Curated reading list on the topic of ‘Learning in Organizations’ in management and organization studies
A collaboration between the Management Learning journal and the Talking About Organizations Podcast!
The list below is another of our curated collections of episodes and accompanying readings courtesy of the Management Learning journal. The aim of these collections is to pair our episodes with external thematic readings in order to augment gaps in our portfolio, provide quick ‘crash courses’, as well as offer more in depth bibliographies on selected topics.
There is much we can learn about management, leadership, and context through the use of historical case studies — through traditional scholarly studies, fictional works based on history, or historical documents re-read through an organizational lens. The curated list here is extensive and covers numerous historically significant cases, some of which could easily be overlooked by busy researchers looking at contemporary matters.
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Other curated reading lists: Care | Emotions | Gender & Feminism | Group Relations | Historical Approaches | Learning in Organizations | Sociomateriality | Return to Resources Page
Resources from the Management Learning Journal
Alcadipani, R. (2017). Reclaiming sociological reduction: Analysing the circulation of management education in the periphery. Management Learning, 48(5), 535-551.
Management knowledge and practices have been circulating worldwide for a long time, and business and management schools are central locations where management knowledge and practices have been produced. Few studies discuss how this circulation occurs in the periphery in general and how management education from the United States has circulated in the periphery in particular. Using historical research, this article aims to reclaim the notion of sociological reduction, a notion developed by Brazilian scholar in the 1950s, to make sense of how US management education was implemented in a Brazilian management school. By doing so, this article contributes to the analysis of the spread of US management education grounded in a postcolonial approach and addresses calls for analysing epistemologies from the periphery.
Wanderley, S., & Barros, A. (2020). The Alliance for Progress, modernization theory, and the history of management education: The case of CEPAL in Brazil. Management Learning, 51(1), 55–72.
We investigate the case of the Economic Commission for Latin America in Brazil to discuss how modernization theory was mobilized to influence management education. The theories formulated by the Economic Commission for Latin America formed the basis of the courses it offered on development administration and management and the public administration schools it helped create. The theories from the Economic Commission for Latin America were contrary to US interests and to the modernization theory tenets developed by US scholars. The Alliance for Progress, launched in 1961 by US President J.F. Kennedy, was a project informed by modernization theory aimed to foster development in Latin America, and to contain the spread of Communism after the Cuban Revolution. The Alliance for Progress mobilized a network of US-controlled institutions that invested in management education and in an interpretation of development administration and management based on modernization theory that confronted the Economic Commission for Latin America. We make use of Burke’s Pentad to articulate the interactions among (asymmetrical) players at different levels of analysis and along the historical period investigated. We treat science as literature, and we present our analysis in a dramatistic narrative to promote reflexive management learning. We show that US-led investment in management education increased considerably after the launch of the Alliance for Progress, and that it lasted throughout the 1960s.
Fournier, V. (2006). Breaking from the weight of the eternal present: Teaching organizational difference. Management Learning, 37(3), 295-311.
This article reflects on an attempt to encourage students to imagine alternative forms of organizing, and on the ultimate failure of this pedagogical experiment. It explores students’ reluctance to take organizational difference seriously in terms symptomatic of a broader inertia in social sciences that severs ‘difference’ from the realm of possibility, reducing difference to degrees of capitalist practices and the future to an extension of the present. Drawing on the work of Gibson-Graham, it argues that making alternative organizing conceivable requires challenging the capitalocentric reading of the economy, and developing a vocabulary of economic differences. It suggests that to address the common charge that alternatives will not be able to withstand the ‘tide of history’, we also need to work on conceptions of time and history that open the future to the possibility of difference. It draws on Foucault’s genealogy to ‘break history’ and insert points of rupture at which ‘new beginnings’ can be imagined.
Laurell, C., Sandström, C., Eriksson, K., & Nykvist, R. (2020). Digitalization and the future of Management Learning: New technology as an enabler of historical, practice-oriented, and critical perspectives in management research and learning. Management Learning, 51(1), 9–108.
