The lack of oral historians’ attention for business history has made them largely unaware of the development of new oral history applications in the field of organizational studies—the Learning History Method, for example. The method of “Learning History” was introduced by Art Kleiner and George Roth, both organizational scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 1997. The Learning History Method is based on the assumption that firms can learn from their mistakes by interviewing their employees, storing those memories, and presenting them in a historical narrative—the learning history. The method includes interviews with all actors: from shop floor to boardroom. For Kleiner and Roth, the learning history is “an emotionally rich, cogent story reminiscent of Studs Terkel’s unvarnished first-person accounts of American life and society.”31 With their reference to Terkel, Kleiner and Roth clearly illustrate that their approach derives from a common historiography.32 These origins are also evident from the way in which the interviews are conducted. An interview that is held in accordance with the Learning History Method starts with a very broad scope in which the interviewee talks quite freely about the research subject and their professional and personal life as it relates to the organization. The results are then analyzed by the researchers and (if available) compared to written sources, such as board statements, memoranda, and other forms of internal correspondence. Phase Two of the method consists of a second round of interviews, in which the interviewees are asked more specific questions and are confronted with official “facts.” These results are subsequently brought together in a narrative to be distributed and discussed among the coworkers. The narrative is intended to cause debate among the interviewees themselves, as well as between them and the interviewer. The third phase is quite literally a debate. Discussion meetings are organized and employees are asked, in-group sessions, to reflect on the history of the organization as presented in the learning history. The aim of the learning history is not only to learn from the past but also to learn from one another: to find out how interviewees and researchers describe themselves, higher management, and the organization as a whole. In that way, the method is valuable not only for the development and progress of the organizations involved but for oral history as well.33

The novel aspect of a learning history is that it separates between the narrative of the interviewee and the questions, comments, and influence of the interviewer by presenting them as strictly separate in different columns. In a learning history, you find the story of the interviewee presented unabridged in wide columns. On the left side are clarifications for the outsider in a narrow column; for example, on how the company hierarchy is built up or what an abbreviation means. More interesting is the second purpose of this narrow column: as a tool to present observations and questions of the researchers that are aimed to stimulate discussion and to counter facts. In a full column, facts and events are presented on which all the interviewees can agree or which are gathered from written sources (fig. 1).34

Adaptation of a separate presentation of the story of the interviewee and the comments, questions, and reflections of the interviewer should be an interesting addition to the repertoire of oral history. A separate presentation would visualize the role of the interviewer on the interviewee and provide a clearer view of the power relation between interviewer and interviewee, collaboration, censorship, and silence in the interview.35

It is remarkable that neither the method nor the learning histories that have resulted from it have been used by oral historians until now.36 Not only do learning histories provide interesting oral history accounts but also the interview methodology resembles the oral history method that has been described by Alexander von Plato. According to Von Plato, a proper interview should start with a focus on the life history of the interviewee. This will provide an insight into the subjective environment (Subjektivität) and the personal opinions of the interviewee. In other words, it will show what views people have of themselves and of their lives. This is a necessary phase because it offers proof to the interviewee of the fact that he is taken seriously by the interviewer: an academic outsider. Simultaneously, this phase offers an opportunity to the interviewer to “learn to listen” to the jargon and the expressions used by the interviewee. According to Von Plato, the next phase should consist of a second round of interviews that ask specific questions, and a third phase in which the researchers should contrast the interviews and the answers that they have provided with other sources and interviews. In the final phase, a debate (Streit) about the interview and the narrative should be central to the questions (table 1).37

Table 1. Comparing the method of the Learning History with the Oral History techniques of Von Plato
Phases of learning histories Phases of oral history (Von Plato)
1. Interview round on general questions 1. Interview round on general questions (Freilaufende Teil)
2. Interview round on specific questions and the interviewees view on “hard data”
3. Creating the narrative of the organization combining the interviews and hard data
4. Debate about the learning history 2. Interview round on specific questions (Einzelhinweise)
3. Comparing interviewee with known data
4. Debate (Streit)

 Researchers who have created classical oral histories and researchers who have produced learning histories could learn from each other’s experiences, since both methods are based on the constant comparison between facts and counterfacts and between various subjective opinions and other sources. Furthermore, the most important scientific benefit of the Learning History Method for oral history is that it presents a tool with which the “official” (organizational) view can be justifiably combined with the counter-narrative of contrasting experiences of the interviewee(s) into one “grand narrative,” which leaves room for both views.38 A debate on doing justice to counter-narratives and opposing views in interviews was held in organization studies.39 This debate very much resembles the current debate on how to do justice to counter-narratives and silenced voices in oral history.40 At this point, the Learning History Method can strengthen the scientific soundness of oral history.

31 Art Kleiner and George Roth, “How to Make Experience Your Company’s Best Teacher,” Harvard Business Review 75, no. 5 (1997): 175–76.
32 Frisch, “Oral History and Hard Times.”
33 Art Kleiner and George Roth, Car Launch: The Human Side of Managing Change (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 179–213; Art Kleiner et al., Oil Change: Perspectives on Corporate Transformation (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2000), 183–87.
34 Kleiner and Roth, Car Launch, 5–7.
35 Annmarie Turnbull, “Collaboration and Censorship in the Oral History Interview,” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 3, no. 1 (2000): 15–34.
36 For example, the learning history of Oil Change or Car Launch, with interesting quotations and reflections on emotional processes has not yet been analyzed by oral historians.
37 von Plato, “Zeitzeugen und die historische Zunft,” 22.
38 John Bodnar, “Power and Memory in Oral History: Workers and Managers at Studebaker,” The Journal of American History 75, no. 4 (1989): 1203–04; Agnès Delahaye et al., “The Genre of Corporate History,” Journal of Organizational Change Management 22, no. 2 (2009): 39–40.
39 Barbara Czarniawska and Pasquale Gagliardi, eds., Narratives We Organize By (Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2003).
40 David Boje, Narrative Methods for Organizational and Communication Research (London: Sage, 2001); Michael Bamberg and Molly Andrews, eds., Considering Counter-Narratives: Narrating, Resisting, Making Sense (Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2004).

To be continued...

Sjoerd Keulen and Ronald Kroeze
Correspondence to be sent to: E-mail: S.J.Keulen@uva.nl and dbr.kroeze@let.vu.nl

sourse: Oral History Review, Volume 39, Number 1, Winter/Spring 2012, pp. 15-36



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