Purpose This study aims to analyse how managerial decision-making has been conceptualised in the literature across successive technological developments between 1980 and 2025. Although technology’s influence on management is widely recognised, existing research remains fragmented across disciplinary and technological streams, with limited attention to the longer-term historical reconfiguration of managerial rationality across bounded, data-driven, algorithmic configurations and more recent agentic ones. Design/methodology/approach The paper adopts a focused bibliometric-conceptual design that integrates quantitative science mapping with qualitative historical interpretation. A dataset of 263 Scopus-indexed journal articles published between 1980 and 2025 was analysed using Bibliometrix and VOSviewer for performance analysis, keyword co-occurrence analysis, thematic mapping and thematic evolution analysis. The bibliometric evidence was then interpreted through a historical lens to examine how technological change has progressively reconfigured managerial rationality in the literature. Accordingly, the study does not treat the identified configurations as predefined categories to be tested, but as interpretive outcomes of the conceptual synthesis developed from the bibliometric patterns. Findings The findings indicate that the literature on managerial decision-making has evolved through several overlapping and unevenly developed technological streams. Rather than replacing one another linearly, these streams accumulate and coexist, producing increasingly hybrid and distributed understandings of managerial rationality. This trajectory also reveals a shift in scholarly attention from cognitive limits and data quality to concerns with algorithmic bias, explainability and the governance of increasingly autonomous decision systems. The paper interprets these streams as historically evolving and partially overlapping configurations of managerial rationality, shaped by the interaction between bibliometric patterns and broader conceptual debates. Originality/value This study contributes to management history by offering an integrated historical-conceptual interpretation of how successive technological developments have reshaped the literature on managerial decision-making. It situates recent developments in agentic AI within a broader historical trajectory and highlights how technological change has progressively reconfigured managerial rationality, cognition, authority and autonomy.
Purpose This study examines trustee misconduct in Ottoman waqfs through the lens of agency theory and asks whether the theory offers a suitable framework for understanding governance problems in a pre-modern religious institutional context.Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a qualitative research design based on archival document analysis. It examines 43 & Scedil;er'iyye Registers (1655-1852) and three Ahkam Books (1742-1784) from the D & imath;yarbak & imath;r Court. Of 567 identified cases, 92 were selected and coded according to predefined categories of fiduciary breach and managerial misconduct.Findings Trustee misconduct clustered around three main patterns: abuse of authority, neglect of duty and self-dealing. The findings show that Ottoman waqfs were not only benevolent and charitable institutions but also governance structures vulnerable to principal-agent tensions despite religious norms, waqf deed provisions and judicial oversight.Research limitations/implications The study is limited to archival cases from D & imath;yarbak & imath;r and mainly reflects disputes recorded in official judicial documents. Nevertheless, it extends agency theory by showing that principal-agent problems can also emerge in historical faith-based nonprofit institutions and that these problems were regulated through judicial and communal monitoring rather than board-based corporate governance.Practical implications In practical terms, the study offers implications for contemporary nonprofit governance. Moral and religious values alone are insufficient to prevent misconduct. Clear accountability mechanisms and effective independent oversight structures are essential. Strengthening supervisory bodies, reinforcing trustees' sense of fiduciary responsibility (amanah) and clearly defining sanctions for misconduct are critical for reducing unethical behavior. As public-serving institutions, waqfs must function effectively and transparently to ensure proper resource allocation and maintain public trust.Originality/value This study is among the first to analyze trustee misconduct in Ottoman waqfs through the lens of agency theory. By doing so, it offers a historically grounded perspective on how governance problems emerged and were regulated in a religious nonprofit setting.
Purpose The purpose of this article is to explain what “change management” is and how it has evolved. In some cases, change management is criticized as a “tautology.” However, this view is contrasted by a broad change management debate, which raises the question of where “change” begins if every form of management were “change,” i.e. a tautology. It also asks why change management is described as “linear and plannable” on the one hand but “messy” on the other. Design/methodology/approach If these different views are not to be marked as true or false in principle, there are situations or phases in which they may apply or were temporary. Therefore, in the following, an ordering literature reflection along temporal phases will be carried out to work out differences or developments in change management. Findings If change management is arranged chronologically, focal points emerge with phases of change management 1.0–5.0. They show a “tautological change phase” (Change 1.0), which is later followed by a “messy phase” (Change 3.0). The eras are basically shaped by the evolving opportunities and demands of value creation. Originality/value The breadth and depth of the change management debate is divided into time- and principle-driven phases from Change Management 1.0 to 5.0, which centrally depend on evolving requirements and opportunities for value creation. Smart Management looks ahead to the era of digital-autonomous, self-controlling change management 5.0.
