Aston Organizational History Workshop

Aston Organizational History Workshop

20 June 2018, 12-4pm

RDP seminar room, Main Building South Wing 11th floor

Aston Business School

Aston Triangle

Birmingham B4 7ET

 

12.00-13.30       Buffet Lunch

12.00-13.00       Alex Gillett and Kevin Tennent, York Management School – Dynamic sublimes: the 1966 FIFA World Cup
[in conjunction with EFE departmental seminar research series]

13.30-14.15       Adam Nix, Aston Business School – Between sources and stuff: initial perspectives from the Enron Corpus

14.15-15.00       Amon Barros, FGV-EAESP, and Scott Taylor, Birmingham Business School – The role of Brazilian think tanks in the public debate on management and organizations.

15.00-15.15       Coffee break

15.15-16.00       Michael Butler, Aston Business School, and Ann Cunliffe, FGV-EAESP – The Dent in the Floor: Learning Craft from Organizational History – A Carnal Sociology

 

The workshop is free to attend, but so that we have an idea of numbers, please RSVP to s.decker[at]aston.ac.uk

Process PDW in Greece: About Time – Temporality and History in Organization Studies

We are inviting you to submit your extended abstract to the 10th International Process Symposium Theme: About Time: Temporality and History in Organization Studies

20-23 June 2018, Porto Carras Grand Resort, Halkidiki, Greece

Professional Development Workshop: 20/6/2018

General process-oriented and theme-focused papers are invited

Abstract Submission is now open at:

http://www.process-symposium.com/abstractsubmitform/abstractsubmitform.html

Deadline: 31 January 2018

The conference will take place between 20-23 June 2018, Porto Carras Grand Resort, Halkidiki, Greece (http://www.portocarras.com/)

 Conveners:

Juliane Reinecke, King’s Business School, King’s College London, UK

Roy Suddaby, University of Victoria, Canada & Newcastle University, UK

Ann Langley, HEC Montreal, Canada

Haridimos Tsoukas, University of Cyprus, Cyprus & University of Warwick, UK

Keynote Speakers:

William Blattner, Professor of Philosophy, Georgetown University, USA, author of Heidegger’s “Being and Time”

Tor Hernes, Professor of Organization Theory, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, author of A Process Theory of Organization

Eviatar Zerubavel, Board of Governors and Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Rutgers University, USA, author of Time Maps: Collective memory and the Social Shape of the Past

 Pre-Symposium Workshop Panels (20/6/2018)

 Pre-Symposium Workshop Panels (20/6/2018)

Taking time seriously in organizational research: Theoretical and methodological challenges

Tima Bansal, Ivey Business School, Canada

Paula Jarzabkowski, Cass Business School, UK

Majken Schultz, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

History matters: The value and challenges of historical approaches to organizational and management research

Matthias Kipping, Schulich School of Business, Canada

Michael Rowlinson, University of Exeter Business School, UK

Dan Wadhwani, University of the Pacific, USA

 

Call for Papers

 Tenth International Symposium on

Process Organization Studies

 www.process-symposium.com

 

Theme:    

About Time: Temporality and History in Organization Studies

 General process-oriented and theme-focused papers are invited

20-23 June 2018

Professional Development Workshop: 20/6/2018

 Conveners:

Juliane Reinecke, Warwick Business School, UK (Juliane.Reinecke@wbs.ac.uk)

Roy Suddaby, University of Victoria, Canada & Newcastle University, UK  (rsuddaby@uvic.ca)

Ann Langley, HEC Montreal, Canada (ann.langley@hec.ca)

Haridimos Tsoukas, University of Cyprus, Cyprus & University of Warwick, UK (process.symposium@gmail.com)

 

Keynote Speakers:

William Blattner, Professor of Philosophy, Georgetown University, USA, author of Heidegger’s “Being and Time”

Tor Hernes, Professor of Organization Theory, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, author of A Process Theory of Organization

Eviatar Zerubavel, Board of Governors and Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Rutgers University, USA, author of Time Maps: Collective memory and the Social Shape of the Past

 Rationale: What is Process Organization Studies?

Process Organization Studies (PROS) is a way of studying organizations that is grounded on process metaphysics – the worldview that sees processes, rather than substances, as the basic forms of the universe. A process view: rests on a relational ontology, a performative epistemology, and a dynamic praxeology; focuses on becoming, change, and flux, and pays particular attention to forms of agency; prioritizes process over outcome, activity over product, change over persistence, novelty over stasis, open-endedness over determination; invites us to acknowledge, rather than reduce, the complexity of the world and, in that sense, it is animated by what philosopher Stephen Toulmin called an “ecological style” of thinking.

Purpose, Venue, and Organization

The aim of the Symposium is to consolidate, integrate, and further develop ongoing efforts to advance a sophisticated process perspective in organization and management studies.

PROS is an annual event, organized in conjunction with the publication of the annual series Perspectives on Process Organization Studies (published by Oxford University Press), and it takes place in a Greek island or resort, in June every year. Details of all hitherto Symposia, including topics, conveners and keynote speakers, can be seen at www.process-symposium.com.

