The ‘Historic Turn’ in Management Teaching? The Integration of History into Business Schools

Abstract

The emphasis on a ‘historic turn’ in business and management literature in recent years has increased the visibility of business history amongst mainstream business and management scholars. Given this newfound attention, it is timely to redress the role history can play in business and management teaching. History can provide value to students and educators by offering a holistic picture of business processes through time. This paper suggests history feeds into a number of central teaching strands in business and management school and thus, should be incorporated in various way across modules. Using a sample of ten modules offered across subjects at Newcastle Business School at Northumbria University (UK), the authors propose that this can be achieved through the module learning objectives, which are tools that dictate the content and assessment of modules. By weaving history into lecture content through explorations of theory creation and application in various historical contexts, longitudinal case analysis, long-run global economic development, past strategy formation and implementation processes, students will get an appreciation for the complexity of business processes and how theory plays out in practice.