Search results

This paper aims to find common ground between the supposed incompatible meta-historical positioning of positivism and post-positivism through a turn to mnemohistory in management and organizational history.

Drawing on the idea of creative synthesis and positioning theory, the authors interject concepts from cultural memory studies in historical research on business and organizations to encourage management historians and organization theorists interested in joining the dialogue around how the past is known in the present. Using notions of “aftermath” and “events,” the idea of apositivism is written into historical organization studies to focus on understanding the complex ways of how past events translate into history. The critical historic turn event is raised as an exemplar of these ideas.

The overview of the emergence of the controversial historic turn in management and organization studies and the positioning of its adherents and antagonists revealed that there may be some commonality between the fragmented sense of the field. It was revealed that effective history vis-à-vis mnemohistory may hold the potential of a shared scholarly ethic.

The research builds on recent work that has sought to bring together the boundaries of management and organizational history. This paper explains how mnemohistory can offer a common position that is instrumental for theorizing the relationships among the past-infused constructs such as organizational heritage, legacy and identity.

It is imperative for policymakers, financial institutions, and individual investors to comprehend the factors that impact stock market participation, given the growing significance of the stock market in terms of personal and national wealth. This study endeavours to explore the relationship between cognitive ability and participation in the stock market. We examine the relationship between cognitive abilities and stock market participation, and further explore the mechanism of their influence.

The data from the China Family Panel Studies is utilized, and Tobit and Probit regressions are employed. Additionally, an instrumental variable approach (IV-estimate) is implemented to address the endogeneity issue linked to cognitive ability, and the study’s findings are resilient.

The results reveal a significant positive relationship between cognitive ability and stock market participation. Additionally, the findings suggest that households with higher cognitive ability tend to aggregate more information, expand social networks, and take more risks. A likely explanation is that individuals with higher cognitive ability are more likely to process more external information and evaluate the subjective uncertainty of stock markets based on a well-defined probability distribution. Our findings indicate that the impact of cognitive ability on stock market participation varies among families with differing education levels, genders, marital statuses, and geographical locations.

Therefore, the roles of cognitive abilities in accelerating stock market participation should be fully considered. More information channels and sources that contain financial markets’ information (e.g. mobile applications and financial education) should be provided. Thus, the significance of cognitive ability in increasing stock market participation should be fully considered. Providing more information channels and sources, such as mobile applications and financial education, that contain financial markets’ information would be helpful. Our study contributes to promoting financial literacy and inclusion by highlighting the significant positive impact of cognitive ability, where institutions can tailor their outreach efforts and information channels to better serve individuals with different cognitive ability.

Under this heading are published regularly abstracts of all Reports and Memoranda of the Aeronautical Research Council, Reports and Technical Notes of the United States National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and publications of other similar Research Bodies as issued.

The purpose of this paper is to examine what qualities contributed to the durability of The Evolution of Management Thought (EMT) as a classic that provided scholars a grand narrative of management history for half a century. Specifically, this paper aspires to reveal how the EMT has overcome the boundedness of time over the past 50 years by being both timeless (signaling continuity/permanence) and historical (signaling change/contingency).

The authors analyze both the metaphorical (i.e. universal) and the historical (i.e. particular) meanings that the EMT authors have communicated over eight editions of the classic.

The authors found that Wren and Bedeian have managed to balance temporality and referentiality in the EMT by writing it as the “practical past” of management. The authors also found that the authors ensured the ongoing renewal of their classic by innovating it as an everlasting contemporary text.

This paper provides an original analysis of the EMT explaining why it is a “classic” of management history. The analysis presented in this paper reveals why this timeless work has been a singular touchstone that exemplifies the history of management discipline.

The purpose of this case study was to increase the knowledge base of how research librarians experience and cope with the turbulence of change within their library system. A library belonging to the Association of Research Libraries was selected for case study investigation. Seventeen librarians participated in on-site interviews, utilizing a protocol composed of a clustering technique and semi-structured interviewing. Instrumental case studies of each individual were then developed through a collective case method. The findings presented in this chapter include: the competing tensions between the physical and virtual environments, the speed of change, the search for professional meaning, and coping with the experiences of professional change. Analysis of the findings suggest: the emergence of a hypercritical state, the limiting nature of negative feedback, a complex systems framework for professional thinking, and coping in the hypercritical organization.

