Edification: That's the Name of the (New Technology) Game

Abstract

What should we do when we encounter a new technology that does not make sense? In the organisational context, there are established ways to evaluate new technologies for their fit into existing operating practice, but these approaches already commit to an existing interpretation of what the new technology might be, and thus limit the potential for it to disrupt organisational thinking and trigger new competitive practices. Although organisations increasingly confront unfamiliar new technologies, analytical management theory has little to say about how an organisation can use such confrontations to disclose new self-understandings. We draw on Richard Rorty’s notion that hermeneutics is the proper approach to the ‘abnormal’ to propose edifying management practices as a path to realising the disruptive potential of new technologies. The resulting performative, hermeneutical change processes instantiate change as an on-going becoming, consistent with the strong process view of organisation.