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Postmodernism in Business Studies

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Work, Wealth, and Postmodernism

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Abstract

Since the 1980s postmodernist concepts—characterised by hostility to capitalism and ideals of economic progress and advocacy of philosophic positions that suggest all knowledge is a subjective social construct—have made much progress in business studies. In advancing postmodernist ideas, however, there has been a tendency to downplay direct inspiration from Foucault, Derrida, and Hayden White. This chapter suggests that although this path has been rewarded with publishing and career successes, it has also exposed methodological and theoretical problems. Major differences within postmodernist thought are ignored. New concepts—drawn from theorists such as Paul Ricoeur and Bruno Latour—are expounded, with little attempt being made to integrate such ideas with earlier frameworks.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Finley Graves and Paul Goldwater, “Special issue on accounting and modernity”, Critical Issues in Accounting, Vol. 8, No. 1–2 (Feb. 1997), 1.

  2. 2.

    Alan Mckinlay and Ken Starkey (Eds.), Foucault, Management and Organization Theory, (London, UK: Sage Publications, 1998).

  3. 3.

    See: Academy of Management Review, Vol. 41, No. 4 (2016); Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 22, No. 1 (2009); Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 47, No. 5 (2010).

  4. 4.

    Marcelo Bucheli and Daniel Whadwhani (Eds.), Organizations in Time: History, Theory and Methods, (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013); Patricia Genoe McLaren, Albert J. Mills, and Terrance Weatherbee (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Management and Organizational History, (London and New York: Routledge, 2015); Gabrielle A.T. Durepos and Albert J. Mills, ANTi-History: Theorizing the Past, History, and Historiography in Management and Organization Studies, (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2012); Stephen Cummings, Todd Bridgman, John Hassard and Michael Rowlinson, A New History of Management, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017).

  5. 5.

    Peter Clark and Michael Rowlinson, “The treatment of history in organisation studies: Towards an ‘historic turn’?” Business History, Vol. 46, No. 3, (Jul. 2004), 331–52.

  6. 6.

    Cited, Michael Rowlinson, “Revisiting the historic turn: A personal reflection”, in Patricia Genoe McLaren, Albert J. Mills, and Terrance Weatherbee (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Management and Organizational History, (London and New York: Routledge, 2015), 72.

  7. 7.

    Alfred Kieser, “Why organization theory needs historical analysis – and how this should be performed”, Organization Science, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Nov. 1994), 608–20.

  8. 8.

    Cited, Rowlinson, “Revisiting the historic turn”, 74.

  9. 9.

    Michael Rowlinson and Chris Carter, “Foucault and history in organization studies”, Organization, Vol. 9, No. 4 (2002), 527–47.

  10. 10.

    Clark and Rowlinson, “Towards an ‘historic turn’?” 347, 331.

  11. 11.

    See, for example: Clark and Rowlinson, “Towards an ‘historic turn’?”, 331–352; Charles Booth and Michael Rowlinson, “Management and organizational history: Prospects”, Management & Organizational History, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2006), 5–30; Stephen Cummings and Todd Bridgman, “The relevant past: Why the history of management should be critical for our future”, Academy of Management Learning & Education, Vol. 10 (2011), 77–93; Michael Rowlinson, John Hassard and Stephanie Decker, “Research strategies for organizational history: A dialogue between historical theory and organization theory”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Jul. 2014), 250–74; Matthias Kipping and Behlűl Űsdiken, “History in organization and management theory: More than meets the eye”, The Academy of Management Annals, Vol. 8, No. 1 (2014), 535–58; Milorad M. Novecivic, Jason Owen, Jennifer Palar, Ifeoluwa Tobi Popooola and David Marshall, “Management and organizational history: Extending the state-of-the-art to historicist interpretivism”, in Bradley Bowden and David Lamond (Eds.), Management History: Its Global Past and Present, (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2015), 157–72.

  12. 12.

    Clark and Rowlinson, “Towards an ‘historic turn’?”, 331.

  13. 13.

    See, for example: Michel Foucault (trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith), The Archaeology of Knowledge, (New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1972), 6; Michael Rowlinson and John S. Hassard, “Historical neo-institutionalism or neo-institutional history? Historical research in management and organization studies”, Management and Organizational Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2 (2013), 111–26; Andrea Whittle and John Wilson, “Ethnomethodology and the production of history: Studying ‘history-in-action’”, Business History Review, Vol. 57, No. 1 (2015), 41–63; Durepos and Mills, ANTi-History, 64, 73.

  14. 14.

    Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge, 8–9; Stephanie Decker, Matthias Kipping and R. Daniel Whadwhani, “New business histories! Plurality in business history research methods”, Business History Review, Vol. 57, No. 1 (2015), 32.

  15. 15.

    Michel Foucault (trans. Robert Hurley), The History of Sexuality – An Introduction, (New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1978), 100.

  16. 16.

    Michael Rowlinson and John Hassard, “History and the cultural turn in organization studies”, in Marcelo Bucheli and Daniel Whadwhani (Eds.), Organizations in Time: History, Theory and Methods, (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press Online, 2014), 15.

  17. 17.

    Charles Booth, Michael Rowlinson, Peter Clark, Agnes Delahaye and Stephen Proctor, “Scenarios and counterfactuals as modal narratives”, Futures, Vol. 41 (2009), 89.

  18. 18.

    Paul Ricoeur (trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellaeur), Memory, History and Forgetting, (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 236.

  19. 19.

    Scott Taylor, Emma Bell and Bill Cooke, “Business history and the historiographical operation”, Management & Organizational History, Vol. 42, No. 2 (2009), 162, 156–67.

  20. 20.

    Durepos and Mills, ANTi-History, 45; Bruno Latour (trans. Catherine Porter), We Have Never Been Modern, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 6, 11, 32.

  21. 21.

    Bruno Latour, “Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern”, Critical Inquiry, Vol. 30 (Winter 2004), 231.

  22. 22.

    Ibid., 226, 227.

  23. 23.

    Ibid., 246.

  24. 24.

    Gibson Burrell, “Sex and organizational analysis”, Organization Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1984), 97–118; Robert Cooper and Gibson Burrell, “Modernism, postmodernism and organizational analysis: An introduction”, Organization Studies, Vol. 9, No. 1 (1988), 91–112; Gibson Burrell, “Modernism, postmodernism and organizational analysis 2: The contribution of Michel Foucault”, Organization Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2 (1988), 221–35; David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1989).

  25. 25.

    Cooper and Burrell, “Modernism, postmodernism”, 91.

  26. 26.

    Ibid., 110.

  27. 27.

    Michel Foucault (trans. Alan Sheridan), Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, (London, UK: Allen Lane, 1977); Foucault, The History of Sexuality.

  28. 28.

    Foucault. The History of Sexuality, 143; Burrell, “Sex and organizational analysis”, 114–15; Cooper and Burrell, “Modernism, postmodernism”, 109–10.

  29. 29.

    Burrell, “Contribution of Michel Foucault”, 223.

  30. 30.

    Ibid., 221.

  31. 31.

    John Hassard and Denis Pym (Eds.), The Theory and Philosophy of Organizations: Critical Issues and New Perspectives, (London, UK: Routledge, 1990); John Hassard and Martin Parker (Eds.), Postmodernism and Organizations, (London, UK: Sage, 1993); Stewart Clegg, Cynthia Hardy, Tom Lawrence and Walter Nord (Eds.), Handbook of Organizational Studies, (London, UK: Sage, 1996); David Boje, Robert Geplart and Tojo Thatchenkery (Eds.), Postmodern Management and Organization Theory, (London, UK: Sage, 1996); Alan Mckinlay and Ken Starkey (Eds.), Foucault, Management and Organization Theory; Roy Jacques, Manufacturing the Employee: Management Knowledge from the 19th to 21st Centuries, (London, UK: Sage, 1996); Gibson Burrell and Gareth Morgan, Sociological Paradigms and Organisational Analysis, (London, UK: Heinemann Educational Books, 1979).

  32. 32.

    Martin Parker and John Hassard, “Introduction”, in John Hassard and Martin Parker (Eds.), Postmodernism and Organizations, (London, UK: Sage, 1996), xiii.

  33. 33.

    Stewart Clegg, “Foucault, Power and Organizations”, in Alan McKinley and Ken Starkey (Eds.), Foucault, Management and Organization Theory, (London, UK: Sage Publications, 1998), 36.

  34. 34.

    Edwin A. Locke, “Preface”, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 21 (2003), ix.

  35. 35.

    Ibid.

  36. 36.

    Stewart R. Clegg and Martin Kornberger, “Modernism, postmodernism, management and organization theory”, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 21 (2003), 60, 84.

  37. 37.

    Bill McKelvey, “Postmodernism versus truth in management theory”, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 21 (2003), 115–16.

  38. 38.

    William Mckinlay, “Postmodern epistemology in organization studies: A critical appraisal”, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 21 (2003), 204, 220.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., 203.

