Managers' innovations and the structuration of organizations

Abstract

Drawing on interview data from managers in three organizations a theoretical framework based on structuration theory is offered for understanding the social construction of innovation in a way that overcomes the duality of individual and structural perspectives that fragments the literature on innovation and other related domains. Three case studies, one from each organization, illustrate and help link the elements of an argument that focuses first on how an organization's openness to its external environment allows for conflicting interpretations of necessary action. Individual agents exploit the ambiguity, making choices which help sustain or develop their self-identities, drawing on experience to shape innovations that promise to reconcile the constraints of the personal and organizational domains. Their capacity to transform circumstances in the desired direction depends on the extent to which they can deploy personal and organizational resources to negotiate appropriate meanings through social and political relationships with relevant others. The socio-political process and the substance of the innovation have reciprocal effects, yielding the possibility of agreement on a 'working innovation' which, once institutionalized, modifies the existing system and structures in ways that constrain, in new modes, the behaviours of all of those involved.