Historiographic Processes: The Writing-In and Writing-Out of MacKenzie King from MOS History

Abstract

This paper will advance the argument that the ‘history’ as contained in both the field’s canon and our formal disciplinary (George, 1968, 1972) and intellectual histories (Wren, 1972, 1979) are neither straightforward records of the development of the field of Management and Organizational Studies (MOS) nor are they an unproblematic reflection of management practice or theorizing in the past. In contrast to the dominant narrative within the field’s literature; that is the teleological progress of MOS under the rubric of scientific rationalism (Alvesson, 1984; Burrell & Morgan, 1979), it will be argued that these histories are the outcomes of historiographic processes which, as much as any commitment to the accepted norms, tenets and dictates of the scientific method, have defined both the boundaries of MOS and determined what is permissible to be theorized within them.