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This paper develops a framework for understanding history as a source of competitive advantage. Prior research suggests that some firms enjoy preferential access to resources as a result of their past. Historians, by contrast, understand past events as more than an objective account of reality. History also has an interpretive function. History is a social and rhetorical construction that can be shaped and manipulated to motivate, persuade, and frame action, both within and outside an organization. Viewed as a malleable construct, the capacity to manage history can, itself, be a rare and inimitable resource.

Organizational wrongdoing researchers often look to past cases to empirically develop and support theoretical understanding. Their research is therefore conducted at a temporal distance to focal events and frequently relies on retrospective accounts and surviving documentary evidence. These methodological circumstances define historical research practice, and we demonstrate in this paper the valuable insights that historical approaches can provide organizational wrongdoing research. Specifically, we draw on a range of practices from history and the social sciences to introduce four historically informed approaches: narrative history, analytically structured history, historical process study, short-term process study. We differentiate these based on their particular affordances and treatment of two key methodological considerations: historical evidence and temporality. We demonstrate the specific value these approaches represent to organizational wrongdoing research with several exemplars showing how they have been used in related fields of research.

It is commonly acknowledged that history matters in strategy. However, the strategy literature mainly discusses history in terms of path dependency, leaving little room for managerial agency, despite growing anecdotal evidence that managers can actively draw on corporate history to improve decision-making. An emerging literature on how managers use the past to give sense to internal and external stakeholders has given rise to a more agent-based approach to history, but while sense-giving is commonly connected to sense-making as a driver of strategic change, the role of history in sense-making remains unexplored. Drawing on the concept of analogical reasoning, this chapter theorizes the connection between corporate archives and managerial sense-making, arguing that analogies drawn from past experience can reduce uncertainty and foster learning. This theory leads to the suggestion that consulting the corporate archive can promote strategic renewal and thus boost performance.

The pursuit of sustainable development goals (SDGs) is the primary driver of road infrastructure development (RID), but multiple parties are involved in the process, causing confusion. To effectively manage stakeholder processes, Jeffry (2009) proposed a framework based on a preventative double-path relationship between stakeholders and institutions. Bal et al. (2013) proposed a five-stage framework for stakeholder management, which includes identifying key players and issues, conducting analysis and plans, tightening restraints on making promises, creating a plan and soliciting input from interested parties, and monitoring its effectiveness. Successful stakeholder management for sustainable road infrastructure project (SRIP) implementation has been shown to have several benefits, such as enhanced understanding of the fiscal position, improving status, building relationships, developing trust, and enduring collaborative relationships, distributing skills and practices, and recognizing and mitigating threats and vulnerabilities. Infrastructure projects involving roads include a range of complex activities, and it is essential for infrastructure projects to evaluate potential project partners prior to making a final decision. Dealing with many stakeholders and maintaining a reasonable degree of concordance between their interests is crucial for fruitful endeavours. It is important for project groups and partners to have a shared understanding of the project’s goals and solicit their input and for a precise approach to identify and manage project partners throughout the execution phase. However, RID is still in its infancy when it comes to managing stakeholders and relationships. Stakeholder management has been ad hoc due to a lack of standardized methodologies, approaches, strategies, and processes, and infrastructure development procedures should include a systematic approach to managing stakeholders. The bulk of SRIP implementation needs come from stakeholders, making project partners crucial. The sustainable development (SD) strategy emphasizes the importance of SRIP execution to stakeholders, such as architects, quantity surveyors, conservationists, environmentalists, regional managers, project managers, suppliers, subcontractors, and sustainability consultants. This section of the research addressed the omissions of previously analysed comprehensive factors in SID models and frameworks, including climate change response, public involvement, and stakeholder management. Strategies for filling these gaps were discussed. An analysis of relevant academic literature was conducted.

The author focusses on corporate history from a media aesthetic perspective using the case of the Danish brewer Carlsberg. Through a careful examination of the company’s website that draws on Kress and Van Leeuwen’s work on modality, the author examines how images and symbols of the past and present are intertwined so as to ‘curate’ history and present the brand as both deeply rooted and authentic.