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Organizational Memory Studies (OMS) is limited by its managerialist, presentist preoccupation with the utility of memory for knowledge management. The dominant model of memory in OMS is that of a storage bin. But this model has been rejected by psychologists because it overlooks the distinctly human subjective experience of remembering, i.e. episodic memory. OMS also fails to take account of the specific social and historical contexts of organizational memory. The methodological individualism that is prevalent in OMS makes it difficult to engage with the rapidly expanding sociological and historical literature in social memory studies, where a more social constructionist approach to ‘collective memory’ is generally favoured. However, for its part social memory studies derived from Maurice Halbwachs neglects organizations, focusing primarily on the nation as a mnemonic community. From a critical perspective organizations can be seen as appropriating society’s memory through corporate sites of memory such as historical visitor attractions and corporate museums. There is scope for a sociological and historical reorientation within OMS, drawing on social memory studies and focusing on corporate sites of memory, such as The Henry Ford museum complex, as well as the mnemonic role of founders and beginnings in organizations. Taking a social constructionist, collectivist approach to social remembering in organizations allows connections to be made between memory and other research programmes, such as organizational culture studies.

Scenarios and counterfactuals are two types of modal narrative. Modal narratives concern themselves with contingency and determinism: with questions of possibility and necessity. While scenarios are future-oriented, focused on what might yet be, counterfactuals are narratives of what might have been. Despite this fundamental temporal difference, consideration of the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of modal narratives as a genre enables us to elucidate some critical issues concerning scenarios as a foresight methodology. In particular, the scenario literature has tended to avoid extended discussion of its implicit assumptions concerning causation, necessity, possibility and contingency. By confronting the modal nature of foresight methodologies more explicitly, the futures community may begin to lay more secure philosophical foundations for their deployment.

PurposeThis paper seeks to identify and define the genre of corporate history within the pervasive historical discourse produced by and about organizations which tells the past of an organization across a multiplicity of texts: published works – commissioned and critical accounts, academic tomes and glossy coffee‐table books – as well as web pages, annual reports and promotional pamphlets.Design/methodology/approachThe approach takes the form of systematic reading of historical narratives for 85 mainly British and US companies from the Fortune Global 500. For these companies, a search was carried out for US printed sources in the British Library and a survey was conducted of historical content in web pages.FindingsFrom extensive reading of the historical discourse, recurrent formal features (medium, authorship, publication, paratext and imagery) and elements of thematic content (narrative, characters, cultural paradigms and business success), which together define the genre of corporate history, have been identified. Such a definition provides competence in the reading of historical narratives of organizations and raises questions regarding the role of history in organizational identity, memory and communication. In conclusion it is argued that the interpretation of corporate history cannot be reduced to its promotional function for organizations.Research limitations/implicationsThe list of the formal features and thematic content of corporate history detailed here is by no means exhaustive. They are not variables, but signs, which, in various combinations, compose the narrative and signify the genre.Practical implicationsIt seems likely that coffee‐table books will increasingly replace academic commissioned histories, with consultants professionalizing the discourse and formalizing the genre of corporate history.Originality/valueThe genre of corporate history has hitherto been neglected in organization theory, where the linguistic turn has led to a preoccupation with talk as text. The use of genre to analyse corporate history represents a textual turn to literary organizational texts as text.

Organizations are increasingly being called to account for their history. In particular, German and non-German companies have been called to account for their relations with the Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945. Organizations are not only accountable for past activity, but also for previous, often misleading, historical accounts of their behaviour. Thus we are interested in how an organization deals with historical accounts of its past, and how this reflects its culture. Therefore we draw upon concepts from organizational culture studies, and specifically Martin's three perspectives of culture as integration, differentiation, and fragmentation. We take the illustrative case of Bertelsmann, the German publishing company. Revelations of its record under the Nazis, when it published anti-semitic literature, were brought to light by Hersch Fischler in 1998, when Bertelsmann was in the process of taking over Random House. These revelations jarred with the company's image of corporate social responsibility and undermined the company legend, which alleged that it had an impeccable record, and had even been closed down for opposing the Nazis. The Bertelsmann case highlights the dilemmas involved in organizations invoking their past. Debate over the Holocaust has highlighted the dilemmas of truth and relativism in representations of history. The Bertelsmann case highlights similar dilemmas for organizational culture perspectives.

The formation of the crystalline Ag50Pd50 solid solution during mechanical alloying under shock interaction of Ag and Pd metallic powders has been studied using electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. The process involved for impact interaction occurs via the incorporation of the small Pd particles into the Ag matrix in which, under the action of mechanical strain, the mutual diffusion of Ag and Pd leads to the formation of two solid solutions, one rich in Ag and the other rich in Pd. Further grinding allows the homogenization of the two Ag and Pd solid solutions whose composition changes to finally reach the initial Ag50Pd50 composition. The defects as dislocations generated by the impact conditions may be responsible for the reaction mechanism.

