Search results

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the contributions made by Charles Clinton Spaulding, a prominent black business leader in the USA in the early 1900s. This paper highlights the management philosophies and practical work of Spaulding, an individual who considerably influenced African-American management thought and practice, and played an important role in Corporate America from the turn of the twentieth century onward.

The research was conducted by reviewing and synthesizing a number of writings including published works by Spaulding himself, as well as articles about Spaulding from sources such as history journals, newspapers and other resources.

Spaulding’s contributions were significant, from his insight regarding the fundamental necessities for the effective management of a business, to his management style and implementation of practices which reflected his recognition of the importance of transformational leadership, employee development, diversity, corporate social responsibility and a strong positive culture for the successful management of an enterprise. Thus, this paper concludes that the title of “Father of African-American Management” is a fitting tribute to this business pioneer who overcame the odds to become the most successful black business executive in the early twentieth century.

The contributions made by minorities, including African-Americans, to management thought and practice have not been adequately covered in the literature. This paper begins to fill a noticeable void by drawing from infrequently acquired sources such as Spaulding’s article “The Administration of Big Business” and highlighting his contributions to the African-American community and the business community at large.

This paper, via the use of management and entrepreneurial philosophies from Charles Clinton Spaulding, aims to advocate the integration of African-American Entrepreneurship and Management History into the business curriculum at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) as well as predominantly white institutions (PWIs). Along with this curriculum update, the use of critical pedagogy as a form of critical thinking is also recommended to complement the learning process.

Articles from early and recent newspapers, magazines, journals and books were examined and synthesised to clarify how curriculum modification and critical pedagogy could aid in increased entrepreneurial success.

The paper concludes with a framework that demonstrates the curriculum interface, including Spaulding’s insights and critical pedagogy, to connect black students to entrepreneurial success.

Although African-Americans surpass Caucasian-Americans in entrepreneurial attempts, blacks lag behind whites in entrepreneurial success. A reason for their higher failure rate is a lack of exposure to positive images who are also black. Integrating African-American Entrepreneurship and Management History into the business curriculum will help ensure that these positive images are sufficiently introduced and explored as a source of learning. Critical pedagogy is also endorsed as a complementary strategy to aid learning, as it is associated with processes that deviate from traditional instruction that often ignores student diversity, to facilitate the expansion of the mind as well as social transformation.

This paper aims to achieve four things: to build on recent discussion on the neglect of Frances Perkins’ contribution to the understandings of management and organization (MOS); to surface selected insights by Perkins to reveal her potential as an important MOS scholar and practitioner; to explain some of the reasons for the neglect of Perkins, particularly by MOS scholars; and to interrogate the role of management history in the neglect of Perkins and her management and organizational insights.

This paper adopts a feminist post-structural lens through which the authors focus on major discourses (dominant interrelated practices and ideas) that influence how people come to define themselves, others and the character of a particular phenomenon (e.g. management history). To that end, the authors have undertaken Foucauldian discourse analysis, where they examine various sources that collectively work to present a dominant idea of a given set of practices (in this case, management and organization studies and associated histories of the field). In Foucauldian terms, these interrelated practices constitute an archive that consists of various selected materials (e.g. the Roosevelt Library and the Columbia University Oral History Collection) and, in this case, works on and by Francis Perkins. Thus, the authors analyzed various materials for their discursive value (viz. the extent to which they produced and reinforced a particular notion that excluded, neglected or ignored women from any privileged role in MOS and management history).

The findings are discursive, which means that the purpose is to disrupt current knowledge of MOS and management history by revealing how its practices as a field of study serve to leave certain people (i.e. Frances Perkins), influences (i.e. the impact of the “settlement ethos” on the New Deal), and social phenomena (i.e. the New Deal) out of account.

The objective is to ask for a rethink of the field definition of MOS and management history, to include broader levels of social endeavour (e.g. labour, social welfare and politics) and a range of hitherto neglected theorists, in particular Frances Perkins. Achievements in labour, industry and management of organizations, credited to the New Deal, are overlooked in MOS and management and organizational history. As Secretary of Labour, Perkins researched, lobbied and ushered in critical New Deal measures which transformed working environments for men, women and children with social welfare and labour policies that contributed to the understanding of managing and organizing in the modern world.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to knowledge in the field of business by recognizing two historic entrepreneurs who played an important role in the African-American community, and by viewing their contributions through the lens of servant leadership.