Around 100 papers are usually accepted, following a review of submitted abstracts by the conveners.  PROS is renowned for offering participants the opportunity to interact in depth, exchange constructive comments, and share insights in a stimulating, relaxing, and scenic environment.

The Tenth Symposium will take place on 20-23 June 2018, at the Porto Carras Grand Resort, Halkidiki, Greece (http://www.portocarras.com/). The first day of the Symposium (20 June) will consist of the Professional Development Workshop. The Symposium venue, comfortable, relaxing, and situated in one of the most beautiful beachfront locations in rural Greece, in the feet of a mountain of pine trees, accessible by bus or taxi by Thessaloniki Airport, will provide an ideal setting for participants to relax and engage in creative dialogues.

As is customary by now, the Symposium is organized in two tracks – a General Track and a Thematic Track. Each track is described below.

  1. The General Track includes papers that explore a variety of organizational phenomena from a process perspective.

More specifically, although not necessarily consolidated under a process metaphysical label, several strands in organization and management studies have adopted a more or less process-oriented perspective over the years. Karl Weick’s persistent emphasis on organizing and the important role of sensemaking in it is, perhaps, the best-known process approach in the field. Early management and organizational research by Henry Mintzberg, Andrew Pettigrew and Andrew Van de Ven was also conducted from an explicitly process perspective. More recently, scholars such as Martha Feldman, Wanda Orlikowski, Robert Chia, Tor Hernes, and several others, have shown a sophisticated awareness of the importance of process-related issues in their research. Current studies that take an explicitly performative (or enactivist/relational/practice-based) view of organizations have similarly adopted, in varying degrees, a process vocabulary and have further refined a process sensibility. Indeed, the growing use of the gerund (-ing) indicates the desire to move towards dynamic ways of understanding organizational phenomena, especially in a fast-moving, inter-connected, globalized world.

Since a process worldview is not a doctrine but an orientation, it can be developed in several different directions, exploring a variety of topics in organizational research. For example, traditional topics such as organizational design, routines, leadership, trust, coordination, change, innovation, learning and knowledge, accountability, communication, authority, materiality and technology, etc., which have often been studied as “substances”, from a process perspective can be approached as performative accomplishments – as situated sequences of activities and complexes of processes unfolding in time. A process view treats organizational phenomena not as faits accomplish, but as (re)created through interacting embodied agents embedded in sociomaterial practices, whose actions are mediated by institutional, linguistic and material artifacts.

Papers exploring any organizational research topic with a process orientation are invited for submission to the General Track.

  1. The Thematic Track includes papers addressing the particular theme of the Symposium every year.

For 2018 the theme is:

About Time: Temporality and History in Organization Studies

A description of this theme and its importance follows.

Process studies of organizations focus attention on how and why organizational actions and structures emerge, develop, grow or terminate over time (Langley, Smallman, Tsoukas & Van de Ven, 2013). Time, timing, and temporality, therefore, are inherently important to organizational process studies as “[no] concept of motion is possible without the category of time” (Sorokin & Merton, 1937: 615). Yet time remains an under-theorized construct in organization studies that has struggled to move much beyond chronological conceptions of “clock” time (Ancona, Goodman, Lawrence & Tushman, 2001; Clark, 1990).

Missing from this linear view of time are ongoing debates about objectivity versus subjectivity in the experience of time (Butler, 1995), linear versus alternative structures of time (Dawson & Sikes, 2016) or an appreciation of collective or culturally determined inferences of temporality (Zerubavel, 1981; Cunliffe, Luhman & Boje, 2004). This is critical because our understanding of time and temporality can shape how we view and relate to organizational phenomena – as unfolding processes or stable objects (Reinecke & Ansari, 2017). But we are only beginning to appreciate the role of temporality in organizational processes – i.e. how the materials of the present are used to impose meaning and understanding on both past experience and possible futures (Schultz & Hernes, 2013; Hernes, 2008; Reinecke & Ansari, 2015). As the noted German sociologist Norbert Elias (1993) observed, echoing St. Augustine, while we all experience time and have an intuitive sense of its passing, the concept of time so eludes precise articulation that it has attained the status of the “ultimate puzzle” in social theory.

History is an equally important but under-theorized concept in organization studies. While we have an intuitive sense of history as a process, organizational theorists have struggled to move beyond two limited conceptualizations of historical processes. One approach is to see history as a constraint on organization’s capacity for change. History, thus, limits agency through “path dependence” (North, 1990), “structural inertia” (Hannan & Freeman, 1984) or institutional “entropy” (Oliver, 1992). An alternative view is to see history as a unique source of competitive advantage, either through the conferral of unique resources (Porter, 1998; Barney, 1986), or through the historical conversion of routines into dynamic capabilities (Teece, Pisano & Shuen, 1997; Feldman, 2000). Both approaches suffer from the restrictive view of history as an objective set of “brute facts” that are somehow exterior to the individuals, organizations and collectives that experience them.

