On sedimentation in management fashion: an institutional perspective
Journal of Organizational Change Management
ISSN: 0953-4814
Article publication date: 10 February 2012
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore how management practitioners make sense of management fashions as sedimented elements within organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
To further understanding about sedimentation in management fashion, an institutional perspective was used.
Findings
This analysis reveals that sedimented fashions within organizations are framed as comprising different forms that are systematically associated with divergent evolution patterns.
Research limitations/implications
This study extends the current literature on management fashion by showing how, unlike present conceptualizations, the long‐term impact of fashionable ideas in organizations cannot be considered a single entity with a uniform pattern of development. Building on this, the paper seeks to develop a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the evolution of popular management ideas in organizational practice, which opens fruitful new research directions.
Practical implications
This paper may help managers, as important consumers of fashionable ideas, to better understand how elements of fashions may remain in organizations and play an important conditional role in future change initiatives.
Originality/value
Despite the substantial attention to the field‐level dissemination and evolution of popular management ideas in the management fashion literature, the possible long‐term impact of these ideas within organizations has received scant attention beyond the assumed transience of a fashion's discourse and the possible persistence of the organizational practices associated with a fashion.
Keywords
Citation
Heusinkveld, S. and Benders, J. (2012), "On sedimentation in management fashion: an institutional perspective", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 25 No. 1, pp. 121-142. https://doi.org/10.1108/09534811211199628
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2012, Emerald Group Publishing Limited