War and peace in organizational memory

Abstract

This special issue of Management and Organizational History is prompted by a public celebration. It is timed to coincide with 11th November 2018 as the 100-year anniversary of Armistice Day. Articles in this issue of the journal examine the impact that war, as a social, economic and political event, had upon organizational identity and organizational memory. They speak to the broader questions of how organizations understood and rationalized their national, regional, religious or racial identity and behavior in times of conflict, and afterwards in times of peace. Who or what objects, rituals and ceremonies did organizations use to remember and commemorate the lives lost in war – if at all? To what extent were memorials or commemorations special or unique to organizations themselves? Were they embedded within wider systems of meaning? How does the end of conflict and peacetime change these gestures or attitudes towards other nations or groups? To what extent did remembering, or the memory of war, impact upon organizational identity and behavior after conflict ended?