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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the contributions of the so-called “Historic Turn” in Organization Studies through the attempt by Cummings et al. (2016) to offer a new and alternative approach to teaching and researching the history of management ideas. A New History of Management is intended to be a provocation rather than a practical plan, and by their own admission, Cummings et al. (2016) prefer controversy to detailed analysis.

This paper offers a comment and reinterpretation of a single contribution to highlight deficiencies which are symptomatic of the post-modernist research agenda around the “Historic Turn” in Organization Studies. The argument develops through a critical reading of Cummings et al. (2016) to determine whether theirs is a thoughtful and serious piece of work.

Cummings et al. (2016) invite us to revise and re-evaluate the genesis of management ideas available across textbooks. This by questioning some of the beliefs regarding the origins of management thought within textbooks aimed at both general management and the history of management thought. The premise of Cummings and colleagues is a timely and welcomed suggestion. So is their attempt to broaden the debate to alternative epistemological positions. They can potentially help to improve the emergence of conceptual and theoretical understandings of the history of managers’, business and management thought. Although far from being exhaustive, the paper points to the large number of inconsistencies and poor historiography in Cummings et al. (2016). This is in line with other contributions to the so-called “Historic Turn” in Organization Studies. The central argument presented by this paper is the myopic and technically poor approach of the “Historic Turn”. It is the case that Cummings et al. (2016) fail in their attempt to offer an alternative to established textbooks or explain the development of different approaches to construct systematic studies that, over time, consider the evolution of management, managers and those who have conceptualized their performance.

This paper does not present new (archival) historical evidence.

The central contribution/ambition of this paper is to incentivize an advance of the current understanding of the origins and evolution of systematic thinking on management, managers and business organizations. The ambition of this paper is in line with Cummings et al. (2016) aim to incentivize research into how textbooks address the origins of management and management thought. Textbooks in both general management and the history of management thought, and the story told in them are important tools that speak directly to the ability of historical research to help advance the different disciplines that form general studies in business and management.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/09564239910288978. When citing the article, please cite: Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo, Douglas Wood, (1999), “Management of core capabilities in Mexican and European banks”, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 10 Iss: 5, pp. 430 - 448.

Applications of information technology have been directly responsible for the increase in productivity of business, government and academic activities. Business and management historians have yet to contribute to better understanding such processes. This paper aims to address this shortcoming through the internal and organisational history of a system for speedy, online distribution of recent additions to the broad literatures on economics and related areas called NEP: New Economic Papers.

This is a first person account (partly autobiographical) which also includes interviews and the use of archived e‐mail correspondence.

The advent of the internet promised a revolutionary change by democratising the social institutions related to the creation and dissemination of academic knowledge. Instead, this story tells how participants slowly but steadily tended to replicate established institutions.

This paper provides a story of the NEP project and shows how one person's drive could generate a broader community of volunteers (constituted by a large number of academics and practitioners who provide critical support for its functioning). The paper provides details of the social and technological challenges for the construction of the technological platform as well as the evolution of its governance.

There is no historiography in business and management history on how to deal with changes in archived material resulting from the application of information and telecommunication technologies. Given the rate of change for events in the third industrial revolution, this paper shows it is possible and indeed relevant to document events in the recent past.

The purpose of this paper is to look at the past development and potential of the Rhenish capitalist governance “model”. The origins and nature of the model are to be discussed. The aim is to focus on its specific role within the transformation processes of Central‐Eastern European economies. East‐Central Europe is where, it is contended, Rhineland capitalism's future will be decided.

Using a survey questionnaire, customers' perceptions of bank governance and practice in the Polish‐German city of Zgorzelec‐Görlitz are explored. The experience of Dresdner Bank is stressed and the fact that the local people not long before lived under a Socialist regime. A control group in London is used to ascertain the presence of German management traditions as opposed to Anglo‐American approaches to management in the context of retail bank markets. In total there were 210 participants in the survey (all equally divided between the three cities).

German and Polish respondents mostly rejected co‐determination and favored top‐down management. Germans seem to make trust and loyalty a major factor in their retail banking decisions while Polish seemed more open to American style marketing. The findings support the hypothesis about the long‐term viability of Rhinish capitalism.

The paper ascertains that the presence of German management traditions as opposed to Anglo‐American approaches to management in the context of retail bank markets in a border region is dominant.

Competition in the provision of financial services has intensified as external change (including technological innovation) has created more opportunities for service delivery and extended the range of potential competitors and forms of competition. At the same time, technological innovation and applications of Information Technology in particular led to new and faster ways of sharing information. Financial service organizations, therefore face a paradox between the co‐operation needed to benchmark and competitive rivalry. Through case studies, the research explores the penetration of best practice benchmarking in financial services and the role of technological innovations in that process, with an emphasis on online applications. Results suggest that changes in performance benchmarks for service delivery resulting from new technology are associated with greater competitive rivalry among financial service organizations. Results also suggest that technological change can provide new and innovative ways to exchange information but even if that is the case, incentives for internal and external co‐operation can remain unchanged.

This paper aims to look at the past development and potential of the Rhenish capitalist governance “model”. The paper aims to discuss the origins and nature of the model. The main focus is on the model's in crisis and its specific role within the transformation processes of Central‐Eastern European economies. East‐Central Europe is where, it is contended, Rhineland capitalism's future will be decided.

Drawing on archival research (including current writings) the paper draws out two salient features of the Rhenish capitalist model which would be relevant to explore bank customers perceptions of bank governance and practice in the Polish‐German city of Zgorzelec‐Görlitz. The experience of Dresdner Bank is stressed and the fact that the local people not long before lived under a Socialist regime.

The paper contends that the abandonment of the social harmony structured into the Rhineland model would be a great pity, since the 100 years of effort it took to create it would go down the drain.

The paper ascertains the presence of German management traditions as opposed to Anglo‐American approaches to management in the context of retail bank markets in a border region.

This research considers the way banks have altered their strategies as regulatory change (i.e. deregulation) and information technology (IT) innovations created more opportunities for service delivery and extended the range of potential competitors and forms of competition. These external changes provided new diversification and growth opportunities but also modified prior expectations about the way managers defined and controlled their bank’s core capabilities in pursuing current and potential business. The main research instrument used was a one hour, semi‐structured interview; and in total 55 managers of commercial banks, investment banks, management consulting firms and regulators from Mexico, Spain and the UK participated. Qualitative and quantitative analysis established that the great majority of banks responded to changes in growth opportunities through diversification moves but with no clear link to core capabilities. IT management played a secondary role in the design of bank strategy but at the same time, IT applications were perceived as an important force to modify competition in bank markets by supporting radical re‐engineering of service delivery in ways that undermined previous advantages of scale and scope.