Management Fashion: Lifecycles, Triggers, and Collective Learning Processes

Item

Title

Management Fashion: Lifecycles, Triggers, and Collective Learning Processes

Abstract/Description

This theory-development case study of the quality circle management fashion focuses on three features of management-knowledge entrepreneurs' discourse promoting or discrediting such fashions: its lifecycle, forces triggering stages in its lifecycle, and the type of collective learning it fostered. Results suggest, first, that variability in when different types of knowledge entrepreneurs begin, continue, and stop promoting fashions explains variability in their lifecycles; second, that historically unique conjunctions of forces, endogenous and exogenous to the management-fashion market, trigger and shape management fashions; and third, that emotionally charged, enthusiastic, and unreasoned discourse characterizes the upswings of management fashion waves, whereas more reasoned, unemotional, and qualified discourse characterizes their downswings, evidencing a pattern of superstitious collective learning.

Author/creator

Abrahamson, Eric

Fairchild, Gregory

Date

1999

In publication

Administrative Science Quarterly

Volume

44

Issue

4

Pages

708-740

Resource type

en Research/Scholarly Media

Resource status/form

en Published Text

Scholarship genre

en Empirical

Language

en

Open access/full-text available

en Yes

Peer reviewed

en Yes

ISSN

0001-8392

URL

Official Publisher's Webpage (SAGE Journals)

Open Access PDF (Columbia Business School)

Citation

Abrahamson, E., & Fairchild, G. (1999). Management Fashion: Lifecycles, Triggers, and Collective Learning Processes. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(4), 708–740. https://doi.org/10.2307/2667053

Cited in

Cross-Sector Research on Continuous Learning and Improvement

Item sets

OB Citations - Cross-Sector Research on Learning and Improvement

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