Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/17449359.2022.2033441
Adoración Álvaro-Moya, Águeda Gil López, Elena San Román
ABSTRACT Drawing on the corporate entrepreneurship (CE) theory, this article examines the rise of the Spanish engineering consulting firm Técnica y Proyectos SA (TYPSA), from its foundation, in 1966, as a project office within a larger national-based construction fgroup, until its consolidation as a family multinational in the 2000s. Our research shows how contextual and intra-organizational changes affect the CE drivers identified by entrepreneurship theory, and highlights resilience as a new element reinforcing entrepreneurial orientation over time. The study also enriches the Chandlerian-biased historical debate by focusing on project-based professional services and assessing the role of decentralization and managerial leadership in corporate entrepreneurship.
摘要基于企业创业理论,本文考察了西班牙工程咨询公司Técnica y Proyectos SA(TYPSA)从1966年成立到2000年代合并为家族跨国公司的崛起过程。我们的研究表明,背景和组织内的变化如何影响创业理论确定的CE驱动因素,并强调随着时间的推移,韧性是加强创业导向的一个新因素。该研究还通过关注基于项目的专业服务和评估权力下放和管理领导力在企业创业中的作用,丰富了钱德勒式的历史辩论。
{"title":"Contextualizing corporate entrepreneurship theory: the historical case of the Spanish engineering consulting firm TYPSA (1966-2000)","authors":"Adoración Álvaro-Moya, Águeda Gil López, Elena San Román","doi":"10.1080/17449359.2022.2033441","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2022.2033441","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Drawing on the corporate entrepreneurship (CE) theory, this article examines the rise of the Spanish engineering consulting firm Técnica y Proyectos SA (TYPSA), from its foundation, in 1966, as a project office within a larger national-based construction fgroup, until its consolidation as a family multinational in the 2000s. Our research shows how contextual and intra-organizational changes affect the CE drivers identified by entrepreneurship theory, and highlights resilience as a new element reinforcing entrepreneurial orientation over time. The study also enriches the Chandlerian-biased historical debate by focusing on project-based professional services and assessing the role of decentralization and managerial leadership in corporate entrepreneurship.","PeriodicalId":45724,"journal":{"name":"Management & Organizational History","volume":"16 1","pages":"228 - 254"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42842269","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-17DOI: 10.1080/17449359.2021.1977142
J. Sandström, C. Persson
ABSTRACT This article challenges a common position in research on company towns that corporate paternalism is relevant in the formative years, but then fades away due to urbanization, democratization and improved communications. But, paternalism, just as the phenomenon of company towns, lives on. Relating paternalistic practices to the company’s relation to the state, the worker collective, the built environment, community services, and to the affective and moral dimension, we trace corporate paternalism in the mining town of Kiruna, located in the Swedish Arctic, from the late 19th century when the mine and the town were established, through the critical phases when it is under most pressure. The article highlights how paternalism finds new ways and to some extent remains in effect, thus characterizing power relations between management and labor over time.
{"title":"Corporate paternalism on the rocks: a historical analysis of power relations in a mining town","authors":"J. Sandström, C. Persson","doi":"10.1080/17449359.2021.1977142","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2021.1977142","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article challenges a common position in research on company towns that corporate paternalism is relevant in the formative years, but then fades away due to urbanization, democratization and improved communications. But, paternalism, just as the phenomenon of company towns, lives on. Relating paternalistic practices to the company’s relation to the state, the worker collective, the built environment, community services, and to the affective and moral dimension, we trace corporate paternalism in the mining town of Kiruna, located in the Swedish Arctic, from the late 19th century when the mine and the town were established, through the critical phases when it is under most pressure. The article highlights how paternalism finds new ways and to some extent remains in effect, thus characterizing power relations between management and labor over time.","PeriodicalId":45724,"journal":{"name":"Management & Organizational History","volume":"16 1","pages":"183 - 203"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43167018","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-03DOI: 10.1080/17449359.2021.1964087
T. Stetz
ABSTRACT The first half of the twentieth century saw the emergence of a variety of management ideas and various schools of thought that occurred during this time. While there are commonalities, these schools are far from absolute. They often intertwine and use different terminology making distinctions difficult. To better understand how management thought developed, 27 management books from well-known authors published between 1903 and 1949 were analyzed using text analysis and quantitative techniques. A plot showing the semantic similarity among the books was produced. Inspection of the plot revealed seven groups of books: Scientific Management I, Scientific Management II, Psychology, Labor Relations and Personnel, Human Relations, Social Organization, and Administration. The plot also showed a progression over time with the earliest books taking a mechanistic task and worker-level perspective. Later authors expanded this to consider group-dynamics, psychology, sociology, structural aspects of organization, and the functions of management and general management as a whole. Each book and author is described providing an understanding of its location in the plot and the relationship with others. This is the first study to apply quantitative text analysis techniques to early management writings and to simultaneously examine so many books and authors.