How are historical, practice-oriented, and critical research perspectives in management affected by digitalization? In this article, we describe and discuss how two digital research approaches can be applied and how they may influence the future directions of management scholarship and education: Social Media Analytics and digital archives. Our empirical illustrations suggest that digitalization generates productivity improvements for scholars, making it possible to undertake research that was previously too laborious. It also enables researchers to pay closer attention to detail while still being able to abstract and generalize. We therefore argue that digitalization contributes to a historical turn in management, that practice-oriented research can be conducted with less effort and improved quality and that micro-level data in the form of digital archives and online contents make it easier to adopt critical perspectives.
Pio, E., & Syed, J. (2020). Stelae from ancient India: Pondering anew through historical empathy for diversity. Management Learning, 51(1), 109-129.
Diversity management is generally considered to be rooted in activism, legislation and scholarship in Europe and North America. In this article, we draw on the notion of historical empathy to analyse and highlight an Eastern legacy, specifically Aśokan (273–232 BC) stelae, for management learning on diversity. Thus, we encourage pondering anew on history based on Aśokan teachings in ancient India, via dhamma (affective connection) and governance (perspective taking). We contribute to an emerging scholarship which uses history for management learning, and we do this through elaborating on the concept of historical empathy. Moreover, we reveal how an Eastern legacy may enable the (re)construction of the present in contemporary organisations which exist in the interstices of history, politics, gender and diversity. Through our analysis, we develop a matrix, which integrates historical empathy with dhamma, governance and historical contextualisation to provide implications for learning in the field of diversity.
Gearty, M. R., Bradbury-Huang, H., & Reason, P. (2015). Learning history in an open system: Creating histories for sustainable futures. Management Learning, 46(1), 44-66.
What kind of learning is required to bring us towards a more sustainable future? We argue that when behaviourally and technically complex issues intertwine, a collaborative social learning process that engages diverse actors in deep systems change is necessary. The learning required includes but overtakes debate, bringing organisations, individuals and communities into cycles of experiential, cumulative, ad hoc and opportunistic, yet systematic, learning. Current conceptualisations and approaches to learning have not been framed with the requisite level of integrated complexity given our sustainability challenges. This article introduces the action research approach of ‘learning history in an open system’ in the service of such learning. Updating the heretofore single-project focussed learning history, we present recent methodological developments for its use in open systems that support a joining up of projects and sites of endeavour to support deeper and accumulating systems’ learning. We explore the links to learning literature drawing on developments in aesthetics and arts-based action research to suggest our approach is one useful way of responding to the more general challenge of scale that concerns action researchers.
Tennent, K. D., Gillett, A. G., & Foster, W. M. (2020). Developing historical consciousness in management learners. Management Learning, 51(1), 73–88.
This article argues and advocates strategies for the development of historical consciousness to stimulate both first- and second-order critical reflexivity in management students with the goal of creating critical management learners. The historic turn in management and organizational studies has demonstrated that history is not the same as the past. This understanding has had implications for many areas of investigation but has not been felt as significantly as it might be in management learning and education. To make our argument, we discuss how archives can be used to stimulate the process of historical consciousness in management learners and we provide an illustrative example of how this can be done, together with a checklist to aid instructors in facilitating student use of archival material.
