How to research in an archive

Increasing interest in archival sources and historical research for management studies has raised discussion about reflexivity among management researchers and scholars. In this paper, we introduce the conceptual and methodological approach necessary to conduct archival research. Adopting the starting conceptualisation of Barros that an archive is an organized collection of documents [CROSSREF to Barros ch 6], we sequentially reveal the components of a historical research method, including the inductive process of finding archival materials in response to a research question and how to plan archival research visits. We consider what to do when visiting an archive repository including: the practical constraints on the productivity of researchers, the restrictions of cataloguing, and the approaches to effectively recording historical evidence. In closing, we highlight approaches to first and second order critical reflexivity that help integrate archival work into management research.