{"title":"Schools of management thought: a text analysis of management books published in the first half of the twentieth century","authors":"T. Stetz","doi":"10.1080/17449359.2021.1964087","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2021.1964087","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The first half of the twentieth century saw the emergence of a variety of management ideas and various schools of thought that occurred during this time. While there are commonalities, these schools are far from absolute. They often intertwine and use different terminology making distinctions difficult. To better understand how management thought developed, 27 management books from well-known authors published between 1903 and 1949 were analyzed using text analysis and quantitative techniques. A plot showing the semantic similarity among the books was produced. Inspection of the plot revealed seven groups of books: Scientific Management I, Scientific Management II, Psychology, Labor Relations and Personnel, Human Relations, Social Organization, and Administration. The plot also showed a progression over time with the earliest books taking a mechanistic task and worker-level perspective. Later authors expanded this to consider group-dynamics, psychology, sociology, structural aspects of organization, and the functions of management and general management as a whole. Each book and author is described providing an understanding of its location in the plot and the relationship with others. This is the first study to apply quantitative text analysis techniques to early management writings and to simultaneously examine so many books and authors.","PeriodicalId":45724,"journal":{"name":"Management & Organizational History","volume":"16 1","pages":"156 - 182"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49044123","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-03DOI: 10.1080/17449359.2021.1963285
Y. Sumi
ABSTRACT Building on the concept of framing, this study analyzes the use of budgets by the Extraordinary Defense Corps, a unit of the Japanese Imperial Navy deployed to govern Micronesia during and immediately after World War I. A comparison of the use of budgets by the Defense Corps and the South Seas Agency, the civil authority that succeeded the Defense Corps as the territory’s governing body in 1922 pursuant to the granting of the South Pacific Mandate to Japan, reveals that the idiosyncratic budgetary practices of the Defense Corps were profoundly influenced by the institutional context in which the organization operated. In contrast to the practice of the South Seas Agency, budgeting under the Defense Corps was highly flexible, with little concern for spending limits. The primacy of promoting infrastructure formation and industrial development within the territory, as represented by sugar production, is apparent. As this study confirms, the flexible budgeting practiced by the Defense Corps provided an essential socio-economic institutional foundation for the subsequent governance of the South Seas Agency.
摘要:本研究以框架概念为基础,分析了在第一次世界大战期间和战后被派去管理密克罗尼西亚的日本帝国海军特别防卫队(Extraordinary defence Corps)的预算使用情况,并比较了防卫队和南海厅(South Seas Agency)的预算使用情况。南海厅是1922年根据授予日本南太平洋托管权接替防卫队成为该领土管理机构的民事当局。揭示了国防部特殊的预算实践受到该组织运作的制度背景的深刻影响。与南海局的做法相反,国防部的预算非常灵活,很少考虑开支限制。以糖生产为代表的促进领土内基础设施建设和工业发展的首要地位是显而易见的。正如这项研究证实的那样,国防军实行的灵活预算为随后对南海局的管理提供了重要的社会经济体制基础。
{"title":"The use of civil administration budgets by the Japanese military government of the Micronesia territory from 1914 to 1922","authors":"Y. Sumi","doi":"10.1080/17449359.2021.1963285","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2021.1963285","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Building on the concept of framing, this study analyzes the use of budgets by the Extraordinary Defense Corps, a unit of the Japanese Imperial Navy deployed to govern Micronesia during and immediately after World War I. A comparison of the use of budgets by the Defense Corps and the South Seas Agency, the civil authority that succeeded the Defense Corps as the territory’s governing body in 1922 pursuant to the granting of the South Pacific Mandate to Japan, reveals that the idiosyncratic budgetary practices of the Defense Corps were profoundly influenced by the institutional context in which the organization operated. In contrast to the practice of the South Seas Agency, budgeting under the Defense Corps was highly flexible, with little concern for spending limits. The primacy of promoting infrastructure formation and industrial development within the territory, as represented by sugar production, is apparent. As this study confirms, the flexible budgeting practiced by the Defense Corps provided an essential socio-economic institutional foundation for the subsequent governance of the South Seas Agency.","PeriodicalId":45724,"journal":{"name":"Management & Organizational History","volume":"16 1","pages":"89 - 132"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44468511","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-03DOI: 10.1080/17449359.2021.1966473
Diego Barría Traverso, M. Llorca-Jaña, Nathaly Sepúlveda
ABSTRACT The incorporation of women into the public arena has increasingly attracted the attention of scholars in public administration. Yet there has been little analysis of this phenomenon from a long-term perspective. This article is an evaluation of the integration of women into the public sector in Chile from the mid-nineteenth century to the Great Depression, c.1860–1930. Based on the national budget and statistical yearbooks, the article provides the first estimates of Chilean female public employees, identifying the main sectors they entered, and analyzing both social and political factors which permitted the entrance of women into public administration. The employment of women in public agencies was facilitated by a change in the role assigned to women in society, fiscal crises, the emergence of nationalistic economic ideas, the actions of the feminist movement, and changes in the way administrative tasks were conceived.
{"title":"The incorporation of women into the public sector in Chile, 1860–1930: from rejection to encouragement","authors":"Diego Barría Traverso, M. Llorca-Jaña, Nathaly Sepúlveda","doi":"10.1080/17449359.2021.1966473","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2021.1966473","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The incorporation of women into the public arena has increasingly attracted the attention of scholars in public administration. Yet there has been little analysis of this phenomenon from a long-term perspective. This article is an evaluation of the integration of women into the public sector in Chile from the mid-nineteenth century to the Great Depression, c.1860–1930. Based on the national budget and statistical yearbooks, the article provides the first estimates of Chilean female public employees, identifying the main sectors they entered, and analyzing both social and political factors which permitted the entrance of women into public administration. The employment of women in public agencies was facilitated by a change in the role assigned to women in society, fiscal crises, the emergence of nationalistic economic ideas, the actions of the feminist movement, and changes in the way administrative tasks were conceived.","PeriodicalId":45724,"journal":{"name":"Management & Organizational History","volume":"16 1","pages":"133 - 155"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48776562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17449359.2021.1950552
Sophie Le Bris
ABSTRACT The objective of this study is to identify a resilient mode of management for a leader driving a system composed of different units (e.g., a fighting system) in a context where the complexity of a situation, time pressure, uncertainty, and the risk of irreversible errors constrain the possibilities of action. From a theoretical framework on reliability – the Highly Reliable Organization (HRO) and the Sensemaking approaches, which are close to each other but diverge in compliance with rules in degraded situations – we seek to analyze the factors supporting the reliability of different systems. To drive this analysis, we studied the behavior of leaders during two naval battles between the French and British fleets in the 18th century. The results, derived from the analysis of the logbooks, underline that a flexible approach – through procedural improvisation – is more relevant than compliance with rules in this specific context. From a theoretical point of view, the results provide a hierarchy of sources of reliability developed by the Sensemaking approach. Our findings also highlight that dynamic coupling (coupling/decoupling) can be a resilient management mode for systems composed of several units.