Emerging streams of process-oriented research have begun to move beyond viewing the past as a historically fixed object, instead conceptualized the past as being “as hypothetical as the future” (Mead, 1932: 31), or “up for grabs” (Kaplan & Orlikowski, 2013). Studies have addressed how actors continually reconstruct their view of the past in light of the emerging present (Bakken, Holt, & Zundel, 2013; Schultz & Hernes, 2013). But much work remains to be done. For instance, there is a distinct absence of understanding the socially constructive link between history and memory (Bluedorn & Denhart, 1988), history and organizational identity (Delahaye, Booth, Clark, Procter & Rowlinson, 2009) and, perhaps more significantly, an oversight of the common generic underpinnings of collective memories (Halbwachs, 1992) and how they constitute “mnemonic communities”  (Zerubavel, 2003).

Despite these conceptual tensions, there is clearly a growing interest in time, temporality and history in organizational studies. The turn to process has contributed to this interest (Chia, 2002; Thelen, 2000; Pettigrew, Woodward & Cameron, 2000; Roe, Waller & Clegg, 2009). The historical turn in management has similarly triggered an effort to re-theorize history in organizations in a more nuanced manner (Bucheli & Wadhwani, 2013; Rowlinson, Hassard & Decker, 2013; Kipping & Usdiken, 2014; Mills, Suddaby, Foster & Durepos, 2016; Suddaby & Foster, 2017). Increasingly, management theory is acquiring a “historical consciousness” – an awareness of time, history and memory as critical elements in processes of organizing (Suddaby, 2016).

The aim of this symposium is to draw together these various emerging strands of interest in adopting a more nuanced orientation toward time, temporality and history to better understand the temporal aspects of organizational processes. In this year’s Thematic Track we seek to encourage and enrich our understanding of different ways in which, by adopting a process-oriented view of time, temporality and history, we can reinvigorate established subjects in organization studies.

In particular, we encourage conceptual, empirical and methodological papers that use a process-oriented view of time, temporality and history to enrich our knowledge of topics that include, but need not be limited to:

Organizational identity: What is the role of time, temporality and history in shaping organizational identity? For instance, how do organizational members revise and re-imagine their collective past to re-construct its emergent present identity? (see Anteby & Molnar, 2012; Suddaby & Foster, 2016; Gioia, Schultz & Corley, 2000; Howard-Grenville, Metzger & Meyer, 2013; Lamertz, Foster, Coraiola & Kroezen, 2016; Schultz & Hernes, 2013; Ybema, 2010; Delahaye et al, 2009).

Organizational memory: How are different understandings of time, temporality and history involved in the emergence of organizational memory? How do collective memories emerge and come to constitute history? (see Rowlinson, Booth, Clarke, Delahaye & Proctor, 2010; Walsh & Ungson, 1991).

Strategic Management: What is the role of time, temporality and history in strategic management? How do actors construct collective organizational futures? How do they resolve the intertemporal paradox between present-day exploitation and future-oriented exploration? (see Brunninge, 2009; Foster, Suddaby, Minkus & Weibe, 2011; Hatch & Schultz, 2017; Kaplan & Orlikowski, 2013; Suddaby, Foster & Quinn-Trank, 2010).

Organizational Change: How do different, often implicit assumptions about time, temporality and history shape our models and conceptualization of organizational stability and change? How may (re-)constructions of the past, present or future affect actors’ ability to initiative, accelerate or prevent continuity or change? How does change become ‘inevitable’ or ‘irreversible’ over time? (see Dawson, 2014; Dawson & Sikes, 2016; Huy, 2001; Suddaby & Foster, 2017; Tsoukas & Chia, 2002).

Institutional Theory: How do institutions become ‘enduring’? What are the temporal qualities of institutions? What temporal patterns underpin processes of creation, maintenance and disruption of institutions? What is the pace and rhythms of institutionalization and institutional change? How may temporal norms and patterns themselves be socially constructed so as to enable or constrain certain institutional processes? (see Lawrence, Winns, & Jennings, 2001; Suddaby & Foster, 2013, Granqvist & Gustafsson, 2016; Rowell, Gustafsson & Clemente, 2016.

Creativity, Innovation & Entrepreneurship: How do actors imaginatively generate possible future trajectories of action that underpin entrepreneurial ventures? How is the past and future re-negotiated and re-invented in the present so as to create opportunities for creativity and innovation? How does history and tradition become a resource so as to allow actors to innovate from the past? (see Popp & Holt, 2013; Bátiz-Lazo, Haigh & Stearns, 2015).

Sensemaking: How do conceptions of time enter sensemaking processes? What is the role of temporal sensemaking in engaging with anticipations of the future and memories of the past to reconfigure present relations and structures? How do actors project sense into an uncertain future? (see Gioia, Corley & Fabbri, 2002; Wiebe, 2010).

Sustainability: How do actors reconcile multiple temporal orientations and timescapes, such as balancing the demands of the present with needs in the future, a tension that is at the heart of business sustainability? (see Reinecke & Ansari, 2015; Slawinski & Bansal, 2015).

