Historical Methods in Organizational and Business Research: A Practical Guide
Your guide to doing historical research in management and organisations: archival research, oral history, process approaches, and digital methods for management scholars
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Management and organisation studies have developed a significant methodological literature over the past two decades on the use of historical sources and approaches. Yet for many researchers trained in social science traditions, the practical question of how to actually work with history remains underspecified. What does it mean to do archival research? How does oral history differ from qualitative interviewing? When does historical analysis become processual, and why does that matter? How are digitised and born-digital sources changing practice?
This post offers a practical orientation to the main approaches. It is aimed primarily at management and organisation scholars who are new to historical methods, or who need to articulate their methodological positioning clearly for a journal submission or a PhD thesis methods chapter. It draws on the growing body of methodological writing in this field, including the Handbook of Historical Methods for Management (Decker, Foster & Giovannoni, 2023), a key reference work for researchers in this area.
Why historical methods deserve their own treatment
History has always been present at the margins of organisation studies, but for several decades after the 1960s, the dominance of variable-based, comparative research designs pushed longitudinal, contextually rich historical work to the periphery. The renewed interest in historical approaches since the 1990s and early 2000s is well documented. Kipping & Üsdiken (2014) provide a systematic account of how history has returned to management research, distinguishing between work that uses history as evidence to develop theory (”history to theory”) and work in which history is constitutive of the theoretical argument itself (”history in theory”). Others have built on their terminology to outline pathways to integrating historical research in other subfields (Argyres et al., 2020).
What the “historic turn” literature established (Clark & Rowlinson, 2004), and what is sometimes lost in subsequent use, is that historical methods are not simply qualitative methods applied to old data. They involve a specific epistemological orientation toward the reconstruction of the past through primary sources, including attention to the conditions under which those sources were created, what they do and do not record, and what silences they contain. As Rowlinson, Hassard & Decker (2014) argued in their Academy of Management Review piece on research strategies for organisational history, this requires reflexivity about the epistemological problem of representing the past – not treating history as a repository of ready-made data, but as a construction made from surviving traces.
Archival research
Archival research is the core method of historical work on organisations. Corporate and organisational archives contain the documentary residue of decision-making: board minutes, internal correspondence, financial records, personnel files, marketing materials, product development records, and legal documents. Business historians also work with public archives (national and regional government records, regulatory filings and court records) and collections held by libraries and specialist repositories (Decker, 2023).
The practical entry point is usually the finding aid: a structured description of what an archive holds, how it is organised, and what access conditions apply. Not all archives have complete or accurate finding aids, and part of archival skill is learning to search productively in collections that are partially described or misfiled.
For some down-to-earth advice on how to do research in an archive, consult Tennent & Gillett (2023).
The deeper methodological issue is reflexivity about what archives do and do not contain. Archives are not neutral. Records were created for specific purposes, often organisational or legal ones, and their survival was shaped by decisions about what to keep and what to discard, sometimes decades or centuries later. My “Silence of the Archives” argument, which I revisited in a 2025 Management & Organizational History essay, holds that what is absent from the documentary record is as methodologically significant as what is present, and that researchers need to develop explicit strategies for handling archival gaps. This matters more acutely in some contexts than others: postcolonial archives, for instance, are shaped by imperial power dynamics that systematically excluded certain voices and perspectives from documentation. Decker, Nix & Shen (2025) address this directly, arguing for triangulation strategies — using multiple source types to cross-validate and to interrogate the biases built into any single archive.
Practical guidance on conducting archival research in management is available in my SAGE Methods Case (2023) and in Chapter 6 of the Handbook (Barros, 2023), which covers how to approach archives, build a data corpus from records, and maintain reflexivity throughout the research process.
Oral history and retrospective accounts
Oral history occupies a distinct methodological space that is often incorrectly conflated with qualitative interviewing. The difference is purpose: qualitative interviews in organisation studies typically gather accounts of present experience or attitude; oral history is concerned with reconstructing the past through memory, and the reliability and validity questions it raises are consequently different (Decker et al., 2021).