{"title":"Managing complex situations under uncertainty: flexibility or rule compliance? Evidence from the eighteenth-century naval battles of Chesapeake and Saintes","authors":"Sophie Le Bris","doi":"10.1080/17449359.2021.1950552","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2021.1950552","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The objective of this study is to identify a resilient mode of management for a leader driving a system composed of different units (e.g., a fighting system) in a context where the complexity of a situation, time pressure, uncertainty, and the risk of irreversible errors constrain the possibilities of action. From a theoretical framework on reliability – the Highly Reliable Organization (HRO) and the Sensemaking approaches, which are close to each other but diverge in compliance with rules in degraded situations – we seek to analyze the factors supporting the reliability of different systems. To drive this analysis, we studied the behavior of leaders during two naval battles between the French and British fleets in the 18th century. The results, derived from the analysis of the logbooks, underline that a flexible approach – through procedural improvisation – is more relevant than compliance with rules in this specific context. From a theoretical point of view, the results provide a hierarchy of sources of reliability developed by the Sensemaking approach. Our findings also highlight that dynamic coupling (coupling/decoupling) can be a resilient management mode for systems composed of several units.","PeriodicalId":45724,"journal":{"name":"Management & Organizational History","volume":"16 1","pages":"41 - 64"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47763238","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17449359.2021.1927758
J. Costa, M. E. Mata
ABSTRACT The integration of financial markets was a facet of the increasing globalization of the worldwide economy. The focus in this paper is the business organizational perspective of corporations that operated in Portuguese overseas territories: Distance, climate, lack of trained local labor force, and other difficulties related with cultural differences, required organizational aspects that represented higher risk and higher capital rewards. They were higher than the average index of the Lisbon Stock Market as a whole, and must be interpreted in the context of the role of different organizational aspects for entrepreneurship and businesses in overseas territories.
{"title":"From the great depression to decolonization: entrepreneurship and capital returns in the Portuguese colonial empire","authors":"J. Costa, M. E. Mata","doi":"10.1080/17449359.2021.1927758","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2021.1927758","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The integration of financial markets was a facet of the increasing globalization of the worldwide economy. The focus in this paper is the business organizational perspective of corporations that operated in Portuguese overseas territories: Distance, climate, lack of trained local labor force, and other difficulties related with cultural differences, required organizational aspects that represented higher risk and higher capital rewards. They were higher than the average index of the Lisbon Stock Market as a whole, and must be interpreted in the context of the role of different organizational aspects for entrepreneurship and businesses in overseas territories.","PeriodicalId":45724,"journal":{"name":"Management & Organizational History","volume":"16 1","pages":"1 - 21"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17449359.2021.1927758","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60423822","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17449359.2021.1927759
Richard C. Hoffman
ABSTRACT Entrepreneurship is at the heart of new developments that often lead to the creation of new industries. This study examines the origins of the canning industry via the experiences of three of its earliest entrepreneurs: Edward Wright, William Numsen, and Thomas Kensett II. The narrative examines key aspects of the industry’s context including the growth in demand for preserved foods, the resources of the Chesapeake region, and the development of food preservation technology. Using the five characteristics of entrepreneurial processes, the importance of entrepreneurs in the development of the economic growth of Baltimore’s early canning industry is examined. Each founder exhibited entrepreneurial characteristics in different ways. One failed in his efforts; the other two succeeded in developing businesses that endured into the next century. The study reveals that using entrepreneurial processes does not guarantee success, and that there are various paths to success. An entrepreneurial multiplier effect was also evident in the growth of firms producing supplies and equipment for canners. Using an entrepreneurial lens offers a closer insight into the development of firms and their industries. Some remaining unanswered questions as well as avenues for future studies are discussed.
{"title":"Entrepreneurial Processes and Industry Development:The Case of Baltimore’s Canning Entrepreneurs","authors":"Richard C. Hoffman","doi":"10.1080/17449359.2021.1927759","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2021.1927759","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Entrepreneurship is at the heart of new developments that often lead to the creation of new industries. This study examines the origins of the canning industry via the experiences of three of its earliest entrepreneurs: Edward Wright, William Numsen, and Thomas Kensett II. The narrative examines key aspects of the industry’s context including the growth in demand for preserved foods, the resources of the Chesapeake region, and the development of food preservation technology. Using the five characteristics of entrepreneurial processes, the importance of entrepreneurs in the development of the economic growth of Baltimore’s early canning industry is examined. Each founder exhibited entrepreneurial characteristics in different ways. One failed in his efforts; the other two succeeded in developing businesses that endured into the next century. The study reveals that using entrepreneurial processes does not guarantee success, and that there are various paths to success. An entrepreneurial multiplier effect was also evident in the growth of firms producing supplies and equipment for canners. Using an entrepreneurial lens offers a closer insight into the development of firms and their industries. Some remaining unanswered questions as well as avenues for future studies are discussed.","PeriodicalId":45724,"journal":{"name":"Management & Organizational History","volume":"16 1","pages":"22 - 40"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17449359.2021.1927759","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47994133","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-01DOI: 10.1080/17449359.2021.1896368
Joan Carles Cirer-Costa
ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the international expansion of five hotel companies based in the Balearic Islands that expanded their operations to the Caribbean and other tourist destinations throughout the last fifteen years of the twentieth century and successfully became multinational firms. The five companies, which were strictly family-run enterprises, went through an initial phase of rapid growth in the Balearic Islands market and the broader Spanish market. In this initial phase, they accumulated assets, skills and competences that laid the groundwork for their subsequent international expansion. This accumulation took place within a very specific environment: the tourism market of the Balearic Islands, which was governed by an institutional framework for business development and internationalization that was much more favorable than in the rest of Spain.
