From idea to organizational practice: Institutionalizing innovative ideas through visualization

Renate Meyer, Dennis Jancsary, Markus Höllerer and Eva Boxenbaum ()
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Renate Meyer: WU Wien - Vienna University of Business and Economics - Vienna University of Business and Economics, Copenhagen Business School - CBS - Copenhagen Business School [Copenhagen]
Dennis Jancsary: Copenhagen Business School - CBS - Copenhagen Business School [Copenhagen], WU Wien - Vienna University of Business and Economics - Vienna University of Business and Economics
Markus Höllerer: WU Wien - Vienna University of Business and Economics - Vienna University of Business and Economics, UNSW - University of New South Wales [Sydney]
Eva Boxenbaum: CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Copenhagen Business School - CBS - Copenhagen Business School [Copenhagen]

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Abstract: How do visualization and visual forms of communication influence the process of transforming a novel idea into established organizational practice? In this paper, we build theory with regard to the role of visuals in manifesting and giving form to an innovative idea as it proceeds through various stages of institutionalization. Ideas become institutionalized not merely through widespread diffusion in a cognitive-discursive form but eventually through their translation into concrete activities and transformation into specific patterns of organizational practice. We argue that visualization plays a pivotal and unique role in this process. Visualization bridges the ideational with the practical realm by providing representations of ideas, connecting them to existing knowledge, and illustrating the specific actions that instantiate them. Similar to verbal discourse, and often in tandem, visual representations diffuse more rapidly and further than the practices themselves. Consolidating the relationship between abstract ideas and specific practice, such visual or multi-modal representations facilitate the implementation of novel ideas, reinforce particular translations, and imbue associated organizational practice with legitimacy – and thus solidify the coupling of innovative ideas and organizational practice. Extending existing research, we develop a set of propositions linking dimensions of visuality and visualization to the different stages of institutionalization in order to explain the institutional trajectory of new ideas. Our analysis advances insight into a core dimension of institutionalization: the transformation of an idea into practice.

Keywords: organization and management studies.; practice; innovation; Visualization; ideas; stages and process of institutionalization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-06-27
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Published in Third European Theory Development Workshop in OMT and Strategy 2014, Jun 2014, Amsterdam, Netherlands

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01103137

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