Working Papers,
Uppsala University, Department of Business Studies

Abstract:

The aim of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework for the study of adoption of new methods, techniques and ideas concerning organizing and control of activities in organizations. A short review is made of the main stream in research on innovations. It is argued that the main shortcoming is the tendency to treat all innovations as stable entities which remain the same in the process of diffusion. Hence, research generally focuses on the question of adoption or rejection in organizational settings. A different frame of reference is proposed; in short, focusing the transformation of innovations when they change location in time and space. The central theme is to explore how “open” or “closed” innovations are. This question has two aspects: the longitudinal and the context. Over time innovations can develop a more closed character as a result of discursive and practical action, i.e. equipment, instructions, established claims, motivations, explanations of causality. That development is “given” when the innovation is brought to a new context. The crucial things, though, are the discursive and practical capacities different groups of actors in the focal context have in relation to the more or less elaborated version of the innovation. Further, it is also argued that adoption of new methods, techniques and ideas concerning organizing and control of activities, can be be analyzed in those terms.

31 pages, 1991

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