How the Future Shaped the Past: The Case of the Cashless Society
Abstract
This paper invites readers to look into how beliefs about future events help to better understand organizational change. Our argument is that the adoption of information technology and the adoption of new organizational forms around it have been driven by shifts in collective ideas of legitimate organizational development. As an example we focus on the establishment during the 1960s of a vision within US retail financial services, namely of the “cashless/checkless society”. The article tells of the power of this “imaginaire” to bring consensus in driving actual technological developments.Download Info
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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 34846.Length:
Date of creation: Nov 2011
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:34846
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Related research
Keywords: imaginaires; expectations; isomorphism; cashless society; payment systems; USA;Other versions of this item:
- Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo & Thomas Haigh & David L. Stearns, 2011. "How the Future Shaped the Past: The Case of the Cashless Society," Working Papers 11009, Bangor Business School, Prifysgol Bangor University (Cymru / Wales).
- N82 - Economic History - - Micro-Business History - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-
- E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
- N22 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2011-11-28 (All new papers)
- NEP-HIS-2011-11-28 (Business, Economic & Financial History)
- NEP-HME-2011-11-28 (Heterodox Microeconomics)
References
References listed on IDEASPlease report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- Bátiz-Lazo, Bernardo & Wardley, Peter, 2007. "Banking on change: information systems and technologies in UK high street banking, 1919–1969," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(02), pages 177-205, October.
- Walter A. Friedman, 2009. "The Harvard Economic Service and the Problems of Forecasting," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 41(1), pages 57-88, Spring.
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