Historical reflections at the intersection of past and future: Celebrating 50 years of Management Learning

Reflexivity, history and management learning

Anderson et al. note reflexivity as a strong theme of management learning, especially since the 2014 adoption of the journal tagline, ‘the journal for critical, reflexive scholarship on organisation and learning’. The concept of reflexivity is central to articles with a high research impact. Our exploration of the past of Management Learning as a journal and field hints to the potential of mobilizing history to probe critical and reflexive management learning.

While our intention is not to offer an extensive overview of the literature on reflexivity in management learning, we summarize it instrumentally to highlight a connection between history and reflexivity. Above all, reflexivity involves a form of reflection that implies turning back onto oneself and one’s research the research tools it produces as a way to problematize academic knowledge as truth (Cunliffe, 2003; Swartz, 1997). Although numerous types of reflexivities have been identified, what unites them is a dedication to questioning the underlying assumptions of knowledge claims, what is taken for granted and the resultant impact on our research (design, theories, practice and writing), our participants and ourselves as academics (Cunliffe, 2003, 2016a) Being reflexive is an ontological claim that opens the capacity for choice. Being reflexive involves continuous and self-conscious reflection on past decisions and actions to foster insight that we can choose to incorporate into the composing of oneself. While reflection implies looking back to solve problems and correct errors, reflexivity is about situating oneself and one’s research as an outcome of past decisions and opportunities with consequences for the future (Cunliffe, 2016b). The value of reflexivity lies in its capacity to foster thinking critically about the role and impact of values, beliefs and actions on our resultant research. Reflexivity is intrinsic to management learning per se, since it is only by reflecting on past actions that we can recalibrate and retune actions and behaviour in the future.

At the basis of reflexivity is an awareness that all knowledge is socially constructed, relational and situated (Cunliffe, 2016a). While relationality implies that our knowledge of the social world is mediated through our interactions with others, our past and how we imagine our futures, situated knowledge implies that it is always produced in and influenced by a specific geographic location and time with resultant implications for the type of knowledge (ideology, ontology and epistemology) produced (Cunliffe, 2003). Positioning all knowledge as situated and relational grounds a knowledge claim that permits us to suggest it as one of many possibilities. Central to reflexivity is an attitude to unsettle, thus, it promotes a general insecurity regarding certainty in the production of knowledge (Pollner, 1991).

The turn to reflexivity in management learning (especially post 2014) came in tandem with calls for greater reflexivity in critical perspectives on business and management history (Rowlinson et al., 2009). The potential in marrying reflexivity with history is evident, given historical thinking is latent if not implied within reflexivity (Barros et al., 2019; Stutz and Sachs, 2018). Reflexivity promotes historical thought by virtue of its retrospective orientation (Pollner, 1991). For example, to express research as a situated and relational outcome of choices, reflexive researchers must probe various individuated points in time to explore who influenced their choices, where the choices were made and how the various locations shaped the research outcome. Exploring past choices in this way acknowledges all knowledge as ‘historically’ accomplished by exposing its attachments to the ‘social relations of its production’ (Alvesson and Willmott, 1992: 460).

The mobilization of history to probe critical and reflexive management learning is present in each special issue article. For example, Kavanagh suggests that recounting the events at the University of California, Irvine is central to a reflexive appreciation of knowledge in organization studies. Syed and Pio offer that managers can enhance their reflexivity and learning on management diversity by revisiting the past. What is remarkable is that two special issue articles combine historical analysis and reflexive scholarship in novel and theoretically fruitful ways. For example, the articles by Tennant et al., as well as that by Reynolds and Vince, offer ways to be reflexive that theorize ‘history’ rigorously. Tennant et al., show how ‘historical consciousness’ can ignite critical reflexivity in students to enable an understanding of their subject positions. Reynolds and Vince theorize the notion of ‘historical reflexivity’ to encourage management learning scholars to explore how their collective ideas and academic contributions are outcomes of situated and intersecting relationships. Historical reflexivity proceeds non-chronologically, to interrogate the emotional, conscious and unconscious taken for granted aspects of our practice with an aim to unsettle our being in relation to our craft.

The theoretical and empirical ties of reflexivity and history are nascent. What opportunities are afforded for teaching and researching management learning at the intersection of reflexivity and history?

