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This chapter investigates March's concepts of ‘exploration’ and ‘exploitation’ in relation to the graduate labour market (Levinthal & March, 1993; March, 1991). We focus on its use of the imagery of potentiality as key criterion of employability and investigate its dimensions through March's conceptual framework. We argue that the balancing act of exploring and exploiting one's potential becomes one of the main coordinates through which contemporary organisations attempt to configure the profile of the future employee. An ambidextrous ideal employee is configured who is trapped between the continuous demands of routinised production, execution and implementation, and those of equally sustained experimentation, self-expression and creativity. We conclude by arguing that this ideal can be interpreted as another example of an unsustainable utopian image of work in the context of contemporary management. The theme of potentiality illustrates the dangers of this utopia in a specific way. On the one hand, it plays the role of an inescapable framework guiding the individual's sense of self, whilst on the other hand, it predicates the self based upon an image of limitless potential.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the way in which H.G. Wells' 1914 novel The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman might be interpreted as an “essay” illustrating some key aspects in the articulation of the ethos of business and management in the cultural context of early twentieth century capitalism.

Approaching the novel as a piece of cultural history, the paper analyzes its characters and themes, as well as its form and style, to investigate fundamental ethical aspects of business as an occupation and form of organization. The novel (one amongst countless examples in the last century) stimulates reflection upon the purposes of “businesses” (as institutions) and of “business people”.

H.G. Wells explores, in the rich form of a tragic novel, the relationship between the pursuit of profit, family life, and social integration. This problematic is not simply of historical interest. It has become intensified over the last century, yet is poorly represented in recent texts of “business ethics” which “hide” its complexity behind a search for simplistic, transcendental frameworks.

This is a new source for a wide historical contextualization of key aspects of business ethics by relating domestic life, entrepreneurial behavior, and social responsibility at the beginning of the twentieth century.

This paper aims to reconsider the significance of Henry Ford’s claim that “History is more or less bunk”. It argues that this seemingly philistine remark can be understood as a specific historiographical position which informed Ford’s wider worldview, management approach and philosophy of industry.

The paper draws on primary philosophical works, secondary criticism and archival evidence. These sources detail the context in which the claim was made, the ideas underpinning its articulation and the conceptual basis on which Ford’s wider perspectives and contributions to historical experience can be interpreted.

This paper interprets Ford’s claim as a gesture of allegiance to a deeper cultural sensibility that was informed by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s transcendental view of history.

In addition to offering a rereading of Ford’s historiographical position, Emerson’s thought is discussed in relation to Ford’s subsequent “living history” project (Greenfield Village), which is considered the materialisation of his historical and industrial worldview.

This interpretation reveals how a specific historiographical position held by one of the twentieth century’s leading industrialists offers new insights into his wider worldview and philosophy of industry. It contributes to recent studies that challenge taken-for-granted narratives in management history and recent work that has highlighted the influence of transcendental principles on Ford’s philosophy of industry.