Explanations of success and failure in management learning : What can we learn from Nokia's rise and fall
International audience; In this paper, we study the changing explanations of success and failure over the course of a firm's history. We build on a discursive approach that highlights the role of narrative attributions in making sense of corporate performance. Specifically, we analyze how the Nokia Corporation was framed first as a success and later as a failure and how these dimensions of performance were explained in various actors' narrative accounts. In both the success and failure accounts, our analysis revealed a striking black-and-white picture that resulted in the institutionalization of Nokia's metanarratives of success and failure. Our findings also reveal a number of discursive a…
Taking historical embeddedness seriously : Three historical approaches to advance strategy process and practice research
International audience; Despite the proliferation of strategy process and practice research, we lack understanding of the historical embeddedness of strategic processes and practices. In this paper, we present three historical approaches with the potential to remedy this deficiency. First, realist history can contribute to a better understanding of the historical embeddedness of strategic processes; in particular, comparative historical analysis can explicate the historical conditions, mechanisms, and causality in strategic processes. Second, interpretative history can add to our knowledge of the historical embeddedness of strategic practices, and microhistory can specifically help to under…