We reflect on our 2005 article, “Social Capital, Networks, and Knowledge Transfer,” which received the Academy of Management Review Decade Award in 2015. We first discuss the origin of the idea for the paper and how it evolved during the rigorous review process. Then we identify the reasons for the article’s high number of citations by scholars worldwide and trace the research advances that have occurred since it was published. We show that research on the three main concepts in the article has expanded to a wide range of fields, far beyond the management discipline. In particular, a stream of research building on the framework proposed in the article has emerged.

We appreciate the opportunity to respond to the provocative Dialogue pieces of Read, Sarasvathy, Dew, and Wiltbank (2016; henceforth, “RSDW”); Reuber, Fischer, and Coviello (2016; henceforth, “RFC”); Gupta, Chiles, and McMullen (2016; henceforth, “GCM”); and Garud and Gehman (2016; henceforth, “GG”), each of which makes several claims in defense of effectuation, as well as describes several ways forward in entrepreneurship- and process-related theorizing. We respond in a manner consistent with the traditional perspective in management theorizing that “good theory is practical” (Lewin, 1945), where “theory is theory” (Simon, 1967; Van de Ven, 1989) based on our discipline’s collective commitment to knowledge production (Suddaby, 2014). In fact, we respond in the tradition of scientific theory—its building, its critique, and its defense. Leveraging the logic behind that tradition, we thus refute every point contained in RSDW’s, RFC’s, GCM’s, and GG’s commentaries and attempt to build on what is common to all theory while celebrating what is valuable in the diversity of theorizing (i.e., in the ways we produce theory).

As a synthesis of organization theory and historiography, the field of organizational history is mature enough to contribute to wider theoretical and historiographical debates and is sufficiently developed for a theoretical consideration of its subject matter. In this introduction to the Special Topic Forum on History and Organization Studies, we take up the question, “What is organizational history?” and consider three distinct arguments that we believe frame the next phase of development for historical work within organization studies. First, we argue that following the “historic turn,” organizational history has developed as a subfield of organization studies that takes seriously the matter of history, promoting historical research as a way to enrich the broad endeavor of organization. Second, if “history matters,” then organization theory needs a theoretical account of the past that goes beyond the mere use of history as a context to test or as an example to illustrate theory. Third, the focus on “history that matters” in the present leads to two important considerations: how organizations can use “rhetorical history” as a strategic resource and the need to engage with historiographically significant subjects that connect organization theory to larger humanistic concerns, such as slavery and racism.