Form and media in management and organizational history how different research programs transform the ‘Past’ into ‘History’

ABSTRACT

Management and organizational history has devoted relatively little attention to what constitutes ‘data’, hindering potentially productive discussions between diverse research programs. This article analyzes variations in how research programs observe and create empirical data. To do so, we introduce the difference between form and medium as implicated in all observations. Observation is a tight coupling (form), which is made of, and made possible by, loosely coupled elements (media). In this perspective, empirical data are media through which historians observe the ‘past’ in order to transform it into ‘history’. To explore the value of this meta-perspective on data, the article analyzes, how empirical data as media of loosely coupled elements are created differently in the works of Kr. Erslev, Michel Foucault, Hayden White, and Niklas Luhmann. The analysis shows that the construction of empirical data as specific kinds of media constitutes radically different potentialities for the way in which ‘history’ can be formed. Our paper contributes to the ‘historical turn’, by opening a space for comparison and discussion between different research programs, thereby potentially leading to increased integration between the fields of history and management and organization studies

KEYWORDS:

• Empirical data
• form
• management history
• media
• observation
• the historical turn

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Niels Åkerstrøm Andersen

Niels Åkerstrøm Andersen is professor at the Department of Business humanities and Law at Copenhagen Business School. His work concerns changes in public administration and welfare management. He has an interest in analytical strategies inspired by systems theory, conceptual, history deconstruction, and discourse analysis. He has published a number of books and articles dealing with the conceptual history of administrative decisions, the public employee, citizen and responsibility, organization and play. His latest book is: “Public management in transition. The Orchestration of potentiality” (2016 with Justine Grønbæk Pors).

Mads Mordhorst

Mads Mordhorst is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Business History at Copenhagen Business School and guest professor at Oslo University with a focus on the Nordics and civil society. His publication list includes more than 40 academic pieces, many with a Nordic perspective, and he is co-editor of the book The Making and Circulation of Nordic Models, Ideas and Images (Routledge, 2021). His research interests include branding, nation-branding, the food industry and cooperatives. He is primarily interested in how companies use history and memory in the creation of power, strategy, legitimacy and identity.