Routines: How is the performance of routines played out in time? How does history shape the enactment of particular routines? How do particular temporalities implicated in different routines interact, with what results? How does timing affect the unfolding of routinized performances? (see Mutch 2016; Feldman, 2016).

Methodology: What research designs are best to capture time? How can methodologies move beyond chronological conceptions of time to include more experiential types of time? How might process researchers move beyond producing what Weick (1999: 135) labels “artifacts of retrospect” that look backward in time towards “narratives of prospect” that capture the experience of living forward? (see also Fachin and Langley, 2017; Shotter, 2006).

References:

Ancona, D. G., Okhuysen, G. A., & Perlow, L. A. (2001). Taking time to integrate temporal research. Academy of Management Review26(4), 512–529

Anteby, M., & Molnár, V. (2012). Collective memory meets organizational identity: remembering to forget in a firm’s rhetorical history. Academy of Management Journal, 55(3), 515-540.

Bakken, T., Holt, R., & Zundel, M. (2013). Time and Play in Management Practice: An Investigation Through the Philosophies of MctTaggart and Heidegger. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 29, 13–22.

Barney, J. 1991. Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage. Journal of Management, 17(1): 99-120.

Bátiz-Lazo, B., Haigh, T., & Stearns, D. L. 2015. How the Future Shaped the Past: The Case of the Cashless Society. Enterprise & Society, 15(1): 103-131.

Bluedorn, A. C., & Denhardt, R. B. 1988. Time and Organizations. Journal of Management, 14(2): 299-320.

Brunninge, O. 2009. Using history in organizations: How managers make purposeful reference to history in strategy processes. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 22 (1): 8-26.

Bucheli, M., & Wadhwani, R. D. (Eds.). (2013). Organizations in Time: History, Theory, Methods. Oxford University Press.

Butler, R. 1995. Time in Organizations: Its experience, explanation and effects. Organization Studies 16(6): 925-950.

Clark, P. 1990. Chronological codes and organizational analysis, Pp. 137-166 in Hassard, J. & Pym, D (Eds.), The Theory and Philosophy of Organizations: Critical issues and new perspectives. London: Routledge.

Cunliffe, A., Luhman, J.T. & Boje, D. 2004. Narrative Temporality: Implications for organizational research. Organization Studies 25(2): 261-286.

Dawson, P. 2014. Reflections: On time, temporality and change in organizations. Organizational Change Management 14(3): 285-308.

Dawson, P. & Sikes, C. 2016. Organizational Change and Temporality: Bending the Arrow of Time. New York: Routledge.

Delahaye, A., Booth, C. Clark, P., Proctor, S. & Rowlinson, M. 2009. The genre of corporate history. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 22(1): 27-48.

Elias, N. (1993). Time: An essay. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Fachin, F. & Langley, A. 2017. (forthcoming). Researching organizational concepts processually: The case of identity, In C. Cassell, A. Cunliffe & G. Grandy (Eds.) SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Management Research Methods, London, UK: Sage Publications.

Feldman, M. (2000). Organizational routines as a source of continuous change. Organization Science, 11(6), 611–629.

Feldman, M. S. (2016). Routines as Process: Past, Present, and Future. In J. Howard-Grenville, C. Rerup, A. Langley, & H. Tsoukas (Eds.), Organizational Routines: How They Are Created, Maintained, and Changed (Vol. 5, pp. 23-46).

Foster, W. M., Suddaby, R., Minkus, A., & Wiebe, E. 2011. History as social memory assets: The example of Tim Hortons. Management & Organizational History, 6(1), 101-120.

Gioia, D. A., Corley, K. G., and Fabbri, T. (2002). Revising the Past (while Thinking in the Future Perfect Tense). Journal of Organizational Change Management, 15(6): 622– 34.

Gioia, D. A., Schultz, M., & Corley, K. G. (2000). Organizational identity, image, and adaptive instability. Academy of Management Review, 25(1), 63-81.

Goodman, P. S., Lawrence, B. S., Ancona, D. G., & Tushman, M. L. (2001). Introduction: Special topic forum on time and organizational research. Academy of Management Review26(4), 507–511.

Granqvist, N., & Gustafsson, R. (2016). Temporal institutional work. Academy of Management Journal, 59, 1009–1035.

Hannan, M. T., & Freeman, J. (1984). Structural inertia and organizational change. American Sociological Review, 149-164.

Hatch, M.J. & Schultz, M. 2017. Toward a Theory of Using History Authentically: Historicizing in the Carlsberg Group, Administrative Science Quarterly, 31 (1) (DOI: 10.1177/0001839217692535)

Halbwachs, M. (1992/ 1950). On Collective Memory. Translated by L. A. Coser. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Hernes, T. (2008). Understanding organizations as process: Theory for a tangled world. Abington: Routledge.

Howard- Grenville, J., Metzger, M. L., and Meyer, A. D. (2013). “Rekindling the Old Flame: Processes of Identity Resurrection.” Academy of Management Journal, 56(1): 113– 36.

Huy, Q. N. (2001). Time, temporal capability, and planned change. Academy of Management Review26(4), 601–623.

