Rack AH – Historical and Archival Methods

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Rack AH (Historical and Archival Methods): Narrative Analysis | Historical Case Studies

Jump to: Advantages | Limitations | Methods | TAOP Episodes | References

Advantages of Using Historical and Archival Methods for Research

Historical and archival research methods employ extant documents in lieu of field observation or other qualitative or quantitative data collection. These methods can be useful for understanding the evolution of organizational practices, structures, and behaviors over time or for examining past historical events where access to first-hand participants or witnesses is impossible. These methods involve the study of past records, documents, and other archival materials to explore organizational phenomena, often with a focus on change, continuity, and historical context. Here’s an overview of the advantages and limitations of such methods along with a short list of the most commonly used techniques.

Illuminating Long-Term Organizational Trends and Changes. Historical and archival research allows researchers to explore the development and transformation of organizations over time. By analyzing historical records, such as memos, meeting notes, annual reports, or company newsletters, researchers can gain insights into how organizational structures, strategies, and cultures have evolved. Archival research can provide a long-term perspective on organizational practices, policies, and decisions. For example, understanding how companies have responded to crises, economic downturns, or technological change provides valuable insights into resilience, adaptation, and innovation.

Providing Rich, Contextual Data (Potentially). Archival data may provide a rich, detailed context that would be missing from contemporary studies. These records may offer insight into the social, political, and economic environments in which an organization was operating at a specific point in time, which can be helpful for understanding organizational decisions. Meanwhile, historical records can capture organizational memory—information and experiences that may not be part of the formal corporate knowledge base but have been passed down informally or documented in reports, letters, or other records. These materials can provide valuable data on issues like leadership styles, company values, and internal conflicts. However, one must be careful as plentiful data may not always translate into useful data. Rigorous application of proper analytical methods are still required.

Filling Gaps in Contemporary Research. In some cases, contemporary organizational data may be incomplete, biased, or unavailable. Historical or archival data can fill in these gaps, especially when studying older organizations, industries, or practices that may no longer be well-documented in modern research. Archival research often relies on primary sources (e.g., original company records, government reports, personal papers, or oral histories), which can provide first-hand accounts of organizational life, decision-making, and external influences on organizations.

Understanding Causal Mechanisms Over Time. Historical research is particularly useful for understanding cause-and-effect relationships that unfold over time. By examining how organizational decisions, events, and policies interact across long periods, researchers can explore the longitudinal effects of certain actions and decisions (e.g., how a specific leadership change influenced the company’s success or failure decades later). They can also draw helpful analogs to contemporary phenomena or potentially forecast something into the future.

Unlike cross-sectional data, which captures a snapshot at a particular moment in time, historical research allows for a more dynamic view of organizational phenomena, tracing how different factors—such as management strategies, organizational culture, or external pressures—interact over extended periods.

Supporting Comparative Studies. Comparative studies can sometimes be time and resource intensive to carry out. Archival data can be used to compare how different organizations in similar industries or regions have responded to similar challenges, giving researchers valuable insights into the diversity of organizational practices. For example, studying how competing organizations navigated a period of economic recession can provide insights into different strategic approaches to crisis management.

Contributing to Theory Building. Historical data can serve as a tool for testing existing organizational theories by comparing how well they explain past organizational events or transformations. For example, scholars might apply contingency theory or institutional theory to explain how specific organizations adapted to changes in their environments over time.

Historical and archival methods can help researchers develop or refine theories about organizational change, decision-making, power, and culture. These theories may be tested or extended with contemporary data, making historical research a valuable foundation for theory-building in organizational studies.

Limitations of Using Historical and Archival Methods for Research

Access to and Availability of Good Quality Data. One of the most significant challenges in historical and archival research is the availability of relevant records for the study. Historical records may be incomplete, lost, or difficult to access due to organizational, governmental, or legal restrictions. For example, organizations may have destroyed records after a certain time period. Archives may be poorly organized or difficult to navigate.

Archival records may be incomplete or selectively preserved, which can create biases in the data. Some organizations may have chosen to only keep documents that reflect their success or portray them in a favorable light, while discarding records that reveal failures or conflicts. This can skew the historical record and present an incomplete picture of organizational realities.

In some cases, legal issues—such as privacy laws, intellectual property concerns, or the confidentiality of certain organizational records—may limit access to archival data. Researchers must be aware of ethical and legal constraints when working with sensitive documents or historical materials.

Interpretation of Historical Data. Understanding the historical context is crucial to success with these methods, as documents and records from past periods may include language with different terms, meanings, connotations, and relevance. For example, a business decision that seemed rational in the 1950s might appear misguided today due to changes in market conditions, technology, and business practices. Historical data often requires careful interpretation, as it may contain ambiguous or incomplete information. Documents like memos or personal letters may reflect subjective viewpoints or incomplete accounts of events, requiring researchers to triangulate multiple sources to construct a more accurate narrative. Researchers need to carefully analyze the historical context to avoid misinterpreting the data.

