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Reconsidering the Variables
In a session called “Fads and the Rediscovery of Good Old Ideas,” Prof.
Alfred Kieser of the University of Mannheim, Prof. Keith MacMillan
of Henley Management College in the UK, and Prof. Santiago
García Echevarría of the Universidad de Alcalá in Spain explored the
role of intellectual and management fashions in organizational learning.
 The
consultancies have as much influence over life in office towers as the
couture houses have on the cosmopolitan streets below. As Kieser points out,
this can have two kinds of effects. By creating and shaping management
trends and fashions, they are able to manipulating clients into a position
of insecurity and dependency. Seen less cynically however, Kieser finds
advantages. Management fads increase discussion of new concepts and
hopefully lead to better understanding of the organization, learning new
tools and alternative models of behavior.
If consultants attempt to
use fads to differentiate themselves, MacMillan notes, perhaps it goes both
ways—offering organizations the opportunity to evaluate their value. And
like consultants, managers are also looking for new ideas to set themselves
apart. The quality of ideas each of the parties develop and their ability to
deliver on these ideas contributes significantly to their reputation and the
trust their stakeholders may place in them. He points out, however, that it
is equally important to build on “old” ideas whose time returns, as it is to
generate new ideas, although reputations are often built more easily on
being associated with introducing a new idea than on rediscovering an old
one.
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