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Managerial Ignorance: A Study of How Managers Organise for Creativity

Schaefer, Stephan LU (2014)
Abstract
Creativity has become a key issue for managers and scholars alike. Creativity, however, is a complex and multi-levelled phenomenon. The significance of creativity and its complexity beg the question of how managers organise for creativity and how they address tensions linked to their organising attempts. Based on an interpretive methodology the book investigates these questions and explores different ways of organising for creativity. A salient empirical observation is that managers address contradictions related to ways of organising for creativity by wilfully ignoring them. It is suggested that such acts of wilful managerial ignorance enable the projection of an appropriate external image and the maintenance of a favourable self-image.... (More)
Creativity has become a key issue for managers and scholars alike. Creativity, however, is a complex and multi-levelled phenomenon. The significance of creativity and its complexity beg the question of how managers organise for creativity and how they address tensions linked to their organising attempts. Based on an interpretive methodology the book investigates these questions and explores different ways of organising for creativity. A salient empirical observation is that managers address contradictions related to ways of organising for creativity by wilfully ignoring them. It is suggested that such acts of wilful managerial ignorance enable the projection of an appropriate external image and the maintenance of a favourable self-image. The need for managerial ignorance, it is further argued, stems from a wider discourse on the “creative economy” which illustrates how the pressure to manage creativity has become part of everyday managerial work. (Less)
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author
supervisor
opponent
  • Engwall, Mats, KTH Stockholm
organization
publishing date
type
Thesis
publication status
published
subject
pages
262 pages
publisher
Lund University Press
defense location
EC3:210
defense date
2014-10-03 10:00:00
ISBN
978-91-7623-060-2
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
a0cfc00d-f50e-4157-a7d7-ba4e70f038e5 (old id 4611619)
date added to LUP
2016-04-04 09:57:18
date last changed
2018-11-21 20:55:50
@phdthesis{a0cfc00d-f50e-4157-a7d7-ba4e70f038e5,
  abstract     = {{Creativity has become a key issue for managers and scholars alike. Creativity, however, is a complex and multi-levelled phenomenon. The significance of creativity and its complexity beg the question of how managers organise for creativity and how they address tensions linked to their organising attempts. Based on an interpretive methodology the book investigates these questions and explores different ways of organising for creativity. A salient empirical observation is that managers address contradictions related to ways of organising for creativity by wilfully ignoring them. It is suggested that such acts of wilful managerial ignorance enable the projection of an appropriate external image and the maintenance of a favourable self-image. The need for managerial ignorance, it is further argued, stems from a wider discourse on the “creative economy” which illustrates how the pressure to manage creativity has become part of everyday managerial work.}},
  author       = {{Schaefer, Stephan}},
  isbn         = {{978-91-7623-060-2}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  publisher    = {{Lund University Press}},
  school       = {{Lund University}},
  title        = {{Managerial Ignorance: A Study of How Managers Organise for Creativity}},
  year         = {{2014}},
}