From the particular to the general: memory, oral history, and organizational studies

Patricia Ayumi Hodge, Alessandra de Sá Mello da Costa
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21529/RECADM.2020013

Abstract

Organizational memory studies have been criticized for their instrumental, ahistorical view of memory. Alternatively, Rowlinson, Booth, Clark, Delahaye and Procter (2010) proposed the structural approach of memory studies from sociology and history, in which the memory considered is supra-individual, accessed through the study of celebrations and monuments. Consequently, individual memory and Oral History as epistemological options for understanding a collectivity in time and space ended up in the background. The article aims to propose Oral History as a theoretical and methodological possibility for memory studies in organizations, bringing the discussion (1) about the different historiographies of memory studies and Oral History, as well as their respective links with organizational research, and (2) two possible ways to move from individual to social memory, presenting classic examples from the Oral History literature.


Keywords

memory; oral history; historical organizational studies; method

Compartilhe

References


Adorisio, A. L. M. (2014). Organizational remembering as narrative: ‘Storying’ the past in banking. Organization, 21(4), 463-476.

Alberti, V. (2006). Fontes Orais: Histórias dentro da História. In C. B. Pinsky (Org.), Fontes Históricas (pp. 155-203). São Paulo: Editora Contexto.

Alberti, V. (2013). Manual de História Oral (3a. Ed. rev. Atual). Rio de Janeiro: Editora FGV.

Anteby, M., & Molnar, V. (2012). Collective memory meets organizational identity: Remembering to forget in a firm's rhetorical history. Academy of Management Journal, 55(3), 515-540.

Argote, L., McEvily, B., & Reagans, R. (2003). Managing knowledge in organizations: An integrative framework and review of emerging themes. Management Science, 49(4), 571-582.

Bodnar, J. (1989). Power and memory in oral history: Workers and managers at Studebaker. The Journal of American History, 75(4), 1201-1221.

Booth, C., & Rowlinson, M. (2006). Management and organizational history: prospects. Management & Organizational History, 1(1), 5-30.

Cabana, R. D. P. L., & Ichikawa, E. Y. (2017). As identidades fragmentadas no cotidiano da Feira do Produtor de Maringá. Organizações & Sociedade, 24(81), 285-304.

Casey, A. J., & Olivera, F. (2011). Reflections on organizational memory and forgetting. Journal of Management Inquiry, 20(3), 305-310.

Clark, P., & Rowlinson, M. (2004). The treatment of history in organisation studies: towards an ‘historic turn’? Business History, 46(3), 331-352.

Confino, A. (1997). Collective memory and cultural history: Problems of method. The American Historical Review, 102(5), 1386-1403.

Conway, B. (2010). New directions in the sociology of collective memory and commemoration. Sociology Compass, 4(7), 442-453.

Coraiola, D., Suddaby, R., & Foster, W. M. (2018). Organizational fields as mnemonic communities. In J. Glückler, R. Suddaby, & R. Lenz (Eds.) Knowledge and Institutions (pp. 45-68). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Corning, A., & Schuman, H. (2015). Generations and Collective Memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Costa, A. S. M., Barros, D. F., & Martins, P. E. M. (2010). Perspectiva Histórica em Administração: Novos Objetos, Novos Problemas, Novas Abordagens. RAE-Revista de Administração de Empresas, 50(3), 288-299.

Costa, A. S. M., & Saraiva, L. A. S. (2011). Memória e formalização social do passado nas organizações. Revista de Administração Pública, 45(6), 1761-1780.

Crane, S. A. (1997). Writing the individual back into collective memory. The American Historical Review, 102(5), 1372-1385.

Decker, S. (2013). The silence of the archives: business history, post-colonialism and archival ethnography. Management & Organizational History, 8(2), 155-173.

Decker, S. (2014). Solid intentions: An archival ethnography of corporate architecture and organizational remembering. Organization, 21(4), 514-542.

Eberle, T. S. (2015). Organizational memories: a phenomenological analysis. In A. L. Tota, & T. Hagen (Eds.) Routledge International Handbook of Memory Studies (pp. 115-130). Routledge.

Eley, G. (2005). Is all the world a text? From social history to the history of society two decades later. In Practicing History (Cap.1, pp. 35-61). New York: Routledge.

Falcon, F. J. C. (1997). História e poder. In C. F. Cardoso, & R. R. Vainfas (Orgs.), Domínios da história: ensaios de teoria e metodologia (pp. 61-89). Rio de Janeiro: Elsevier.

