False binaries in management history, and the scope for a postcolonial project

Purpose: This study aims to offer a postcolonial approach that goes past current management history controversies. Design/methodology/approach: Discussion of current management history controversies with examples. Findings: Post-colonial approaches to management history enable engagement with questions of power and knowledge in the management discipline. Research limitations/implications: Further historical research is needed that considers the interplay of disciplinary knowledge and the historical events under question, especially in post-colonial settings. Practical implications: It is essential to engage with historical texts and interpretations to better understand the contextual limitations to management as a discipline: a better understanding of disciplinary pasts enables us to better understand the present. Social implications: By considering management’s pasts, this paper can acknowledge more closely how the discipline continues to retain colonialist assumptions that need to be challenged and changed. Originality/value: Examples of management history from formerly colonized regions.