In direct breach of managerial edicts: a practice approach to creative deviance in professional service firms

Sarpong, David; Appiah, Globria; Bi, Jianxiang; Botchie, David

Abstract

© 2018 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd Drawing on practice as a meta-theoretical lens, we explore creative deviance (CD): wilful violation of managerial orders by employee(s) to pursue creative ideas. Data for our inquiry comes from in-depth interviews with middle managers and employees in two professional service firms (PSFs). We argue that two distinct organising processes are necessary for the emergence of CD in practice: organising configuration and formalisation of R&D processes. We develop these dimensions to produce a typology of interrelated ideal types of outcomes when employees are explicitly instructed to stop pursuing an idea. We found three salient organising practices (technical concerns for efficiency and metrics, suppression of metistic knowledge and disjointed managerial responses to violations of sanctioned organising procedures), which may operate in combination or serially, to foster CD in practice. We conclude with some key implications for the theory and practice of creativity in PSFs.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 18, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Feb 7, 2018
• Publication Date: Nov 1, 2018
• Deposit Date: Feb 13, 2018
• Journal: R and D Management
• Print ISSN: 0033-6807
• Electronic ISSN: 1467-9310
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 48
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 580-590
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/radm.12315
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/856659
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/radm.12315
• Additional Information: Additional Information : This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Sarpong, D., Appiah, G., Bi, J. and Botchie, D. (2018) In direct breach of managerial edicts: A practice approach to creative deviance in professional service firms. R&D Management. ISSN 0033-6807, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/radm.12315. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.
• Contract Date: Feb 13, 2018