Organizing vision

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The organising vision (OV), developed by E. Burton Swanson and Neil Ramiller is a vision of how to organise structures and processes in regards to an information systems 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 see as hype, they can be useful in giving a title to an organising vision.

The vision serves three key functions:

Interpretation: explaining why the innovation exists and is relevant
Legitimisation: giving reasons and supporting stories about why an organisation should go for it
Mobilisation: mobilising the community and the information systems world to get involved - not just organisations, but journals, vendors, consultants, etc.

[edit] Features of The Organising Vision

The OV emerges out of discourse. This starts off quietly, but becomes louder and richer as more actors become involved in the community.
The OV is constructed by a heterogeneous social community who are united by the innovation but have different roles and interests. The ideas of structuration can be seen here in that while the organising vision is shaped by the community, it also shapes the community. For example, organisations may ally who were united by being part of the community.
The OV has a relatively cohesive discourse because people within the information systems community share similar linguistic and ideological backgrounds
The OV has to 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.
The OV is both constrained and enabled by technology.
The OV helps shape adoption and diffusion, and is in turn shaped as the innovation is adopted and diffused
The OV 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.