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As organizations increasingly view information as one of their most valuable assets, which supports the creation and distribution of their products and services, information security will be an integral part of the design and operation of organizational business processes. Yet, risks associated with cyber attacks are on the rise. Organizations that are subjected to attacks can suffer significant reputational damage as well as loss of information and knowledge. As a consequence, effective leadership is cited as a critical factor for ensuring corporate level attention for information security. However, there is a lack of empirical understanding as to the roles strategic leaders play in shaping and supporting the cyber security strategy. This study seeks to address this gap in the literature by focusing on how senior leaders support the cyber security strategy. The authors conducted a series of exploratory interviews with leaders in the positions of Chief Information Officer, Chief Security Information Officer, and Chief Technology Officer. The findings revealed that leaders are engaged in both transitional, where the focus is on improving governance and integration, and transformational support, which involves fostering a new cultural mindset for cyber resiliency and the development of an ecosystem approach to security thinking. Managerial relevance statement Our findings provide interesting insights for managers particularly those in the role of Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Chief Security Information Officers (CSIOs), and Chief Technology Officers (CTOs). We propose a Cyber Security Strategy Framework (CSSF) which can be used by these information/technology managers to design an effective organizational strategy to develop cyber resilience in their organization. Our framework suggests that managers should focus on transitional and transformational support. The transitional support focuses on improving governance and integration whereas transformational support focuses on the emphasis of fostering a new cultural mindset for cyber resiliency and the development of an ecosystem approach to security thinking. Our findings provide good evidence showing how leaders can support more effective cyber security initiatives.

Peter Hitchcock has described the subject of this paper as ‘the story of the twentieth century’. Lev Termen (commonly anglicized as Leon Theremin) was a musician, inventor, entrepreneur and espionage agent who developed the Theremin, an early electronic musical instrument that is played without physical contact by the musician, and the first radio-controlled electronic bugging device, among many other electronic instruments and technologies. Despite this inventive fecundity, however, none of his inventions were marketed successfully, at least in a conventional sense. This paper is an unconventional dual biography of Termen and the Theremin, in which I juxtapose a linear, inventor-centred account of the technologies, exemplified by my sources,with a narrative focusing on some of their multiple meanings, uses and developments;and on the multiple, fractional, yet connected identities of their inventor. The paper concludes with a discussion of the substantive and methodological implications of this‘fractional biography of failure’, drawing on some aspects of the work of Walter Benjamin.

Organizational Memory Studies (OMS) is limited by its managerialist, presentist preoccupation with the utility of memory for knowledge management. The dominant model of memory in OMS is that of a storage bin. But this model has been rejected by psychologists because it overlooks the distinctly human subjective experience of remembering, i.e. episodic memory. OMS also fails to take account of the specific social and historical contexts of organizational memory. The methodological individualism that is prevalent in OMS makes it difficult to engage with the rapidly expanding sociological and historical literature in social memory studies, where a more social constructionist approach to ‘collective memory’ is generally favoured. However, for its part social memory studies derived from Maurice Halbwachs neglects organizations, focusing primarily on the nation as a mnemonic community. From a critical perspective organizations can be seen as appropriating society’s memory through corporate sites of memory such as historical visitor attractions and corporate museums. There is scope for a sociological and historical reorientation within OMS, drawing on social memory studies and focusing on corporate sites of memory, such as The Henry Ford museum complex, as well as the mnemonic role of founders and beginnings in organizations. Taking a social constructionist, collectivist approach to social remembering in organizations allows connections to be made between memory and other research programmes, such as organizational culture studies.