PurposeThis study aims to describe the different ways of measuring passion in entrepreneurship and its implications for the entrepreneurship field. Through a systematic literature review that provides a historical perspective on prior work measuring passion in entrepreneurship, this study clarifies that the way passion is measured can impact both the understanding and the application of this concept in entrepreneurial contexts. Design/methodology/approachFollowing the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses recommendations, this study analyzed a total of 220 articles, including 198 quantitative and 22 qualitative studies retrieved from the Web of Science and Scopus databases. The articles were categorized, classified deductively and organized according to the three main measurement approaches of passion in entrepreneurship: the dualistic model of passion, the stages of the entrepreneurial process and identity, and perceived passion. FindingsThe search yielded studies using one of the three scales for measuring passion, as well as others that used combined measures. The results describe the antecedents, mediators, moderators and outcomes related to passion in entrepreneurship. In addition, this study offers an historical perspective on the measurement of passion in entrepreneurship that is organized in three waves. Originality/valueThis study offers a detailed analysis of the various ways of measuring passion in the field of entrepreneurship, providing a broad view of the subject. This review presents a historical perspective on the operationalization of passion in entrepreneurship research and offers suggestions to guide future research.
Purpose This paper aims to examine the historical evolution of lights-out manufacturing using the lens of technological S-curves and punctuated equilibrium theory. It analyzes how successive technological discontinuities shaped management approaches to automation and organizational transformation from the 1950s to the present. Design/methodology/approach This study uses historical analysis to unpack five distinct technological transitions in lights-out manufacturing. The research synthesizes various archival sources, including corporate reports, industry publications and scholarly literature. Findings The study finds that lights-out manufacturing historically evolved through five distinct S-curve transitions. Each transition represented a technological discontinuity, which challenged the taken-for-granted norms of existing management paradigms. The transitions appeared to follow punctuated equilibrium patterns, with periods of incremental improvement interrupted by periods of relatively rapid organizational adaptation. Originality/value This work provides a novel historical analysis of lights-out manufacturing that integrates technological S-curve theory with organizational punctuated equilibrium to interpret seven decades of automation history as a recursive sequence of technology-driven managerial reconfigurations rather than as linear progress. It demonstrates how technological innovations historically challenged management assumptions about automation feasibility and organizational readiness, offering strategic insights for automation in today’s business landscape.
Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore the historical and conceptual trajectory of Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), an artistic and sociopolitical and movement that emerged in 1920s Germany. Originally grounded in rationality, efficiency and democratic reform, Neue Sachlichkeit was appropriated by the Nazi regime to serve authoritarian technocracy and militarization. Drawing on this precedent, this paper identifies contemporary parallels in the USA, where platform capitalism, AI-driven governance and managerial rationality have eroded civil society and democratic oversight. The analysis connects historical and current ideological shifts in management and governance, with a particular focus on the Trump presidency, the influence of digital elites and the evolution of labor-management relations. This paper concludes with recommendations for safeguarding democratic values in the age of techno-authoritarianism.Design/methodology/approach The author's goal was to follow the editorial suggestion of JMH by the editors to produce analyzes that are integrative and original. The objective of comparing four time frames (1920-1932/1933-1938 Germany and 1995-2011/2012-2025 the USA), two countries (Germany and the USA) and macro-meso level history (country and sector levels) is novel and required a good mix of methods, namely, adequate historical narration combined with a sufficient knowledge of the development of management theory and practices over time.Findings The parallels between Weimar's rationalist hopes and digital present demand vigilant reflection. While the contexts differ - historically, technologically and politically - the underlying risks echo each other. The suppression of dissenting culture, the glorification of national identity through curated aesthetics and the delegation of judgment to systems presented as apolitical all signal a deeper cultural shift away from participatory democracy. Yet this conclusion is not a call to abandon rationality, technology or innovation. Rather, it is a call to reclaim them within an ethical and democratic frame. Rational systems should serve justice, not circumvent it. Technological platforms should empower communities, not atomize them.Research limitations/implications To compare two historical periods rich in activities, innovations, conflicts such as Neue Sachlichkeit and contemporary MAGA USA is not easy especially, as the word limit of the journal requires exclusion of many historical details of both periods. AI support was needed to get information on events and development in the 1920-1930 period.Social implications The comparison of the periods of Neue Sachlichkeit (1920-1930s) and today's MAGA presidency in the USA outlines risks in terms of leadership and governance models that can become authoritarian putting at risk democracy and social peace.Originality/value There has not been a comparison of the Neue Sachlichkeit period in Germany (1920-1930) and the USA postmodern period (1990s-2025) so far to the author's knowledge.
