INNOVATING MINDFULLY WITH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY.

Author List: Swanson, E. Burton; Ramiller, Neil C.;
MIS Quarterly, 2004, Volume 28, Issue 4, Page 553-583.
Although organizational innovation with information technology is often carefully considered, bandwagon phenomena indicate that much innovative behavior may nevertheless be of the "me too" variety. In this essay, we explore such differences in innovative behavior. Adopting a perspective that is both institutional and cognitive, we introduce the notion of mindful innovation with IT. A mindful firm attends to an IT innovation with reasoning grounded in its own organizational facts and specifics. We contrast this with mindless innovation, where a firm's actions betray an absence of such attention and grounding. We develop these concepts by drawing on the recent appearance of the idea of mindfulness in the organizational literature, and adapting it for application to IT innovation. We then bring mindfulness and mindlessness together in a larger theoretical synthesis in which these apparent opposites are seen to interact in ways that help to shape the overall landscape of opportunity for organizational innovation with IT. We conclude by suggesting several promising new research directions.
Keywords: bandwagon phenomena; Information technology innovation; organizational mindfulness; organizational mindlessness; organizing vision
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List of Topics

#35 0.215 technology organizational information organizations organization new work perspective innovation processes used technological understanding technologies transformation consequences perspectives use administrative economic
#210 0.202 innovation innovations innovative organizing technological vision disruptive crowdsourcing path implemented explain base opportunities study diversity taking actors practice shape creation
#111 0.179 e-government collective sociomaterial material institutions actors practice particular organizational routines practices relations mindfulness different analysis ways draw agencies drawing ideas
#21 0.113 research information systems science field discipline researchers principles practice core methods area reference relevance conclude set focus propose perspective inquiry
#54 0.094 approach conditions organizational actions emergence dynamics traditional theoretical emergent consequences developments case suggest make organization point outcomes recent trajectory claims
#81 0.060 applications application reasoning approach cases support hypertext case-based prototype problems consistency developed benchmarking described efficient practical address activity demonstrate effective