New business histories! Plurality in business history research methods

Stephanie Decker*, Matthias Kipping, R. Daniel Wadhwani

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We agree with de Jong et al.'s argument that business historians should make their methods more explicit and welcome a more general debate about the most appropriate methods for business historical research. But rather than advocating one ‘new business history’, we argue that contemporary debates about methodology in business history need greater appreciation for the diversity of approaches that have developed in the last decade. And while the hypothesis-testing framework prevalent in the mainstream social sciences favoured by de Jong et al. should have its place among these methodologies, we identify a number of additional streams of research that can legitimately claim to have contributed novel methodological insights by broadening the range of interpretative and qualitative approaches to business history. Thus, we reject privileging a single method, whatever it may be, and argue instead in favour of recognising the plurality of methods being developed and used by business historians – both within their own field and as a basis for interactions with others.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)30-40
Number of pages11
JournalBusiness History
Volume57
Issue number1
Early online date19 Feb 2015
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015

Bibliographical note

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Business history on 19/2/15, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/00076791.2014.977870

Keywords

  • interactions with other disciplines
  • interpretative and qualitative approaches
  • research methods

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