Purpose - The paper answers call for strategy as practice exploration and revised strategic analysis tools over time with the application of opportunity mapping - used with an innovative, third-generation family firm in a highly competitive global context. This paper explores the novel opportunity mapping tool with BE Power Equipment. Design/methodology/approach - The case study method was informed by a review of historic tools coupled with a multiday strategy workshop with 12 executive-level managers and key stakeholders of a global power equipment manufacturer as led by experienced facilitators. Findings - Enterprise risk management is complex and benefits from a strategic link to mitigating opportunities. The process itself is as impactful as the outcomes and communicating a firm's risk culture impacts strategic choices as do the "players" in the room. Innovative organizations with strategic intents are more aligned in their identification of risks and linked opportunities with less acute outcomes as a result of ongoing organizational enterprise risk management and future scenario identification. New strategy tools complement historic methods and contribute to innovative opportunities. Practical implications - Given the abundance of contemporary risks and competitive forces coupled with changing organizations, it can be challenging to facilitate resources for strategic planning. Opportunity mapping presents a new model rooted in classical management theory to prioritize risks and codify culture across a firm. Originality/value - The strategy tool of opportunity mapping is intimately tested - bridging enterprise risk management theory and opportunity mapping theory to practice - for the first time with an innovative multi-national firm in a complex industry. Dynamic business environments require novel tools for strategic discovery to complement historic tools developed for use in stable markets. Results are shared with new implications for firms, researchers and practitioners.
Purpose This paper aims to examine how peripheral innovators in secondary management functions gained professional recognition through consulting associations. It traces the career of Henri Bernat & eacute;n & eacute; (1906-1995), focusing on how professional affiliations legitimised his contributions and enabled diffusion of his B.G. chart.Design/methodology/approach A qualitative historical case study is used, drawing on archival research, publications, biographical interviews and secondary literature. The analysis integrates Rogers' diffusion model, recent work on ideational diffusion and the outsider innovator perspective.Findings Although peripheral to mainstream industrial management, Bernat & eacute;n & eacute; gained recognition through professional affiliations and publications. Institutional support and linguistic niches were decisive in sustaining the visibility of his work.Research limitations/implications Evidence relies primarily on published sources and professional association records. Establishing direct causality between affiliations and diffusion is difficult with historical data. Nevertheless, the case demonstrates how institutional affiliations and linguistic niches enabled recognition.Practical implications Bernat & eacute;n & eacute;'s trajectory offers lessons for contemporary practitioners in emerging fields - such as data analytics or AI ethics - where formal credentials do not yet exist. The case illustrates barriers to adoption and the continuing role of professional associations in legitimising new methods.Social implications The study challenges the conventional Anglo-American dominance in management history and demonstrates how peripheral or overlooked innovations can contribute meaningfully to global practice. More broadly, the research illustrates that valuable ideas often emerge outside the mainstream centres of power and that recognising such contributions is vital for building a more inclusive and diverse understanding of innovation.Originality/value This study highlights an overlooked figure and neglected function in management history. By integrating diffusion theory with the outsider innovator perspective, it offers a novel framework for understanding how peripheral innovations travel across cultural and national boundaries.
Purpose Organizations facing high risk and internal diversity often struggle to sustain cooperation when participation is separated from accountability. This study aims to examine Bartholomew Roberts’s 18th century Articles of Agreement as a communicative framework for organizational unity, exploring how cooperation endures when governance, risk and reward are shared equally among members. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on historical sources and textual analysis, this study analyzes Roberts’s Articles of Agreement using social exchange theory as a heuristic lens to interpret patterns of reciprocity, authority and obligation within pirate governance. Findings The analysis reveals an early model of negotiated reciprocity in which authority was bound to accountability and fairness to mutual investment. Agreed upon by sailors from diverse backgrounds and histories, the Articles unified one of the most effective pirate crews of the Golden Age by grounding trust in shared vulnerability and collective responsibility. Originality/value This paper contributes in three ways. First, it identifies four communicative principles that held a diverse crew together: negotiated goals, shared risk and reward, diverse binding commitment and action over passivity. Second, it shows how these principles link voice directly to real consequence and shared vulnerability. Third, it contrasts this historic model with contemporary organizations, where participation is often invited without tying decision-makers to the outcomes they created, and it suggests ways to rethink accountability and cooperation today.
