Walter Benjamin’s 1940 essay ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’ offers a basis for assessing the current engagement with history within the field of organizational studies. In this paper I argue that the past remains under-theorized within such engagement, including in two well-known historical projects in organization studies: institutional studies of knowledge formation and post-colonial studies of organizations. Benjamin’s essay helps us recognize the possibilities of the past for understanding organizations and those trained to run them. Through examples drawn from the historians Sanjay Subrahmanyam and Rajnarayan Chandvarkar, a film of Satyajit Ray, and the contemporary Occupy movement, I discuss the possibilities of the past, that is, routes to understanding the historical manager, and alternatives to managerialism.
BenjaminW.1968. Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. New York: Schocken.
4.
BhambraG. K.2011. ‘Historical Sociology, Modernity, and Postcolonial Critique.’ The American Historical Review116(3): 653–62.
5.
BradyN.1997. ‘Management has no History.’ Journal of Management Learning6(2): 160–7.
6.
ChandavarkarR.1994. The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India: Business Strategies and the Working Classes in Bombay 1900–1940. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
7.
CookeB.1999. ‘Writing the Left out of Management Theory: The Historiography of the Management of Change.’ Organization6(1): 81–105.
8.
CookeB.MillsA. J.KelleyE. S.2005. ‘Situating Maslow in Cold War America: A Recontextualization of Management Theory.’ Group and Organization Management30(2): 129–52.
9.
CritchleyS.2008. The Book of Dead Philosophers. New York: Vintage.
10.
de Sousa SantosB.2008. ‘The World Social Forum and the Global Left.’ Politics & Society36(2): 247–70.
11.
FrenkelM.ShenhavY.2003. ‘From Americanization to Colonization: The Diffusion of Productivity Models Revisited.’ Organization Studies24(9): 1537–61.
12.
HardimanD.2007. Histories for the Subordinated. New York: Seagull.
13.
KieserA.1994. ‘Why Organization Theory Needs Historical Analyses – and How This Should Be Performed.’ Organization Science5(4): 608–20.
14.
KippingM.BjarnarO.1998. The Americanisation of European Business: The Marshall Plan and the Transfer of US Management Models. London: Routledge.
15.
KippingM.ÜsdikenB.PuigN.2004. ‘Imitation, Tension and Hybridization: Multiple “Americanizations” of Management Education in Mediterranean Europe.’ Journal of Management Inquiry13(2): 98–108.
16.
KlingB. B.1992. ‘The Origins of the Managing Agency System in India.’ In Entrepreneurship and Industry in India, 1800–1947, edited by RayR.K. (pp. 83–98). Delhi: Oxford University.
17.
LöwyM.2006. Fire Alarm: Reading Walter Benjamin’s ‘On the Concept of History’. New York: Verso.
18.
LuddenD.2002. ‘A Brief History of Subalternity.’ In Reading Subaltern Studies: Critical History, Contested Meaning and the Globalization of South Asia, edited by LuddenD. (pp. 1–39). London: Anthem.
19.
NadeemS.2011. Dead Ringers: How Outsourcing is Changing the Way Indians Understand Themselves. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.
20.
Narayana RaoV.ShulmanD.SubrahmanyamS.2003. Textures of Time: Writing History in South India, 1600–1800. New Delhi: Permanent Black.
21.
PandeyG.2012. ‘Un-Archived Histories: The “Mad” and the “Trifling”.’ Economic & Political Weekly47(1): 37–41.
22.
PanditaR.2011. Hello, Bastar: The Untold Story of India’s Maoist Movement. Chennai: Tranquebar Press.
23.
PrasadA.2003. ‘The Gaze of the Other: Postcolonial Theory and Organizational Analysis.’ In Postcolonial Theory and Organizational Analysis: A Critical Engagement, edited by PrasadA. (pp. 3–43). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
24.
RayS.1971. Seemabaddha. Feature film.
25.
RungtaR. S.1970. The Rise of Business Corporations in India, 1851–1900. London: Cambridge University.
26.
Sahlin-AnderssonK.EngwallL., 2002. ‘Carriers, Flows and Sources of Management Knowledge.’ In The Expansion of Management Knowledge: Carriers, Flows and Sources, edited by Sahlin-AnderssonK.EngwallL. (pp. 3–32). Stanford, CA: Stanford Business.
27.
SarkarS.2002. Beyond Nationalist Frames: Postmodernism, Hindu Fundamentalism, History. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University.
SantosB.deS.2008. ‘The World Social Forum and the Global Left.’ Politics & Society36(2): 247–70.
30.
SrinivasN.2009. ‘Mimicry and Revival: The Transfer and Transformation of Management Knowledge to India.’ International Studies of Management and Organization38(4): 38–57.
31.
SrinivasN.2012. ‘Epistemic and Performative Quests for Authentic Management in India.’ Organization19(2): 145–58.
32.
SteinerU.2004. ‘Walter Benjamin: An Introduction to his Work and Thought.’ Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.
33.
SubrahmanyamS.2000. ‘Un grand dérangement: Dreaming an Indo-Persian Empire in South Asia, 1740–1800.’ Journal of Early Modern History4(3–4): 337–78.
34.
ThompsonE. P.1997. Beyond the Frontier: The Politics of a Failed Mission: Bulgaria 1944. Stanford, CA: Stanford University.
35.
TrouillotM.-R.1995. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston, MA: Beacon.
36.
ÜsdikenB.2004. ‘Americanization of European Management Education in Historical and Comparative Perspective: A Symposium.’ Journal of Management Inquiry13(2): 87–9.
37.
WurgaftB. A.2010. ‘The Uses of Walter: Walter Benjamin and the Counterfactual Imagination.’ History and Theory49(3): 361–83.
