2244: Management as Artifact-Centered Design: Connecting Entrepreneurship, Strategy and Innovation (18572)

Management researchers, whether in Entrepreneurship (ENT), Strategy (STR), and Technology and Innovation Management (TIM), have developed many valuable theories, models, and tools. Nevertheless, a recurring complaint is that our fields produce work that is of limited value to managerial practice. In part, this limitation is inherent in the trade-offs scholars must make between different theoretical virtues. As noted by (Weick, 1979) theories that seek conceptual simplicity and general applicability—such as the resource-based view in strategy or the individual-opportunity nexus in entrepreneurship—achieve this by compromising the descriptive accuracy needed to ground prescriptions in specific real-world situations. In contrast, theories that stay close to the particulars of phenomena often do so at the cost of reduced simplicity and generalizability. In this symposium, we will discuss whether viewing management in general, and strategy, entrepreneurship, and technology and innovation management in particular, as a form of design can cut the gordian knot by providing a meta-theoretical framework that can relate general and descriptive theory with more detailed prescriptions. Through this discussion, we hope to encourage more actionable research and to spur a new series of conversations across the ENT, STR, and TIM divisions.