History and Organizational Change

Suddaby, Roy ORCID: 0000-0002-9167-9180 and Foster, William M (2017) History and Organizational Change. JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, 43 (1). pp. 19-38.

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Abstract

<jats:p>This research commentary introduces historical consciousness to studying organizational change. Most theories of organizational change contain within them implicit assumptions about history. Made explicit, these assumptions tend to cluster into different models of change that vary by the assumed objectivity of the past and the associated malleability of the future. We explore and elaborate the implicit assumptions of history. We identify four implicit models of history in the change literature: History-as-Fact, History-as-Power, History-as-Sensemaking, and History-as-Rhetoric. We discuss the implications of theorizing organizational change from each of these views of history and outline future directions for studying change with a heightened understanding of history.</jats:p>

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	change, history, power, rhetoric, sensemaking
Divisions:	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Management
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	06 Nov 2023 08:21
Last Modified:	06 Nov 2023 08:21
DOI:	10.1177/0149206316675031
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3176643