Purpose This paper revisits Herbert C. Kelman’s Social Influence Theory (SIT) through a historically grounded lens. While SIT has been widely applied across various spheres such as ethnic identity socialization, political engagement, conformity to societal norms, obedience to authority figures and conflict resolution, the theory is often treated as a static explanatory framework centered on the three processes of compliance, identification and internalization. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it reconstructs the historical context in which SIT evolved across successive phases of theoretical refinement and interdisciplinary diffusion. Second, this paper seeks to interrogate the philosophical foundations of the theory. Design/methodology/approach This paper adopts a phase-based historical-interpretive approach to theory development, identifying key intellectual turning points in the evolution of SIT. Primary texts by Kelman and related foundational works in social psychology are examined alongside interdisciplinary adaptations of SIT. In addition, this paper incorporates a reflexive reading of the literature, examining the philosophical assumptions, discursive patterns and theoretical critiques that have shaped SIT’s evolution. Findings The historical reconstruction reveals that SIT emerged as a conceptual response to limitations in earlier persuasion research. Kelman’s work addressed this by linking behavioral change to underlying motivational processes. Over time, the theory expanded beyond its original psychological focus and has been adapted across multiple disciplines. At the same time, SIT has generated important critiques, particularly regarding the theory’s assumption of agent-driven influence and its limited attention to reflexive or bidirectional influence processes. Originality/value This paper contributes to the literature in several ways. First, it offers a historically grounded reinterpretation of SIT. By doing so, this paper demonstrates that SIT should be understood as part of a wider theoretical conversation concerning persuasion, conformity and institutional legitimacy. Second, this study highlights the interdisciplinary diffusion of SIT and illustrates how the theory has been adapted and reinterpreted across different fields of inquiry. Finally, by analyzing the areas of critique, this paper proposes new avenues for extending SIT in contemporary organizational and social contexts.
Purpose This paper aims to examine the relevance of ancient rhetorical principles - specifically, stasis theory - for contemporary crisis communication. The study argues that situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) can be strengthened by integrating the hierarchical analytical structure of stasis theory to better address complex organizational crises.Design/methodology/approach The study uses a historical case study methodology, using Augustine of Hippo's responses to a series of reputational crises caused by clergy misconduct, particularly the "Januarius affair," as a focal point. Through rhetorical analysis of Augustine's sermons and correspondence, the research examines how stasis theory enabled strategic, audience-specific crisis communication that addressed both organizational and personal reputational threats.Findings The analysis demonstrates that Augustine adapted his communication strategy based on contextual modifiers such as crisis history, stakeholders'' identification with the organization and emotional reactions (moral outrage). Augustine varied his crisis response strategies - ranging from denial through diminish to rebuild - depending on the nature and severity of allegations and audience expectations. The study shows how stasis theory can nuance and operationalize SCCT's response categories, especially in complex or sticky crises.Originality/value This research contributes a novel, integrated framework for crisis communication that combines classical rhetoric with modern crisis theory. The study is the first, to the best of the authors' knowledge, to systematically apply stasis theory to enhance SCCT, offering a principled approach to crisis communication strategy development. The implementation of this approach is complemented by a decision tree created to support practitioners in developing crisis-specific communication strategies.
PurposeThis paper aims to analyze the development of Spanish economic thought in the 1940s and 1950s, focusing on the foundation of the Faculty of Political and Economic Sciences in 1943. Using a Foucauldian approach, this study explores the power structures that fostered intellectual alignments with the Francoist Regime, while also identifying the academics who shaped Spain's negotiations for entry into the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Organization for European Economic Cooperation.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is structured around four themes: 1. The origins of the Faculty of Political and Economic Sciences and its first graduating class. 2. The economic orthodoxy of the 1940s as the foundation for intellectual change and the debates of the early 1950s. 3. The role of a politically influential sector, closely tied to the Catholic Church, that embraced liberal capitalism. 4. The externally driven push for economic liberalization, which led to internal conflict within the 1957 government, particularly involving Castiella and Ullastres.FindingsThis study has highlighted the crucial role of the first Faculty of Political Science and Economics in dismantling the autarkic framework of the Spanish Franco Regime. The economic orthodoxy of its curricula and the academic rigor of its faculty were decisive in producing specialists proficient in the mechanisms of Western capitalism, which dominated postwar Europe after 1945, a period characterized by reinforced international economic cooperation, particularly following the establishment of the IMF. The database used in this study has been drawn directly from the archives of the Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences at the Complutense University of Madrid.Originality/valueThe role of the first Faculty of Political Science and Economics in the Spanish 1959 stabilization program has never been studied using data from the files of the Faculty itself, which shows the importance of knowledge and university in the transformation of the Francoist regime during the 1940 and the1950s. This study shows that the impulse of the opening of Spanish economy came from the US but was facilitated by the embededness of a internationalist thought that came back to 1943, which was in alignment with the Catholic thought of the time. The different people involved in this transformation are stressed, in particular the role of Castiella, undervalued in the literature.
PurposeThis paper aims to develop a recursive model of how organizational pressures for simplification drive the repeated adoption of technologies that undermine expert judgment. By examining the epistemic mechanisms that contributed to NASA's Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and tracing their structural recurrence in the organizational adoption of Generative Artificial Intelligence, the study reveals systemic risks in technology-mediated knowledge systems.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a historically grounded conceptual argument using abductive reasoning. Synthesizing the Rogers Commission Report, Vaughan's organizational ethnography and Tufte's analysis of representational compression with theories of normal accidents (Perrow), organizational epistemology (Weick; Spender) and epistemic machinery (Kaplan), the analysis iterates between historical evidence and theoretical frameworks to identify recurring mechanisms of epistemic failure.FindingsThe study identifies three mechanisms through which Generative Artificial Intelligence may reproduce epistemic risks analogous to those that led to the Challenger disaster: token-based epistemic filtering, algorithmic epistemic substitution and interactive complexity with tight coupling. These mechanisms combine within a recursive model that shows how institutional simplification pressures create self-perpetuating cycles of epistemic vulnerability.Research limitations/implicationsAs a conceptual study, the model requires empirical validation. Future research should conduct comparative case studies and test whether epistemic resilience practices reduce failures in organizational settings.Practical implicationsOrganizations should implement epistemic resilience practices, including mandatory expert verification in high-stakes contexts, transparency requirements for processing boundaries, epistemic red teams, hybrid workflows and audit trails.Social implicationsThe adoption of Generative Artificial Intelligence risks shifting epistemic authority from accountable professionals to opaque algorithmic systems, creating asymmetric power dynamics and potential harm in high-stakes domains.Originality/valueThis study extends normal accident theory to knowledge systems, introduces algorithmic epistemic substitution and token-based epistemic filtering as mechanisms of organizational risk and theorizes epistemic resilience practices translating high-reliability organizing principles into epistemic safety.
Purpose This study aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the international scientific literature addressing the intersection between Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Internal Marketing (IM), with a particular focus on their implications for job satisfaction and sustainable organizational development. The objective is to identify thematic trends, knowledge gaps and research opportunities in this emerging interdisciplinary domain. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative bibliometric analysis was carried out using the Biblioshiny package in RStudio, based on a final sample of 3,976 documents retrieved from the Scopus and Web of Science databases. The PRISMA 2020 protocol was applied to refine the sample. Citation indicators, co-occurrence networks, author productivity and thematic mapping were analyzed to provide a structured overview of the field's evolution. Findings The results reveal a steady growth in scientific output, with thematic convergence around job satisfaction, burnout and emotional labor. However, there is a notable scarcity of studies integrating EI and IM in a systematic way. The analysis also highlights regional disparities in research output, as well as emerging clusters related to sustainable leadership and workplace well-being. These findings support the development of integrative theoretical models and evidence-based practices. Originality/value This is the first bibliometric study to systematically examine the joint treatment of EI and IM. The study offers novel insights into the intellectual structure and thematic evolution of the field, providing a foundation for future interdisciplinary research and practical applications aimed at enhancing employee satisfaction, engagement and sustainable performance.