Limitations of Retrospective Analysis. Historical research often involves retrospective analysis, which means that researchers are trying to understand events and phenomena after the fact. This can be challenging because the historical record may not capture all the nuances of decision-making, and key actors or contextual factors may no longer be available for further explanation or validation. Many historical records are shaped by the perspectives of those in power, and as a result, the data may reflect the dominant viewpoints of the time. For instance, official organizational records may omit dissenting opinions or focus on successes while glossing over failures. This can result in a narrow or biased view of historical events.

Limitations on Determining Causality and Generalizability. One of the challenges of historical and archival research is establishing causality. Historical data often comes in the form of narratives, reports, or documents that describe events rather than providing systematic data that allows researchers to identify clear cause-and-effect relationships. As a result, drawing conclusions about the causes of organizational success or failure may be speculative or indirect.

While historical research offers rich, context-specific insights, the findings may be difficult to generalize to other organizations or periods. What worked for one company in a specific historical context might not necessarily apply to other organizations facing different circumstances.

Potentially Time-Consuming and Resource-Intensive. That these methods can be time savers in some studies (like the aforementioned comparative studies above) does not preclude any headaches going through the archives, especially if they have not been digitized! Archival research often requires extensive manual searches through libraries or other repositories to identify the relevant documents. This can be made more challenging when the archives are poorly organized or the documents are in outdated formats.

Analyzing historical documents often requires researchers to engage in detailed content analysis, which can be complex and require specialized skills (e.g., historical analysis, interpretation of legal language, understanding of cultural contexts). The process can be slow and meticulous, requiring careful attention to detail .

Some Ethical Considerations. Archival materials may contain sensitive information, such as personal records or confidential organizational data. Researchers need to handle these materials with care and ensure they respect privacy and confidentiality agreements, particularly when dealing with historical records that involve individuals’ personal information or when studying organizations that no longer exist.

Ethical challenges may also arise when dealing with outdated practices or discriminatory content in historical records. For example, old personnel files, policies, or correspondence might reflect outdated or unethical practices (e.g., gender or racial discrimination) that are no longer acceptable today. Researchers must consider how to handle such materials in a responsible and respectful way.

Prominent Historical and Archival Methods

The following list of prominent methods is based on several prominent books in qualitative research — technically these methods are, after all, qualitative. The two main forms are narrative analysis and case studies.

Narrative Analysis. Narrative analysis focuses on the stories organizations tell about themselves and their histories. This approach emphasizes the role of storytelling in shaping individual and organizational identity and culture. Some particular types of narrative documents relevant for present purposes include the following: biographies (where someone has written the experience of another person’s life experiences), autobiographies (where another person has written their own life story), oral histories (usually the result of an interview with another person where the individual’s own words are recorded (Creswell, 2013), and journals or diaries (written records done on a daily or routine basis by the same person over a period of time). Naturally, this method can be subjective, as it relies heavily on the interpretations of the researcher and the narratives provided by organizational members (Ravasi et al., 2019).

Biographies and autobiographies can be useful for capturing someone’s experiences over time, however one always has to be careful about bias in the subject of the biography or the author who may introduce bias (either fawning over the subject and overlooking negative stories, or taking an unduly critical look and presenting the subject in an unfairly poor light). An example from this program of an autobiography is Alfred Sloan’s My Years with General Motors, which we covered in Episode 102.

Oral history is increasingly utilized in organizational research to capture the lived experiences and perspectives of individuals within organizations. This method involves collecting personal narratives through interviews, allowing researchers to uncover insights that may not be documented in formal records. Hodge and Costa emphasized the value of oral history in understanding entrepreneurial trajectories and organizational histories, as it provides a more nuanced view of past events (Hodge & Costa, 2021). The advantage of oral history lies in its ability to capture diverse perspectives and experiences, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of organizational history. However, challenges include the potential for bias in personal recollections and the difficulty of verifying the accuracy of oral accounts (Novicevic et al., 2018).

Journals, diaries, and other personal communications are also valuable resources, if and only if they have been faithfully and regularly recorded by the subject. Journaling was much more popular a century ago as a means for individuals to write down their experiences for later recall. Using journals as a means of historical research is common in militaries, whose abilities to understand key decisions in past wars has often been enhanced by access to a commander’s diaries. Speeches and lectures are more formal, event-driven communications that can also be used. For example, our Episode 79 covered Jane Addams’ speech relaying her personal experiences at the times of the Pullman Railroad Strike that provided a glimpse into past labor relations.

Case Studies. Case studies are another significant method in historical organization studies, allowing researchers to conduct in-depth examinations of specific organizations, events, or phenomena over time. These kinds of case studies differ from those addressed in the field research page (Rack AF) in that historical documents are used instead of or in conjunction with interviews or observations. Brunninge (2009) highlighted how this approach can capture the unique historical processes within organizations, providing rich contextual information that can inform broader theoretical insights. However, Creswell (2013) stresses that the boundaries of the case need to be clear and that the ability to examine the case in depth is a must. Also, like other qualitative methods, case studies may face limitations in terms of generalizability, as findings from a single case may not be applicable to other contexts (Durepos et al., 2019). We covered this kind of historical study done in the 17th century Hudson’s Bay Company (Episode 63) to examine how that firm conducting remote work.

