Terrance Weatherbee and Gabrielle Durepos
This paper aims to problematize the dominant narrative forms of disciplinary histories of management thought. Specifically, the authors explore the narrative mode of emplotment…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to problematize the dominant narrative forms of disciplinary histories of management thought. Specifically, the authors explore the narrative mode of emplotment used in Wren’s (and later Wren and Bedeian’s) 50-year encyclical on the history of management thought, namely, The Evolution of Management Thought (EMT).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors propose that management histories operate as powerful narratives that shape our understanding of management thought and, consequently, our disciplinary futures. This paper explores the textual narrative of EMT. Additional data are drawn from other scholars’ observations of this text. This paper is positioned in the debates of management history.
Findings
While acknowledging the wealth of historical facts in EMT, the authors argue that the umbrella narrative orders events of the past in such a manner that the historical knowledge follows a form of Darwinian evolutionism. Thus, the narrative leads to problematic representations suffering from progressivism, presentism and universalism.
Research limitations/implications
Disciplinary scholars in management and organization studies need to carefully reflect on how we construct our representations of the past and histories. This will allow us to better craft transparent and reflexive histories.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to propose a remedy, albeit a partial remedy, which we believe is needed to avoid adverse epistemological consequences associated with the use of problematic narratives in management and organizational histories.
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Terrance G. Weatherbee, Donna Sears and Ryan MacNeil
The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the body of work featured in the International Journal of Wine Business Research (IJWBR) since its transition from the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the body of work featured in the International Journal of Wine Business Research (IJWBR) since its transition from the International Journal of Wine Marketing (IJWM) in 2007, and to assess the collective evolution of the topical structure of published research against the Journal’s aims as described in the inaugural editorial.
Design/methodology/approach
A scientometric study using both network analysis and narrative methods was used to evaluate the research contents of the IJWBR.
Findings
Results lead to four conclusions. Overall, the research published in IJWBR has met the editorial aim of expanding beyond the marketing focus of IJWM. Second, the Journal has become increasingly international in its approach to research activities, both in terms of authorship and sites of study. Third, the methods used in the study of wine business have advanced from descriptive univariate to more complex or predictive multivariate approaches. Finally, despite all of these desired advances, research grounded in marketing and consumer behavior perspectives still predominates the Journal.
Originality/value
This is the first review of IJWBR to use a scientometric method; and this paper provides a description and assessment of progress made toward the publishing goals first envisioned for the Journal at its transition from IJWM to IJWBR.
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Gabrielle Durepos, Terrance Weatherbee and Albert J. Mills
This paper features a critique of the treatment of time in modern and postmodern historical organization studies. The authors reply to the critique by drawing on Lefebvre’s notion…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper features a critique of the treatment of time in modern and postmodern historical organization studies. The authors reply to the critique by drawing on Lefebvre’s notion of rhythm to theorize time in an amodern condition. The purpose of this study is to call on historical organization studies scholars to theoretically engage with time.
Design/methodology/approach
After a pointed literature review of the treatment of time in modern and postmodern historical organization studies, an ANTi-History approach to time is developed through an exploration of how rhythm can inform key ANTi-History facets.
Findings
New insights on key ANTi-History facets are developed in relation to time. These include seeing the past as history through rhythmic actor-networks, a description of relationalism informed by situated rhythms, a suggestion that the performative aspect of history is rhythmic and an illustration of what one might see if they watched an amodern historian at work.
Originality/value
Lefebvre’s concept of rhythm has been largely neglected in historiography and historical organization studies. Rhythm offers a way to understand time in relation to situated actor practices as opposed to the universal clock or chronological time.
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Terrance Weatherbee and Donna Sears
This paper aims to examine how wineries used history in their marketing communications to overcome the liability of newness in a settled field that valorizes duration and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine how wineries used history in their marketing communications to overcome the liability of newness in a settled field that valorizes duration and longevity.
Design/methodology/approach
A multiple-case study investigated the treatment of history in marketing by young wineries in a new wine region. Data included interviews, site visits and marketing communications.
Findings
Wineries worked to communicate stakeholder legitimacy and authenticity by constructing organizational histories through bricolage, communicating history in symbolic, material and practice forms.
