Previous research in business and management history has identified the Icarus paradox, which describes how organisations may fall due to overconfidence and hubris. We build upon previous research on paradoxes in business history and introduce the notion of an inverted Icarus paradox. Using rich archival sources coded in a relational database, we show how an entrant firm, Comvik, outmanoeuvred an established government monopoly in the non-market domain from 1980 to 1990, despite inferior resources and a weak market position. The government monopoly Televerket faced an inverted Icarus paradox; it could not leverage its strengths and political connections as they were stuck in a David versus Goliath narrative where public opinion was more sympathetic to the entrant firm Comvik.
Eriksson, K., Lakomaa, E., Nykvist, R., & Sandström, C.
2024
Business History.
2022
Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2022, No. 1, p. 16116). Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510: Academy of Management.
We present an analytically structured history approach using a relational database to bridge the methodological divide between history and management and organizational research. Extensive digitized archival sets with rich metadata and analytical structures form the core of the database. The approach provides multiple methodological strengths. First, source transparency is established by linking all steps of the coding and analysis to the sources in the database. Second, the approach enables real-time research collaboration and constant comparison of the coding and analysis of sources. Third, the always available and searchable database enables the researcher to easily move back and forth from sources to narrative construction and theorizing. Due to this efficiency gain, research can be based on extensive archival datasets enabling rigorous conceptual development. The approach responds to the call for methodological openness and disclosure when conducting historical analyses. Additionally, the approach enables the development of contextually grounded explanations and theories that respond to the criticism that management and organizational research is ahistorical. Thus, the approach fulfills the requirement for the dual integrity of historical veracity and conceptual rigor.
2022
Building on a historical case study on the first two stock exchanges to adopt the now globally dominant for-profit organizational form, the Stockholm Stock Exchange in 1993 and the Helsinki Stock Exchange in 1995, we argue that interaction among socially proximate peers contributes to pioneering organizational form adoption within an industry, particularly when such forms are introduced by established organizations. Peer interaction can induce a search for technically efficient organizational forms through the sharing of collective experiences, the establishment of collective assumptions, and a joint search for solutions. Together, these factors contribute to the legitimization of novel organizational forms in the local setting before the adoption of the first instantiation of those forms. We propose a context-sensitive multilevel model of peer-interaction-induced pioneering organizational form adoption that considers shared macro environmental drivers, idiosyncratic local environmental drivers, and peer interaction as central social mediators between the two.
2020
How are historical, practice-oriented, and critical research perspectives in management affected by digitalization? In this article, we describe and discuss how two digital research approaches can be applied and how they may influence the future directions of management scholarship and education: Social Media Analytics and digital archives. Our empirical illustrations suggest that digitalization generates productivity improvements for scholars, making it possible to undertake research that was previously too laborious. It also enables researchers to pay closer attention to detail while still being able to abstract and generalize. We therefore argue that digitalization contributes to a historical turn in management, that practice-oriented research can be conducted with less effort and improved quality and that micro-level data in the form of digital archives and online contents make it easier to adopt critical perspectives.