Why does history matter to our understanding of
management, organizations, and markets? What theoretical
insights can it offer into organizational processes? How
can scholars use historical sources and methods to
address research questions in management and
organization studies? This book brings together leading
organization scholars and business historians to examine
the opportunities and challenges of incorporating
historical research into the study of firms and markets.
It examines the reasons for the growing interest in
historically grounded research in management departments
and business schools, and considers both the
intellectual and practical questions the endeavour
faces. The volume is divided into three parts. The first
part, History and Organization Theory, considers the
relationship between historical reasoning and key
theoretical schools of organizational thought, including
institutional theory, evolutionary theory, and critical
theory. The second part, Actors and Markets, considers
how historical perspective can provide researchers with
insights into organizational change, entrepreneurial
processes, industry emergence, and the co-evolution of
states and markets. In the final section, Sources and
Methods, the contributors explicate historical
methodologies within the context of other approaches to
studying organizations and provide concrete suggestions
for researchers in the field. The introduction places
these issues within the broader context of developments
in the fields of business history and organization
studies, and orients readers to the 'future of the past
in management and organization studies.' |
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