Kaplan, S., & Orlikowski, W. J. 2013. Temporal Work in Strategy Making. Organization Science, 24(4): 965-995.

Kipping, M., & Üsdiken, B. (2014). History in Organization and Management Theory: More Than Meets the Eye. Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), 535-588.

Lamertz, K., Foster, W. M., Coraiola, D. M., & Kroezen, J. 2016. New identities from remnants of the past: An examination of the history of beer brewing in Ontario and the recent emergence of craft breweries. Business History, 58(5): 796-828.

Langley, A., Smallman, C., Tsoukas, H., & Van de Ven, A. H. (2013). Process studies of change in organization and management: Unveiling temporality, activity and flow. Academy of Management Journal56(1), 1–13.

Lawrence, T. B., Winn, M. I., & Jennings, P. D. (2001). The Temporal Dynamics of Institutionalization. The Academy of Management Review, 26, 624–644.

Mead, G. H. (1932). The Philosophy of the Present. LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court.

Mutch, A. (2016). Bringing history into the study of routines: contextualizing performance. Organization Studies, 37(8), 1171-1188.

North, D. C. (1990). Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge University Press.

Popp, A., & Holt, R. (2013). The Presence of Entrepreneurial Opportunity. Business History, 55(1), 9-28.

Reinecke, J. & Ansari, S. 2015. When times collide: Temporal brokerage at the intersection of markets and developments. Academy of Management Journal, 58(20: 618-648.

Reinecke, J., & Ansari, S. (2017). Time, Temporality and Process Studies. In A. Langley & H. Tsoukas (Eds.), Sage Handbook of Process Organization Studies. Sage.

Roe, R.A., Waller, M.J. & Clegg, S.R. (Eds.), Time in organizational research (pp. 204–219). Abingdon: Routledge.

Rowell, C., Gustafsson, R., & Clemente, M. (2016). How Institutions Matter “in Time”: The Temporal Structures of Practices and their Effects on Practice Reproduction. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 49A.

Rowlinson, M., Booth, C., Clark, P., Delahaye, A., & Procter, S. (2010). Social remembering and organizational memory. Organization Studies, 31(1), 69-87.

Rowlinson, M., Hassard, J., & Decker, S. (2013). Strategies for Organizational History: A Dialogue Between Historical Theory and Organization Theory. Academy of Management Review, 39(3): 250-274.

Schultz, M., & Hernes, T. (2013). A temporal perspective on organizational identity. Organization Science, 24(1), 1-21.

Shotter, J. 2006. Understanding process from within: An argument for ‘withness’-thinking. Organization Studies, 27(4): 585-604.

Slawinski, N., & Bansal, P. (2015). Short on Time: Intertemporal Tensions in Business Sustainability. Organization Science, 26, 531–549.

Sorokin, P., & Merton, R. (1937). Social Time: A Methodological and Functional Analysis. The American Journal of Sociology, 42, 615–629.

Suddaby, R. 2016. Toward a Historical Consciousness: Following the Historic Turn in Management Thought. M@n@gement: Revue officielle de l’Association Internationale de Management Stratégique, 19(1): 46-60.

Suddaby, R., Foster, W. M., and Quinn- Trank, C. (2010). “Rhetorical History as a Source of Competitive Advantage.” In Advances in Strategic Management:The Globalization of Strategy Research, vol. 27, edited by J. Baum and J. Lampel, 147– 73. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Suddaby, R. & Foster, W.M. 2016. Organizational Re-Membering: The use of rhetorical history to create identification”, in Oxford Handbook of Organizational Identity, edited by Michael Pratt, Majken Schultz, Blake Ashforth & Davide Ravasi, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Suddaby, R. & Foster, W.M. (2017). History and Organizational Change. Journal of Management, 43(1): 19-38.

Suddaby, R., Foster, W. M. and Mills, A. J. (2014). “History and Institutions.” In Organization Studies: Historical Perspectives, edited by M. Bucheli and D. Wadhwani, 100– 23. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Teece, D. J., Pisano, G., & Shuen, A. 1997. Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management. Strategic Management Journal, 18(7): 509-533.

Tsoukas, H., & Chia, R. (2002). On organizational becoming: Rethinking organizational change. Organization Science, 13(5), 567–582.

Walsh, J. P., & Ungson, G. R. 1991. Organizational Memory. The Academy of Management Review, 16(1): 57-91.

Weick, K. E. 1999. That’s moving: Theories that matter. Journal of Management Inquiry, 8(2): 134-142.

Wiebe, E. (2010). Temporal sensemaking: Managers’ use of time to frame organizational change. In T. Hernes & S. Maitlis (Eds.), Process, sensemaking and organizing (pp. 213–241). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ybema, S. 2010. Talk of change: Temporal contrasts and collective identities. Organization Studies, 31(4): 481-503.

Zerubavel, E. 1981. Hidden Rhythms: Schedules and Calendars in Social Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Zerubavel, E. 2003. Time maps: collective memory and the social shape of the past. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press.

 

 

Professional Development Workshop (20/6/2018)

Aim

The aim of the PDW is to provide a stimulating and interactive context for researchers to further develop their ideas and projects. More specifically, the PDW is designed to enable participants to: (a) refine their understanding of process thought; (b) share with others some of the methodological and theoretical challenges they have encountered in conducting, theorizing, and teaching process research, or putting process insights to practice in organizations; and (c) elicit/offer suggestions about how researching, theorizing, and teaching process may be further advanced.

 

The PDW will consist of (a) Workshop papers, (b) Panel Discussions, and (c) Plenary Panels.

 

 

Workshop Papers

We invite submissions of extended abstracts from researchers who have papers at an early stage of writing and would like helpful feedback as to how their papers may be further developed and published. Such submissions will be presented and extensively discussed in a roundtable format.

 

Panel Discussions

We invite submission proposals for panel discussions related to any process-related topic. An ideal submission will aim to: discuss a topic of broad relevance to process research and the challenges it presents; consolidate, update and further advance our knowledge of it; or introduce new topics that process-oriented researchers need to know about.

 

Panel discussions can focus either on theoretical or methodological topics. Up to four panel discussions will be accepted. Topics related to the conference theme are particularly welcome. Proposals will be evaluated in terms of clarity; novelty, relevance for and attractiveness to the process studies community; and developmental possibilities for its participants. A panel discussion will last for 90 minutes.

 

Plenary Panels

The following plenary panels will take place:

  • Taking time seriously in organizational research: Theoretical and methodological challenges

Tima Bansal, Ivey Business School, Canada

Paula Jarzabkowski, Cass Business School, UK

Majken Schultz, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

  • History matters: The value and challenges of historical approaches to organizational and management research

Matthias Kipping, Schulich School of Business, Canada

Michael Rowlinson, University of Exeter Business School, UK

Dan Wadhwani, University of the Pacific, USA

Submissions

General process-oriented papers, theme-focused papers, as well as PDW workshop papers and panel discussion proposals are invited. Interested participants must submit  an extended abstract of about 1000 words for their proposed contribution by January 31st, 2018 through the following link:

 

http://www.process-symposium.com/abstractsubmitform/abstractsubmitform.html

 

The submission should contain authors’ names, institutional affiliations, email and postal addresses, and indicate the Track for which the submission is made (General or Thematic), or whether the submission is intended for the PDW. Authors will be notified of acceptance or otherwise by March 7th, 2018.  Full papers will be submitted by June 4th, 2018.

LAEMOS 2018 – Organizational History & Memory

 LAEMOS 2018

 Sub-Theme Proposal –  Organizational History and Memory

Diego M. Coraiola – Universidade Positivo, Brazil (dcoraiola@gmail.com)

Roy Suddaby – University of Victoria, Canada (rsuddaby@uvic.ca)

Maria Jose Murcia – University of British Columbia, Canada and IAE Universidad Austral, Argentina (majosemurcia@gmail.com)

Mar Pérezts – EMLYON Business School, France (perezts@em-lyon.com)

Bill Cooke – York University, UK (bill.cooke@york.ac.uk)

The notion of organizational resilience implies an implicit theory of organizations in time. Organizational survival lies in the ability of adapting to present and future demands from the environment as well as remaining true to an organization’s essence. Simply put, resilience is about being able to change and yet to remain the same. Reaching a proper balance between the old and the new or the past and the future is an ambidexterous act of exploration and exploitation or a paradox of similarity-distinctiveness. It involves establishing links between the legacies of organizational identities established in the past to aspirational strategies of an imagined future organization. However, there is still little knowledge of how the connections between the present and past of organizational action are created and sustained over time.

There is mixed evidence about the role of the past and history in organization survival. The past, it seems, can both enable and constrain adaptation and change. While for some scholars history defines the boundaries of organizational action and the possibilities of organizational resilience (David, 1985; Hannan & Freeman, 1989; Marquis, 2003; Porter, 1998; Teece, Pisano, & Shuen, 1997), for others the meaning of past actions and events is open for reinterpretation and reshaping through present actions and capabilities. (Coraiola, Foster, & Suddaby, 2015; Mena, Rintamäki, Fleming, & Spicer, 2016; Suddaby & Foster, 2016; Suddaby, Foster, & Trank, 2010; Zundel, Holt, & Popp, 2016). Empirical research on the mnemonics of organizational life might provide a better understanding of the organizational capabilities in generating alternative paths and adapting to changing environmental conditions and at the same time remaining true to themselves.

