Purpose

Management history has in the past 15 years witnessed growing enthusiasm for “critical” research methodologies associated with the so-called “historic turn”. This paper aims to argue, however, that the “historic turn” has proved to an “historic wrong turn”, typically associated with confused and contradictory positions. In consequence, Foucault’s belief that knowledge is rooted in discourse, and that both are rooted in external structures of power, is used while simultaneously professing advocacy of White’s understanding that history is fictive, the product of the historian’s imagination.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper explores the intellectual roots of the historic (wrong) turn in the idealist philosophies of Nietzsche, Croce, Foucault, White and Latour as well as the critiques that have been made of those theories from within “critical” or “Left” theoretical frameworks.

Findings

Failing to properly acknowledge the historical origin of their ideas and/or the critiques of those ideas – and misrepresenting all contrary opinion as “positivist” – those associated with the historic (wrong) turn replicate the errors of their theoretical champions. The author thus witnesses a confusion of ontology (the nature of being) and epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and, consequently, of “facts” (things that exist independently of our fancy), “evidence” (how ascertain knowledge of a fact) and “interpretation” (how I connect evidence to explain an historical outcome).

Originality/value

Directed toward an examination of the conceptual errors that mark the so-called “historic turn” in management studies, this article argues that the holding contradictory positions is not an accidental by-product of the “historic turn”. Rather, it is a defining characteristic of the genre.

中文翻译：

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管理和组织研究的历史性（错误）转向

目的

在过去的15年中，管理历史见证了人们对与所谓的“历史性转折”相关的“批判性”研究方法的热情与日俱增。本文旨在论证，然而，“历史性转折”已被证明为“历史性错误转折”，通常与混乱和矛盾的立场有关。结果，福柯认为知识植根于话语，而知识和知识都植根于权力的外部结构，同时又宣称怀特主张怀特认为历史是虚构的，这是历史学家想象的产物。

设计/方法/方法

本文探讨了尼采，克罗齐，福柯，怀特和拉图尔的唯心主义哲学的历史性（错误）转折的思想渊源，以及从“批判”或“左派”理论框架对这些理论进行的批判。 。

发现

未能正确承认其思想的历史渊源和/或对这些思想的批判-并将所有相反的观点错误地表述为“实证主义者”-与历史（错误）联系在一起的那些观点重复了其理论拥护者的错误。因此，作者目睹了本体论（存在的本质）和认识论（知识的本质）以及“事实”（与我们的幻想无关的事物），“证据”（如何确定事实知识）的混淆。 ）和“解释”（我如何连接证据来解释历史结果）。

创意/价值

本文旨在研究标志着管理研究中所谓的“历史性转折”的概念错误，认为持有矛盾立场并不是“历史性转折”的偶然产物。而是，这是该类型的定义特征。