Feldman, R. M., & Feldman, S. P. (2006). What links the chain: An essay on organizational remembering as practice. Organization, 13(6), 861-887.

Ferreira, M. D. M. (2002). História, tempo presente e história oral. Topoi (Rio de Janeiro), 3(5), 314-332.

Foroughi, H. (2019). Collective memories as a vehicle of fantasy and identification: founding stories retold. Organization Studies. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840619844286

Foroughi, H., & Al-Amoudi, I. (2020). Collective Forgetting in a Changing Organization: When memories become unusable and uprooted. Organization Studies, 41(4), 449-470.

Foster, W. M., Suddaby, R., Minkus, A., & Wiebe, E. (2011). History as social memory assets: The example of Tim Hortons. Management & Organizational History, 6(1), 101-120.

Frisch, M. (1990). A shared authority: Essays on the craft and meaning of oral and public history. Albany: Suny Press.

Garud, R., Gehman, J., & Kumaraswamy, A. (2011). Complexity arrangements for sustained innovation: Lessons from 3M Corporation. Organization Studies, 32(6), 737-767.

Gensburger, S. (2016). Halbwachs’ studies in collective memory: A founding text for contemporary ‘memory studies’? Journal of Classical Sociology, 16(4), 396-413.

Godfrey, P. C., Hassard, J., O’Connor, E. S., Rowlinson, M., & Ruef, M. (2016). What is organizational history? Toward a creative synthesis of history and organization studies. Academy of Management Review, 41(4), 590-608.

Gomes, A. F., & Santana, W. G. P. (2010). A história oral na análise organizacional: a possível e promissora conversa entre a história e a administração. Cadernos Ebape. BR, 8(1), 1-18.

Gouvêa, J. B., Cabana, R. D. P. L., & Ichikawa, E. Y. (2018). As histórias e o cotidiano das organizações: uma possibilidade de dar voz àqueles que o discurso hegemônico cala. Farol-Revista de Estudos Organizacionais e Sociedade, 5(12), 297-347.

Green, A. (2004). Individual remembering and ‘collective memory’: Theoretical presuppositions and contemporary debates. Oral History, 32(2), 35-44.

Green, A. (2011). Can memory be collective? In D. A. Ritchie (Ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Oral History (pp. 96-111). New York: Oxford University Press.

Grele, R. J. (2007). Reflections on the practice of Oral History. Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society, 32(4).

Gupta, A., Nadkarni, S., & Mariam, M. (2019). Dispositional sources of managerial discretion: CEO ideology, CEO personality, and firm strategies. Administrative Science Quarterly, 64(4), 855-893.

Halbwachs, M. (1990). A Memória Coletiva. São Paulo: Vértice.

Halbwachs, M. (1992). On collective memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Hamilton, P., & Shopes, L. (2008). Introduction: Building Partnerships Between Oral History and Memory Studies. In P. Hamilton, & L. Shopes (Orgs.), Oral History and Public Memories (pp.vii-xvii). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Hesse-Biber, S. N., & Leavy, P. (2005). The Practice of Qualitative Research (2a. Ed., Cap. 5, pp. 149-194). Los Angeles: SAGE Publications.

Holan, P. M. (2011). Agency in voluntary organizational forgetting. Journal of Management Inquiry, 20(3), 317-322.

Hoppmann, J., Naegele, F., & Girod, B. (2019). Boards as a source of inertia: Examining the internal challenges and dynamics of boards of directors in times of environmental discontinuities. Academy of Management Journal, 62(2), 437-468.

Huber, G. P. (1991). Organizational learning: The contributing processes and the literatures. Organization Science, 2(1), 88-115.

James, D. (2006). Listening in the cold: The practice of oral history in an Argentine meatpacking community. In R. Perks & A. Thomson (Orgs.), The Oral History Reader (2nd Ed., pp. 83-101). New York: Routledge.

Jedlowski, P. (2001). Memory and sociology: themes and issues. Time & Society, 10(1), 29-44.

Joaquim, N. D. F., & Carrieri, A. D. P. (2018). Construção e desenvolvimento de um projeto de história oral em estudos sobre gestão. Organizações & Sociedade, 25(85), 303-319.

Joutard, P. (2006). História oral: balanço da metodologia e da produção nos últimos 25 anos. In M. D. M. Ferreira, & J. Amado (Orgs.), Usos & Abusos da História Oral (8a Ed. pp. 43-62). (Obra original publicada em 1996)

Kansteiner, W. (2002). Finding meaning in memory: A methodological critique of collective memory studies. History and Theory, 41(2), 179-197.

