IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/scaman/v36y2020i1s0956522119301095.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Whatever happened to “The Technology of Foolishness”? Does it have any potential today?

Author

Listed:
  • Larsen, Bøje

Abstract

In 1971, the organization theorist James March published "The Technology of Foolishness" (ToF). The essay can be seen as inspired by ideas of the late 1960s in California. ToF argues that wise decision making should not only focus on pursuing given goals, as is often done, but also on finding new and better goals. The present study traces the reception of ToF in the scholarly literature. It has been much praised, but little used relative to other of March's contributions. The reception has often been superficial and ritual and March's harsher ideas have to some degree been sugarcoated. ToF has inspired work regarding playfulness, improvisation, hypocrisy and not least entrepreneurship. But there is unused potential in ToF. This potential is discussed in the next to final Section of this article. One is called intelligent holes in stupid organizations and concerns how to maintain or achieve free thinking in organizations and society. Another one regards hypocrisy – how to handle and use truth and lies in and around modern organizations and political systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Larsen, Bøje, 2020. "Whatever happened to “The Technology of Foolishness”? Does it have any potential today?," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(1).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:scaman:v:36:y:2020:i:1:s0956522119301095
    DOI: 10.1016/j.scaman.2020.101093
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956522119301095
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.scaman.2020.101093?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Claus D. Jacobs & Matt Statler, 2006. "Toward a Technology of Foolishness: Developing Scenarios Through Serious Play," International Studies of Management & Organization, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(3), pages 77-92, January.
    2. Gabriel, Yiannis, 2000. "Storytelling in Organizations: Facts, Fictions, and Fantasies," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198297062.
    3. Mark Dodgson & David M. Gann & Nelson Phillips, 2013. "Organizational Learning and the Technology of Foolishness: The Case of Virtual Worlds at IBM," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(5), pages 1358-1376, October.
    4. Ganz, Marshall Louis, 2000. "Resources and Resourcefulness: Strategic Capacity in the Unionization of California Agriculture, 1959-1966," Scholarly Articles 12641805, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    5. Stewart Clegg & Kristian Kreiner, 2014. "Fixing concrete: inquiries, responsibility, power and innovation," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(3), pages 262-278, March.
    6. Paul S. Adler & David Obstfeld, 2007. "The role of affect in creative projects and exploratory search," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 16(1), pages 19-50, February.
    7. Jean-Noël Chauvey, 2010. "Hypocrisie, déraison : les nouveaux leviers du contrôle ?," ACCRA, Association francophone de comptabilité, vol. 16(1), pages 33-51.
    8. Larsen, Bøje, 2003. "German organization and leadership theory--stable trends and flexible adaptation," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 103-133, March.
    9. Philip Bromiley & Alfred Marcus, 1987. "Deadlines, routines, and change," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 20(2), pages 85-103, June.
    10. Jean-Noël Chauvey, 2010. "Hypocrisie, déraison : les nouveaux leviers du contrôle ?," Comptabilité - Contrôle - Audit, Association francophone de comptabilité, vol. 16(1), pages 33-51.
    11. Jiyang Dong & James G. March & Maciej Workiewicz, 2017. "On organizing: an interview with James G. March," Journal of Organization Design, Springer;Organizational Design Community, vol. 6(1), pages 1-19, December.
    12. Sarasvathy, Saras D. & Dew, Nicholas, 2005. "Entrepreneurial logics for a technology of foolishness," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 385-406, December.
    13. Brunsson, Nils, 1990. "Deciding for responsibility and legitimation: Alternative interpretations of organizational decision-making," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 15(1-2), pages 47-59.
    14. Mats Alvesson & André Spicer, 2012. "A Stupidity-Based Theory of Organizations," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(7), pages 1194-1220, November.
    15. Martin Kornberger & Stephan Leixnering & Renate E. Meyer, 2019. "The logic of tact : How decisions happen in situations of crisis," Post-Print hal-02312257, HAL.
    16. Ping Li, Peter, 2018. "James March as an Academic Don Quixote: My Personal Memory," Management and Organization Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(4), pages 827-832, December.
    17. Annachiara Casalini & Guido Fioretti & Andreas Pyka, 2016. "Playfulness, ideology and the technology of foolishness in the creation of a novel market niche for distributed control: The case of iPLON," Journal of Organization Design, Springer;Organizational Design Community, vol. 5(1), pages 1-16, December.
