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Gales, Streams, and Multipliers: Conceptual Metaphors and Theory Development in Business History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 July 2020

R. DANIEL WADHWANI
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Abstract

Conceptual metaphors, like Galambos and Amatori’s “entrepreneurial multiplier,” play a pivotal but largely unexamined role in historical interpretation. They do this by allowing historians to see one set of historical associations or relationships in terms of another, more familiar, one. I highlight this interpretive role by comparing Galambos and Amatori’s construct to Joseph Schumpeter’s “gale of creative destruction” and Arthur Cole’s “entrepreneurial stream” as metaphors that attempt to explain the relationship between entrepreneurship and historical change. I also point out the risks that taken-for-granted metaphors can have in narrowing room for interpretation, and argue that reflexivity and playfulness are essential to keeping conceptual metaphors alive as interpretive devices. I conclude by suggesting that metaphors are an intrinsic form of theorizing in historical interpretation, and illustrate my argument by briefly examining “industrial revolution” as a construct in business and economic history.

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Enterprise & Society , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , June 2020 , pp. 320 - 339
Copyright
© The Author 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.

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References

Bibliography of Works Cited

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DiMaggio, Paul J., and Powell, Walter W.. “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields.” American Sociological Review 48, no. 2 (1983): 147–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fracchia, Joseph, and Lewontin, R.C.. “The Price of Metaphor.” History and Theory 44 (2005): 14–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Galambos, Louis, and Amatori, Franco. “The Entrepreneurial Multiplier Effect.” Enterprise & Society 17, no. 4 (2016): 763–808.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godley, Andrew. “Entrepreneurial Opportunities, Implicit Contracts, and Market Making for Complex Consumer Goods.” Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal 7 (2013): 273–287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godley, Andrew, and Hamilton, Shane. “Different Expectations: A Comparative History of Structure, Experience, and Strategic Alliances in the U.S. and U.K. Poultry Sectors, 1920-1990.” Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Graham, Margaret. “Entrepreneurship in the United States, 1920–2000.” In The Invention of Enterprise: Entrepreneurship from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern Times, edited by Landes, David S., Mokyr, Joel, and Baumol, William J., 401–442. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Hannan, Michael T., and Freeman, John. “The Population Ecology of Organizations.” American Journal of Sociology 82, no. 5 (1977): 929–964.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kipping, Matthias, Kurosawa, Takafumi, and Wadhwani, R. Daniel. “A Revisionist Historiography of Business History: A Richer Past for a Richer Future.” In The Routledge Companion to Business History, edited by Wilson, John F. Toms, Steve DeJong, Abe, and Buchnea, Emily. Abingdon: Routledge, 2016.Google Scholar
Kipping, Matthias, and Üsdiken, Behlül. “History in Organization and Management Theory: More Than Meets the Eye.” Academy of Management Annals 8, no. 1 (2014): 535–588.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mantere, Saku, and Ketokivi, Mikko, “Reasoning in Organization Science” 38, no. 1 (2013): 70–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCraw, Thomas K. “Schumpeter’s Business Cycles and Business History.” Business History Review 80 (2006): 231–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oswick, Cliff, Keenoy, Tom, and Grant, David. “Metaphor and Analogical Reasoning in Organization Theory: Beyond Orthodoxy,” Academy of Management Review 27, no. 2 (2002): 294–303.Google Scholar
Pendergast, Renee. “Schumpeter, Hegel, and the Vision of Development.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 30, no. 2 (2005): 253–275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Penrose, Edith Tilton. “Biological Analogies in the Theory of the Firm.” American Economic Review 42 (1952): 804–819.Google Scholar
Popp, Andrew, and Holt, Robin. “The Presence of Entrepreneurial Opportunity.” Business History 55, no. 1 (2013): 9–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowlinson, Michael, Hassard, John, and Decker, Stephanie. “Research Strategies for Organizational History: A Dialogue between Historical Theory and Organization Theory.” Academy of Management Review 39, no. 3 (2014): 250–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. “Economic Theory and Entrepreneurial History.” In Change and the Entrepreneur, 63–84. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. “The Creative Response in Economic History.” Journal of Economic History 7, no. 2 (1947): 149–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suddaby, Roy and Foster, William. “History and Organizational Change.” Journal of Management 43, no. 1 (2017): 19–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swedberg, Richard. “Theorizing in Sociology and Social Science: Turning to the Context of Discovery.” Theory and Society 41 (2012): 1–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsoukas, Haridimos. “The Missing Link: A Transformational View of Metaphors in Organizational Science,” Academy of Management Review 16, no. 3 (1991): 566–585.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wadhwani, R. Daniel. “Historical Reasoning and the Development of Entrepreneurship Theory.” In Historical Foundations of Entrepreneurship Research, edited by Hans Landström and Lohrke, Franz 343–362. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010.Google Scholar