Our goal for this sub-theme, therefore, is to encourage theory on the mnemonic processes managers and organizations engage with in order to generate continuity and change with the past in ways that assure organizational survival and advantage them in the present and future. This calls for great variety of theoretical perspectives and empirical settings in order to start generating the cumulative evidence about the influences of historical legacies and the organizational ability for managing the past. Submissions focusing on the mnemonics of organizational resilience could look at:

  1.  What are the implications of past managerial action for organizational success and survival (Greve & Rao, 2014; Marquis, 2003; Schrempf-Stirling, Palazzo, & Phillips, 2016; Sydow & Schreyögg, 2013)?
  2.  What are the practices and routines organizations engage with in order to balance the reproduction and renovation of the past (Coraiola, Suddaby, Foster, 2017; Suddaby, Foster, Quinn-Trank, 2010)?
  3.  How managers use history to manage processes of organizational change (Brunninge, 2009; Maclean, Harvey, Sillince, & Golant, 2014; Ybema, 2010)?
  4.  How organizational identity is created and reproduced over time through various processes of remembering and forgetting (Anteby & Molnár, 2012; Ravasi & Schultz, 2006; Schultz & Hernes, 2013; Suddaby, Foster, & Trank, 2016)?
  5.  How organizations develop mnemonic practices to manage legitimacy threats and corporate scandals (Janssen, 2012; Mena, Rintamäki, Fleming, & Spicer, 2016)?
  6.  What are the boundary conditions around the uses of organizational mnemonics to foster organizational resilience (Foster, Coraiola, Suddaby, Kroezen, & Chandler, Forthcoming; Zundel et al, 2016)?
  7.  How management and organization scholars contribute to the understanding and the engagement of managers and organizations with the past (Lasewicz, 2015; Suddaby, 2016; Taylor, Bell, & Cooke, 2009).

The focus of this sub-theme is thus to provide new and more encompassing evidence about the enabling and constraining effects of the past for organizational resilience and survival. Researchers are encouraged to submit papers for this sub-theme with theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions. Our goal is to foster discussions around the influence of the past, present, and future of managerial action on organizational continuity and change.

References

Anteby, M., & Molnár, V. (2012). Collective Memory Meets Organizational Identity: Remembering to Forget in a Firm’s Rhetorical History. Academy of Management Journal, 55(3), 515-540.

Brunninge, O. (2009). Using history in organizations: How managers make purposeful reference to history in strategy processes. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 22(1), 8-26.

Coraiola, D. M., Foster, W. M., & Suddaby, R. (2015). Varieties of History in Organization Studies. In P. G. McLaren, A. J. Mills & T. G. Weatherbee (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Management & Organizational History (pp. 206-221). New York: Routledge.

David, P. A. (1985). Clio and the Economics of QWERTY. The American Economic Review, 75(2), 332-337.

Foster, W. M., Coraiola, D. M., Suddaby, R., Kroezen, J., & Chandler, D. (Forthcoming). The strategic use of historical narratives: A theoretical framework. Business History.

Greve, H. R., & Rao, H. (2014). History and the present: Institutional legacies in communities of organizations. Research in organizational behavior, 34, 27-41.

Hannan, M. T., & Freeman, J. (1989). Organizational Ecology. New York: Oxford University Press.

Janssen, C. I. (2012). Addressing Corporate Ties to Slavery: Corporate Apologia in a Discourse of Reconciliation. Communication Studies, 63(1), 18-35.

Lasewicz, P. C. (2015). Forget the Past? Or History Matters? Selected Academic Perspectives on the Strategic Value of Organizational Pasts. The American Archivist, 78(1), 59-83.

Maclean, M., Harvey, C., Sillince, J. A. A., & Golant, B. D. (2014). Living up to the past? Ideological sensemaking in organizational transition. Organization, 21(4), 543-567.

Marquis, C. (2003). The Pressure of the Past: Network Imprinting in Intercorporate Communities. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48(4), 655-689.

Mena, S., Rintamäki, J., Fleming, P., & Spicer, A. (2016). On the Forgetting of Corporate Irresponsibility. Academy of Management Review, 41(4), 720-738.

Porter, M. E. (1998). Cluster and the new economics of competition. Harvard Business Review, 76(6), 77-90.

Ravasi, D., & Schultz, M. (2006). Responding to organizational identity threats: Exploring the role of organizational culture. Academy of Management Journal, 49(3), 433-458.

Schrempf-Stirling, J., Palazzo, G., & Phillips, R. (2016). Historic Corporate Social Responsibility. Academy of Management Review, 41(4), 700-719.

Schultz, M., & Hernes, T. (2013). A Temporal Perspective on Organizational Identity. Organization Science, 24(1), 1-21.

Suddaby, R. (2016). Toward a Historical Consciousness: Following the Historic Turn in Management Thought. M@n@gement: Revue officielle de l’Association Internationale de Management Stratégique, 19(1), 46-60.

Suddaby, R., & Foster, W. M. (2016). History and Organizational Change. Journal of Management, 43(1), 19-38.

Suddaby, R., Foster, W. M., & Trank, C. Q. (2010). Rhetorical history as a source of competitive advantage. In J. A. C. Baum & J. Lampel (Eds.), Advances in Strategic Management: The Globalization of Strategy Research (pp. 147-173). Bingley: Emerald.

Suddaby, R., Foster, W. M., & Trank, C. Q. (2016). Re-membering: Rhetorical History as Identity-Work. In M. G. Pratt , M. Schultz, B. E. Ashforth & D. Ravasi (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Identity (pp. 297-316). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sydow, J., & Schreyögg, G. (2013). Self-reinforcing processes in and among organizations. Hampshire: Palgrave.

