Organizations and Markets

Interview with James March

12 October 2006 at 12:02 pm Peter G. Klein 2 comments

| Peter Klein |

The October 2006 Harvard Business Review features an interview with James March, one of the most important organizational theorists of the twentieth century. Here’s an online version (possibly behind a subscription firewall). Here’s a summary from the Jackson Library Blog (which I’m finding more and more useful all the time):

The article is called ‘Ideas as Art’ (pp. 82-89). In the introductory part, the author quotes the University of Chicago professor John Padgett who once wrote: “Jim March is to organization theory what Miles Davis is to jazz.” In the interview, March elaborates on the distinction he makes between the practical managerial needs and concerns and scholarly approach to new ideas. He values ideas which contain “some form of elegance or grace or surprise — all the things that beauty gives you” and not being relevant to the immediate needs of an organization manager in a short run. He also explains the essence of his rather famous and colorfully named theories: “garbage can theory”, “technology of foolishness”, and “hot-stove effect”. The interview reveals not only a great and original scholar but also the multifaceted personality of Jim March, a man with appreciation for literature, a poet himself and an author of several books of poetry. In his own words: “What might make a difference to us, I think, is whether in our tiny roles, in our brief time, we inhabit life gently and add more beauty than ugliness.”

Aside from being a brilliant and original thinker, March is also one of the funniest people I have ever met, a brilliant after-dinner speaker who has as many Wisconsin jokes as Garrison Keillor has Minnesota jokes.

Here’s a longer interview from 2000 by Mie Augier and Kristian Kreiner.

Entry filed under: - Klein -, Management Theory, Recommended Reading, Strategic Management, Theory of the Firm.