The standard challenges with oral history evidence are retrospective sense-making (the way people impose a coherent narrative on events that were more chaotic at the time), telescoping (compression or expansion of time sequences in memory), and the suppression of unflattering material. None of these makes oral history unreliable as a source; they make it a particular kind of source that needs to be read critically and, where possible, triangulated with documentary evidence. And source critique demands this of most historical materials (Howell & Prevenier, 2001; Dobson & Zieman, 2009; Kipping et al., 2014)
Oral history is most valuable where the documentary record is incomplete or silent: recovering the accounts of actors whose perspectives were not captured in formal records, reconstructing informal decision-making processes that left no written trace, and accessing knowledge of events within living memory. Giacomin (2023) provides a methodological discussion of oral history for historical research in the Handbook of Historical Methods for Management.
Decker, Hassard & Rowlinson (2021) draw a further distinction, in their Human Relations paper on historiographical reflexivity, between historical organisation studies (research into the past primarily through archival sources) and retrospective organisational history (reconstruction of the past through retrospective accounts). Both are legitimate approaches, but they carry different epistemological commitments and should not be treated as equivalent.
Process approaches and longitudinal analysis
Process history traces how organisations, industries, technologies, or practices change over time. The concern is with sequences, mechanisms and their outcomes. This is related to, but distinct from, process organisation studies (particularly associated with the work of Ann Langley and Haridimos Tsoukas): historical process work focuses on reconstructing past events, drawing on primary sources, rather than on theory-building about processual dynamics from fieldwork.
Two considerations are central. First, periodisation: historians divide time into meaningful units based on the evidence – shifts in competitive conditions, regulatory changes, leadership transitions, exogenous shocks. The choice of periodisation is itself an interpretive act and should be made explicit and justified rather than treated as natural or given. Second, scale: process history can operate at the level of the single organisation, across multiple organisations within an industry or sector, or at the systemic level (Decker, 2022). The level of analysis shapes which sources are appropriate, and which claims the evidence can support.
Rowlinson, Hassard & Decker (2014) distinguish four research strategies for organisational history that map onto different combinations of epistemological stance and evidence type: corporate history, analytically structured history, serial history, and ethnographic history (reading sources “against the grain”). The distinction between these strategies is practically useful when justifying methodological choices in a journal submission, because it clarifies what kind of claims the historical work is designed to make.
Digital and computational methods
Historical research on organisations is changing rapidly as digitised archival collections expand and as computational tools for working with large document sets become more accessible.
Digitised sources. A growing share of the sources relevant to business and organisational history is now available online, either as digitised versions of analogue materials (newspapers, company filings, government documents) or as born-digital records. Nix & Decker (2023) develop a framework for distinguishing among the following: digitised analogue sources, “reborn-digital” sources (originally digital, exported to analogue and then re-digitised), and born-digital sources. Each type has different characteristics relevant to authentication, completeness, and the nature of the evidence it provides. Major repositories with relevant digitised collections include the British Newspaper Archive, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, Chronicling America (US), and the holdings of national archives.
Born-digital archives. Email archives are among the most significant born-digital sources for research into the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Decker, Kirsch, Kuppili Venkata & Nix (2022) have worked extensively on the methodological and computational challenges of born-digital email archives, including the EMCODIST project (Kuppili Venkata et al., 2021) and their work on the Dot-Com Email Archive. The challenge lies both in the scale and the contextual poverty of large email datasets: individual messages are frequently decontextualised, and finding meaningful patterns requires combining computational search with contextual historical knowledge.
AI and transcription. AI-assisted transcription of handwritten historical documents is now a realistic option for researchers working with large volumes of manuscript material. Transkribus (transkribus.eu) is the most established platform in this space, offering handwritten text recognition models trained on historical scripts – but Google’s Gemini is increasingly giving it a run for the money. The quality varies by script type and language, and post-correction is usually necessary, but the time savings on large collections can be substantial. OHN’s Tech Stack section has covered AI tools for historical research in more depth.
