Understanding the rift, The (still) uneasy bedfellows of History and Organization Studies

Despite repeated calls for more active cross-pollination between the disciplines of history and Organization Studies in the last twenty years, the dialogue between the two disciplines remains far from seamless. To analyse this disjuncture this paper has two objectives. First, to explicate what we believe to be a rather frequent confusion as to what constitutes history: namely, we stress that all studies of time are not necessarily historical. Rather, an interest in history is subtly different in both its emphases and approaches, to studies of the impacts of time, and its effects, on how organisations work. Second, given this distinction, this paper aims to historicize and understand the reasons behind the persistent hindrances to full interdisciplinary commensurability. It is, we propose, only by historically analysing some of the perceived epistemological and ontological differences and similarities between the two disciplines that we can usefully work towards trying to overcome them.