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Historical Research For Management Studies

A Practical Guide

Stephanie Decker FAcSS FBAM

Sep 19

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Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel about interdisciplinary research at the British Academy of Management Conference, specifically focusing on how management researchers can integrate historical methods into their work.

Historical methods can seem intimidating or "too different" from traditional management research methods, so my colleagues Emmanuella Plakoyiannaki and Mark Saunders discussed myths about historical research in IB, and how historical methods fit with wider qualitative research (respectively).

Historical research offers some really interesting opportunities for management scholars — but like many interdisciplinary endeavours, it comes with its own set of methodological choices and trade-offs that are worth understanding upfront.

The Methodological Landscape: More Than Just Archives

When most people hear "historical research," they seem to picture someone hunched over dusty documents in an archive (on behalf of archivists everywhere: a good archive is not dusty!). While archival work is certainly part of the historical toolkit, it's far from the whole story.

A few years ago, we published the Handbook of Historical Methods specifically for management researchers, partly to address this misconception. (The paperback and e-book versions are quite affordable; make sure you become an “Elgar member” to get a discount.) The handbook situates historical approaches within the qualitative research landscape in business and management.

And, as Mark pointed out in his talk, archival research has always been part of the many options of his famous "Research Onion".

What's particularly exciting is how historical approaches align with process studies. Think about it: how long would you need to follow a process through if you were observing it directly? Months? Years? Historical research offers a way to lengthen the processes you're examining in a more time-efficient manner, using the data traces that already exist.