Definitely check out Mark Humphries’ Generative Histories Substack for some expert advice on handwritten text recognition.
Corpus and text analysis. Computational methods for text analysis — topic modelling, named entity recognition and word embeddings – are increasingly applied to historical document collections. The methodological caution worth stating clearly is that these methods identify patterns in text; they do not produce historical interpretation. The patterns still need to be interpreted with historical context in mind – statistical regularity does not equate to historical significance. Used as a heuristic and combined with close reading of key documents, they can be genuinely useful (Hannigan et al., 2019; Goldenstein et al., 2026).
Positioning historical methods in a journal submission
For researchers navigating peer review, three recurring challenges arise when submitting historically grounded work to management journals.
First, the reliability question. Reviewers trained in quantitative or survey-based traditions sometimes ask about validity and trustworthiness in ways that are poorly matched to historical evidence (Gill et al., 2018). There are two avenues here to respond:
1) Not forcing historical data into a reliability framework that was designed for contemporary, researcher-recorded qualitative data, but to articulate the historiographical standards that apply: source triangulation across multiple independent archives, critical engagement with provenance and authorship of documents, and transparency about the limits of the surviving record. Vinokurova (2025) provides a great example of how to do this in the Strategic Management Journal.
2) Adapting historical approaches to the requirements of data transparency and data structures. This works better with some projects than others. Borpujari (2025) gives a masterclass on how to do this in Organization Science.
You can also watch the recordings of seminars by both Natalya Vinokurova and Rohin Borpujari here on the blog in the OHN Reading Club, complete with discussions of their articles.
Second, the theory contribution question. The “historic turn” debate concerned whether historical work should be judged primarily for its historical contribution or for its contribution to management theory. Decker, Hassard & Rowlinson (2021) argue for “historiographical reflexivity” as a concept that goes beyond the simple binary: the question is not history vs theory, but which epistemological commitments the researcher makes and whether they are consistent with the methods used.
Third, the venue question. Journals that are genuinely receptive to historical methods, rather than treating them as a peripheral novelty, include Business History, Management & Organizational History, Enterprise & Society, Business History Review, and Journal of Management History. Historically cognizant work has also appeared in Organization Studies, Human Relations, Academy of Management Review, and Journal of International Business Studies, among others, but the methodological bar is higher, in that the historical contribution needs to be legible to a social science audience that may not share historiographical assumptions.
The Career Pivot section has posts specifically on publishing strategy for historical researchers in management.
Further resources
The Handbook of Historical Methods for Management (Decker, Foster & Giovannoni, 2023, Edward Elgar) is the most comprehensive single reference, with chapters on archival methods, oral history, process history, digital methods, and specific disciplinary contexts including international business, entrepreneurship, and accounting history.
The SAGE Methods Case on archival historical research in management (Decker, 2023) is a shorter practical resource available through institutional SAGE subscriptions.
References
Argyres, N. S., De Massis, A., Foss, N. J., Frattini, F., Jones, G., & Silverman, B. S. (2020). History-informed strategy research: The promise of history and historical research methods in advancing strategy scholarship. Strategic Management Journal, 41(3), 343–368. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3118
Barros, A. (2023). Researching with records in management and organisation studies: archives, data corpus, and reflexivity. In S. Decker, W.M. Foster, & E. Giovannoni (Eds.), Handbook of Historical Methods for Management. Edward Elgar. https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/book/9781800883741/book-part-9781800883741-13.xml
Borpujari, R. (2025). Adaptive Secrecy in the Making of the Atomic Bomb: Toward a Process View of Secretive Innovation. Organization Science. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2023.17687
Clark, P., & Rowlinson, M. (2004). The treatment of history in organisation studies: Towards an ‘Historic turn’? Business History, 46(3), 331–352. https://doi.org/10.1080/0007679042000219175
Decker, S. (2022). Introducing the eventful temporality of historical research into international business. Journal of World Business, 57(6), 101380. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jwb.2022.101380
Decker, S. (2023, April). Archival historical research in management. SAGE Research Methods Cases. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529667714
Decker, S. (2025). Silence of the archives redux. Management & Organizational History, advance online, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2025.2595970
Decker, S., Foster, W.M., & Giovannoni, E. (Eds.). (2023). Handbook of Historical Methods for Management. Edward Elgar.