  40. 40.

    Rowlinson and Carter, “Foucault and history”, 531.

  41. 41.

    Clark and Rowlinson, “Towards an ‘historic turn’?” 333, 345.

  42. 42.

    Ibid., 331, 334.

  43. 43.

    Ibid., 333.

  44. 44.

    M.N. Zald, “Organization studies as scientific and humanistic enterprise: Toward a reconceptualization of the foundations of the field”, Organization Science, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Nov. 1993), 608–20; A. Kieser, “Why organization theory needs historical analysis – and how this should be performed”, Organization Science, Vol 5, No. 4 (Nov. 1994), 608–20; Paul Goldman, “‘Searching for history in organization theory’: Comment on Kieser”, Organization Science, Vol 5, No. 4 (Nov. 1994), 621.

  45. 45.

    Clark and Rowlinson, “Towards an ‘historic turn’?” 331, 337, 341, 346.

  46. 46.

    McKinley, “Postmodern epistemology”, 206.

  47. 47.

    Clark and Rowlinson, “Towards an ‘historic turn’?” 331.

  48. 48.

    Booth and Rowlinson, “Management and organizational history”, 5–30; Rowlinson, Hassard and Decker, “Research strategies for organizational history”, 250–74; Rowlinson and Hassard, “History and the cultural turn”, 1–28; Rowlinson and Hassard, “Historical neo-institutionalism or neo-institutional history?”, 111–26; Booth, Rowlinson, Clark, Delahaye and Proctor, “Scenarios”, 87–95; Decker, Kipping and Whadwhani, “New business histories!”, 30–40; Michael Rowlinson, Steve Toms and John Wilson, “Legitimacy and the capitalist corporation: Cross-cutting perspectives on ownership and control”, Critical Perspectives in Accounting, Vol. 17 (2006), 681–92; Taylor, Bell and Cooke, “Business history”, 151–66; Bernard Burnes and Bill Cooke, “Review article: The past, present and future of organization development – taking the long view”, Human Relations, Vol. 65, No. 11 (2012), 1395–1429; Mairi Maclean, Charles Harvey and Stewart R. Clegg, “Conceptualizing historical organization studies”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 41, No. 4 (2016), 609–32; Huseyin Leblebici, “History and organization theory: Potential for a transdisciplinary convergence”, in Marcelo Bucheli and Daniel Whadwhani (Eds.), Organizations in Time: History, Theory and Methods, (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013), 1–70; Roy Suddaby, William M. Foster and Albert J. Mills, “Historical institutionalism”, in Marcelo Bucheli and Daniel Whadwhani (Eds.), Organizations in Time: History, Theory and Methods, (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013), 1–34; Bucheli and Whadwhani (Eds.), Organizations in Time; McLaren, Mills, and Weatherbee (Eds.), Management and Organizational History; Durepos and Mills, ANTi-History; Cummings, Bridgman, Hassard and Rowlinson, New History of Management; Cummings and Bridgman, “The relevant past”, 77–93; Kipping and Űsdiken, “History in organization and management theory”, 535–58.

  49. 49.

    Rowlinson, Hassard and Decker, “Research strategies for organizational history”, 254, 267, 269.

  50. 50.

    Ricoeur, Memory, History and Forgetting, 284–85; Rowlinson, Hassard and Decker, “Research strategies for organizational history”, 251, 253, 258–59, 265, 269.

  51. 51.

    Rowlinson, Hassard and Decker, “Research strategies for organizational history”, 251.

  52. 52.

    Ibid.

  53. 53.

    Ibid., 254.

  54. 54.

    See, in particular: Hayden White, “Foucault decoded: Notes from underground”, History and Theory, Vol. 12, No. 1 (1973), 23–54.

  55. 55.

    Rowlinson, Hassard and Decker, “Research strategies for organizational history”, 257, 254, 268, 251.

  56. 56.

    See, for example: Rowlinson and Hassard, “Historical neo-institutionalism or neo-institutional history?”, 111–26; Decker, Kipping and Whadwhani, “New business histories!”, 30–40; Maclean, Harvey and Clegg, “Conceptualizing historical organization studies”, 609–32.

  57. 57.

    Paul C. Godfrey, John Hassard, Ellen S. O’Connor, Michael Rowlinson and Martin Ruf, “What is organizational history? Toward a creative synthesis of history and organization studies – introduction to special topic”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 41, No. 4 (2016), 590–608.

  58. 58.

    Ibid., 595, 598–99.