Purpose – To present the connection between modern network theory and Hayek's ideas on the brain and spontaneous orders.

Methodology/approach – To show that Hayek's ideas on the brain, spontaneous order, and why socialism cannot work are confirmed by network and self-organization theory, and to use network and self-organization theory to bridge Hayek's theory of the mind to his work on spontaneous orders.

Findings – Spontaneous orders are scale-free networks, but humans evolved a preference for hierarchical networks, which are typical of tribes and firms – and socialism. However, hierarchies only work for teleological organizations, not for ateleological spontaneous orders like economies. Part of the human preference for human-organized networks comes from our “intentional stance,” which automatically sees patterns as evidence of an organizer.

Research limitations/implications – This work acts as an introduction to possible directions in spontaneous order research. New work in bridging evolutionary and cognitive psychology (which includes Hayek's work) with self-organization and network theory acts as a promising development for neuro-Hayekians.

Social implications – Understanding there is an evolutionary bias for certain kinds of networks, even though those are not appropriate for certain kinds of social orders, and understanding the nature of these networks should help us understand the true relationships among individuals, organizations, and spontaneous orders.

Originality/value of chapter – This work brings Hayek “up to date,” with network theory and self-organization, showing to what extent Hayek was talking about these concepts. Seeing the similarities and differences between hierarchical and scale-free networks helps one understand how they come about, and in what contexts.

This special “Anbar Abstracts” issue of Industrial Management & Data Systems is split into six sections covering abstracts under the following headings: Industrial Management; Industrial Engineering and Work Study; Industrial Design; Quality Management; Manufacturing Strategy and Production; Information Systems.

In this chapter, the authors focus on a range of Australian news articles selected for their relevance to key themes in the area of child abuse and examine two high profile cases of child abuse deaths that were extensively reported on by the media and led to system reform. Challenges for media reporting on child abuse in Australia including a changing media landscape, lack of available child abuse data and lack of publicly available serious case reviews are discussed. The authors argue that there is a need for attention to be paid to children's resistance and agency in the context of violence and abuse to counter the objectification of children and uphold their rights. Following Finkelhor (2008), the authors argue that media reporting on child abuse in Australia reflects a general approach to child abuse that is fragmented, with different types of abuse viewed as separate from one another, and call for a more integrated understanding of child abuse. The authors highlight the complexity of media responses to child abuse in Australia, noting that while the social problem of child abuse can be misrepresented by the media, media reporting has also triggered significant systemic reform and advocated for children in cases where other systems failed them.

The purpose of this paper is to place the idea of the learning organization in a historical, multidisciplinary context with the aim of identifying obstacles and opportunities for its greater realization in practice.

Marking the 30th anniversary of publication of Peter Senge's “The Fifth Discipline”, the paper reflects on approaches to the study and analysis of organizations over the past century from German sociology, human relations, organization development, the learning organization to responses to the Covid-19 pandemic.

It is suggested that distributed leadership is critical to the realization of organizational learning and its absence is a major inhibitor of such learning. Following Argyris, it is argued that high levels of skill (personal mastery) may, in some circumstances, provide a barrier to organizational learning in the face of contextual uncertainty and change.

While no specific areas of research are proposed, questions are raised which may only be answered in the wake of appropriate (interdisciplinary) research.

The reflective nature of the paper suggests that significant reform is required in the legislation that encourages short-term thinking on the part of institutional investors to the detriment of strategic thinking and long-term planning.

The Covid-19 pandemic seems to have provided an opportunity to redress a perceived imbalance between traditional organizational thinking and opportunities demonstrated by effective community action, for reappraisal of organizations as communities of people as well as being formalized structures, systems and processes.

This paper seeks to synthesize diverse theories of organization with the aim of stimulating further innovation in approaches to organizational learning.

This piece is a republished autobiography of Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.

Chandler reflects on his life and career as a management historian.

Chandler reflects on his life and career, in particular how he came to write Strategy and Structure and its impact on him as a historian. He also discusses his life at Harvard Business School, the editing of the Roosevelt letters, and the writing of The Visible Hand.

This is excellent background material for the other papers in the issue, as well as a valuable personal insight into Chandler's own thinking.