Ambiguity and Engagement

McMahan, Peter; Evans, James A.

doi:10.1086/701298

Cited by 36 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 58 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…When combined, the dispersion of topics, grouped into themes, can be analyzed in conjunction with the theoretical assumptions leveraged in the articles. As a result, this method unravels the underlying logics connecting research streams, providing both opportunities for integration in addition to identifying sources of conceptual ambiguity (Hannigan et al, 2019;McMahan & Evans, 2018). Our tables and analysis detail stepwise the mixed-method review process we implemented and can inspire other literature review writers in the future.…”

Section: Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ultimately, our review clarifies that not every change is necessarily adaptive and that not every adaptive move necessarily increases organizational performance. As a result, our review guides scholars toward consistent uses of adaptation that can resolve ambiguities and promote new insights for both disciplinary and interdisciplinary research (McMahan & Evans, 2018).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Organizational Adaptation

Sarta

Durand

Vergne

2020

Journal of Management

112

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Organizational adaptation is equivocal. On the one hand, the concept is ubiquitous in management research and acts as the glue binding together the central issues of organizational change, performance, and survival. On the other hand, it lurks around in various guises (e.g., “fit,” “alignment,” “congruence,” and “strategic change”) studied from multiple theoretical streams (e.g., behavioral, resource based, and institutional) and at different levels of analysis (e.g., organization and industry levels). In a novel approach to reviewing 443 adaptation articles that leverages both computational and hand-coded analysis, we produce an interactive visual of the themes most studied by adaptation scholars. We inductively draw out a definition of adaptation as intentional decision making undertaken by organizational members, leading to observable actions that aim to reduce the distance between an organization and its economic and institutional environments. We then review the literature across three main areas of inquiry and six theoretical perspectives that surfaced from our analysis and identify 11 difficulties that have hampered adaptation research in the past 50 years. Our review suggests ways to address these difficulties to enable future research to develop and cumulate.

show abstract

Section: Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Organizational Adaptation

Sarta

Durand

Vergne

2020

Journal of Management

112

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The literatures on culture, knowledge, professions, and science and technology, although not specifically attending to the state, also suggest ambiguity can increase authority. Ambiguity can generate uncertainty among audiences, which can, in turn, enable the speaker deniability or embellishment of their claims (Levine 1985;McMahan and Evans 2018). Ambiguity increases the authority of those who make definitions.…”

Section: Ambiguity and Authoritymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ambiguity, defined as multivocality, allows individuals "scope for exercising their interpretive skills" (Griswold 1987(Griswold :1111 and is associated with greater cultural power (as in the capacity of a work or idea to linger and be upheld) (ibid: 1105). 21 Relatedly, ambiguity enables coordination, resists oversight, builds accountability with the public or across audiences, and produces authority among experts (Fourcade 2009;McMahan and Evans 2018;Panofsky and Bliss 2017;Porter 1996). Ambiguity can facilitate collaboration and compromise among parties from different institutional settings (Mora 2014;Panofsky and Bliss 2017).…”

Section: Ambiguity and Authoritymentioning

confidence: 99%

Institutionalized Ambiguity in Legal Status: Managing Citizenship in the U.S. Imperial Rule of the Philippines

King¹

2018

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A perennial question in the scholarship of the state asks how states rule and expand their capacity to do so. Scholars have paid special attention to activities that rationalize and build administrative capacity, known as legibility projects. Alongside these projects, state actors also rule through ambiguous and unclear techniques that have been given less scholarly attention. I introduce the concept of institutionalized ambiguity in legal status to extend the study of state rule. I ask what generates ambiguity, what purposes it serves in law and policy, and what consequences it has for the management of populations. I propose an analytic approach that draws attention to equivocation in law as enabling classificatory debates and discretion in the political realm. To illustrate the purchase of institutionalized ambiguity in legal status, I analyze how, during the years of formal imperial rule (1898-1946), U.S. state actors debated the racial fitness and membership of Filipinos in the imagined U.S. nation. I consider the broader implications of this analysis for scholars of modern state formation and suggest that foundational conflicts over national identity can be institutionalized in law, in turn facilitating a range of contradictory, but co-existing, legally defensible policies.

show abstract

“…As with everyday language, scientific concepts can sometimes be ambiguous and vague. It has been argued that ambiguity, and the uncertainty that follows from ambiguity, can sometimes play a distinct role in the creative development of science by creating zones of intellectual engagement (McMahan and Evans, 2018). However, when it comes to crucial decisionmaking situations, the differences in how scholars communicate and interpret new research ideas can have rather big consequences.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The oracles of science: On grant peer review and competitive funding

Roumbanis

2021

Social Science Information

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

From a purely epistemological point of view, evaluating and predicting the future success of new research projects is often considered very difficult. Is it possible to forecast important findings and breakthrough in science, and if not, then what is the point trying to do it anyway? Still, that is what funding agencies all over the world expect their reviewers to do, but a number of previous studies has shown that this form of evaluation of innovation, promise and future impact are a fundamentally uncertain and arbitrary practice. This is the context that I will discuss in the present essay, and I will claim that there is a deeply irrational element embedded in today’s heavy reliance on experts to screen, rank and select among the increasing numbers of good research projects, because they can, in principal, never discern the true potential behind the written proposals. Hence, I think it is motivated to see grant peer review as an ‘oracle of science’. My overall focus will be on the limits of competitive funding and also that the writing and reviewing of proposals is a waste of researchers’ precious time. And I will propose that we really need to develop new ways of thinking about how we organize research and distribute opportunities within academia.

show abstract

Ambiguity and Engagement

Cited by 36 publications

References 58 publications

Organizational Adaptation

Organizational Adaptation

Institutionalized Ambiguity in Legal Status: Managing Citizenship in the U.S. Imperial Rule of the Philippines

The oracles of science: On grant peer review and competitive funding

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About