Seminar – Bounded Imagination: How History and Tradition Shape Strategy in Japanese Ultra-Centenary Firms

Professor Davide Ravasi, UCL School of Management

The study, co-authored with Innan Sasaki, University of Lancaster, examined how the subjective perception of history shapes how organisational leaders think and act in Japanese ultra-century firms – collectively known as shinise – in the Kyoto area. The findings point to how, in these managers, a heightened sense of history was reflected in the simultaneous mobilisation of the three temporal orientations, induced by a felt obligation to preserve the past while at the same time ensuring its continuity in the future. The combined effect of these orientations resulted in a particular pattern of agency, characterised by what they described as farsighted self-restraint and bounded imagination, whereby managers subjectively experienced history as a set of boundaries and resources shaping their engagement with past, present, and future as they consolidated traditional trajectories of action or explored new ones.

Speaker bio

Davide Ravasi is Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the UCL School of Management, University College London. His research examines interrelations among organisational identity, culture, and strategy in times of change. He is interested more generally in cultural processes influencing how new objects and new practices come to be, and whether and how they are adopted by individuals and organisations. Materiality, craft and design have a special place in his heart. His works have appeared on Administrative Science Quarterly, the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, Organization Studies, and the Journal of Management Studies, among others. He is a co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Organizational Identity, and currently serves as Chair of the OMT Division of the Academy.