The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Stephan Schaefer . Photo

Stephan Schaefer

Senior lecturer

Stephan Schaefer . Photo

Wilful Managerial Ignorance, Symbolic Work and Decoupling : A Socio-Phenomenological Study of ‘Managing Creativity’

Author

  • Stephan M. Schaefer

Summary, in English

Ignorance has only received scant attention in organization and management studies. This paper focuses on ignorance in an organizational context by presenting and analysing the lived experience of three managers who attempted to manage creativity. The analysis of the empirical material with the help of a detailed agency framework illustrates how the managers’ clearly articulated visions contradicted their practices and how they also stuck to their visions even when they were confronted with or had the possibility to collect information that would challenge those visions. I suggest, based on these observations, that the managers deliberately and actively avoided using or collecting relevant information that could potentially lead to transformative practices, which engendered what I call ‘wilful managerial ignorance’. I further suggest that ‘symbolic work’, which refers to the active and continuous separation of verbal activity (symbol) and concrete practices (objective referent), is a determining factor in wilful managerial ignorance. Since wilful managerial ignorance and symbolic work prevent the productive and transformative integration of different institutional contexts it is possible to link it to the concept of ‘decoupling’. As a result, I propose that wilful managerial ignorance and symbolic work are micro-determinants which facilitate the decoupling of organizationally relevant institutional contexts.

Department/s

  • Department of Business Administration

Publishing year

2019-09

Language

English

Pages

1387-1407

Publication/Series

Organization Studies

Volume

40

Issue

9

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Topic

  • Business Administration

Keywords

  • decoupling
  • socio-phenomenological analysis
  • symbolic work
  • wilful managerial ignorance

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0170-8406