  59. 59.

    Cummings, Bridgman, Hassard and Rowlinson, New History of Management, 35.

  60. 60.

    Ibid., 41.

  61. 61.

    Durepos and Mills, ANTi-History, 84.

  62. 62.

    Ibid., 87–89.

  63. 63.

    Jacques Derrida (trans. Gayatri Spivak), Of Grammatology, (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1976), 10–13, 19.

  64. 64.

    Martin Heidegger (trans. John Macquarie and Edward Robinson), Being and Time, (London, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 1962), 9, 35, 45; Emmanuel Levinas, “Meaning and sense”, in Emmanuel Levinas (trans. Alphonso Lingis), Collected Philosophical Papers, (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987), 102; Jacques Derrida (trans. Alan Bass), Writing and Difference, (London and New York: Routledge Classics, 2001), 251–55; Michel Foucault, “Appendix II – My body, this paper, this fire”, in Michael Foucault (trans. Jonathan Murphy and Jean Khalfa), History of Madness, second edition (London, UK Routledge, 2006), 573. This edition was a re-release and expansion of Foucault’s earlier Madness and Civilisation, first published in English in 1965.

  65. 65.

    Cummings, Bridgman, Hassard and Rowlinson, New History of Management, 55–58; Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book IV, Chap. II, para. 9.

  66. 66.

    Cummings, Bridgman, Hassard and Rowlinson, New History of Management, 52.

  67. 67.

    Ibid., 62.

  68. 68.

    Ibid., Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book III, Chap. II, para. 10.

  69. 69.

    Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book IV, Chap. VI, Part II, 88. [Page number refers to the original facsimile.]

  70. 70.

    Ibid., Book V, Chap II, 424 [This is page number in the original facsimile; page number given due to the number of paragraphs to previous heading.]

  71. 71.

    Cummings, Bridgman, Hassard and Rowlinson, New History of Management, 61.

  72. 72.

    Burnes and Cooke, “Review article”, 1415.

  73. 73.

    Ibid., 1415.

  74. 74.

    World Bank, On-line Database: Indicators – Agricultural and Rural Development, https://data.worldbank.org/topic/agriculture-and-rural-development?view=chart [Accessed 8 November 2017].

  75. 75.

    Roy Suddaby and Royston Greenwood, “Rhetorical strategies of legitimacy”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 50 (2005), 35–67; Roy Suddaby, William M. Foster and Christine Quinn Trank, “Rhetorical history as a source of competitive advantage”, Advances in Strategic Management, Vol. 27 (2010), 147–73; William M. Foster, Diego M. Coraila, Roy Suddaby, Jochem Kroezen and David Chandler, “The strategic use of historical narratives: A theoretical framework”, Business History, Vol. 59, No. 8 (2017), 1176–1200; William M. Foster, Roy Suddaby, Alison Minkus and Elden Wiebe, “History as social memory assets: The example of Tim Hortens”, Management & Organizational History, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2011), 101–20; William Milton Foster, Roy Suddaby and Diego M. Coraiola, “Useful rhetorical history: An ideographic analysis of Fortune 500 corporations”, Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings, (New York, NY: Academy of Management, August 2016); Stephanie Decker, “Corporate legitimacy and advertising: British companies and the rhetoric of development in West Africa”, Business History Review, Vol. 81, No. 1 (Spring 2007), 59–86; Ronald Kroeze and Sjoerd Keulen, “Leading a multinational is history in practice: The use of invented traditions and narratives at AkzoNobel, Shell, Philips and ABN AMRO”, Business History, Vol. 55, No. 8 (2013), 1265–1287.

  76. 76.

    Phillippe Joseph Salazar, “Rhetoric as salvatory”, African Yearbook of Rhetoric: Gender Rhetoric – North and South, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2010), 1–2.

  77. 77.

    Suddaby and Greenwood, “Rhetorical strategies”, 41.

  78. 78.

    Roy Suddaby and William M. Foster, “Guest editorial: History and organizational change”, Journal of Management, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Jan. 2017), 20.

  79. 79.

    Elliott Jaques, The Changing Culture of a Factory, (London, UK: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951), 251.

  80. 80.

    Suddaby and Foster, “History and organizational change”, 31; Foster, Suddaby, Minkus and Wiebe, “Tim Hortens”, 105–09; Foster, Coraila, Suddaby, Kroezen and Chandler, “The strategic use of historical narratives”, 1180–82. For point of comparison in the brand literature, see: N. Morgan, A. Pritchard and R. Piggott, “New Zealand: 100% pure – the creation of a powerful niche destination brand”, Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Apr. 2002), 335–54. The overlap between brand and rhetoric can be seen in the fact that Morgan regularly publishes in the African Journal of Rhetoric.

  81. 81.

    Roy Suddaby, “Toward a historical consciousness: Following the historic turn in management thought”, M@n@gement, Vol. 19, No. 1 (2016), 47.

  82. 82.

    Foster, Suddaby, Minkus and Wiebe, “Tim Hortens”, 108–09; Suddaby and Greenwood, “Rhetorical strategies”, 36–38; Mats Alvesson and Dan Kärreman, “Taking the linguistic turn in organizational research”, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol 36, No. 2 (Jun. 2000), 144–45.

  83. 83.

    Suddaby and Foster, “History and organizational change”, 31.

  84. 84.

    Albert J. Mills, Roy Suddaby, William M. Foster and Gabrielle Durepos, “Re-visiting the historic turn 10 years later: current debates in management and organizational history – an introduction”, Management & Organizational History, Vol. 11, No. 2 (2016), 71.

  85. 85.

    Suddaby and Greenwood, “Rhetorical strategies”, 41.

  86. 86.

    Suddaby, “Toward a historical consciousness”, 54–55.

  87. 87.

    Suddaby and Foster, “History and organizational change”, 31.

  88. 88.

    Deidre N. McCloskey, The Rhetorics of Economics, Second Edition (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), 4–6.

  89. 89.

    Ibid., 15–16.

  90. 90.

    Ibid., xiii.

  91. 91.

    Roy Suddaby, Max Ganzin and Alison Minkus, “Craft, magic and the re-enchantment of the world”, European Management Journal, Vol. 35, No. 4 (2017), 286.

  92. 92.

    Ibid., 291, 287.

  93. 93.

    Ibid., 294.

  94. 94.

    Ibid., 293.

  95. 95.

    Ibid., 294; Friedrich Nietzsche, “On the Genealogy of Morals”, in Friedrich Nietzsche (trans. Walter Kaufman and R.J. Hollingdale), On the Genealogy of Morals/Ecce Homo, (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1989), 54, 41.

  96. 96.

    Mills, Suddaby, Foster and Durepos, “Re-visiting the historic turn”, 70–71.

  97. 97.

    Suddaby, “Toward a historical consciousness”, 55, 49–50; Burrell and Morgan, Sociological Paradigms, 22.

  98. 98.

    Suddaby and Foster, “History and organizational change”, 32.

  99. 99.

    Michael Anteby and Virág Molnár, “Collective memory meets organizational identity: Remembering to forget in a firm’s rhetorical history”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 55, No. 3 (Jun. 2012), 518.

  100. 100.

    See, for example: Suddaby and Foster, “History and organizational change”, 24–26.

  101. 101.

    Maclean, Harvey and Clegg, “Conceptualizing historical organization studies”, 627.

  102. 102.

    Taylor, Bell and Cooke, “Business history and the historiographical operation”, 162.

  103. 103.

    See, for example: Rowlinson, Hassard and Decker, “Research strategies for organizational history”, 251, 259; Michael Rowlinson, Andrea Casey, Per H. Hansen and Albert J. Mills, “Narratives and memory in organizations”, Organization, Vol. 24, No. 4 (2014), 441–46; Leanne Cutcher, Karen Dale and Melissa Tyler, “‘Remembering as forgetting’: Organizational commemoration as a politics of recognition”, Organization Studies, (2017), 1–24;

  104. 104.

    Ricoeur, Memory, History and Forgetting, 412.

  105. 105.

    Ibid., 253–57, 498, 449–50.

  106. 106.

    Ibid., 280.

  107. 107.

    Ibid., 448.

  108. 108.

    Ibid., 498.

  109. 109.

    Ibid., 504–05.

  110. 110.

    Taylor, Bell and Cooke, “Business history and the historiographical operation”, 151–66.

  111. 111.

    Steve Toms and John Wilson, “In defence of business history: A reply to Taylor, Bell and Cooke”, Management & Organizational History, Vol. 5, No. 1 (2010), 112.

  112. 112.

    Marc Bloch (trans. Peter Putman), The Historian’s Craft, (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1954), 60–62, 65.

  113. 113.

    Leopold von Ranke, “Wilhelm von Humboldt: On the Historian’s Task”, in Leopold von Ranke (trans. Wilma A. Iggers and Konrad von Moltke), The Theory and Practice of History, (New York, NY: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973), 5.

  114. 114.

    Mads Mordhorst and Stefan Schwarzkopf, “Theorising narrative in business history”, Business History, Vol. 59, No. 8 (2017), 1163. The abbreviated quote from Ranke is found at p. 1159 in this article. For similar misrepresentations of Ranke, see: Durepos and Mills, ANTi-History, 62; Terrance G. Weatherbee, “History in management textbooks: Adding, transforming, or more?”, in Patricia Genoe McLaren, Albert J. Mills, and Terrance Weatherbee (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Management and Organizational History, (London and New York: Routledge, 2015), 116.

  115. 115.

    Ranke, “Wilhelm von Humboldt”, 5.

  116. 116.

    Ibid., 6.

  117. 117.

    Ibid., 7.

  118. 118.

    Immanuel Kant (trans. Marcus Weigelt), Critique of Pure Reason, (London, UK: Penguin Classics), 288.

  119. 119.

    McCloskey, “Rhetorics of Economics”, 487.

  120. 120.

    Rowlinson, Hassard and Decker, “Research strategies for organizational history”, 251–52, 259; Hayden White, “The value of narrativity in the representation of reality”, Critical Inquiry, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Aut. 1980), 10; Ricoeur, Memory, History and Forgetting, 275.

  121. 121.

    Suddaby, “Toward a historical consciousness”, 56.

  122. 122.

    Rowlinson and Hassard, “History and the cultural turn”, 16.

  123. 123.

    Gabrielle Durepos, “ANTi-History: Toward amodern histories”, in Patricia Genoe McLaren, Albert J. Mills, and Terrance Weatherbee (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Management and Organizational History, (London and New York: Routledge, 2015), 169.

  124. 124.

    Durepos and Mills, ANTi-History, 105.

  125. 125.

    Ibid., 64.

  126. 126.

    Ibid., 48–50.

  127. 127.

    Durepos, “ANTi-History: Toward amodern histories”, 167–68.

  128. 128.

    See, in particular: Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, Chapter 2, 13–48; Thomas Hobbes (Ed. A.P. Martinich), Leviathan, (Broadway Press: Peterborough, Canada, 2002), 40.

  129. 129.

    Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, 47.

  130. 130.

    Ibid., 135.

  131. 131.

    Durepos, “ANTi-History: Toward amodern histories”, 174–75; Durepos and Mills, ANTi-History, 49–52.

  132. 132.

    Rowlinson and Hassard, “History and the cultural turn”, 17.

  133. 133.

    Durepos and Mills, ANTi-History, 24.

  134. 134.

    Latour, “Why has critique run out of steam?” 231.

  135. 135.

    Ibid., 242–43.

  136. 136.

    Ibid., 246–48.

  137. 137.

    Fernand Braudel (trans. Sian Reynolds), The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, (New York, NY: Harper Torchbooks, 1975), Vol. 1, 451.

  138. 138.

    Fernand Braudel (trans. Sian Reynolds), Civilization and Capitalism: The Wheels of Commerce, (London, UK: Collins, 1982), 22.

  139. 139.

    Ibid., 499.

  140. 140.

    Sidney Pollard, The Genesis of Modern Management: A Study of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain, (London, UK: Edward Arnold, 1965), 6–7; Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business, (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 1977), 109.

  141. 141.

    Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics, (London, UK: Macmillan Publishers, 1920), 291.

  142. 142.

    Ibid.

  143. 143.

    Keith Hoskin, “Boxing clever: For, against and beyond Foucault in the battle for accounting theory”, Critical Perspectives in Accounting, Vol. 5, No. 1 (1994), 57.

  144. 144.

    Ibid., 58.

  145. 145.

    Keith W. Hoskin and Richard H. Macve, “Accounting and the examination: A genealogy of disciplinary power”, Accounting, Organizations, and Society, Vol. 11, No. 2 (1986), 105–36.

  146. 146.

    Ibid., 106, 113.

  147. 147.

    Keith W. Hoskin and Richard H. Macve, “The genesis of accountability: The West Point connections”, Accounting, Organizations, and Society, Vol. 13, No. 1 (1988), 37–73; Chandler, Visible Hand, 72, 75. Also see: Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., “The beginnings of ‘Big Business’ in American industry”, Business History Review, Vol. 33 (Jan. 1959) 1–31.

  148. 148.

    Hoskin and Macve, “Genesis of accountability”, 54–55, 57–58; Hoskin and Macve, “Accounting and the examination”, 130–32.

  149. 149.

    Hoskin and Macve, “Genesis of accountability”, 67.

  150. 150.

    Peter Miller and Ted O’Leary, “Accounting and the construction of the governable person”, Accounting, Organizations, and Society, Vol. 12, No. 3 (1987), 238.

  151. 151.

    Derrida, Of Grammatology, 3, 10–13; Hoskin and Macve, “Accounting and the examination”, 130; Hoskin and Macve, “Genesis of accountability”, 59, 62.

  152. 152.

    Hoskin and Macve, “Accounting and the examination”, 106–07; Miller and O’Leary, “The governable person”, 238.

  153. 153.

    Michel Foucault, “Governmentality”, in Michel Foucault (trans. Colin Gordon, Leo Marshall, John Mepham and Kate Soper), Power / Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977, (New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1980), 102, 100.

  154. 154.

    Peter Armstrong, “The influence of Michel Foucault on accounting research”, Critical Perspectives in Accounting, Vol. 5 (1994), 45.

  155. 155.

    Paul Montagna, “Modernism vs postmodernism in management accounting”, Critical Perspectives in Accounting, Vol. 8 (1997), 132.

  156. 156.

    Aida Sy and Tony Tinkler, “Archival research and the lost worlds of accounting”, Accounting History, Vol. 10, No. 1 (2005), 47–69.

  157. 157.

    C. Edward Arrington and Ann L Watkins, “Maintaining ‘critical intent’ within postmodern theoretical perspective on accounting research”, Critical Perspectives in Accounting, Vol. 13 (2002), 139–57.

  158. 158.

    Miller and O’Leary, “Accounting and the construction of the governable person”, 236.

  159. 159.

    H. Thomas Johnson, “The tragedy of modern economic growth: A call to business to radically change its purpose and practices”, Accounting History, Vol. 22, No. 2 (2017), 174–75.

  160. 160.

    Montagna, “Modernism vs postmodernism in management accounting”, 130–31; Christopher Grey, “Debating Foucault: A critical reply to Neimark”, Critical Perspectives in Accounting, Vol. 5 (1994), 15; Michael Gaffikin, “What is (accounting) history?”, Accounting History, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2011), 235–51.

  161. 161.

    C. Edward Arrington and Anthony G. Puxty, “Accounting, interests and rationality: A communicative relation”, Critical Perspectives in Accounting, Vol. 2 (1991), 52.

  162. 162.

    Niamh M. Brennan and Doris M. Merkl-Davis, “Rhetoric and argument in social and environmental reporting: The dirty laundry case”, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 27, No. 4 (192014), 602–33.

  163. 163.

    Thomas Tyson, “Accounting for labor in the early 19th century: The U.S. arms making experience”, Accounting Historians Journal, Vol. 17, No. 1 (1990), 47–59. Also see: Thomas Tyson, “Keeping the record straight: Foucauldian revisionism and nineteenth century U.S. cost accounting history”, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1993), 4–16.

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    Richard K. Fleischman and Thomas N. Tyson, “Developing expertise: Two episodes in early nineteenth century U.S. management accounting history”, Business and Economic History, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Winter 1997), 377.

  165. 165.

    Ibid., 375–76.

  166. 166.

    Thomas N. Tyson and David Oldroyd, “The debate between postmodernism and historiography: An accounting historian’s manifesto”, Accounting History, Vol. 22, No. 1 (2017), 35. Note: This article was awarde the Robert W. Gibson Manuscript Award in 2018, having been deemed the best paper published in Accounting History in 2017.

  167. 167.

    Ibid., 35, 39.

  168. 168.

    Marilyn Neimark, “The king is dead. Long live the king!”, Critical Perspectives in Accounting, Vol. 1 (1990), 105, 110. Also see: Marilyn Neimark, “Regicide revisited: Marx, Foucault and accounting”, Critical Perspectives in Accounting, Vol. 5 (1994), 87–108.

  169. 169.

    Christine Cooper, “Against postmodernism: Class oriented questions for critical accounting”, Critical Perspectives in Accounting, Vol. 8 (1997), 15–41.

  170. 170.

    Ibid., 32.

  171. 171.

    Rob Byrer, “Americanism and financial accounting theory – Part 1: Was America born capitalist”, Critical Perspectives in Accounting, Vol. 23 (2012), 511–55.

  172. 172.

    Stuart Burchell, Colin Clubb and Anthony G. Hopwood, “Accounting in its social context: Towards a history of value added in the United Kingdom”, Accounting, Organizations, and Society, Vol. 10, No. 4 (1985), 381, 399–400, 405.

  173. 173.

    Armstrong, “The influence of Michel Foucault”, 46.

  174. 174.

    Anthony G. Hopwood, “On trying to study accounting in the contexts in which it operates”, Accounting, Organizations, and Society, Vol. 8, No. 2/3 (1983), 287, 298–99; Anthony G. Hopwood, “The tale of a committee that never reported: Disagreements on intertwining accounting with the social”, Accounting, Organizations, and Society, Vol. 10, No. 3 (1985), 361–77.

  175. 175.

    Burchell, Clubb and Hopwood, “Accounting in its social context”, 399.

  176. 176.

    Anthony G. Hopwood, “The archaeology of accounting systems”, Accounting, Organizations, and Society, Vol. 12, No. 3 (1987), 210, 229–31.

  177. 177.

    Ibid., 230, Footnote 17.

  178. 178.

    Peter Armstrong, “The discourse of Michel Foucault: A sociological encounter”, Critical Perspectives in Accounting, Vol. 27 (2015), 30.

  179. 179.

    James Guthrie and Lee D. Parker, “Editorial”, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1988), 3. At the time of the launch of the journal, Parker was employed at Griffith University, this author’s current employer.

  180. 180.

    Garry D. Carnegie, “Editorial”, Accounting History, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1996), 6.

  181. 181.

    Carnegie served as a highly effective Head of the Department of Accounting at RMIT University in Melbourne from 2010 until December 2017. He is currently Emeritus Professor at this institution.

  182. 182.

    Armstrong, “The discourse of Michel Foucault”, 30.

  183. 183.

    Peter Miller and Chris Napier, “Genealogies of Calculation”, Accounting, Organizations, and Society, Vol. 18, No. 7/8 (1993), 631–48; Richard K. Fleischman and Thomas N. Tyson, “Archival researchers: An endangered species?”, The Accounting Historians Journal, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Dec. 1997), 92–93.

  184. 184.

    Garry D. Carnegie, “Historiography for accounting: Methodological contributions, contributors and thought patterns from 1983 to 2012”, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 27, No. 4 (2014), 734.

  185. 185.

    Ibid., 734–35.

  186. 186.

    Neimark, “The king is dead. Long live the king!”, 220.

  187. 187.

    Cummings, Bridgman, Hassard and Rowlinson, New History of Management, 377–80.

  188. 188.

    Niall Ferguson, Civilization: The West and the Rest, (London, UK: Allen Lane, 2011), 379–402.

  189. 189.

    Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 22.

  190. 190.

    Rowlinson and John Hassard, “History and the cultural turn”, 6.

  191. 191.

    Booth, Rowlinson, Clark, Delahaye and Proctor, “Scenarios”, 88.

  192. 192.

    Cummings, Bridgman, Hassard and Rowlinson, New History of Management, 177.

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  194. 194.

    R.K. Mautz and Hussein A. Sharaf, The Philosophy of Auditing, (Sarasota, FL: American Accounting Association, 1961), 2.

  195. 195.

    Thucydides (trans. Rex Warner), History of the Peloponnesian War, (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1954), 47–48.

  196. 196.

    Jacques Derrida (trans. Alan Bass), Writing and Difference, (London and New York: Routledge Classics, 2001), 1–35; Jacques Derrida (trans. Gayatri Spivak), Of Grammatology, (Baltimore, ML: John Hopkins University Press, 1976), 3–14.

  197. 197.

    Derrida, Writing and Difference, 97–192, 284–85; Emmanuel Levinas, “Meaning and sense”, in Emmanuel Levinas (trans. Alphonso Lingis), Collected Philosophical Papers, (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987), 102–3; Martin Heidegger (trans. John Macquarie and Edward Robinson), Being and Time, (London, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 1962), 9, 35, 45.

  198. 198.

    Michel Foucault (trans. Robert Hurley), The History of Sexuality – An Introduction, (New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1978), 100; Jean-Francois Lyotard (tans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi), The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1986), 47.

  199. 199.

    Michel Foucault (trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith), The Archaeology of Knowledge, (New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1972), 76–79; Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 101.

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  201. 201.

    Durepos and Mills, ANTi-History, 87–88.

  202. 202.

    Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, 5.

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  205. 205.

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  206. 206.

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  208. 208.

    Rowlinson, Hassard and Decker, “Research strategies for organizational history”, 254.

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    Bradley Bowden

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Bowden, B. (2018). Postmodernism in Business Studies. In: Work, Wealth, and Postmodernism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76180-0_7

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