History and Tradition in Organizations: Cross-Level Perspectives and Puzzles

Abstract

Research organizational scholarship has examined the various ways history and tradition shape organizational experience (Dacin et al., 2018, Wadhwani et al. 2018). Issues of temporality and the influence of the past have been perennial concepts in management theorizing (e.g. Nelson & Winter, 1982; Hannan & Freeman, 1977); however, more recent scholarship has begun to examine how the past can be a “source of social symbolic resources” (Wadhwani, Suddaby, Mordhorst, & Popp, 2018: 1664). Rather than being an immutable source of path dependencies, the past is a source of interpretations that shape action in the present and future. In spite of this theoretical flourishing, many questions still remain for the uses of history and tradition in organizations. While most research has focused on top- down processes (e.g. how leaders use history for sensegiving; Suddaby, Foster, & Quinn Trank, 2010) or a single level of analysis (e.g. the organizational level), we know less about how history or tradition are used across levels of analysis. It remains unclear the ways that history and tradition shape the experience of individuals within organizations, as well how micro-practices of using history influence the more macro-level outcomes examined in existing theory (e.g. organizational identity formation). To explore some of these questions, this session brings together a diverse group of scholars who are studying history and tradition across levels of analysis. History, Tradition, and the Temporal Structuring of Innovation Presenter: Innan Sasaki; Warwick Business School Presenter: Davide Ravasi; UCL School of Management Recipes from the Past: The Role of Field Heritage in Identity Formation, and New Venture Survival Presenter: Jochem Kroezen; U. of Cambridge Presenter: Michel William Lander; HEC Paris In search of lost time: Tradition as a source of meaningful work among craftspeople Presenter: Greg Fetzer; Boston College History work: The past as prosocial motivation Presenter: Jeff Thompson; Brigham Young U.