Decker, S., Giovannoni, E., & Plakoyiannaki, E. (2025). A microhistory of architecture historical imagination and the Bauhaus. Management & Organizational History, 20(4), 453–477. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2024.2423095
Decker, S., Hassard, J., & Rowlinson, M. (2021). Rethinking history and memory in organization studies: The case for historiographical reflexivity. Human Relations, 74(8), 1123–1155. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726720927443
Decker, S., Kirsch, D. A., Kuppili Venkata, S., & Nix, A. (2022). Finding light in dark archives: Using AI to connect context and content in email. AI & SOCIETY, 37(3), 859–872. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01369-9
Decker, S., Nix, A., & Shen, G. (2025). Minding the gaps: Triangulation strategies for colonial and postcolonial archives. Business History, advance online, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2025.2598410
Dobson, M., & Ziemann, B. (2009). Reading Primary Sources: The interpretation of texts from nineteenth- and twentieth-century history. Routledge.
Giacomin, V. (2023). Perspectives on oral history for historical research. In S. Decker, W.M. Foster, & E. Giovannoni (Eds.), Handbook of Historical Methods for Management. Edward Elgar.
Gill, M. J., Gill, D. J., & Roulet, T. J. (2018). Constructing Trustworthy Historical Narratives: Criteria, Principles and Techniques. British Journal of Management, 29(1), 191–205. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12262
Goldenstein, J., Jancsary, D., Grodal, S., Forgues, B., & Jennings, P. D. (Dev). (2026). Studying Culture and Meaning Through Interpretative Computational Methods: From theory to method and back. Organization Studies, 47(1), 7–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406251410383
Hannigan, T. R., Haan, R. F. J., Vakili, K., Tchalian, H., Glaser, V. L., Wang, M. S., Kaplan, S., & Jennings, P. D. (2019). Topic modeling in management research: Rendering new theory from textual data. Academy of Management Annals, 13(2), 586–632. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2017.0099
Howell, M., & Prevenier, W. (2001). From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods. Cornell University Press.
Kipping, M., Wadhwani, R. D., & Bucheli, M. (2014). Analyzing and Interpreting Historical Sources: A Basic Methodology. In M. Bucheli & R. D. Wadhwani (Eds), Organizations in Time (pp. 305–329). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199646890.003.0013
Kipping, M., & Üsdiken, B. (2014). History in organization and management theory: More than meets the eye. Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), 535–588. https://doi.org/10.1080/19416520.2014.911579
Kuppili Venkata, S., Decker, S., Kirsch, D.A., & Nix, A. (2021). EMCODIST: A context-based search tool for email archives. Conference paper.
Nix, A., & Decker, S. (2023). Using digital sources: the future of business history? Business History, 65(6), 1048–1071. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1909572
Rowlinson, M., Hassard, J., & Decker, S. (2014). Research strategies for organizational history: A dialogue between historical theory and organization theory. Academy of Management Review, 39(3), 250–274. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2012.0203
Tennent, K., & Gillet, A. (2023). How to research in an archive. In S. Decker, W. Foster, & E. Giovannoni (Eds), Handbook of Historical Methods in Management. Edward Elgar.
Vinokurova, N. (2025). Fitting innovations into existing categories: Evidence from mortgage‐backed securities. Strategic Management Journal, 46(10), 2573–2604. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3732
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Why would corporations open up their records to public scrutiny (even academic) given the potential legal risks?