The Management History Division at the 2025 Academy of Management Annual Meeting delivered a robust, intellectually rich, and globally diverse program, spanning five days of presentations, workshops, and community engagement. With dozens of sessions, symposia, and PDWs, the Division highlighted how historical inquiry can powerfully illuminate contemporary management challenges.
Throughout the conference, core themes included the theorization of time, agency, and materiality through microhistory; the evolving strategic role of internal communication and employee voice; and the use of event studies and archival methods in management history. Scholars examined how corruption, nationalism, and power influence firm behavior, and how organizations can respond through strategic adaptation and historical consciousness.
A series of methodological innovations were showcased, such as applying Egyptological frameworks, Dharmic firm theory, and Indigenous and feminist epistemologies to management. This expanded the boundaries of historical research with bold cross-cultural perspectives.
The Division also featured critical symposia on institutional legitimacy, organizational memory, non-Western rhetorical history, and the role of imagination in management narratives. A standout plenary, The Presence and Absence of the Past, offered a powerful reflection on how historical residues shape business life today.
Among the highlights were historical investigations into AI’s cyclical development, the decline of Finnish management institutes, cooperative performance in early 20th-century Europe, and CSR in pre-modern sports governance. Sessions on leadership, gender, populism, and workplace deviance traced how past structures and ideologies continue to inform organizational dynamics.
At the Business Meeting, the Division discussed strategic updates: new board members, financial reports, best paper and service awards, a newly designed logo reflecting the Division’s identity, and communication strategies to foster global inclusion.
The meeting closed with a warm social event celebrating the Division’s growing scholarly community—rooted in collaboration, curiosity, and care. Through rich historical analysis and cross-disciplinary dialogue, the Management History Division reaffirmed its role as a vital intellectual home within the Academy.
