Management techniques spread in waves driven by the appearance of progress and legitimacy, largely independently of evidence that they work.
Abrahamson's 1996 account identifies a supply side of consultants, business schools, publishers and gurus who produce and legitimate techniques, and a demand side of managers needing to appear rational and modern. Adoption curves then resemble fashion rather than diffusion of a proven method, with characteristic rise, saturation and abandonment before any evaluation concludes.
In practice
- A firm adopts the framework its competitors adopted, and abandons it at the same time they do.
- A technique with no evaluation behind it appears in every annual report for four years and in none thereafter.