IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-03794190.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How to study strategic ignorance in organizations: A material approach

Author

Listed:
  • Mahaut Fanchini

    (IRG - Institut de Recherche en Gestion - UPEM - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée - UPEC UP12 - Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12)

  • Meghan van Portfliet

Abstract

This special issue is a testament to the interest in ignorance which has been shown across fields. However, questions remain on how to study the phenomenon. Methods diverge based on what type of ignorance is being examined and what field the study is located in. In this note, we find that a method to study a particular kind of ignorance, namely organizational strategic ignorance, is lacking, primarily due to the power and temporal dimensions at play. We offer that a material approach, specifically one focused on ‘boundary objects', may be a fruitful avenue for investigating the topic. Objects have long been understood as sites of interpretive flexibility (Star, 2010), and there are parallels that can be drawn between materiality/absence and knowledge/ignorance, incorporating aspects of power, but also the temporal qualities that strategic ignorance encompasses. We draw on our research on whistleblowing to illustrate how boundary objects are a useful starting point for studies of strategic ignorance, and how a material approach in general may be an effective method for ignorance research more widely.

Suggested Citation

  • Mahaut Fanchini & Meghan van Portfliet, 2022. "How to study strategic ignorance in organizations: A material approach," Post-Print hal-03794190, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03794190
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    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:hal:journl:hal-03794190. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.