On sedimentation in management fashion: an institutional perspective

Purpose – This paper aims to explore how management practitioners make sense of management fashions as sedimented elements within organizations. Design/methodology/approach – To further understanding about sedimentation in management fashion, an institutional perspective was used. Findings – This analysis reveals that sedimented fashions within organizations are framed as comprising different forms that are systematically associated with divergent evolution patterns. Research limitations/implications – This study extends the current literature on management fashion by showing how, unlike present conceptualizations, the long-term impact of fashionable ideas in organizations cannot be considered a single entity with a uniform pattern of development. Building on this, the paper seeks to develop a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the evolution of popular management ideas in organizational practice, which opens fruitful new research directions. Practical implications – This paper may help managers, as important consumers of fashionable ideas, to better understand how elements of fashions may remain in organizations and play an important conditional role in future change initiatives. Originality/value – Despite the substantial attention to the field-level dissemination and evolution of popular management ideas in the management fashion literature, the possible long-term impact of these ideas within organizations has received scant attention beyond the assumed transience of a fashion’s discourse and the possible persistence of the organizational practices associated with a fashion.