Diffusion in the Face of Failure: The Evolution of a Management Innovation

Harry Scarbrough, Maxine Robertson, Jacky Swan · 2015 · British Journal of Management

Summary. This paper examines how management innovations spread globally despite widespread implementation failures. Comparing resource planning (RP) and total quality management, the authors show that RP succeeded through continuous evolution into variants like ERP, while total quality management experienced boom-and-bust cycles. RP's success stemmed from how field-level actors framed it discursively, the innovation's technical properties, and organizational adaptation. Embedding RP in software enabled differentiation between field-level success and organizational failures, sustaining global diffusion.

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@article{scarbrough-2015-diffusion-face-failure-evolution-management,
  title   = {Diffusion in the Face of Failure: The Evolution of a Management Innovation},
  author  = {Harry Scarbrough and Maxine Robertson and Jacky Swan},
  journal = {British Journal of Management},
  year    = {2015},
  doi     = {10.1111/1467-8551.12093},
  url     = {https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12093}
}

TY  - JOUR
TI  - Diffusion in the Face of Failure: The Evolution of a Management Innovation
AU  - Harry Scarbrough
AU  - Maxine Robertson
AU  - Jacky Swan
JO  - British Journal of Management
PY  - 2015
DO  - 10.1111/1467-8551.12093
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12093
ER  - 

Details

DOI

10.1111/1467-8551.12093

Countries

United Kingdom

Regions

Europe

Categories

innovation-theory, innovation-networks, general-innovation

Added

2026-04-28