Wadhwani, R. Daniel, and Geoffrey Jones. “Schumpeter’s Plea: Historical Reasoning in Entrepreneurship Theory and Research.” In Organizations in Time: History, Theory and Methods, edited by Bucheli, Marcelo and Wadhwani, R. Daniel, 192–216. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Wadhwani, R. Daniel, Kirsch, David, Welter, Friederike, Gartner, William, and Jones, Geoffrey, “Context, Time, and Change: Historical Approaches to Entrepreneurship Research,” Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal 14: 3–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wadhwani, R. Daniel, and Lubinski, Christina. “Reinventing Entrepreneurial History.” Business History Review 91,4 (2017): 767–799.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weick, Karl. “What Theory is Not, Theorizing Is.” Administrative Science Quarterly 40 (1995): 385–390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Hayden. “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality.” Critical Inquiry 7, no. 1 (1980): 5–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Daniel C.S. “Arnold Toynbee and the Industrial Revolution.” History & Memory 26, no. 2 (2014): 133–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zundel, Mike and Kokkalis, Panagiotis. “Theorizing as Engaged Practice,” Organization Studies 31, no. 9 &10 (2010): 1209–1227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abbott, Andrew Delano. Processual Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bucheli, Marcelo, and Wadhwani, R. Daniel, eds. Organizations in Time: History, Theory, Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Cassis, Youssef, and Minoglou, Ioanna Pepelasis, eds. Entrepreneurship in Theory and History. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Casson, Mark, and Casson, Catherine. The Entrepreneur in History: From Medieval Merchant to Modern Business Leader. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cole, Arthur. Business Enterprise in Its Social Setting. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959.Google Scholar
Hannan, Michael T., and Freeman, John. Organizational Ecology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Horowitz, Daniel. Entertaining Entrepreneurship: Reality TV’s Shark Tank and the American Dream in Uncertain Times. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2020.Google Scholar
Jones, Geoffrey. Profits and Sustainability: A History of Green Entrepreneurship. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knight, Frank H. Risk, Uncertainty and Profit. Boston: Hart, Schaffner & Marx, 1921.Google Scholar
Koselleck, Reinhart. Futures Past: On the Semantics of Histoical Time. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George, and Johnson, Mark. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Landes, David S., Mokyr, Joel, and Baumol, William J., eds. The Invention of Enterprise: Entrepreneurship from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern Times. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCraw, Thomas K. Prophet of Innovation. Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Morgan, Gareth. Images of Organization. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2006.Google Scholar
Nelson, Richard R., and Winter, Sidney G.. An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. London: Cambridge University Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Raff, Daniel, and Scranton, Philip. The Emergence of Routines: Entrepreneurship, Organization, and Business History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, 5th ed. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1942. Reprint, Harper & Brothers: New York, 1976.Google Scholar
Schwab, Klaus. The Fourth Industrial Revolution. New York: Crown Business, 2017.Google Scholar
Toynbee, Arnold. Lectures on the Industrial Revolution of the 18th Century in England. London: Rivingtons, 1887.Google Scholar
Burgin, A. “The Reinvention of Entrepreneurship.” In Haberski, R., & Hartman, A. (Eds.), American Labyrinth: Intellectual History for Complicated Times: 163–180. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018.Google Scholar
Cannadine, David. “The Present and the Past in the English Industrial Revolution, 1880-1980,” Past & Present No. 103 (1984): 131–172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coleman, D.C. “Industrial Growth and Industrial Revolutions.” Economica 23, No. 89 (1956): 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cornelissen, Joep. “Beyond Compare: Metaphor in Organization Theory,” Academy of Management Review 30, no. 4 (2005): 751–764.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crafts, N.F.R. and Harley, C.K.. “Output Growth and the British Industrial Revolution: A Restatement of the Crafts-Harley View,” Economic History Review 45, no. 4 (1992): 703–730.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DiMaggio, Paul J., and Powell, Walter W.. “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields.” American Sociological Review 48, no. 2 (1983): 147–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fracchia, Joseph, and Lewontin, R.C.. “The Price of Metaphor.” History and Theory 44 (2005): 14–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fredona, Robert, and Reinert, Sophus. “The Harvard Research Center in Entrepreneurial History and the Daimonic Entrepreneur.” History of Political Economy 49, no. 2 (2017): 267–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galambos, Louis, and Amatori, Franco. “The Entrepreneurial Multiplier Effect.” Enterprise & Society 17, no. 4 (2016): 763–808.