An Exploration of the Importance of History to Managers:: The Meaningful, Manipulative, and Memorable Uses of Milestones

Realizing that corporate heritage can serve a multitude of beneficial business purposes, many companies are looking back into their pasts with renewed vigor. Traditionally not considered highly relevant, except perhaps to commemorate a momentous occasion, history is increasingly being strategically...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Organizational dynamics 2003-01, Vol.32 (3), p.286-308
Main Authors: CARSON, PAULA PHILLIPS, CARSON, KERRY DAVID
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Advantages
Corporate histories
Manycompanies
Strategic management
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Realizing that corporate heritage can serve a multitude of beneficial business purposes, many companies are looking back into their pasts with renewed vigor. Traditionally not considered highly relevant, except perhaps to commemorate a momentous occasion, history is increasingly being strategically deployed for its forensic value. In this article, company histories are analyzed and nearly 30 distinct enlightened, manipulative, and defensive uses of business history are delineated. For organizational purposes, this listing of diverse uses is categorized into 3 broad sections. In the first section, companies highlighted simply use their history as a prop, of sorts, to bring them up to speed, to help them contemplate and understand their baseline. In the second section, history is used not to truly comprehend, but instead to alter existing beliefs or influence perceptions and opinions of companies. It is the third section, elaborating on the productivity-enhancing use of history, that companies seem to capture the essence of what historians hope for when their discipline is engaged.
ISSN:0090-2616
1873-3530
DOI:10.1016/S0090-2616(03)00029-9