Abstract
A New History of Management (ANHM) by Stephen Cummings, Todd Bridgman, John Hassard and Michael Rowlinson (2017; University of Cambridge) provides a novel and refreshing perspective on the history of organization and management thought. Reading the book rejuvenated my optimism on the role history can play in both shaping our view of the past and its potential to inform how we see the future. It is in the latter regard that ANHM makes its greatest contribution. The lucidity of ANHM has the potential to simultaneously broaden the historical organization studies audience, while also challenging researchers to deploy the innovative potential of history. Indeed, the book reads as a much-needed call for new histories of management. This entails ‘thinking beyond a history that congratulates the present, to one that promotes critical questioning and alternative perspectives, one that may encourage innovative management theorizing and practice’ (p. 321). The eminence and clarity of their call for new histories is perhaps less surprising given the book represents the collective (and mature) efforts of four prominent historical organization studies scholars. ANHM is a productive and timely addition to the budding field of historical organization studies.
It is noteworthy that over the course of its growth, historical organization studies (Maclean et al., 2016) has experienced previous calls for an historic turn (Clark and Rowlinson, 2004; Zald, 1991). Although many now accept the failure of a wholesale transformation of organization studies to be, above all else, fully sensitized to its past and history (Mills et al., 2016; Munslow, 2015), none can dispute the increased attention to historical research that these calls have invigorated. Indeed, ANHM is a welcome addition to a growing list of edited books and monographs on histories of organization and management (Bowden and Lamond, 2015; Bucheli and Wadhwani, 2014; Jones and Zeitlin, 2008; McLaren et al., 2015; Witzel, 2012; Wren and Bedian, 2010). ANHM is distinct on this list for at least two reasons. First, ANHM is different than recent historic turn inspired edited collections (Bucheli and Wadhwani, 2014; McLaren et al., 2015), because it is a co-authored monograph which affords the opportunity for in-depth content with arguments that build in a cumulative fashion from start to end. In this regard, ANHM presents an in-depth Foucauldian inspired counter-history of management coupled with lessons for rethinking history to tease out its innovative potential. Second, ANHM is explicitly critical in its philosophical orientation. In this vein, ANHM is aligned with the history of the “historic turn” to the extent that early calls were rooted and inspired by a critical management studies agenda (Rowlinson et al., 2009). Critical organization histories are on the rise (Durepos and Mills, n.d.) and ANHM provides a substantive book length contribution to it.
My enthusiasm for ANHM is fuelled largely by its book format. Notwithstanding the well-versed complaint that academics across all disciplines fall prey to institutional pressures to publish journal articles as opposed to books, that pressure is particularly acute in business schools that arguably never had a legacy of book style publications to defend. The academic field to which ANHM makes its contribution is a blend of organization studies and history. The latter’s content and craft, by virtue of being part of the humanities, is arguably more comfortably expressed through the book format. Readers of ANHM will benefit from the authors’ choice of the book format, where there is sufficient space to develop arguments in-depth. The field of historical organization studies can benefit from more research monographs. I hope those who answer the call for new histories will follow Cummings, Bridgman, Hassard and Rowlinson in choosing the book format.
As a book, ANHM is organized as nine chapters (and a conclusion) whose contents follow the order in which the ‘founding fathers’ of management are presented in the typical chapter two of introductory management textbooks. For example, the contribution of several chapters in ANHM is to debunk the taken-for-granted narrative associated with Smith (chapter two), Taylor (chapter three), Weber (chapter four) and Mayo (chapter 6). This gives rise to a question around which the book is structured: why did the authors choose this type of ‘emplotment’ (White, 1985)? For White (1985), historical emplotment is the narrative structure of history. Emplotment is the ‘way a sequence of events is fashioned into a narrative that is gradually seen to be of particular kind’ (Jenkins, 1995: 159). One aspect of this book about which I feel some unease it is that ANHM mirrors the dominant ‘chronological’ mode of emplotment of history that it critiques. Of course, the authors do call for new histories of management, and alternative modes of emplotment, for historical organization studies, but delivering these is left as a task for a future book.
ANHM draws on a Foucauldian inspired counter-history and to this effect, it presents the dominant narrative of the history of management thought followed by debunking it. If I have one minor disappointment with this book, it is that the counter-history is mostly limited to the contours drawn by the mainstream management history. The focus on those ‘founding fathers’ who regularly appear in the histories found in the chapter two introductory management textbooks hampers a fuller account of the missing ‘Other’ in historical organization studies. Although the authors acknowledge the need to include alternative voices that represent a more diverse geographic spread, they do not heed their own call in this book. Consequently, the missing Other is noted, but still missing. Similar critiques have been levelled at the literature on the ‘historic turn’. Particularly noteworthy are the recent efforts of Wanderley and Barros, (2019) to foster a ‘decolonized historic turn agenda from Latin America’ as a reaction to their critique that the historic turn ‘has not promoted the inclusion of authors, theories, concepts, objects, and themes from other geographies’ (p. 1). Alternative management histories are also needed to account for the missing role of sex, gender, women, ethnicity and labour in the history of management thought.
Historical organization studies is a growing field, if judged only by the rise in PhD students undertaking historically inspired management dissertations. ANHM will be a valuable resource for these graduate students. The book provides an exemplary book-length empirical demonstration of using historical methodologies including Foucauldian counter-histories, archaeology and genealogy to counter dominant narratives by writing alterative histories. Indeed, ANHM has the potential to make a contribution to the historical organization studies audience and perhaps even draw the attention of those for which history is not a primary interest. The audience stands to benefit in a number of ways including, but not limited to, learning about: the history of management thought and its critique, the role that history plays in shaping our present vantage point and also the innovative potential of history.
The publication of ANHM comes at a timely moment in the growing field of historical organization studies. It forces us to consider the critical questions of the role of critique and innovation in management history. Drawing out the potential of innovation in historical analysis is one way to open up its conditions of possibility. That is an exciting prospect.