Using archives to teach and research management learning

Our reading of the special issue coupled with our involvement in the budding field of historical organization studies (Maclean et al., 2016) have prompted us to ask what potential do archives hold to teach and research management learning? While Cooke and Alcadipani (2015) remind us that archival analysis is ‘the historian’s empirical method of choice’, archival research does not feature prominently in the field of organization studies and management learning (p. 483). If the field of management learning is to become increasingly sensitized to historical thought, perhaps archival research can become a normalized research method. Our pointed review of archival research in organization studies below proposes two interrelated claims. First, archives might be useful to teach and research management learning. Second, uses of archival research must be done reflexively, but as Tennent et al. teach us in the special issue, they can arguably also be sites that foster reflexivity within users.

Research on archives in organization studies is nascent. Schwarzkopf (2012), for example, has called for greater theorization of the business archives. While the intellectual roots of our knowledge of archives in organization studies are steeped in work by Foucault (1969/1982), Derrida (1995), Trouillot (1995) and Stoler (2009) and arguably philosophically varied, there are two understandings of archives in currency in organization studies (Barros, 2016; Mills and Helms Mills, 2011, 2018). The first pertains to a collection of documents housed within a physical space (Manoff, 2004). In this sense, archives are organizations organized by hobbyists, past employees or trained archivists. These actors have an agenda to preserve, to make certain things visible but in doing so inevitably push aside other topics that may be forgotten. Barros (2016) reminds us that archives are shaped by the information needs of society, government and its laws. The second understanding of archives moves beyond four walls to suggest archives constitute an entire knowledge area including all respective discursive and material records. In this way, archives can be understood as ‘constituent elements of practices and structures’ (Barros, 2016: 609) that play a role in creating and preserving a nation’s consciousness and memory while conditioning future conditions of possibility.

The special issue articles by Sandström et al. and Tennent et al. contribute substantially to our nascent literature on archives in organization studies. Sandström et al. explain that spelling out the implications of using archives in management research is ever more pressing, given the recent digital turn of archival material. For example, Manoff (2004) and Schwarzkopf (2012) warn that digitization allows for permanent changes to the historical record, which deny future researchers of the full record. This potential stronghold on the past should entice management scholars to learn the mechanisms of digitization. On a positive note, Sandström et al. teach us that digital archives can help to conduct practice-oriented research with improved precision and quality with few compromises to theoretical rigour. For Tennent et al., the archive is a site where students can ignite their historical consciousness. The authors explain that an immersion into the physical archive can show students that it is possible to unearth different and perhaps contradictory sources and reasons why, over time, one narrative assumed prominence over another.

Our comments above point to encouraging scholars to use historical archives as a means for spurring innovation in the present and for the future. However, this encouragement should come with a precaution to exercise reflexivity on the construction of archives. Manoff (2004) and Schwarzkopf (2012) offer that we must add to existing practical archival advice by theorizing the archive itself, as a non-neutral site of knowledge production. Pointing to the ‘epistemological position of realism in business history’ as the culprit for stalling this conversation, Schwarzkopf (2012: 2) calls for an interrogation of the archive as a political and epistemic space. Some have heeded to this call to expose the socio-politics of actors who build archives to show them as ideological sites with consequences for knowledge production (Barros, 2016; Barros et al., 2019; Coller et al., 2016; Decker, 2013, 2014; Mills and Helms Mills, 2011, 2018). A theme of this research has been the role archives play in both enabling but also limiting our view of the past. Questions have arisen concerning what is missing from the record, thus what is left out and why (Barros, 2016; Schwarzkopf, 2012). While archival silences in management research are beginning to be accounted for, outside of our discipline, both Trouillot (1995) and Stoler (2009) have commented that the State controls all the knowledge of its ‘empire’ and the instruments that record the event into documents. If the State controls the record, one might wonder what it chooses to record and represent? These points are of increasing interest to historians (Farge, 1989; Stoler, 2009; Trouillot, 1995) and management researchers (Coller et al., 2016; Decker, 2013, 2014) who perform archival ethnographies. Above all, these insights point to the need for a reflexive theorization of the archive (Barros et al., 2019; Stutz and Sachs, 2018) in management learning.

Both Sandström et al. and Tennent et al. contribute substantially to this conversation in their reflexive theorization of the archive. Tennent et al. suggest that teaching how to reflexively use the archive can ignite historical consciousness and ultimately, foster reflexivity within its users. The authors provide examples of exercises where students can learn the ways of archival research on corporate histories in a reflexive way. While this hands-on exercise is a demonstration of the value of using archives to teach management learning, Sandström et al. help us to learn how to research using digital archives. We hope the future brings more dialogue on the use of archival research as a method to teach and research management learning.