The study is conducted by reviewing and synthesizing a number of writings from sources, such as history journals, newspapers and other resources.

The main finding is that two former slaves (Merrick and Herndon) practiced servant leadership in the early twentieth century as a way to create jobs and transform communities.

The contributions made by African-Americans have not been adequately covered in the literature. This paper begins to fill a noticeable void by highlighting the contributions of two former slaves who managed to become successful servant leaders within their communities.

The purpose of this study is to draw attention to the heuristic value of intersectionality by historicizing it as a framework appropriate for the use of studying discrimination and discriminatory practices in organizations over time.

Utilizing a fusion between amodernist historiography vis-à-vis the nascent ANTi-History approach and intersectional complexity, the authors draw upon historical narratives from archival materials British Airways to empirically examine the utility of, and turn to, intersectional history in historical organization studies.

Analysis of archival materials and commissioned corporate histories revealed subjectivities of socially constructing historicized intersectional identities. This suggests that certain identities have been and continue to “enjoy” privilege while others are marginalized and/or neglected through serial interconnected historical meanings. These processes of privileging and marginalization rely on the way a nexus of meaning is configured.

The research process relied and is dependent on limited archival materials within a single organization (British Airways) and industry (civil aviation). The critique herein should not be misinterpreted as judgment of the airline itself as an exemplar of discriminatory practices but rather for its longevity as an ongoing concern; its rich, colonialist history within the United Kingdom and accessibility of data. Archival traces are housed within a semi-public corporate archive which means those traces available for study have been professional and rhetorically curated.

From the perspective of workplace diversity, our aim has been to reveal to diversity professionals and activists not only the role of history in shaping discrimination but also, in particular, to be alert to the processes whereby the production of knowledge of the past takes place. The authors hope also to have drawn attention to the power of organizations in the generation of discriminatory historical accounts and the need to further explore how such accounts are produced as knowledge of the past. Finally, the authors introduce the notion of “nexus of meaning” to suggest that in the complexity of intersectionality, the authors need to explore not only how people experience different and combined forms of discrimination but also how those experiences are shaped in a complex series of meaning that owe much to past experiences.

The research directs attention to the nexus of meaning that constitute intersecting identities.

The research attempts to historicize intersectionality as a qualitative framework worthy of consideration in management and organization studies. From the perspective of studying discrimination in organizational life, the aim of this paper is to bring forward the role history plays in shaping discrimination as well as the processes whereby the production of knowledge of the past takes place. Attention is also drawn to the power of organizations in the generation of discriminatory historical accounts and the need to further explore how such accounts are produced. This study introduces the nexus of meaning analytic that understands how the experiences of different and combined forms of discrimination are shaped by meanings of the past.

The purpose of this paper is to establish a supported and validated reference point for understanding how Nicodemus, Kansas warrants significant inclusion in both the history of management and current entrepreneurship education.

This paper consists of a literature review to identify the salient historical and theoretical importance of the community of Nicodemus, Kansas. The research was conducted by reviewing and couching the research in this context.

Nicodemus, born out of an entrepreneurial spirit of newly liberated Black Americans, is the surviving entrepreneurial force for the African-American efforts in the western US expansion efforts in the later 1800s. The community, courage and cooperative views of the settlers were instrumental in overcoming a variety of hardships inherent in the location, society and time period to not only survive but also deliver growth and success. Nicodemus personified cultural pride and self-reliance, which fueled personal and commercial success.

The cooperative advantage is justified to be included in discussions of American management history, taught in the entrepreneurship curriculum and used by practitioners.

Collective courage and cooperative advantage used by Nicodemus carries implications for how modern Black communities can advance their economic and social agendas.

Coverage of Black contributions management and entrepreneurship is scant, but a Black Enlightenment period has recently changed that scholars have recently begun to cover these significant moments in the literature (Prieto and Phipps, 2019). We argue that Nicodemus as an entrepreneurial community serves as a case study that needs contextualization in this Black Enlightenment era and holds pertinent implications for modern Black communities.