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The Anthropophagic Organization: How Innovations Transcend the Temporary in a Project-based Organization

The Anthropophagic Organization: How Innovations Transcend the Temporary in a Project-based... This article shows how innovations in projects may be diffused successfully within a large project-based organization (PBO) and how they ‘live on’ through their adaptation. We draw on the metaphorical notion of anthropophagy, literally ‘human cannibalism’, which is used to explain the appropriation of otherness resulting in ongoing organizational life. Prior organization literature has stressed the difficulties of the transition from the temporary to the permanent, especially the failure of database-oriented approaches, and argued that these barriers may be overcome with repeatable standardized templates. In contrast we show that multiple innovations may be adopted within the same PBO, which manifest as differentiated, combined forms. Cases in the large energy and engineering company, Petrobras, show a systematic innovation process involving subject experts, but centrally a database containing records of 1104 mandatory and discretionary innovations. The article analyses these data, process documentation and observations of 15 completed innovation projects. The article argues that in addition to technical factors the anthropophagic attitude motivates adopters to take on the innovations of others with the appetising prospect of appropriation and adaptation. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Organization Studies: An international multidisciplinary journal devoted to the Studies of organizations, organizing, and the organized in and between societies SAGE

The Anthropophagic Organization: How Innovations Transcend the Temporary in a Project-based Organization

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References (81)

Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2016
ISSN
0170-8406
eISSN
1741-3044
DOI
10.1177/0170840616655491
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This article shows how innovations in projects may be diffused successfully within a large project-based organization (PBO) and how they ‘live on’ through their adaptation. We draw on the metaphorical notion of anthropophagy, literally ‘human cannibalism’, which is used to explain the appropriation of otherness resulting in ongoing organizational life. Prior organization literature has stressed the difficulties of the transition from the temporary to the permanent, especially the failure of database-oriented approaches, and argued that these barriers may be overcome with repeatable standardized templates. In contrast we show that multiple innovations may be adopted within the same PBO, which manifest as differentiated, combined forms. Cases in the large energy and engineering company, Petrobras, show a systematic innovation process involving subject experts, but centrally a database containing records of 1104 mandatory and discretionary innovations. The article analyses these data, process documentation and observations of 15 completed innovation projects. The article argues that in addition to technical factors the anthropophagic attitude motivates adopters to take on the innovations of others with the appetising prospect of appropriation and adaptation.

Journal

Organization Studies: An international multidisciplinary journal devoted to the Studies of organizations, organizing, and the organized in and between societies – SAGE

Published: Dec 1, 2016

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