Le tournant culturel en histoire des entreprisesLes historiens des entreprises s’interessent de plus en plus a la notion de culture. Certains, dont P. Fridenson par exemple, ont demontre la valeur d’une ouverture accrue de la profession vers d’autres champs d’etudes tels que l’histoire culturelle et les etudes memorielles qui en sont issues. L’histoire des entreprises n’a eu que peu de difficultes a s’approprier les analyses portant sur les industries de la culture et sur la culture de la consommation. Elle reconnait desormais aussi la richesse des representations culturelles du monde de l’entreprise et des affaires en art et en litterature. Cependant, et c’est la notre argument, la culture du consensus qui regne au sein de la profession continue de limiter la prise en compte des enjeux des « guerres culturelles » qui occupent bon nombre de chercheurs en culture organisationnelle dans les ecoles de commerce ainsi que les historiens specialistes de theorie culturelle. Les etudes critiques portant sur la culture dans les organisations se mefient des recits centres sur les fondateurs que tous les historiens d’entreprise, a quelques exceptions pres, reproduisent volontiers de toutes pieces afin d’expliciter la culture qui regne au sein de l’entreprise qu’ils etudient. Plus largement, la theorie culturelle conteste la logique de l’objectivite qui prevaut en histoire des entreprises en soulevant la possibilite de l’existence d’une inquietante « fragilite epistemologique ». Et dans la mesure ou les historiens des entreprises se seraient effectivement eloignes de la performance economique pour s’interesser aux questions de genre, de race et de sexe, ils ne peuvent echapper aux « guerres culturelles » associees au « multiculturalisme » qui s’impose dans toute analyse des relations qui lient historiquement le monde de l’entreprise et des affaires a l’esclavage, au racisme ou aux inegalites. En terminant notre article sur l’utilisation par Alan McKinlay des caricatures dessinees par un employe en marge des registres de la Bank of Scotland, dans son analyse de l’emergence de la notion de carriere moderne chez les banquiers ecossais du debut du XXe siecle, nous souhaitons illustrer la maniere dont une etude alimentee par la theorie culturelle peut diverger de l’histoire des entreprises conventionnelle tout en continuant de se fonder sur les memes sources documentaires.

Replacement of nickel by aluminium in the brucite-type Ni(OH)2 layers leads to layered double hydroxides (LDH), which can be used as active materials for nickel hydroxide electrodes. Ni/Al LDH compounds [0 < Al/(Ni + Al)⩽ 0.25] were synthesized by precipitation with ammonia from mixed Ni/Al nitrate solutions and characterized by X-ray powder diffraction, infrared spectroscopy, chemical analysis and transmission electron microscopy. X-Ray powder diffractograms of fresh precipitates are characteristic of turbostratic layered double hydroxides. A structural model describing the turbostratic layered double hydroxides is proposed on the basis of the experimental results. The brucite-type layers are non-stoichiometric and present hydroxide vacancies: their chemical composition can be written as [Ni1–x2+ Alx3+(OH–)2–(y+2z–x)] and the interlamellar layers as [(NO3–)y(CO32–)z·nH2O] with x⩽ 0.25. The interlamellar anions (NO3– or CO32–) play two roles: those in D3h symmetry, compensate for the positive-charge excess of Al3+ ions, while those in C2v, symmetry, compensate for that of hydroxide vacancies. When aged, mixed turbostratic Ni/Al hydroxides with the higher aluminium content (x 0, 18) change into synthetic takovites (crystallized Ni–Al–CO3 double hydroxides) through a dissolution–recrystallization process.

Las empresas suelen anunciar públicamente su longevidad. Para ellas, el pasado tiene un significado claro. Sin embargo, las teorías de la organización que consideran la pervivencia y el papel representado por los fundadores, sobre todo las de tipo ecológico y cultural, no explican los significados colectivos que van unidos al pasado. Tampoco lo hace la literatura sobre la memoria de las organizaciones, que la concibe como una serie de compartimentos estancos. La Historia empresarial se preocupa más por la reconstrucción del pasado desde el momento presente que por los significados implícitos en el pasado. Con el fin de comprender las prácticas sociales (mnemónicas) por las que el pasado es recordado y por las que cobra sentido, nosotros recurrimos al cada vez más importante campo de la memoria social. Para examinar el modo en el que las interpretaciones oficiales están presentes en el pasado de las organizaciones, nos servimos de documentos públicamente disponibles, como memorias de las compañías, informes de prensa, artículos o historias hechas por encargo. Partiendo de los puntos de vista de la memoria social, nos centramos en analizar los centenarios y la creación de lugares de memoria, así como en el tradicional debate sobre la condición histórica de memorias que vertebran la identidad. En el texto, proporcionamos breves ejemplos sobre la celebración del centenario de la Ford, la denominación del centro de formación de directivos de la General Electric como John F. Welch Learning Center, así como de la desacreditadora leyenda de la Bertelsmann, concerniente a su comportamiento durante el dominio nazi en Alemania. Concluimos que el punto de vista de la memoria social puede constituir una base idónea para investigar el significado del pasado en las organizaciones.