The organising vision (OV) is a term developed by

E. Burton Swanson E. Burton Swanson (born 1939) is an American information scientist, and Professor Emeritus of Information Systems at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. Biography Swanson received his BS in Industrial and Systems Engineering in 1962 from Sa ...

and Neil Ramiller that defines how a vision is formed, a vision of how to organize structures and processes in regards to an

information systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems are composed by four components: task, people ...

innovation. Images and ideas about an innovation from a wider community are brought together. The vision can often be characterised by buzzwords. While these are often seen as hype, they can be useful in giving a title to an organizing vision. The vision serves three key functions: #

Interpretation Interpretation may refer to: Culture * Aesthetic interpretation, an explanation of the meaning of a work of art * Allegorical interpretation, an approach that assumes a text should not be interpreted literally * Dramatic Interpretation, an event ...

: explaining why the innovation exists and is relevant # Legitimisation: giving reasons and supporting stories about why an organization should go for it # Mobilisation: mobilizing the community and the

world to get involved - not just organisations, but journals, vendors, consultants, etc.

Features of The Organizing Vision

* Emerges from discourse. This often starts off quietly, but becomes louder and richer as more actors become involved in the community. * Is constructed by a

heterogeneous Homogeneity and heterogeneity are concepts often used in the sciences and statistics relating to the uniformity of a substance or organism. A material or image that is homogeneous is uniform in composition or character (i.e. color, shape, siz ...

social community who are united by the

innovation Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or service (economics), services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a ...

but have different roles and interests. The ideas of structuration can be seen here in that while the organizing vision is shaped by the community, it also shapes the community. For example, organizations may ally who were united by being part of the community. * OV has a relatively cohesive discourse because people within the information systems community share similar linguistic and

ideological An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied pri ...

backgrounds. * It has relate to the real economic world for it to be of any relevance. The problem of relating it to this world is called the business problematic. * Is both constrained and enabled by technology. * OV helps shape adoption and

diffusion Diffusion is the net movement of anything (for example, atoms, ions, molecules, energy) generally from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Diffusion is driven by a gradient in Gibbs free energy or chemical p ...

, and is in turn shaped as the innovation is adopted and diffused. * It changes over time. It can lose or gain focus or overlap with other OVs. For an OV to attract interest, it must be distinctive, intelligible, informative, plausible and have some perceived practical value. Ultimately, it is forgotten as the innovation either fails or become unremarkable.

References

* Swanson and Ramiller (1997), ''The Organising Vision in Information Systems Innovation'', Organisation Science, Vol 8 No 5 Information systems