A Study in Studying Corporate Boards Over Time: Looking Backwards to Move Forwards
基于1980年代末和1990年代末对12家英国大型企业董事会成员的访谈数据，研究公司治理话语随时间的变化，发现“战略焦点”“股东价值”等新概念取代了旧解释，并指出对未来股东价值的判断依赖于过去事件和当前解释。
This paper is based on data collected in the late 1980s and again in the late 1990s from interviews with chairmen, chief executives and board members in 12 large UK organizations such as Hanson, Marks & Spencer, Prudential and Glynwed. Although the primary focus is on theorizing and theory over time, this also leads us to question matters of method and methodology. The first section considers some of the study design issues raised by conducting this sequel study, noting that it was not possible to ‘repeat’ the first study for a number of important reasons. The second section observes that while our earlier analytical metaphor of organizing as explaining endures, the nature of the explanations has changed: ‘strategic focus’, ‘shareholder value’ and ‘corporate governance’ are now the contemporary watchwords although were unheard of in our interviews a decade earlier. The following section develops on this, concluding that in making judgements about future shareholder value, the primary evidence is drawn from events already past and interpreted through current explanations. We conclude on the importance of time to our theorizing, where there appears to be a confluence between time and person, in part, created and in part, supported by particular (judgements of) explanations of organizing prevailing at that time.