Keulen, S., & Kroeze, R. (2012a). Back to business: A next step in the field of oral history — the usefulness of oral history for leadership and organizational research. The Oral History Review, 39(1), 15-36.

Keulen, S., & Kroeze, R. (2012b). Understanding management gurus and historical narratives: The benefits of a historic turn in management and organization studies. Management & Organizational History, 7(2), 171-189.

König, A., Mammen, J., Luger, J., Fehn, A., & Enders, A. (2018). Silver bullet or ricochet? CEOs’ use of metaphorical communication and infomediaries’ evaluations. Academy of Management Journal, 61(4), 1196-1230.

Kroeze, R., & Keulen, S. (2013). Leading a multinational is history in practice: The use of invented traditions and narratives at AkzoNobel, Shell, Philips and ABN AMRO. Business History, 55(8), 1265-1287.

Lippmann, S., & Aldrich, H. E. (2016). A rolling stone gathers momentum: Generational units, collective memory, and entrepreneurship. Academy of Management Review, 41(4), 658-675.

Love, E. G., Lim, J., & Bednar, M. K. (2017). The face of the firm: The influence of CEOs on corporate reputation. Academy of Management Journal, 60(4), 1462-1481.

Maclean, M., Harvey, C., & Chia, R. (2012). Sensemaking, storytelling and the legitimization of elite business careers. Human Relations, 65(1), 17-40.

Maclean, M., Harvey, C., & Clegg, S. R. (2016). Conceptualizing historical organization studies. Academy of Management Review, 41(4), 609-632.

Maclean, M., Harvey, C., Sillince, J. A., & Golant, B. D. (2014). Living up to the past? Ideological sensemaking in organizational transition. Organization, 21(4), 543-567.

Maclean, M., Harvey, C., Sillince, J. A., & Golant, B. D. (2018). Intertextuality, rhetorical history and the uses of the past in organizational transition. Organization Studies, 39(12), 1733-1755.

Maclean, M., Harvey, C., & Stringfellow, L. (2017). Narrative, metaphor and the subjective understanding of historic identity transition. Business History, 59(8), 1218-1241.

Mena, S., Rintamäki, J., Fleming, P., & Spicer, A. (2016). On the forgetting of corporate irresponsibility. Academy of Management Review, 41(4), 720-738.

Miller, K. D., & Martignoni, D. (2016). Organizational learning with forgetting: Reconsidering the exploration–exploitation tradeoff. Strategic Organization, 14(1), 53-72.

Misztal, B. (2003). Theories of social remembering. London: McGraw-Hill Education (UK).

Nissley, N., & Casey, A. (2002). The politics of the exhibition: Viewing corporate museums through the paradigmatic lens of organizational memory. British Journal of Management, 13(S2), S35-S45.

Nora, P. (1993). Entre memória e história: a problemática dos lugares. Projeto História: Revista do Programa de Estudos Pós-Graduados de História, 10. (Obra original publicada em 1989)

Ocasio, W., Mauskapf, M., & Steele, C. W. (2016). History, society, and institutions: The role of collective memory in the emergence and evolution of societal logics. Academy of Management Review, 41(4), 676-699.

Olick, J. K. (1999). Collective memory: The two cultures. Sociological Theory, 17(3), 333-348.

Olick, J. K. (2008a). 'Collective memory': A memoir and prospect. Memory Studies, 1(1), 23-29.

Olick, J. K. (2008b). From collective memory to the sociology of mnemonic practices and products. In A. Erll, A. Nünning, & S. B. Young (Orgs.), Cultural memory studies: an international and interdisciplinary handbook (pp. 151-162). New York: Walter de Gruyter.

Olick, J. K., & Robbins, J. (1998). Social memory studies: From “collective memory” to the historical sociology of mnemonic practices. Annual Review of Sociology, 24(1), 105-140.

Olivera, F. (2000). Memory systems in organizations: an empirical investigation of mechanisms for knowledge collection, storage and access. Journal of Management Studies, 37(6), 811-832.

Passerini, L. (1979). Work Ideology and Consensus under Italian Fascism. History Workshop Journal, 8(1), 82-108.

Perks, R., & Thomson, A. (2006). Interpreting Memories. In R. Perks & A. Thomson (Orgs.), The Oral History Reader (2nd Ed., pp. 211-220). New York: Routledge.

