With Speakers Paul Adler, Silvia Dorado, Siobhan O’Mahony, and Marc Ventresca

A special recording from a workshop on management classics held at the 2018 Academy of Management Conference in Chicago. Hosted by Pedro, this PDW intended to raise interest towards classic authors/ideas in the field of organization and management theory. It offered scholars from all levels the opportunity to reflect on insights of earlier scholarship and their relevance for current research, complementing the strong emphasis (on new ideas and approaches. This is of great importance as the field has thus far been more attentive to disruptions than continuities; pursuing novelty over tradition.

In the workshop, senior scholars presented talks on four classic authors (Karl Marx, Mary Parker Follett, Mary Douglas, and Albert Hirschman) to discuss their contemporary relevance. This was followed by a roundtable discussion limited to fifty participants.

The workshop demonstrated how attentive (re)readings of classic scholarship reaffirm time and time again their enduring importance. The discussion provided valuable insights on central organizational research problematics (e.g., coordination and control), stimulated complex thinking, enabled analytical comparisons between current and past phenomena (e.g., industrialization and digitization), and serve as ‘exemplars’ of academic excellence and of research that is problem-driven and focused on real-world issues.

We are working to include a similar workshop at next year’s conference and hope to make this a routine event at future AOMs!

Available on the website are four flyers prepared by the Talking About Organizations team that introduce each of the classic authors and a set of photographs from the event. We hope you enjoy the discussion!

All of us at Talking About Organizations are to the four terrific speakers – Paul, Silvia, Siobhan, and Marc – for their outstanding contributions!

Flyers of the Four Classic Authors Discussed:

Click on the links below to access the information sheets provided at the workshop.

Albert O. Hirschman | Karl Marx | Mary Douglas | Mary Parker Follett

Photos from the Workshop (click on a thumbnail to enlarge):

To find out more:

Adler, P. S. (2009). A social science which forgets its founders is lost. In The Oxford Handbook of Sociology and Organization Studies Classical Foundations. Oxford University Press.

Barley, S. R. (2015). 60th Anniversary Essay: Ruminations on How We Became a Mystery House and How We Might Get Out. Administrative Science Quarterly, 1–8.

Davis, G. F. (2016). Organization Theory and the Dilemmas of a Post-Corporate Economy. Research in the Sociology of Organizations (Vol. 48, pp. 311–322). Emerald Group
Publishing Limited.

Davis, G. F., & Zald, M. N. (2009). Sociological Classics and the Canon in the Study of Organizations (pp. 1–13). Oxford University Press.

Gay, du, P., & Vikkelsø, S. (2016). For Formal Organization. Oxford University Press.

Hallett, T., and M. J. Ventresca (2006). “Inhabited Institutions: Social Interactions and Organizational Forms in Gouldner’s Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy.” Theory and
Society, 35: 213–236.

Hinings, C. R., Greenwood, R., & Meyer, R. (2016). Dusty Books?: the liability of oldness. Academy of Management Review.

Kilduff, M., & Dougherty, D. (2000). Change and Development in a Pluralistic World: the View From the Classics. Academy of Management Review, 25(4), 777–782.

Lounsbury, M., & Carberry, E. J. (2016). From King to Court Jester? Weber’s Fall from Grace in Organizational Theory. Organization Studies, 26(4), 501–525.

Pugh, D. S., & Hickson, D. J. (2007). Writers on organizations.

Stinchcombe, A. L. (1982). Should sociologists forget their mothers and fathers? The American Sociologist, 17, 2–11.

Thornton, P. H. (2009). The Value of the Classics: 1–19. In The Oxford Handbook of Sociology and Organization Studies Classical Foundations. Oxford University Press.