Of managers, ideas and jesters, and the role of information technology

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Abstract

In this article we examine the role of information technology in the relationship between ideas and managers. In particular, we explore the capacity of ideas to take hold of managers and organizations, facilitated by information technology, and contest the dominant view that ideas are passive instruments for choice. Rather, we claim that ideas tend to own us. We invert the position of the human actor and the idea, and give ideas the character of an enactor, a prerequisite for an entity that may “imprison humans”. Strategies for detachment are then needed such as the old institution of jestering.

Section snippets

Of ideas and managers

To have ideas is seen as distinctly human: Wells (1920) states, “Human history is in essence a history of ideas.” And now we live in an age when desire for the quest for the new and innovative is expressed by politicians, researchers, and managers alike (e.g. Finland’s National Innovation Strategy, 20101; Meyer, 1996; Hamel and Breen, 2007). Many information technology platforms have been developed and are commercially available for

(Socio)Materiality of ideas

Viewed from the dominant human actor perspective, ideas appear as information that technologies process. They are externalized, controlled, rationalized. They are separated from the work processes as external inputs much like technology (Orlikowski and Scott, 2008). They have no power to shape except through managerial action (Leonardi and Barley, 2008). We see such disparaging externalization to be unfair to ideas and unhelpful to the understanding of organizational behavior. Agreeing with

Our contest

We contest the dominant view that ideas are mere instruments for rational or innovative choice facilitated by information technology. Witness the many commercially available ideation platforms (over 20 million hits in Google with the search words idea platforms!) with varying success rates. A similar, non-orthodox attitude to a related concept, information, is held by March and Sevón (1988) who write about idle talk, first as a form of (useful) system maintenance but then confess that contrary

Ideas and information technology

In the following, we describe three notions through which ideas behave through information technology. Information technology can be seen to uniquely enable the travel of ideas to the extent that mass interaction and collaboration becomes possible (Zammuto et al., 2007). Therefore it is more important than ever to understand the role ideas play in such a reach, not only as objects of diffusion, easily encoded, but as agents of meaning, translatable yet often highly persistent.

Let us abandon for

Of jesters

We have here argued for a perspective wherein ideas are much more persuasive than commonly held. We have claimed that ideas are powerful actors in the managerial environment and that current information technology is well-suited to serve the dominance and translation of ideas across places, cultures, and organizations. Managers, and humans more generally, occasionally become imprisoned by the idea of personal success; for example, exhibiting strong cognitive inertia even when faced with the

Potential research directions

We now provide our thoughts on some potential research directions that emerge from our ideas.

Conclusion

In this paper, we have challenged the notion that ideas are adopted and jettisoned at will. Instead, we propose ideas to be lumps of meanings, and actors in their own right: they have a capacity to travel great distances (even more so with the help of IT) and also socialize, escape, and organize. So persuasive can the sociomateriality of ideas be in influencing managers beyond fads and fashions, that we call for mechanisms for detachment – ways to defend ourselves against the potency of ideas.

Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks to FAS – The Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research, and to Tekes – The National Technology Agency in Finland – for financial support for researching and writing this article.

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