Portelli, A. (1991). The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History. Albany: Suny Press.

Portelli, A. (2006). O massacre de Civitella Val di Chiana (Toscana, 29 de junho de 1944): mito e política, luto e senso comum. In M. M. Ferreira & J. Amado (Orgs.), Usos e abusos da História Oral (8a ed. pp. 103-130). FGV. (Obra original publicada em 1996)

Rao, R. D., & Argote, L. (2006). Organizational learning and forgetting: The effects of turnover and structure. European Management Review, 3(2), 77-85.

Ravasi, D., Rindova, V. P., & Stigliani, I. (2019). The Stuff of Legend: History, Memory, and the Temporality of Organizational Identity Construction. Academy of Management Journal, 62(5), 1523-1555.

Roediger, H. L., III & Wertsch, J. V. (2008). Creating a new discipline of memory studies. Memory Studies, 1(1), 9-22.

Rousso, H. (1996). O arquivo ou o indício de uma falta. Revista Estudos Históricos, 9(17), 85-92.

Rousso, H. (2006). A memória não é mais o que era. In M. M. Ferreira & J. Amado (Orgs.). Usos e abusos da História Oral (8a ed. pp. 43-62). FGV. (Obra original publicada em 1996)

Rowlinson, M., Booth, C., Clark, P., Delahaye, A., & Procter, S. (2010). Social remembering and organizational memory. Organization Studies, 31(1), 69-87.

Rowlinson, M., Hassard, J., & Decker, S. (2014). Research strategies for organizational history: A dialogue between historical theory and organization theory. Academy of Management Review, 39(3), 250-274.

Schwartz, B. (2015). Rethinking the concept of collective memory. In A. L. Tota, & T. Hagen (Eds.) Routledge International Handbook of Memory Studies (pp. 31-43). New York: Routledge.

Schwartz, B., & Schuman, H. (2005). History, commemoration, and belief: Abraham Lincoln in American memory, 1945-2001. American Sociological Review, 70(2), 183-203.

Segesten, A. D., & Wüstenberg, J. (2017). Memory studies: the state of an emergent field. Memory Studies, 10(4), 474-489.

Sheftel, A., & Zembrzycki, S. (2016). Who’s Afraid of Oral History? Fifty Years of Debates and Anxiety about Ethics. The Oral History Review, 43(2), 338-366.

Shopes, L. (2014). “Insights and Oversights”: Reflections on the Documentary Tradition and the Theoretical Turn in Oral History. The Oral History Review, 41(2), 257-268.

Śliwa, M. (2013). Learning to listen: an organizational researcher's reflections on ‘doing oral history’. Management & Organizational History, 8(2), 185-196.

Suddaby, R., Foster, W. M., & Trank, C. Q. (2010). Rhetorical history as a source of competitive advantage. Advances in Strategic Management, 27(2010), 147-173.

Tamm, M. (2013). Beyond history and memory: New perspectives in memory studies. History Compass, 11(6), 458-473.

Thomson, A. (2006). Anzac memories: putting popular memory theory into practice in: Putting popular memory theory into practice in Australia. In R. Perks & A. Thomson (Orgs.). The Oral History Reader (2nd Ed., pp. 244-254). New York: Routledge.

Thomson, A. (2007). Four Paradigm Transformations in Oral History. The Oral History Review, 34(1), 49-70.

Thomson, A. (2011). Memory and Remembering in Oral history. In D. A. Ritchie (Ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Oral History, (pp. 77-95). New York: Oxford University Press.

Walsh, J. P., & Ungson, G. R. (1991). Organizational memory. Academy of Management Review, 16(1), 57-91.

Weber, R., & Pereira, E. M. (2010). Halbwachs e a Memória: contribuição à História Cultural. Territórios e Fronteiras, 3(1), 104-126.

Wertsch, J. V., & Roediger, H. L., III (2008). Collective memory: Conceptual foundations and theoretical approaches. Memory, 16(3), 318-326.

Yates, J. (2014). Understanding historical methods in organization studies. In M. Bucheli & R. D. Wadhwani (Eds.) Organizations in Time: History, Theory, Methods (pp. 265-283). United Kingdom: Oxford University Press

Ybema, S. (2014). The invention of transitions: History as a symbolic site for discursive struggles over organizational change. Organization, 21(4), 495-513.

Zerubavel, E. (1996). Social memories: Steps to a sociology of the past. Qualitative Sociology, 19(3), 283-299.




Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.