Agentic Misfit: An Empirical Demonstration of Non-Matching Human Agency amid Complexity. Issue 10 (October 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Poulis, Konstantinos; Poulis, Efthimios; Jackson, Paul
• Is Part Of: Organization studies. Volume 42:Issue 10(2021)
• Page Start: 1603
• Page End: 1627
• Publication Date: 2021-10
• Subjects: agentic misfit -- complexity theory -- fit -- human agency -- identity -- organizational design -- requisite variety; Organizational sociology -- Periodicals; Organizational behavior -- Periodicals; Organization -- Periodicals; 302.35
• DOI: 10.1177/0170840620944552
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0170-8406

Abstract

Alignment of organizations with external imperatives is seen as a sine qua non of proper organizing and strategizing by many fit and complexity scholars. Any deviation from this management mantra engenders organizational decline and, ultimately, mortality. We put this axiomatic principle under empirical scrutiny and use the law of requisite variety as our organizing principle to do so. The law is an iconic cornerstone of this matching contingency logic and it has served to legitimize a wide range of fit decisions in, e.g., leadership, organizational learning and corporate governance. Inspired by organizational vignettes inhabiting antithetical complexity regimes, we introduce a novel concept, which we label 'agentic misfit'. In this way, we deconstruct deterministic assumptions related to environmental fittingness, we challenge teleological orientations in the fit literature, and we flesh out the viability of non-matching human agency amid complexity.