Research limitations/implications
Young organizations can communicate field legitimacy and projections of organizational and product authenticity through constructed histories. Results may not be generalizable to other jurisdictions as wine marketing is normatively subject to government regulation. The importance of history in marketing communications also varies across sectors.
Practical implications
Young businesses in sectors where tradition, place and longevity are venerated can establish authenticity and legitimacy through the marketization of history by following practices that demonstrate adherence to tradition and making thoughtful choices in the construction of the symbolic and material aspects of their organizations.
Originality/value
This study demonstrates that new/young organizations can use bricolage to create their own marketized histories as proxies for age.
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Jason Foster, Albert J. Mills and Terrance Weatherbee
The aim of this paper is threefold. First, to argue for a more historically engaged understanding of the development of management and organization studies (MOS). Second, to…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is threefold. First, to argue for a more historically engaged understanding of the development of management and organization studies (MOS). Second, to reveal the paradoxical character of the recent “historical turn,” through exploration of how it both questions and reinforces extant notions of the field. Third, to explore the neglect of the New Deal in MOS to illustrate not only the problem of historical engagement, but also to encourage a rethink of the paradigmatic limitations of the field and its history.
Design/methodology/approach
Adopting the theory of ANTi-history, the paper conducts an analysis of historical management textbooks and formative management journals to explore how and why the New Deal has been neglected in management theory.
Findings
Focussing on the New Deal raises a number of questions about the relationship between history and MOS, in particular, the definition of the field itself. Questions include the ontological character of history, context and relationalism, and the link between history and MOS, ethics, Anglo-American centredness, and the case for historical engagement.
Originality/value
The paper argues for a new approach to historical understanding that encourages a revisiting of what constitutes the field of MOS; a greater awareness of and opening up to alternative (hi)stories and, thus, approaches to MOS; and a re-evaluation of phenomena such as the New Deal and other more radical ways of organizing.
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Kelly Dye, Albert J. Mills and Terrance Weatherbee
This paper aims to build on recent work in the field of management and historiography that argues that management theorizing needs to be understood in its historical context.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to build on recent work in the field of management and historiography that argues that management theorizing needs to be understood in its historical context.
Design/methodology/approach
First, the paper attempts to show how a steady filtering of management theory and of the selection and work of management theorists lends itself to a narrowly focused, managerialist, and functionalist perspective. Second, the paper attempts to show how not only left‐wing ideas, but also even the rich complexity of mainstream ideas, have been “written out” of management accounts. The paper explores these points through an examination of the treatment of Abraham Maslow in management texts over time.
Findings
The paper's conclusion is a simple one: management theory – whether mainstream or critical – does a disservice to the potential of the field when it oversimplifies to a point where a given theory or theorist is misread because sufficient context, history, and reflection are missing from the presentation/dissemination.
Originality/value
This paper highlights the importance of reading the original texts, rather than second or third person accounts, and the importance of reading management theory in the context in which it was/is derived.
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Jeffrey Muldoon, Nicholous M. Deal, Douglass Smith and Geethalakshmi Shivanapura Lakshmikanth
The purpose of this article is to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Evolution of Management Thought (EMT), a critically acclaimed text in management and organizational studies…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Evolution of Management Thought (EMT), a critically acclaimed text in management and organizational studies for its value in historicizing the practice of management.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors asked Daniel Wren and Arthur Bedeian in their own words to their contribution. In addition, the authors offer commentary and critique of 16 leading management historians who share their reflections on the intellectual significance of Wren and Bedeian, and the punctuation of EMT as a canonical text in the field of management history.
Findings
The legacy of Wren and Bedeian can be felt across the academy of historical research on business and organizations. Their work has separately made significant contributions to management studies but together they have forged a fruitful partnership that has given rise to multiple generations of scholars and scholarship that continue to shape the field to this day.
Originality/value
The contribution of the authors in this article is to mark the significant milestone of EMT’s five-decade success by hearing from the authors themselves about their longstanding success as well as giving space to critique about the past, present and future of our collective historical scholarship shaped by Wren and Bedeian’s legacy.
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Nicholous M. Deal, Christopher M. Hartt and Albert J. Mills