Professional Associations as ‘Brokers’, Facilitating Networking and the Diffusion of New Ideas: Advantages and Disadvantages

The process of innovation can be defined as ‘the development and implementation of new ideas by people who over time engage in transactions with others in an institutional context’ (Van de Ven, 1986). As long as the development and implementation of an idea is new to the particular organization then it is an innovation, even though it might exist elsewhere (Zaltman, Duncan and Holbeck, 1973). Innovation in organizations occurs when information is arranged in a novel way within that particular organization. As Macdonald (1995:557) states: ‘information is so fundamental to the learning required for deliberate change that it is not unreasonable to see change as an information process’. The information which is used in innovation may be available internally within the organization, and simply be reblended in some novel way. Where change is more radical, however, it is likely that new information needs to be acquired from beyond the organizational boundary. Organizations can, and do, enter into formal arrangements with other organizations (for example, via joint ventures), in order to obtain and control access to external information. However, as Hedberg (1981) notes, an organization is designed for information use rather than information acquisition. It is individual members of an organization, rather than organizations per se, who are key to the process of acquiring new information from beyond the organizational boundary.