Bending the pipes: Regaining attention through reinvention and renewal

Abstract

Organizations’ attention structures are traditionally perceived as stable ‘pipes and prisms’ representing organizational communication and procedural channels. Changes in attention structures are typically attributed to top-down interventions. In this study we extend the ‘dynamic Attention Based View’ by demonstrating first that attention structures are plastic and second that they can be ‘bent’ through bottom-up adaptations of communication channels previously designed from the top. Using a single case study of the large telecommunication corporation Ericsson, we show how mid-level organizational actors manifest distinct forms of agency in reacting to adverse changes in attention structures: projective agency and iterational agency. Organizational actors regain influence over the strategy-making process through two practices: reinvention (the projective agency of adding new channels) and renewal (the iterational agency of restoring old channels).