From Monsanto to ‘Monsatan’: Ownership and control of history as a strategic resource

Abstract

This historical case study of the multinational agribusiness Monsanto explores the challenges organizations face when attempting to translate a problematic past into strategic gain. We draw on Resource-Based Theory (RBT) to explain how the relative ability to own and control history as an intangible resource enables or constrains effective managerial deployments of history. Our analysis explores three modes of using the past strategically: learning from the past, selectively interpreting the past, and disowning the past – the latter of which we demonstrate is distinct from existing conceptualizations of ‘forgetting’, ‘rubbishing’, or ‘distancing’ the past. Our analysis builds on RBT to explain why some modes of deploying history are more effective than others at enabling a strategic use of the past. The ambiguous nature of owning and controlling history, we contend, conditions the extent to which each mode of deploying history can or cannot produce strategic gains.

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© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Keywords:

• Resource-based theory (RBT)
• Monsanto
• strategic management
• ownership
• control
• chemicals
• agribusiness
• biotechnology
• learning from the past
• selectively interpreting the past
• disowning the past

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shane Hamilton

Shane Hamilton is Senior Lecturer in Management at The York Management School, University of York. He is the author of Supermarket USA: Food and Power in the Cold War Farms Race (Yale, 2018). He has published articles on food and agribusiness in Technology & Culture, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, History of Retailing and Consumption, Enterprise & Society, Business History Review, and Agricultural History.

Beatrice D’Ippolito

Beatrice D’Ippolito is Senior Lecturer in Strategic Management at The York Management School, University of York. Her research focuses on the emergence and development of mechanisms of knowledge creation and diffusion that connect the micro level of firm dynamics with the meso level of industry evolution. Her research has been published in Research Policy, Industry and Innovation, and Technovation.