The role of imagination in the organizing of knowledge
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OPINION AND IDEAS
The role of imagination in the organizing of knowledge Karl E. Weick1 1
Rensis Likert Distinguished University Professor of Organizational Behavior and Psychology, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, U.S.A. Correspondence: Karl E. Weick, Rensis Likert Distinguished University Professor of Organizational Behavior and Psychology, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, 701 Tappan St., Ann Arbor, MI, 48109-1234, U.S.A. Tel: þ 1 734 763 1339; Fax: þ 1 734 936 8716; E-mail: [email protected]
European Journal of Information Systems (2006) 15, 446–452. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ejis.3000634 Portions of this essay are adapted from an article titled ‘Organizing and failures of imagination’ which is forthcoming in International Public Management Journal: Special Issue on 9-11 Commission Report.
Knowledge has been defined in many ways, but seldom like this: ‘Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination’ (Cummings, 1953). Dead imagination seems to be present in the processes that led up to disintegration of the Columbia space shuttle over Texas (CAIB, 2003), in the Center for Disease Control’s initial misidentification of the West Nile virus (Weick, 2005), and in the mis-specification of the terrorist threat prior to the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 (9/11 Commission Report, 2004). The recurrence of phenomena such as these suggests that we need to tackle at least two questions: (1) How do people organize in ways that deaden imagination, (2) What is the effect of deadened imagination on knowledge? Related questions were raised by the 9/11 Commission that investigated the attack on the World Trade Center: ‘Imagination is not a gift usually associated with bureaucraciesy . It is therefore crucial to find a way of routinizing, even bureaucratizing the exercise of imagination’ (9/11, p. 344). I want to say more about knowledge and imagination since my hunch is that most organizations think they have a capability for imagination when in fact, what they actually have is a capability for fancy. This is a difference that is potentially crucial for what it means to learn and to know. Imagination has not been much of a concern among scholars who examine learning and knowledge. If you look for the word ‘imagination’ in the index of the Dierkes et al. (2001), the closest you get is the heading ‘imaginary organizations.’ If you look in the index of the Easterby-Smith and Lyles handbook (2003), you find two pages devoted to ‘imagined communities.’ And if you look in the index of the excellent readers compiled by Choo and Bontis (2002) or Tsoukas and Shepherd (2004), you find no reference to imagination at all. The complex relationships among organizing, knowledge, and imagination can be illustrated in the context of the disintegration of the Columbia space shuttle over Texas during mission STS-107. Eighty-one (81.7) s after the Columbia shuttle was launched on January 16, 2003, blurred photographs taken during the launch showed
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