Into the realm of organizational folly: A poem, a review, and a typology of organizational stupidity. Issue 2 (April 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Azevedo, Guilherme
• Is Part Of: Management learning. Volume 54:Issue 2(2023)
• Page Start: 267
• Page End: 281
• Publication Date: 2023-04
• Subjects: Organizational bullshit -- organizational incompetence -- organizational nonsense -- organizational stupidity -- poetry; Industrial management -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; Executives -- Training of -- Periodicals; Organizational learning -- Periodicals; Knowledge management -- Periodicals; 302.35
• DOI: 10.1177/13505076211066276
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1461-7307

Abstract

This 'Provocation essay' is aimed at triggering reflection and fostering renewed research into organizational stupidity and its intersections with management learning. It opens with a critical poem evoking diverse aspects of our daily encounters with the idiocy, nonsense, and absurdity that pervades organizations. It continues with a more comprehensive review of the still diffuse research literature to reveal a typology of three approaches to studying organizational stupidity (systemic-mechanistic, critical-sociological and cultural-functionalist). It closes with a discussion of how stupidity detracts from reflexivity but can also play useful roles in organizations, which ultimately invites more management learning research on the topic.