Taylor, S., Bell, E., & Cooke, B. (2009). Business history and the historiographical operation. Management & Organizational History, 4(2), 151-166.

Teece, D. J., Pisano, G., & Shuen, A. (1997). Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management. Strategic Management Journal, 18(7), 509-533.

Ybema, S. (2010). Talk of change: Temporal contrasts and collective identities. Organization Studies, 31(4), 481-503.

Zundel, M., Holt, R., & Popp, A. (2016). Using history in the creation of organizational identity. Management & Organizational History, 1-25.

 

Note: We thank Maria Del Pilar Acosta Collazos, Sébastien Mena, and William M. Foster for their contribution in developing the proposal for this sub-theme.

New article in Organizational History

On the back of recent and significant new debates on the use of history within business and management studies, we consider the perception of historians as being anti-theory and of having methodological shortcomings; and business and management scholars displaying insufficient attention to historical context and privileging of certain social science methods over others. These are explored through an examination of three subjects: strategy, international business and entrepreneurship. We propose a framework for advancing the use of history within business and management studies more generally through greater understanding of historical perspectives and methodologies.

New article on MOH

History Research in Management and Organization Studies

Editors’ Picks: History Research in Management and Organization Studies

Edited by Gabrielle Durepos and Albert J Mills

Introduction

This Editors’ Picks provides an occasion to celebrate the momentum that doing history research in management and organization studies (MOS) has gained since the calls for more history in the early 1990s (Zald, 1993, 1996; Kieser, 1994; Üsdiken and Kieser, 2004). Organization is an especially appropriate venue to do so given the dedication of the journal to disseminating critically oriented scholarship. The initial calls for more history work in MOS suggested, in varying ways (empirical, epistemological) and degrees, that doing history could act as a vehicle for critique. Indeed the articles selected for this Editors’ Picks are not only evidence of the growing momentum for more history in MOS but each in its own vein engenders history as a vehicle for critique. The theme is exemplified well by Cooke (1999) who provides a critical reconstruction of the Management of Change literature with a focus on redressing the silences surrounding the role of the ideological left in the disciplines’ own accounts of its past. In his assertion that all management and organization theory is shaped by past processes and are nonetheless viewed through a political lens formed by contemporary concerns, Cooke calls for greater awareness in the historical construction of representations of management and organization theory. Though Cooke (1999) does not use the terms ‘critical history,’ his article teaches us that a ‘critical history’ (as envisioned today) might imply acknowledging the historicity of management theory as a precondition for taking responsibility to change its (self- )representations that are uncontested, naturalized and un-reflexive.

To read the full introduction, please click here.

AOM2017 All-Academy session on History & Nationalism

Session Type: Symposium

Submission: 18644 | Sponsor(s): (AAT, MH)

 

Business and Management in an Age of Rising Nationalism: Historical Perspectives 

Theme: At the Interface

Sunday  10.30-12.00pm, Hyatt Regency Atlanta, Spring
Chair: Daniel Wadhwani, U. of the Pacific 

Panelist: Matthias Kipping, Schulich School of Bus, York U. 

Panelist: Takafumi Kurosawa, Kyoto U. 

Panelist: Stephanie Decker, Aston Business School 

History can provide management scholars with a unique lens for understanding the current rise of nationalism, and the choices that businesses, managers, and entrepreneurs face in response to those changes. In part, this is because both supporters and critics of the current wave of nationalism point to historical examples and their consequences in justifying their positions. But, even more so, historical waves of globalization and de- globalization allow us a mirror for reflecting on the options and consequences that both policymakers and managers face today. For instance, on the eve of World War I, much of the world economy was economically integrated, with the relatively free mobility of firms, people, and capital across borders. This earlier wave of global integration fell apart with the rise of nationalism and nationalist policies during the interwar period, and a different kind of globally integrated economy had to be rebuilt by policymakers and businesspeople in the post-World War II world. This panel will discuss the lessons of such earlier waves of nationalism and de-globalization for our own time. It draws together four leading business historians, with expertise in four different regions of the world as well as in different aspects of management research. The panel will examine how rising nationalism affected not only the global context in which managers operated, but also consider its implications for business strategy, organizational behavior, social and political legitimacy, labor mobility and entrepreneurship. The goal of the panel will remain focused on the relevance of history for understanding managerial choices and consequences in the face of nationalism in our own time.

Search Terms: Nationalism, History | Management, Business | De-globalization

    

Last ESRC seminar at Exeter

Today the last ESRC seminar is taking place at Exeter University. Mick introduced a great line up of speakers, including Gabie Durepos, David Boughey, Sara Kinsey, Michael Weatherburn, Mick Rowlinson, Alan Booth, Morgan Witzel.


The day is starting with a keynote by Albert Mills, introducing his work on gender and organizational history, with a dash of personal history thrown in. 


The day will conclude with a round table with Charles Booth, Peter Miskell and Anna Soulsby, and the obligatory drinks reception (prosecco and cake).