PurposeThis paper seeks to identify and define the genre of corporate history within the pervasive historical discourse produced by and about organizations which tells the past of an organization across a multiplicity of texts: published works – commissioned and critical accounts, academic tomes and glossy coffee‐table books – as well as web pages, annual reports and promotional pamphlets.Design/methodology/approachThe approach takes the form of systematic reading of historical narratives for 85 mainly British and US companies from the Fortune Global 500. For these companies, a search was carried out for US printed sources in the British Library and a survey was conducted of historical content in web pages.FindingsFrom extensive reading of the historical discourse, recurrent formal features (medium, authorship, publication, paratext and imagery) and elements of thematic content (narrative, characters, cultural paradigms and business success), which together define the genre of corporate history, have been identified. Such a definition provides competence in the reading of historical narratives of organizations and raises questions regarding the role of history in organizational identity, memory and communication. In conclusion it is argued that the interpretation of corporate history cannot be reduced to its promotional function for organizations.Research limitations/implicationsThe list of the formal features and thematic content of corporate history detailed here is by no means exhaustive. They are not variables, but signs, which, in various combinations, compose the narrative and signify the genre.Practical implicationsIt seems likely that coffee‐table books will increasingly replace academic commissioned histories, with consultants professionalizing the discourse and formalizing the genre of corporate history.Originality/valueThe genre of corporate history has hitherto been neglected in organization theory, where the linguistic turn has led to a preoccupation with talk as text. The use of genre to analyse corporate history represents a textual turn to literary organizational texts as text.

This article reflects on the papers published in the Symposium on 'Counterfactual History in Management and Organizations'. After describing the background to the symposium we review some important themes in the multidisciplinary domain of counterfactuals. We discuss each of the papers published in the symposium and set out our views on future directions for counterfactual history in the management and organization studies discipline.

2006 marked the 200th anniversary of the bir th of the celebrated and controversial engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Many events were held across the UK and elsewhere to celebrate the bicentenary. Many of these were organized, funded or facilitated by Brunel200, an organization based in Bristol, UK, a city closely associated with Brunel and his work. Among the events organized for the bicentenary celebrations was the publication of Isambard Kingdom Brunel: A Graphic Biography (Byrne and Gurr 2006). Following a brief discussion of Brunel and his bicentenary, we publish the text of an interview with Eugene Byrne and Simon Gurr, author and illustrator of the book.

The successful management of strategic change requires an understanding of which moves are possible in specific contexts, and thus of how specific contexts variously require, forbid, or permit certain organizational or policy actions. Appreciation of such modal issues of necessity and possibility thus becomes essential in understanding organizational and technological dynamics. This paper introduces the concept of modal narratives: forms of analytically structured narrative that explore questions of necessity, possibility and contingency. After a brief review of two common types of modal narrative—counterfactuals and scenarios— the potential of a third form is suggested: the superfactual. An extended example of a superfactual is provided in the Project Hindsight case, and the implications for strategic action are discussed.

We outline the prospects for Management & Organizational History in the form of a 10-point agenda identifying issues that we envisage being addressed in the journal. 1.The 'Historic Turn' in Organization Theory - calls for a more historical orientation in management and organization theory. 2. Historical Methods and Styles of Writing - alternative methods and diverse styles of writing appropriate for studying organizations historically. 3.The Philosophy of History and Historical Theorists - the relevance for management and organization theory of philosophers of history such as Michel Foucault and Hayden White. 4. Corporate Culture and Social Memory - the historical dimension of culture and memory in organizations. 5. Organizational History - the emergence of a distinctive field of research. 6. Business History and Theory - the engagement between business history and organization theory. 7. Business Ethics in History - the meaning and ethics of past business behaviour. 8. Metanarratives of Corporate Capitalism - historiographical debate concerning the rise of capitalism and the modern corporation. 9. Management History and Management Education - the link between the history of management thought and the teaching of management and organization theory. 10. Public History - the relation between business schools and the increasing public interest in history.

The case method in business and management education is generally considered to have been developed as an executive education technology in the United States in the early years of the twentieth century. Much of the literature on the method reflects these origins and is culturally or institutionally specific. However, cases are used today in a wide variety of contexts, including undergraduate business education. In this paper we discuss key themes in the current context of higher education, explore the use of cases in large and diverse undergraduate business education programmes, and examine how the changing institutional context of these programmes has affected the use of the business case as a pedagogical technology.