    18. Ahrne, Göran & Brunsson, Nils & Seidl, David, 2016. "Resurrecting organization by going beyond organizations," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 93-101.
    19. Izak, Michal, 2013. "The foolishness of wisdom: Towards an inclusive approach to wisdom in organization," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 108-115.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mohammad Fakhar Manesh & Giulia Flamini & Damiano Petrolo & Rocco Palumbo, 2022. "A round of dancing and then one more: embedding intuition in the ballet of entrepreneurial decision making," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 499-528, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Annachiara Casalini & Guido Fioretti & Andreas Pyka, 2016. "Playfulness, ideology and the technology of foolishness in the creation of a novel market niche for distributed control: The case of iPLON," Journal of Organization Design, Springer;Organizational Design Community, vol. 5(1), pages 1-16, December.
    2. Fisher, Greg & Neubert, Emily & Burnell, Devin, 2021. "Resourcefulness narratives: Transforming actions into stories to mobilize support," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 36(4).
    3. Thomas, Rhodri & Wood, Emma, 2015. "The absorptive capacity of tourism organisations," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 84-99.
    4. Per Engelseth & Richard Glavee-Geo & Artur Janusz & Enoch Niboi, 2020. "The Emergent Nature of Networked Sustainable Procurement," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-18, December.
    5. Arfan Khalid, 2011. "Effect of Organizational Change on Employee Job Involvement: Mediating Role of Communication, Emotions and Psychological Contract," Information Management and Business Review, AMH International, vol. 3(3), pages 178-184.
    6. Matsuno, Ken & Kohlbacher, Florian, 2020. "Proactive marketing response to population aging: The roles of capabilities and commitment of firms," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 93-104.
    7. Victoria Johnson & Walter W. Powell, 2015. "Poisedness and Propagation: Organizational Emergence and the Transformation of Civic Order in 19th-Century New York City," NBER Working Papers 21011, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Kristof Van Assche & Raoul Beunen & Stefan Verweij, 2020. "Learning from Other Places and Their Plans: Comparative Learning in and for Planning Systems," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(1), pages 1-5.
    9. Cliff Oswick, 2014. "A Study of Case Studies: Some Reflections and Projections on the Narrative Structuring of Management Cases," South Asian Journal of Business and Management Cases, , vol. 3(1), pages 7-14, June.
    10. Héloïse Berkowitz & Nils Brunsson & Michael Grothe-Hammer & Mikaela Sundberg & Bertrand Valiorgue, 2022. "Meta-Organizations: A Clarification and a Way Forward," Post-Print hal-03685386, HAL.
    11. Holvoet, Nathalie & Dewachter, Sara, 2013. "Building national M&E systems in the context of changing aid modalities: The underexplored potential of National Evaluation Societies," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 47-57.
    12. Ardito, Lorenzo & Messeni Petruzzelli, Antonio, 2017. "Breadth of external knowledge sourcing and product innovation: The moderating role of strategic human resource practices," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 261-272.
    13. Timo Nevalainen & Jaana Seikkula-Leino & Maria Salomaa, 2021. "Team Learning as a Model for Facilitating Entrepreneurial Competences in Higher Education: The Case of Proakatemia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-17, July.
    14. Li, Shenxue & Clark, Timothy & Sillince, John, 2018. "Constructing a strategy on the creation of core competencies for African companies," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 204-213.
    15. Ryan W. Quinn & Monica C. Worline, 2008. "Enabling Courageous Collective Action: Conversations from United Airlines Flight 93," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(4), pages 497-516, August.
    16. Michael Grothe-Hammer & Héloïse Berkowitz & Olivier Berthod, 2022. "Decisional organization theory: towards an integrated framework of organization," Post-Print hal-03699112, HAL.
    17. Dorine Maurice Mattar, 2021. "An Organizational Change With Quarantined Members," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(1), pages 21582440209, January.
    18. Peter M. Bednar & Christine Welch, 0. "Socio-Technical Perspectives on Smart Working: Creating Meaningful and Sustainable Systems," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-18.
    19. Kevin Morrell, 2008. "The Narrative of ‘Evidence Based’ Management: A Polemic," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(3), pages 613-635, May.
    20. Beattie, Vivien, 2014. "Accounting narratives and the narrative turn in accounting research: Issues, theory, methodology, methods and a research framework," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 111-134.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:scaman:v:36:y:2020:i:1:s0956522119301095. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/872/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.