Seminar: Roy Suddaby, University of Alberta

Memory-Work: How Corporate Archivists Construct Organizational Memory

Roy Suddaby
University of Alberta

Date: February 21, 2014
Time: 10:30 am - 12:00 pm
Location: Room 245

Abstract: 

This study extends our understanding of the interpretive elements of organizational memory. Past research on organizational memory has mainly focused on the processes by which organizational information is acquired, retained and retrieved. It does not, however, address the process by which raw information is converted to memory. To address this gap we analyze the activities of archivists and historians in eleven Fortune 500 firms. Our findings indicate that, contrary to prior understandings, organizational memory is not just a reified and objective set of facts that require preservation and retrieval, but rather is an ongoing process of subjective and strategic interpretation that requires active agency and management.

For more information, please contact Rola Zoayter at: rola.zoayter [at] mcgill.ca.