Strategising Organisational Challenges With Sensible Foolishness and Procedural Rationality

Abstract

For March (2006), prevailing modes of intelligence, supported by technologies of rationality, are often inadequate, misguided and even disastrous when deployed by managers facing complex organisational challenges. March’s (1971) concept of sensible foolishness is presented as an approach to combat the dominance of procedural rationality and a means to realise sensible foolishness is through play. Despite this proposition, managers continue to draw upon rational technologies and seek to use these tools in rational and objective ways to yield desired ends. Some research streams (e.g. the tools-in-use paradigm) have begun to challenge the dominant view within materiality studies, which tends to focus on the dichotomy between the correct and incorrect way to use tools. However, we still have a limited understanding of the process surrounding the interplay between sensible foolishness (i.e. play) and procedural rationality (i.e. reason) and how this unfolds in practice. This thesis therefore employs a sociomaterial lens to explore how serious organisational challenges can be navigated through playful means. I conducted this research within the context of three SMEs using a multiple data set comprising interviews, observations and video and audio-recorded episodes of strategy workshops. Three key findings emerged from the data. First, I show how play and reason undergo an evolving fluidity during strategy making sessions, where managers realise unintended process affordances that manifest from this interplay. Second, I show how existing hierarchical structures can be temporarily suspended through playful interaction. Third, I show how physical visuals stemming from play can support the sharing of tacitness during strategy making. Altogether, this thesis unpacks how organisational actors escape their logic of reason and temporarily suspend rational imperatives (March, 1971), offering contributions and insights into how sensible foolishness is actually performed in-practice during strategy making.