Restrictive Control and Information Pathologies in Organizations
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10220091 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Wolfgang Scholl (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1999 |
| Volume | 55 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 101-118 |
| Publication date | 1999-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Social Issues (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-4537 • E-ISSN: 1540-4560 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/0022-4537.00107 |
| OpenAlex | W2171615481 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 13 |
Although the relation of power to knowledge is an often discussed theme, a psychological and sociological scrutiny of the issue is lacking. A new conceptual and theoretical approach to this issue is presented here that distingushes between restrictive and promotive control. Restrictive control is a form of power exertion in which one actor pushes his wishes through against the interests of another actor. In contrast, if an actor influences the other in line with his or her interests, this is called promotive control. Information pathologies, i.e., avoidable failures of distributed information processing, are introduced as an inverse measure for the quality and quantity of knowledge production. It is hypothesized that restrictive control has negative consequences for the production of new or better knowledge, because it induces information pathologies that in turn lower the effectiveness of joint action. These two hypotheses are tested in a study on 21 successful and 21 unsuccessful innovations with a dual qualitative and quantitative approach. The interpretive analysis of interviews with the main actors of each innovation case as well as the statistical analysis of questionnaire responses by the same actors strongly corroborate both hypotheses. Methodological problems, theoretical perspectives, and practical consequences are discussed
Action (physics · Control (management · Dual (grammatical number · Economics · Epistemology · Political science · Power (physics · Production (economics · Quality (philosophy · Relation (database · Scrutiny · Sociology · Complex Systems and Decision Making · Computer Science · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology · Team Dynamics and Performance
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| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,47 |
| Citation span | 2011 - 2020 (10) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |