Clio’s toolkit:historical methods beyond theory building from cases

Historical research in organization and management studies continues to be described as a type of inductive theory building from cases. But historical epistemology and methodological practices are better understood as a form of situated scholarly inquiry in which the researcher interprets or analyzes the past from a position in the present through a process of abductive reasoning. This chapter elaborates on the implications of the situated character of historical reasoning for the nature of historical knowledge claims, and for the methodological practices involved in scholarly historical research, including the treatment of evidence, the establishment of explanations, the attempt at understanding, and the foundations for evaluative conclusions. It concludes by considering the implications for the role of historical discourse within management and organization studies more broadly

New business histories! Plurality in business history research methods

We agree with de Jong et al.'s argument that business historians should make their methods more explicit and welcome a more general debate about the most appropriate methods for business historical research. But rather than advocating one ‘new business history’, we argue that contemporary debates about methodology in business history need greater appreciation for the diversity of approaches that have developed in the last decade. And while the hypothesis-testing framework prevalent in the mainstream social sciences favoured by de Jong et al. should have its place among these methodologies, we identify a number of additional streams of research that can legitimately claim to have contributed novel methodological insights by broadening the range of interpretative and qualitative approaches to business history. Thus, we reject privileging a single method, whatever it may be, and argue instead in favour of recognising the plurality of methods being developed and used by business historians – both within their own field and as a basis for interactions with others

Historical Change and the Competitive Advantage of Firms: Explicating the “Dynamics” in the Dynamic Capabilities Framework

This working paper aims to deepen the scholarly dialogue between strategy and history. It does so by examining how historical models of change can contribute to theory and research on the competitive advantage of firms during periods of rapid innovation. Focusing on the dynamic capabilities framework, it shows how three models of historical change – evolutionary, dialectical, and constitutive – can be used to extend theory and deepen research about the origins, context, and micro-foundations of dynamic capabilities. We show how each model of historical change shaped the intellectual development of the dynamic capabilities framework, point to historical research that illustrates these processes, and discuss the methodological and conceptual implications for future research. We conclude by suggesting that recognizing and building on these historical models of change can provide a common conceptual language for a deeper dialogue between historians and strategy researchers

Utilidad de la procalcitonina sérica para la discriminación temprana entre fascitis necrosante y celulitis de las extremidades : serie de casos y revisión de la literatura

Objective: to assess the usefulness of a risk scale based on serum procalcitoninwhen compared with the LRINEC score in the early discrimination between necrotizing fasciitis (NF) and extremities cellulite.Material and method: retrospective study, between 2009 and 2017, of all patients with the confirmed diagnosis of NF in one limb (N = 10). The findings of these patients were compared with those of 23 patients who were admitted for severe cellulitis of limbs in the same period. The variables related to each group were analyzed. Using the area under the curve (AUC), the discriminationcapacity for NF diagnosis of two scales was compared, one based on procalcitonin levels and another based on the LRINEC score.Results: the area under the curve was greater for the risk categorized by procalcitonin levels. When analyzing the LRINEC score and procalcitonin levels as continuous variables, the latter also presented a larger area under the curve. The cut-off point with the greatest area under the curve was that corresponding to> 0.87 ng / ml of procalcitonin (sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 82.6%) and score 5 on the LRINEC score (sensitivity of 80% and specificity of 82.6%).Conclusion: in our sample the level of procalcitoninand the scale based on this level has been shown as a more sensitive and at least as specific tool as the LRINEC scale for early discrimination between NF and a cellulite of the extremities

The Social Effects of Entrepreneurship on Society and Some Potential Remedies: Four Provocations

A rapidly growing research stream examines the social effects of entrepreneurship on society. This research assesses the rise of entrepreneurship as a dominant theme in society and studies how entrepreneurship contributes to the production and acceptance of socio-economic inequality regimes, social problems, class and power struggles, and systemic inequities. In this article, scholars present new perspectives on an organizational sociology-inspired research agenda of entrepreneurial capitalism and detail the potential remedies to bound the unfettered expansion of a narrow conception of entrepreneurship. Taken together, the essays put forward four central provocations: 1) reform the study and pedagogy of entrepreneurship by bringing in the humanities; 2) examine entrepreneurship as a cultural phenomenon shaping society; 3) go beyond the dominant biases in entrepreneurship research and pedagogy; and 4) explore alternative models to entrepreneurial capitalism. More scholarly work scrutinizing the entrepreneurship–society nexus is urgently needed, and these essays provide generative arguments toward further developing this research agenda

Opinions: Business History and Anthropology

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The Burden of History in the Family Business Organization

In this paper we focus on the study of history through the use of narratives, within the context of the prevalent form of organization worldwide: the family business. Specifically we consider the dilemma of the impossible gift of succession using Nietzsche's discussion of the burden of history and paralleling the story of a family business succession with that of Shakespeare's King Lear. This way, we seek to make a contribution to organizational studies by answering recent calls to engage more with history in studies of business organizations. By implication, the study also initiates an integration of family business studies into organization studies