ABSTRACT
The arguments for an historical perspective in organization studies can be divided into three variants: factual, narrative, and archaeo-genealogical. The factual argument is that if organization studies were to take account of the facts revealed by history then a number of erroneous assumptions would be undermined. H. White's suggestion 'that there might be a "fictional" element in the historian's text, however much he or she has tried to avoid it', has served as a license for some of the most outstanding self-conscious historical narratives. Archaeo-genealogy is probably more compatible with the social constructionism of the new institutionalists, rather than narrative accounts of human intentionality, insofar as both dissolve the conscious human actor into discourse or institutions. The accretion of superfluous theory, such as archaeo-genealogy or social constructionism, is almost a prerequisite for the presentation of historical data in a sufficiently pretentious style.