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godley, Andrew. “Entrepreneurial Opportunities, Implicit Contracts, and Market Making for Complex Consumer Goods.” Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal 7 (2013): 273–287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godley, Andrew, and Hamilton, Shane. “Different Expectations: A Comparative History of Structure, Experience, and Strategic Alliances in the U.S. and U.K. Poultry Sectors, 1920-1990.” Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Graham, Margaret. “Entrepreneurship in the United States, 1920–2000.” In The Invention of Enterprise: Entrepreneurship from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern Times, edited by Landes, David S., Mokyr, Joel, and Baumol, William J., 401–442. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Hannan, Michael T., and Freeman, John. “The Population Ecology of Organizations.” American Journal of Sociology 82, no. 5 (1977): 929–964.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kipping, Matthias, Kurosawa, Takafumi, and Wadhwani, R. Daniel. “A Revisionist Historiography of Business History: A Richer Past for a Richer Future.” In The Routledge Companion to Business History, edited by Wilson, John F. Toms, Steve DeJong, Abe, and Buchnea, Emily. Abingdon: Routledge, 2016.Google Scholar
Kipping, Matthias, and Üsdiken, Behlül. “History in Organization and Management Theory: More Than Meets the Eye.” Academy of Management Annals 8, no. 1 (2014): 535–588.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mantere, Saku, and Ketokivi, Mikko, “Reasoning in Organization Science” 38, no. 1 (2013): 70–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCraw, Thomas K. “Schumpeter’s Business Cycles and Business History.” Business History Review 80 (2006): 231–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oswick, Cliff, Keenoy, Tom, and Grant, David. “Metaphor and Analogical Reasoning in Organization Theory: Beyond Orthodoxy,” Academy of Management Review 27, no. 2 (2002): 294–303.Google Scholar
Pendergast, Renee. “Schumpeter, Hegel, and the Vision of Development.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 30, no. 2 (2005): 253–275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Penrose, Edith Tilton. “Biological Analogies in the Theory of the Firm.” American Economic Review 42 (1952): 804–819.Google Scholar
Popp, Andrew, and Holt, Robin. “The Presence of Entrepreneurial Opportunity.” Business History 55, no. 1 (2013): 9–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowlinson, Michael, Hassard, John, and Decker, Stephanie. “Research Strategies for Organizational History: A Dialogue between Historical Theory and Organization Theory.” Academy of Management Review 39, no. 3 (2014): 250–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. “Economic Theory and Entrepreneurial History.” In Change and the Entrepreneur, 63–84. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. “The Creative Response in Economic History.” Journal of Economic History 7, no. 2 (1947): 149–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suddaby, Roy and Foster, William. “History and Organizational Change.” Journal of Management 43, no. 1 (2017): 19–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swedberg, Richard. “Theorizing in Sociology and Social Science: Turning to the Context of Discovery.” Theory and Society 41 (2012): 1–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsoukas, Haridimos. “The Missing Link: A Transformational View of Metaphors in Organizational Science,” Academy of Management Review 16, no. 3 (1991): 566–585.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wadhwani, R. Daniel. “Historical Reasoning and the Development of Entrepreneurship Theory.” In Historical Foundations of Entrepreneurship Research, edited by Hans Landström and Lohrke, Franz 343–362. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010.Google Scholar
Wadhwani, R. Daniel, and Geoffrey Jones. “Schumpeter’s Plea: Historical Reasoning in Entrepreneurship Theory and Research.” In Organizations in Time: History, Theory and Methods, edited by Bucheli, Marcelo and Wadhwani, R. Daniel, 192–216. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Wadhwani, R. Daniel, Kirsch, David, Welter, Friederike, Gartner, William, and Jones, Geoffrey, “Context, Time, and Change: Historical Approaches to Entrepreneurship Research,” Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal 14: 3–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wadhwani, R. Daniel, and Lubinski, Christina. “Reinventing Entrepreneurial History.” Business History Review 91,4 (2017): 767–799.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weick, Karl. “What Theory is Not, Theorizing Is.” Administrative Science Quarterly 40 (1995): 385–390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Hayden. “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality.” Critical Inquiry 7, no. 1 (1980): 5–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Daniel C.S. “Arnold Toynbee and the Industrial Revolution.” History & Memory 26, no. 2 (2014): 133–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zundel, Mike and Kokkalis, Panagiotis. “Theorizing as Engaged Practice,” Organization Studies 31, no. 9 &10 (2010): 1209–1227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar