aoki on Japanese (versus American) firms and their information structures in the 1980s – Aoki, M. 1986. « Horizontal versus Vertical Information Structure of the Firm. » American Economic Review 76(5): 971-983. 

[4] Porter, M.E., and V.E. Millar. 1985. « How Information Gives You Competitive Advantage. » Harvard Business Review 63(4): 149-160.

[5] The use of information in decision-making was discussed much earlier in 1960s by: Simon, H. A. 1960. The New Science of Management Decision. New-York: Harper & Row.

[6] Lamendour, E., and Y. Lemarchand. 2015. « La magie du chiffre. » Entreprises et Histoire 79(2).

[7] Hautcoeur, P.-C., and A. Riva. 2012. « The Paris Financial Market in the Nineteenth Century : Complementarities and competition in microstructures ». Economic History Review 65(4): 1326-1353.

[8] Cochoy, F. 1999. Une histoire du marketing – discipliner l’économie de marché. Paris : La Découverte.

[9] Collings, D.G., and G. Wood. 2009. Human Resource Management: A Critical Approach. London: Routledge.

[10] Van Creveld, M. 1977. Supplying War – Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[11] Cailluet, L. 2008. « La fabrique de la stratégie : Regards croisés sur la France et les États-Unis ». Revue Française de Gestion 188-189(8) : 143-159.

[12] Murphy, C.N., and J. Yates. 2009. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO): Global Governance through Voluntary Consensus. London: Routledge.

[13] Bounfour, A. (coord.) 2010. « De l’informatique aux systèmesd’information dans les entreprises ». Entrepriseset Histoire. 60(3).

Memorialization & place – UK’s Prof Olivette Otele

Steph

Reblogged from Imperial & Global Forum:

Here is another interesting video interview about history, memory, and empire with the UK’s first female black professor in history – Olivette Otele (see: BBC News )

The ‘Bordering on Brexit: Global Britain and the Embers of Empire‘ Conference was held last weekend at Garrison Library, Gibraltar. Professor Richard Toye, Director of Exeter’s Centre for Imperial and Global History, interviews Prof. Olivette Otele (Bath Spa) on the question of contested and controversial history and memorialisation in Bristol.

Feminist Library fundraiser appeal

Steph

Our friends from the Feminist Library have moved their collections (open to researchers) and as a charity are now looking for more support:

It’s official! The Feminist Library has finally found a new home!! J

 But we now need your support more than ever. We urgently need to raise at least £30,000 to be able to fund our move to the new space, and we need to leave our current premises in Spring 2019.

 After our long struggle against eviction (read more about our struggle to save the Library here.), the move is actually quite unexpectedly exciting! We’ll have a new, (much needed!) bigger space, based within a community centre in Peckham, and named after a woman abolitionist and feminist – Sojourner Truth! The bigger space will allow us to expand our collections and run even more and bigger exciting community events.

 Yet we have no choice but to leave our current premises with little notice and next to no funds, and need to fundraise for the new space urgently – we need to raise at least £30,000 in order for us to be able to move.

 Please help us protect this vital community resource! Help save the Feminist Library! Donate to our crowdfunding campaign and read more about it here:

 www.crowdfunder.co.uk/help-the-feminist-library-build-its-new-home/

CFP: A crisis in ‘coming to terms with the past’? At the crossroads of translation and memory

Steph

Reblogged from the Imperial and Global Network:

CIGH Exeter's avatarImperial & Global Forum

A crisis in ‘coming to terms with the past’?
At the crossroads of translation and memory

1-2 February 2019
Senate House, London

Over the past decade, a particular notion of ‘coming to terms with the past’, usually associated with an international liberal consensus, has increasingly been challenged. Growing in strength since the 1980s, this consensus has been underpinned by the idea that difficult historical legacies, displaced into the present, and persisting as patterns of thought, speech and behaviour, needed to be addressed through a range of phenomena such as transitional justice, reconciliation, and the forging of shared narratives to ensure social cohesion and shore up democratic norms. 

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Brexit Bonanza 2

Steph

My Exeter colleague Prof Richard Toye has done a series of interviews about Brexit for the Imperial and Global Forum that I thought I’d share:

 

 

Annc: Reframing Institutional Logics by Alistair Mutch

Steph

Alistair Mutch asked us to send this message to our network:

Dear friends

Apologies for this marketing message but I hope you will be interested to know that my new book on institutional logics is now published by Routledge. Building on my recent article in Academy of Management Review, it seeks to offer a new perspective on institutional logics by drawing on the resources of critical realism.

Reframing Institutional Logics: History, Substance and Practices, Routledge 2019 – available at https://www.routledge.com/Reframing-Institutional-Logics-Substance-Practice-and-History/Mutch/p/book/9781138482357  

From the blurb:

How are we to characterise the context in which organisations operate? The notion that organisational activity is shaped by institutional logics has been influential but it presents a number of problems. The criteria by which institutions are identified, the conflation of institutions with organisations, the enduring nature of those institutions and an exaggerated focus on change are all concerns that existing perspectives do not tackle adequately. This book uses the resources of historical work to suggest new ways of looking at institutional logics. It builds on the work of Roger Friedland who has conceived of institutional logics being animated by adherence to a core substance that is immanent in practices. Development of this idea in the context of organisation theory is supported by ideas drawn from the work of the social theorist Margaret Archer and the broader resources of the philosophical tradition of critical realism. Institutions are seen to emerge over time from the embodied relations of humans to each other and to the natural world on which they depend for material existence. Once emergent, institutions develop their own logics and endure to form the context in which agents are involuntarily placed and that conditions their activity. The approach adopted offers resources to ‘bring society back in’ to the study of organisations.

The book will appeal to graduate students who are engaging with institutional theory in their research. It will also be of interest to scholars of institutional theory, of the history of organisations and those seeking to apply ideas from critical realism to their research.

I hope you would be able to recommend purchase to your library.

Many thanks

Alistair

 

The problem with Harvard Business School case studies

Steph

Reblogged from The Past Speaks:

The discipline of business history has long been linked to the case-study method of teaching. It will therefore interest many readers of this blog to learn of a new article in the business press that talks about the historical origins of the case study method, which began at Harvard Business School and which was later adopted in management schools around the world. The article in Quartz disseminates some of the key findings presented in A New History of Management, an important new book by John Hassard, Michael Rowlinson, Stephen Cummings, and Todd Bridgman. Regardless of whether you are a friend or a foe of the use of case studies, I would encourage you to check out the piece in Quartz and the underlying scholarly works.

Personally, I’m glad to see that the life and ideas of HBS Dean Wallace Donham (1877-1954) is being investigated. In the 1920s, Donham was one of the most influential critics of shareholder primacy and the related idea that the maximization of shareholder value is the best criterion for judging the performance of managers. At a time when the idea of shareholder primacy is being scrutinized once again, it is encouraging to know that people are paying attention to Donham.

Pan Am research grant

Steph

The Dave Abrams and Gene Banning Pan Am Research Grant

by Jay Sylvestre

The Pan Am Historical Foundation announces the ninth annual Dave Abrams and Gene Banning Pan Am Research Grant competition. Up to $1,500 will be awarded to support scholarly research using the Pan American World Airways, Inc. Records held by the University of Miami Libraries’ Special Collections. The grant honors two of Pan Am’s most avid historians, Dave Abrams and Gene Banning.

Since its first international flight in 1927, Pan Am positioned itself as a world leader in American commercial aviation. The Pan Am records date from 1927 to the 1990s and include administrative and financial files; technical and research reports; public relations and promotional materials; internal publications including newsletters, journals, and press releases; and thousands of photographs.

The grant is open to advanced graduate students, independent scholars, and faculty. Priority will be given to research proposals that will result in publication in any media.

Application Procedures

Applicants must submit a proposal of no more than two pages describing their research project, a curriculum vitae or résumé, and two letters of recommendation.

Application deadline is November 30, 2018.

Please send inquiries and applications to:

The Dave Abrams & Gene Banning Pan Am Research Grant
c/o Jay Sylvestre
University of Miami Libraries
1300 Memorial Drive
Coral Gables, FL 33146-0320
j.sylvestre@miami.edu

About Dave Abrams and Gene Banning

After graduating from the University of Miami, Dave Abrams (1919-2005) joined Pan American Airways and worked for 42 years as a meteorologist, navigator and Director of Flight Operations for Latin America. Abrams was instrumental in the formation of The Pan Am Historical Foundation after the company shut its doors in 1991 and in finding a home for Pan Am’s archives and memorabilia.

Gene Banning (1918-2006) was one of the longest serving pilots for Pan Am. His aviation days started with the infamous flying boats in 1941 and ended with Boeing 747s in 1978. An avid researcher, Banning was a guiding member of The Pan Am Historical Foundation from its inception and the author of Airlines of Pan American since 1927 (McLean, Va.: Paladwr, 2001).

About the Pan Am Historical Foundation and the University of Miami Libraries

The Pan Am Historical Foundation is a group dedicated to preserving the heritage of Pan American World Airways. For more information about the Foundation, visit http://www.panam.org/. The Special Collections of the University of Miami Libraries preserves and provides access to research materials focusing on the history and culture of Florida, the Caribbean, and Latin America. The Pan American World Airways, Inc. records consist of hundreds of boxes of materials and reigns as the most frequently consulted single resource in Special Collections. For more information about the Special Collections of the University of Miami Libraries, visit https://www.library.miami.edu/specialcollections/index.html.

Past Winners

  • 2017: Bryce Evans: Pan Am: A Gastronomic History
  • 2016: Sean Seyer, “Independent Internationalism in the Air: Pan American Airlines, the Pan American Union, and the 1928 Havana Convention”
  • 2015: Josue Sakata, Boston Public School Primary Source Sets
  • 2014: Hadassah St. Hubert, “Visions of a Modern Nation: Haiti at the World’s Fairs”
  • 2013: Ken Fortenberry & Gregg Herken, “Point of No Return: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Clipper”
  • 2012: Felipe F. Cruz, “Flight of the Toucans: Technology and Culture in the Brazilian Airspace”
  • 2012: Gordon H Pirie examined Pan Am’s role in civil aviation to, and from, in post-colonial Africa
  • 2011: Jonathan Ruano, “Pan American Airways, the South Atlantic Route and Rise of the American Empire”
  • 2010: Houston Johnson, “Taking Off: The Politics and Culture of American Aviation, 1927-1929”
  • 2009: Augustine Meaher “Pan Am Arrives Down Under: A Diplomatic and Aeronautical Accomplishment”
  • 2009: Roger Turner, “Pan-Am’s Contribution to the Development of Aeronautical Meteorology”
  • 2007: Jennifer Van Vleck “No Distant Places: Aviation and American Globalism, 1924-1968”

New Postdoc Position with Exeter History

Steph

Reblogged from Imperial and Global Forum:

CIGH Exeter's avatarImperial & Global Forum

Job title: Postdoctoral Research Associate

Job reference: P64462

Date posted: 10/10/2018

Application closing date: 07/11/2018

Location: Exeter

Salary: The starting salary will be from £29,515 up to £34,189 on Grade E, depending on qualifications and experience.

Package: Generous holiday allowances, flexible working, pension scheme and relocation package (if applicable).

Job category/type: Academic

Job description

The above full-time post is available from December 1st 2018 until 30th November 2019 on a fixed-term basis.

The University of Exeter is a Russell Group university in the top 200 of universities worldwide. We combine world-class teaching with world-class research, and have achieved a Gold rating in the Teaching Excellence Framework Award 2017. We have over 22,000 students and 4600 staff from 180 different countries and have been rated the WhatUni2017 International Student Choice. Our research focuses on some of the most fundamental issues facing humankind today, with 98% of our research rated as…

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