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James March argued that irrational approaches to problem solving and foolishness can be useful for addressing complex problems. Grand challenges are complex problems that often involve “guarded societal institutions” – societal beliefs and practices guarded by political or commercial powers. To explain how organizations with impossible goals dismantle such institutions by mobilizing irrationality and foolishness, we develop a process model which is illustrated with the case of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Our main contribution is to expand James March’s ideas on logics of action and organizational intelligence to advance a novel perspective for tackling big societal problems. We argue that foolishness is not only a means for finding distant solutions to complex problems but also a means for generating sustained motivation, well-being, and ideas that spark debate and lead to the questioning of taken-for-granted societal beliefs.

The purpose of this paper is to refract March’s views on leadership to re-frame them within an authentic model that understands optimistic failure and mindful resilience as likely byproducts of enabling ambiguous innovation. An analysis of March’s theories of slack, and the concepts of exploration and exploitation, as well as that of foolishness, are used to support the adoption of authentic and ethical leadership as an intelligent practice and, more concretely, to portray the leader as a resilient “juggling fool.”

This paper makes use of primary data by focusing on March’s published works, as well as on interviews and other materials written about him, or those discussing his contributions. A post-hoc practice of “appreciation” facilitated a fresh refraction of the “evidence” to identify or recognize new perspectives and/or challenges to March’s conceptualization of leadership, while relying on literature and metaphor to engage in “polymorphic research.”

This paper presents March as a complex thinker, whose thoughts on leadership have received, perhaps, less attention for being thought to be more refractive and less empirical. Nonetheless, his reflections on leadership re-discover him as a solid leadership philosopher. His use of literature, his theories of slack and the concepts of exploration and exploitation, as well as that of foolishness, may help leadership scholars to understand the essence of authentic and ethical leadership as an intelligent practice.

This paper proposes to extrapolate March’s vast insights about organizational theory to further develop the framework of authentic leadership. This re-framing of the leader as a “juggling fool” constitutes an empowered view of leadership that comes closer to balancing the complementary purposes of leadership and management; an effort that rests at the core of the future of leadership.

Despite the ostensible popularity of leadership over management as a desired organizational outcome, March’s phenomenal insights remind current and developing leaders of just how much the two fields must overlap in constant tension. It is, perhaps, the conceptualization of a leader as an authentic and resilient “juggling fool” what adds depth of meaning to March’s contributions to the field of leadership beyond that of management.

Taking issue with the predominance of reviews of James March’s writings that focus on his technical contributions to organizational studies, this study aims to emphasize the central significance and contemporary relevance of his critical reflections on the meaning of life and work in modern organizations.

The paper uses a novel framework illustrated by extensive original quotations for capturing and making more accessible March’s profound contribution to organization studies. His work on organizational behaviour and decision-making is viewed as identifying and grappling with three key paradoxes of modernity: of rationality, performance and meaning. His prescriptions on how to handle and address these paradoxes are explored through a focus on his reflections on the poetry of leadership.

Whilst March himself emphasized that not all of his insights can be captured in an article level overview, March, his collaborator Olsen and others who worked with and studied under him have confirmed the accuracy of the review and the value of the enterprise.

Capturing March’s advocacy of sensible foolishness and playful seriousness in the face of ambiguity, uncertainty and contestation hopefully contribute to enhancing practitioners’ “lightness of being” in coping with and finding meaning in challenging environments.

Through the range of ideas covered, the framework used and the extensive use of March’s own worlds, the study, hopefully, communicates the depth and richness of March’s humanitarian enterprise and the “playfully serious spirit” that he advocates and exemplifies – in a way that is often omitted from narrower, more technical and somewhat dry treatments of his work.

James G. March taught his students how to combine rigor and playfulness. He saw scholarship as the interplay between harnessing crazy ideas; the technology of foolishness on one side, and the rigorous building and assessment of models which emulate the behaviors of individuals in organizations and of organizations as a whole on the other side. Therefore, a student should develop not only an ability to understand the world, by mastering technical analytical methods, but also an ability to appreciate it. In order to develop the latter, one should grasp that the underlying problems of management and leadership are indistinguishable from the fundamental problems of life, and that the novels, poems and plays of great literature are the best sources to examine these problems. Thus, James March’s teaching involved basic skills in statistics, the subtle art of building models, and the study of major pieces of great literature. According to James March, teaching is not primarily about spreading knowledge but is about raising faith in scholarship. Learning is not aimed at adapting to the world, but at developing a desire to change it for more truth, beauty and justice. Higher education is a vision, a vocation, not a rational choice. Teaching is a sacrament.

James March was a bundle of wisdom and contradiction. Numerous lessons learned from him as a doctoral student have guided the author’s career as a scholar. Using simple models to achieve complex understanding, but also looking for deeper insights rather than being satisfied with readily recognizable patterns – together they exemplify how the seemingly contradictory form a tapestry of wise advice. Being humble enough to be open to criticism without defensiveness and to be open to reconsidering your old ideas, these represent other important lessons. Finally, maintaining the ability to be playful with important ideas as a way to make deeper discoveries offers not only the promise of great impact but, as important, offers the promise of a fun journey.

In this paper, the authors look back at James March’s main contributions to the evolution of organizations and their decision-making. No other author in management science has been quoted as much. Yet, his view on these issues is often far removed from the dominant academic representations. This paper aims to evaluate the trace left by March for the future. His teachings remain of the utmost importance for both practitioners and academics in charge of modeling the real functioning of the organizations.

In this paper, the authors look back at James March’s main contributions to the evolution of organizations and their decision-making.

On the basis of an in-depth analysis of his study, the authors discuss the main concepts to which he has dedicated his life as a researcher. Whether it is for innovation and the process of exploration associated with it or for the ambiguity that persists in learning cycles, March always shows us the ambivalence of the concepts. The strength of March’s study is to encourage us to remain cautious in the diagnoses for the development of the companies by not venerating too strongly the notions seen exclusively as virtuous, such as innovation or by not too quickly condemning situations perceived as harmful, such as ambiguity. It is, therefore, subjective and unpredictable, making the idea of a unified theory of management inoperative (Joullié, 2018). March’s way of thinking is deeply postmodern in the sense of Foucault (1961), who saw the world as a representation.

For this kind of paper based on a James March study’s survey, the main limitation is the variety of research methodology mobilized. Empirical confirmation sometimes is missing or is too short. The study remains essentially speculative as to its influence on future research. Some concepts, such as the concept of effectuation, which is a direct extension of March’s study, deserve to be tested empirically and theoretically in greater depth to assess their robustness.

All managerial implications are concerned with organizational change. His teachings remain of the utmost importance for both practitioners and academics in charge of modeling the real functioning of the organizations.

Providing a guideline concerning research in the management of organizations. A better understanding of the real functioning of how decisions happen in companies, how they change in the real world.

The authors show that, contrary to the great paradigms of management sciences (Burrell and Morgan, 1979) developed since Taylor’s founding study, which remains performative in essence, March’s study initiates a viscerally postmodern vision of the organization. The authors believe that his contributions are essential because they are not based on a normative attempt to propose a universal theory but provide a compass that is essential to understanding how the organization study.