Other curated reading lists: Care | Emotions | Gender & Feminism | Group Relations | Historical Approaches | Learning in Organizations | Sociomateriality | Return to Resources Page
Episodes from the Talking About Organizations Podcast
- 97: Social Change and Organization – Invictus (2009 movie)
The 2009 film Invictus tells the story of how the first post-Apartheid President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, used sports as a unifying force to overcome lingering and bitter racial divides in the nation. The movie and the real-life events that inspired it are powerful. We will look at it through an organizational lens and discuss insights related to leadership, team building, change and other management topics. - 96: Informating at Work – Shoshana Zuboff
We discuss Shoshana Zuboff’s “In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power” that examines several cases of organizations introducing information technologies in the workplace hoping to improve organizational performance, transparency, and collaboration but instead dehumanized the workplace and ushered in new ways of managerial surveillance. In Part 1, we discuss the major themes of the book, her telling of the histories of both blue- and white-collar work, and her incredible case studies. - 92: Organizational Secrecy — Case of the Manhattan Project
We are examining organizational secrecy using the Manhattan Project during World War II as a case study. The Manhattan Project came about following the discovery of nuclear fission in 1938 and the understanding that Nazi Germany was trying to develop a powerful weapon that could change the course of the war. Naturally, the American effort had to be kept secret to hide both the existence of the project and, failing that, any information about progress and potential employment. How did they do it and what challenges did they face? What could we learn about maintaining secrets in contemporary organizations? - 74: Emergence of Middle Management — Alfred Chandler
Alfred Chandler’s award-winning book, “The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business” provides an excellent summary of the history of American commerce from the pre-industrial era to the mid-20th century, and how new technologies and a changing society led to the creation of the modern industrial enterprise. The “visible hand” refers to the transparency and prominence of this new class of manager who coordinated and controlled these growing enterprises, - 63: Remote Operations — The Hudson’s Bay Company
For this episode we discuss the history of a classic firm which exercised remote operations as a matter of course and faced multiple pandemics during its early existence. The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) was chartered in 1670 by King Charles II at a time when the French monopolized fur trading with Native Americans in modern-day Canada. From then, the English would establish its own robust fur trading industry, establishing hundreds of posts from the western shores of Hudson Bay all across modern western Canada. The case is exceptional in demonstrating the historical challenges of remote operations where communications were limited to letters sent annually with the fur shipments across the Atlantic. How could London possibly maintain oversight and exercise control under such conditions? - 56: Cooperative Advantage – Charles Clinton Spaulding
In this episode, we acknowledge the extraordinary contributions of Charles Clinton Spaulding, an important management thought leader who, like many African-Americans prior to the U.S. civil rights movement, has been sadly overlooked in the management canon. In 1927, with the U.S. in recession, Spaulding wrote a reflection of his experiences as a business leader in the Pittsburgh Courier, a widely-read newspaper, hoping to help fellow African-American business leaders overcome the economic downturn. - 53: Taylorism in Motion — Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times
We discuss Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 film “Modern Times” balances great physical comedy with powerful social commentary. Chaplin portrayed a hapless Worker on an assembly line who is tormented both by supervisors and the work itself. After being subjected to a humiliating experiment intended to improve the line’s efficiency, the Worker runs through a series of rotating jobs, stints in jail, and other misadventures as he tries to find his purpose in life. - 43: Centralization/Decentralization Debate – The Federalist Papers
The Federalist Papers was a series of writings from American history leading up to its current Constitution, completed in 1787. Formed as thirteen separate colonies, this newly independent nation tried to form a central government that granted maximum autonomy to the States to prevent the emergence of an American monarchy. We explore two in this episode and use them to host the first-ever TAOP debate where two of us argued for federalism and two argued for anti-federalism! - 37: Socrates on Management – Oeconomicus by Xenophon
This episode takes us to ancient Greece and one of the great practical philosophers, Xenophon (pronounced ZEN-uh-phun), whose Oeconomicus may have been one of his “minor” works in the world of philosophy, but it is a fascinating work for those interested in management and organizational studies. The book is written as a dialogue, with Socrates playing a sort of narrator who engages with men and encourages them to become more virtuous, with varying success. - 10: Twelve Angry Men (1957) – Directed by Sidney Lumet
12 Angry Men, directed by Sidney Lumet, is one of the major milestones of film history. It dates back to 1957 and tells the story of a jury, the twelve angry men of the title, and how they decide on the innocence or guilt of a young boy accused of murder. The entire film takes place in the jury room, with the exception of a few scenes, namely those in the courthouse and in the bathroom. We use this story as a lens to discuss themes in organizational theory such as decision making and consensus building among groups.