Internationalization, geopolitics of management knowledge and histories of management learning

Calls for greater internationalization of the journal featured prominently in the 1994 editorial by Snell and James, the same year the journal name changed from Management Education and Development to Management Learning. Anderson et al. note that one reason fuelling the name change and approach was a desire for international scope. For example, Snell and James (1994) explained that

. . . not enough of our published material as yet is international or non-western. While we have managed to marry papers from the USA and the UK we look forward to seeing more material from Asia, Africa, Continental Europe, South America and Australia, to match the spread of our editorial board. (p. 502)

The historic review of management learning undertaken by Anderson et al. surfaces the increasingly diverse make-up of the editorial team and its inclusive approach. Although Anderson et al. reflexively acknowledge their own UK-centric approach that could be (mis)taken as colonialist, they are hopeful for the continued internationalization of management learning.

This surfaces difficult questions: Have calls for greater internationalization of the journal and field been met? To what extent has research focused on internationalization engaged with its underbelly, namely, the geopolitics of management knowledge? If Management Learning is to continue to engage with this conversation, we feel it should be done historically.

Anderson et al. explain that Management Education and Development originated in Lancaster with intellectual roots in Manchester, United Kingdom in 1970. What the 1994 calls for greater internationalization illustrate for us is the extent to which the journal had derived its identity from its origins. Arguably, its Western origins have implications for its unique course of development as a journal, a set of ideas, its contributors over the years and the resultant academic field. Above all, our sense is that Anderson et al.’s echo of earlier calls for internationalization are well placed, given the global population density and management knowledge flows. For example, Prasad et al. (2016) explain that 88 percent of the world’s population lives and works in the global South with the West accounting for the resultant 12 percent. With a substantively Western imprint on its identity, is Management Learning well equipped to stay relevant and conduct meaningful research in a world of increasing interdependence and connectivity? We wonder if Management Learning should question ‘just how diverse global management knowledge, as well as the academic workforce that creates it, actually is’ (Jack, 2016: 200)? Other questions inspired by Jack (2016) include, who produces management knowledge, under which conditions and where are they located? These point to our fundamental question – in the push for internationalization, has management learning focused on issues of relevance to the global South where 88 percent of the global population reside?

Postcolonial scholars have explored the contestation over international knowledge flows through probing the geopolitics of management knowledge. To do this Alcadipani et al. (2012) draw on the old-fashioned designation of the ‘Third World’ because it usefully evokes the hierarchy among places in the world. Its correspondent ‘First World’ construct positions itself as ‘better’ and ‘developed’. As Alcadipani et al. (2012) explain, although these designations have been normalized through time, they are far from ‘natural’ (p. 132). Exploring geographic development historically exposes the socio-political processes through which certain countries have come to view themselves as underdeveloped and thus, consented to interventions from the ‘First World’. According to postcolonial researchers, it is in this process that an entire knowledge area belonging to the global South, the so-called underdeveloped, became disregarded in exchange for the progressive interventions from the West. But as Ibarra-Colado (2008) explains, any uncritical acceptance of ‘Anglo-Saxon theories conditions the type of explanation of the problems of the region and the type of solutions to confront them, producing in this way a certain kind of self-imposed coloniality’ (p. 933). What does this have to do with management learning?

The geopolitics of management knowledge play out in management learning and education in at least two ways. The first concerns the Americanization of management education in the global South. Ibarra-Colado (2008) explains that modern Western categories of knowledge have been replicated in universities in the global South and ‘dominantly, most of the Latin American researchers have been copying and pasting syllabus, theories, methodologies and other management fads and fashions manufactured in the Anglo-Saxon countries’ (p. 933). The now wide-spread teaching of managers using Western pedagogy and curriculum has made for a particular type of manager with consequences for Westernizing businesses. Postcolonial scholars have critiqued management knowledge on claims of epistemic coloniality arguing that theories and ideas generated in the West are exported to the South and eventually come to dominate and control the global production of management knowledge (Prasad, 2005; Prasad et al., 2016). Cooke and Kumar (2019) demonstrate this process empirically through their historical study of philanthropy and business schools. Cooke and Kumar (2019) note that geopolitical knowledge flows brew soft power, in which cultural influence is imposed leading some nations to ‘want what the dominant power wants’ without the use of force (pp. 4–5). This brings us to the second way the geopolitics of management knowledge plays out in management learning and education, thus the push for scholars of the global South to study overseas. As Ibarra-Colado (2008) notes, with ‘the status of ‘foreign students’, they can be ‘educated properly’ before returning to their countries and teach all the secrets obtained in the modern temples of knowledge’ (p. 933). Others from the global South lament issues of language, which are seemingly only addressed by investing years of study abroad (Alcadipani et al., 2012). These barriers put researchers from the global South at a disadvantage when trying to publish in top tier journals.