Related TAOP Episodes, Events, and Notes

Many of these are examples of narrative analyses or historical case studies.

112: Hierarchies & Promotion – The “Peter Principle”

The diligent administrative assistant moves up to supervisor but fails. The assembly line worker is promoted to foreman but cannot do the job. A teacher earns a deputy principal position in a school but falls flat on their face. Why is that? Why does this seem to happen across organizations? In The Peter Principle, Lawrence J. Peter and Raymond Hull not only provides answers to these questions, they delve into all the possible implications. The Principle goes like this, “In a hierarchy, everyone rises to their level of incompetence.” How they derived this principle the subject of our conversation that explores one of the funniest but more insightful book on the perils of organizational life ever written.
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102: Executive Leadership — Sloan’s “My Years at General Motors”

Alfred Sloan was President, Chairman, and CEO of General Motors from 1923 to 1956. His memoir “My Years at General Motors” tells his story about how he took a corporation consisting of several disparate and competing companies and shaped them into division that manufactured cars tailored to different segments of society. He constantly pursued and integrated new technologies into the automobiles themselves while also shaping the buying experience through the introductions of different styles, improved relations with dealings, and financial services that rivaled banks.
Read More

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.
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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?
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87: The Art of War (and Management?) — Sun Tzu

This month’s episode examines war and how principles derived from it are presently applied to other organizational and management contexts. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is an ancient text that emerged from the Warring States period that lasted from the 5th through 3rd centuries B.C. and engulfed most of modern mainland China. It embraced the complexity of the environment of war, which therefore has allowed it to be adapted for navigating other forms of complexity such as business competition. We examine the text in its original context to illustrate the need to understand the purpose and utility of classic texts.
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79: Labor Relations – Jane Addams

We discuss a famous speech by Jane Addams titled, A Modern Lear, her reflections on the events leading to and during the infamous Pullman Railway Strike of 1894. Using ideas drawn from the emergence of classic pragmatism and Shakespeare’s King Lear as an analogy, Addams took both the ownership and workers to task for the violence and provides a way to avoid a recurrence of such a tragedy. What insights are applicable to today’s contemporary situation? Can pragmatism provide a way forward?
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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,
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Related Resource Pages

Aisle A – Research Methods

Curated list of resources regarding research methods for students of organization studies. Includes qualitative and quantitative methods, ethics and human subjects protections, and knowledge repositories.
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Rack AA – Conduct and Ethics of Research

Curated list of resources regarding the proper and ethical conduct of research. Among the important concepts are human subjects research protections, informed consent, validity and reliability, and avoiding conflicts of interest.
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Rack AQ – Quantitative Methods

Curated list of resources regarding the effective, efficient, and appropriate use of quantitative methods including surveys, operations research & systems analysis, and others for conducting organization research.
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References

Brunninge, O. (2009). Using history in organizations. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 22(1), 8-26. https://doi.org/10.1108/09534810910933889

Durepos, G., Shaffner, E., & Taylor, S. (2019). Developing critical organizational history: context, practice and implications. Organization, 28(3), 449-467. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508419883381

Heller, M. (2023). Rethinking historical methods in organization studies: organizational source criticism. Organization Studies, 44(6), 987-1002. https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406231156978

Hodge, P. and Costa, A. (2021). Oral history and organizational research: challenges of building knowledge about the past. Organizações & Sociedade, 28(99), 722-756. https://doi.org/10.1590/1984-92302021v28n9901en

Novicevic, M., Marshall, D., Humphreys, J., & Seifried, C. (2018). Both loved and despised: uncovering a process of collective contestation in leadership identification. Organization, 26(2), 236-254. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508418812567

OpenAI. (2024). What are the benefits and challenges of using historical and archival methods for organization research. ChatGPT (November 2022 version) [Large Language Model].

Ravasi, D., Rindova, V., & Stigliani, I. (2019). The stuff of legend: history, memory, and the temporality of organizational identity construction. Academy of Management Journal, 62(5), 1523-1555. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2016.0505

Scite. (2024). What are the major methods for using histories and historical cases in organization studies. Scite (April 2024 version) [Large Language Model].

Wadhwani, R., Suddaby, R., Mordhorst, M., & Popp, A. (2018). History as organizing: uses of the past in organization studies. Organization Studies, 39(12), 1663-1683. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840618814867

The inclusion of external links is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute endorsement by TAOP or any of its members.

Jump to: Advantages | Limitations | Methods | TAOP Episodes | References

Rack AH (Historical and Archival Methods): Narrative Analysis | Historical Case Studies

Aisle A (Research Methods): Main Page | Conduct & Ethics of Research (AA) | Field Studies & Qualitative Methods (AF) | Historical & Archival Methods (AH) | Quantitative Methods (AQ) | Models and Simulations in Research (AS)

Resources: Main Page | Research Methods (A) | Major Theories (B) | Issues and Contemporary Topics (C) | Professional Education (D)