{"title":"Building Multinationals in the Mediterranean: balearic island hotels in the 1990s","authors":"Joan Carles Cirer-Costa","doi":"10.1080/17449359.2021.1896368","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2021.1896368","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the international expansion of five hotel companies based in the Balearic Islands that expanded their operations to the Caribbean and other tourist destinations throughout the last fifteen years of the twentieth century and successfully became multinational firms. The five companies, which were strictly family-run enterprises, went through an initial phase of rapid growth in the Balearic Islands market and the broader Spanish market. In this initial phase, they accumulated assets, skills and competences that laid the groundwork for their subsequent international expansion. This accumulation took place within a very specific environment: the tourism market of the Balearic Islands, which was governed by an institutional framework for business development and internationalization that was much more favorable than in the rest of Spain.","PeriodicalId":45724,"journal":{"name":"Management & Organizational History","volume":"15 1","pages":"338 - 359"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17449359.2021.1896368","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41398381","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-01DOI: 10.1080/17449359.2021.1896367
Stephan Strunz
ABSTRACT This paper explores the history of the curriculum vitae (CV) as a medium of job application in the Prussian technical bureaucracy around 1800. A document that so far has not received much attention in historiographical works, appeared as a major tool for bureaucratic innovation at the end of the eighteenth century. Drawing on primary archival sources, this paper will raise three major points. First, the curriculum vitae facilitated the depiction of ‘careers’: linear sequences of professional formation pointing toward certain positions. It helped applicants stylize their education and employment history as a time of continuous progress and merit, i.e. a veritable career. Second, the CV enabled the organization and control of personnel in a large-scale administrative body. Administrators used the CV as a tool to familiarize themselves with unknown persons and place them to positions according to their past professional trajectory. Finally, the lives recounted in CVs did not correspond to the contemporary concept of self-reflexive Bildung but were embedded in a utilitarian discourse of usefulness. In this vein, only those biographical events mattered for a CV that were useful for the state and pertained to the professional formation of the subject.
{"title":"Organizing careers for work – The curriculum vitae (CV) in Prussia’s technical bureaucracy, c. 1770-1830","authors":"Stephan Strunz","doi":"10.1080/17449359.2021.1896367","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2021.1896367","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper explores the history of the curriculum vitae (CV) as a medium of job application in the Prussian technical bureaucracy around 1800. A document that so far has not received much attention in historiographical works, appeared as a major tool for bureaucratic innovation at the end of the eighteenth century. Drawing on primary archival sources, this paper will raise three major points. First, the curriculum vitae facilitated the depiction of ‘careers’: linear sequences of professional formation pointing toward certain positions. It helped applicants stylize their education and employment history as a time of continuous progress and merit, i.e. a veritable career. Second, the CV enabled the organization and control of personnel in a large-scale administrative body. Administrators used the CV as a tool to familiarize themselves with unknown persons and place them to positions according to their past professional trajectory. Finally, the lives recounted in CVs did not correspond to the contemporary concept of self-reflexive Bildung but were embedded in a utilitarian discourse of usefulness. In this vein, only those biographical events mattered for a CV that were useful for the state and pertained to the professional formation of the subject.","PeriodicalId":45724,"journal":{"name":"Management & Organizational History","volume":"15 1","pages":"315 - 337"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17449359.2021.1896367","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60423667","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}