Theorising narrative in business history^*

* Paper accepted by Stefanie Decker

Abstract

This article, and the special issue that it introduces, encourages business historians to reflect on the narrative nature of the work they produce. The articles provides an overview of how and why narratives came to occupy such a prominent status during the linguistic and narrative ‘turns’ of the 1970s. It then compares the different conceptualisations of narrative analysis that have emerged in historical research and in management and organisational studies. Finally, this introduction points out various ways in which business history can become enriched if its practitioners become more aware of the communicative, rhetorical and argumentative character of their work.

Keywords:

• Narratives
• Narratology
• Linguistic Turn
• Historical Theory

Notes

* Paper accepted by Stefanie Decker

1. Benjamin, ‘Storyteller’, 83–84.

2. Lyotard, Postmodern Condition.

3. Prince, ‘Narratology’; Fludernik, ‘Histories’.

4. Jones and Zeitlin, Oxford Handbook; Wilson et al., Routledge Companion; Scranton and Fridenson, Reimagining. But see Munslow, ‘Managing the Past’, and other chapters in McLaren, Mills and Weatherbee, Routledge Companion.

5. Stone, ‘The revival’.

6. Chandler, Strategy and Structure; Chandler, Scale and Scope.

7. Perchard et al., ‘Clio’.

8. Rowlinson, Hassard, and Decker, ‘Strategies’.

9. Hansen, ‘Networks’; Mordhorst, ‘Arla’.

10. Anteby and Molnár, ‘Collective memory’; Brunninge, ‘Using history’; Ericson, ‘Exploring the Future’; Foster et al., ‘History’; Schultz and Hernes, ‘Temporal perspective’.

11. Suddaby, Foster, and Trank, ‘Rhetorical history’.

12. Hyvärinen, ‘Revisiting’.

13. Erslev, Historisk Teknik, 1–2.

14. See for example Munslow, ‘Managing the past’.

15. Aristotle, Poetics, 1451 a-b.

16. Cicero, Oratory, 92. .

17. Koselleck, ‘Historia magistra’.

18. Schiffman has called this process ‘the birth of the past’. See Schiffman, The Birth, 5–9.

19. von Humboldt, ‘Historian’s task’, 61.

20. Iggers, German Conception, 44–63.

21. Ranke, ‘Zur Kritik’.

22. Quoted in Iggers, Historiography, 25.

23. White, Metahistory.

24. White, Metahistory, 2 (emphasis in the original).

25. The anthology edited by Rorty, The Linguistic Turn, is often mentioned as having coined the original concept.

26. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations; Austin, How to Do Things.

27. Saussure, Course.

28. In 1969, the Bulgarian–French literary theorist and historian Tzvetan Todorov coined the term ‘narratology’. See Prince, ‘Narratology’, 524.

29. Barthes, Mythologies.

30. Greimas, ‘Actants, Actors’; Propp, Morphology.

31. See this argument being made for example in Appleby et. al, ‘Knowledge’, 14–20.

32. White, Metahistory, 5.

33. See amongst others Marwick, ‘New Nature’, 14.

34. Munslow, Deconstructing History; Jenkins, Re-Thinking History.

35. Evans, In Defence, 3–4.

36. Stone, ‘The revival’.

37. McCloskey, The Rhetoric.

38. McCloskey, ‘The Rhetoric,’ 509.

39. Shiller, ‘Narrative Economics’.

40. Clark and Rowlinson, ‘The treatment’; Decker, ‘Paradigms lost’; Mills et al., ‘Re-visiting’. See also the forthcoming special issue on ‘Uses of the past: history and memory in organizations and organizing’ in the journal Organization Studies, edited by Mads Mordhorst, Andrew Popp, Roy Suddaby and Daniel Wadhwani.

41. Czarniawska, Narratives.

42. Godfrey et al., ‘What is organizational history’.

43. Bucheli and Wadhwani, Organizations in Time.

44. Rowlinson, Hassard and Decker, ‘Strategies’, 250.

45. Boje, Narrative Methods.

46. Gabriel, Storytelling.

47. Rowlinson and Hassard, ‘The invention’; Ericson, ‘Exploring’; Suddaby, Foster and Trank, ‘Rhetorical history’; Foster et al., ‘History as social memory“; Anteby and Molnár, “Collective memory’.

48. Hansen, ‘Networks’; Hansen, ‘Organizational culture’; Hansen, ‘Business History’; Mordhorst. ‘From counterfactual history’; Mordhorst, ‘Arla and Danish’; Kroeze and Keulen. ‘Leading a multinational’.

49. Wadhwani and Bucheli, ‘The future’.

50. Koselleck, ‘Futures past’.

51. Gioia, Schultz, and Corley, ‘Organizational identity’; Hansen, ‘Organizational culture’; Anteby and Molnár, ‘Collective memory’; Mordhorst, ‘Arla and Danish’.

52. Rowlinson et al., ‘Social remembering’.

53. Suddaby, Foster and Trank, ‘Rhetorical history’; Schultz and Hernes, ‘A temporal perspective’.

54. Popp and Holt, ‘The Presence’; Popp and Holt, ‘Entrepreneurship and Being’.

55. Khaire and Wadhwani, ‘Changing landscapes’.

56. Hansen, ‘Co-Branding’.

57. Kirsch, Moeen and Wadhwani, ‘Historicism and industry’.

58. Nora, ‘Between memory’.

59. Taylor, Cooke and Bell, ‘Business history’.

60. Ricoeur, Memory.

61. Toms and Wilson, ‘In defence,’ 111.

62. See for example Arcangeli, Cultural History, and Burke, What is Cultural.

63. Zeitlin, ‘Historical alternatives’, Booth and Rowlinson, ‘Management and organizational’, p. 17.

64. North, Institutions, Institutional Change, 4–8.

65. Anderson, ‘Political uses’; Mellon, Political Uses; Graham-Harrison and Boffey, ‘Lithuania fears’.

66. Hansen, ‘Organizational culture’; Hansen, ”From finance capitalism”; Mordhorst, ”From counterfactual history”; Schwarzkopf, ‘The subsiding sizzle’; Schwarzkopf, ‘Marketing history’; Sørensen, ‘Banking on’.

67. Eakin, ‘Narrative identity’.

68. Moss, ‘Remembering’ (italics added).

69. Fridenson, ‘Review essay’. Like Hill, J. Allan Nevins, too, had a background in English literature.

70. Scranton and Fridenson, Reimagining, 30–33.

71. Toynbee, A Study, 267.