While we do not believe that Management Learning has consciously sought to erect geographical boundaries that uphold respective hierarchies of knowledges, postcolonial scholars with an interest in epistemic coloniality teach us that such can be unintended consequences of academic journals that necessarily set mandates and operate through a peer review system that upholds those mandates. Subsequently, the question is, how can we begin to redress these issues? The geopolitics of management knowledge can be fruitfully explored historically (Ibarra-Colado, 2006; Wanderley and Barros, 2019). As Cooke and Alcadipani (2015) argue, ‘historic, as well as cultural reflexivity is an essential requirement of the global management educator’ (p. 482).

There are empirical examples that illustrate the historic enactment of geopolitics of management learning and education. Ibarra-Colado’s (2006) history of organization studies in Latin American discloses the epistemic coloniality in the region. Alcadipani and Rosa (2011) show the Americanization of management knowledge globally and how this has suppressed local knowledge development. Cooke and Alcadipani (2015) demonstrate the Americanization of management education through an archival history of the relationship between the US Ford Foundation and a Brazilian business school, EASP. Alcadipani (2016, 2017) demonstrates management education in Brazil as a case of soft power. Cooke and Kumar (2019) provide a ‘meta-history of the 20th century role of US philanthropy in shaping management education around the world’ with a focus on ‘US philanthropic foundations’.

Our special issue also features empirical work that engages the geopolitics of management knowledge historically. Syed and Pio, for example, ask how historical empathy can embrace an Eastern narrative for diversity research in management learning, and through this, signal the need for more perspectives from the global South. Wanderley and Barros’ CEPAL case shows the hegemonic influence of Anglo-Saxon perspective on management education in Brazil. Above all, a point they stress in their dramatic narrative is that knowledge from alternative geographies should not be simply discarded.

Including voices from the global South will not only help Management Learning maintain relevance for 88 percent of the global population but could also, arguably, broaden the community. Management Learning can continue to be a space for learning about different ways of knowing and learning management inspired by the global South. Our suggestion for the future of Management Learning is to continue to pluralise management knowledge and learning, and continue to question the dominance of modern Western forms of knowing while envisioning new intellectual horizons inspired by the global South. There are at least two good ways to do this.

First, pluralizing management knowledge can be done with a call for Western scholars to engage with the global South. This comes with research challenges and precautions, namely, the limits on both Western knowledges and resources to learn Third-World epistemologies and cultures. There is a general illiteracy among Western management scholars on Third-World modes of knowing. Perhaps, Western engagements with the global South should begin with a collective reflection on and acknowledgement of ‘our need to decolonize’. In Unsettling the Settler Within, comments that a heightened sensitivity to the indigenous experience can be fostered by the non-indigenous confronting the ‘colonizer who lurks within’ (p. 11). Notes that it is not enough to theorize about decolonization, instead we must let ourselves experience it genuinely through re-storying past injustices. Re-storying comes with caveats. First, studies on the global South must move beyond using the region as mere context for extending Western theories. Next, we must be reflexive and resist falling back on using Eurocentric explanations (Prasad et al., 2016: 20). This means exercising caution to not simply impose modern Western categories of knowledge. These ideas can help us learn about the global South. But what can we learn from them?

Second, pluralizing management knowledge should involve learning from the global South the forms of sophisticated knowledge that stem from their localized epistemes. We agree with Alcadipani et al. (2012) that more spaces must be opened for studies authored by Southern scholars. Is it time for the global South to teach the West about themselves, on their own terms? For example, we can now say from experience that the geographic diversity of special issue editorial team (half of us from the Northern Hemisphere, half of us from the South) certainly benefitted us as we discussed the compilation of this 50th Anniversary Issue.