This track aims to encourage the growing number of management and business historians who work in business schools and social science departments to engage in constructive debate with a wide range of management scholars. The 2015 conference theme, the value of pluralism, is an ideal opportunity to explore the value of historical study for management research. Historical research, while constituting a set of epistemologies in itself, is inherently interdisciplinary, allowing for a wide range of research approaches. We would particularly welcome papers either using new and innovative methodologies, or applying archival methodology to a new disciplinary context. We also welcome context specific papers using more traditional historical methodology but which take innovative approaches to relate their findings to wider social science concerns. Papers looking at the history of the management and business school movement in Britain and around the world with a view to exploring the theme of pluralism in that area are also of interest. In addition, we welcome papers dealing with the legacy of the past in business and management more generally, and how it has influenced the diversity of experience in present day businesses, regions and communities.

In the spirit of pluralism we also encourage cross-disciplinary papers and workshop submissions that link different Tracks, while the main conference theme ought to feature prominently in all submissions. As a group we are inherently multi-disciplinary and believe in the application of theory to historical analysis, and there is no single epistemology for approaching this. We aim to encourage theoretically orientated social science history with a clear relationship to present day debates in the management discipline.