Organizations, ambiguity, and conflict: introduction to the special issue in honor of James G. March

Extract

In November 2016, James G. March was awarded the Progress Medal and, during the ceremony held in Fontainebleau, he gave a synthetic account of his long and fascinating intellectual journey in one of his last public speeches. He began his speech by stating very clearly the overall aim of such a journey: “my work”—he said—“can be seen as reflecting an attempt to rescue microeconomics from itself.” This statement could sound quite surprising since March has published fundamental, path-breaking, and often foundational contributions to management research, he has been one of the founding fathers of modern organization studies, he has opened important lines of research in strategy, he has given important contributions to political sciences, but those familiar with his work would probably not think of him primarily as a microeconomist or someone devoted to efforts at conversion therapy. And, indeed, we cannot say that his impact in the field of microeconomics has been anywhere near his impact in the fields of organization, strategy, and political sciences, as March himself acknowledges in the following statement of that same speech, when he concludes that: “most of the time the victim [i.e. microeconomics] has not seemed to be very receptive to being rescued.”¹