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dc.contributor.authorBowden, Bradley
dc.date.accessioned2021-01-13T03:35:31Z
dc.date.available2021-01-13T03:35:31Z
dc.date.issued2020
dc.identifier.issn1751-1348
dc.identifier.doi10.1108/JMH-06-2020-0037
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10072/400927
dc.description.abstractPurpose Management history has in the past 15 years witnessed growing enthusiasm for “critical” research methodologies associated with the so-called “historic turn”. This paper aims to argue, however, that the “historic turn” has proved to an “historic wrong turn”, typically associated with confused and contradictory positions. In consequence, Foucault’s belief that knowledge is rooted in discourse, and that both are rooted in external structures of power, is used while simultaneously professing advocacy of White’s understanding that history is fictive, the product of the historian’s imagination. Design/methodology/approach This paper explores the intellectual roots of the historic (wrong) turn in the idealist philosophies of Nietzsche, Croce, Foucault, White and Latour as well as the critiques that have been made of those theories from within “critical” or “Left” theoretical frameworks. Findings Failing to properly acknowledge the historical origin of their ideas and/or the critiques of those ideas – and misrepresenting all contrary opinion as “positivist” – those associated with the historic (wrong) turn replicate the errors of their theoretical champions. The author thus witnesses a confusion of ontology (the nature of being) and epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and, consequently, of “facts” (things that exist independently of our fancy), “evidence” (how ascertain knowledge of a fact) and “interpretation” (how I connect evidence to explain an historical outcome). Originality/value Directed toward an examination of the conceptual errors that mark the so-called “historic turn” in management studies, this article argues that the holding contradictory positions is not an accidental by-product of the “historic turn”. Rather, it is a defining characteristic of the genre.
dc.description.peerreviewedYes
dc.languageEnglish
dc.publisherEmerald Publishing Limited
dc.relation.ispartofjournalJournal of Management History
dc.subject.fieldofresearchStrategy, management and organisational behaviour
dc.subject.fieldofresearchHistory and philosophy of specific fields
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode3507
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode5002
dc.subject.keywordsSocial Sciences
dc.subject.keywordsBusiness & Economics
dc.subject.keywordsFoucault
dc.subject.keywordsManagement history
dc.titleThe historic (wrong) turn in management and organizational studies
dc.typeJournal article
dc.type.descriptionC1 - Articles
dcterms.bibliographicCitationBowden, B, The historic (wrong) turn in management and organizational studies, Journal of Management History, 2020, ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print)
dc.date.updated2021-01-12T04:42:17Z
dc.description.versionAccepted Manuscript (AM)
gro.description.notepublicThis publication has been entered as an advanced online version in Griffith Research Online.
gro.rights.copyright© 2020 Emerald. This is the author-manuscript version of this paper. Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. Please refer to the journal's website for access to the definitive, published version.
gro.hasfulltextFull Text
gro.griffith.authorBowden, Bradley


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