Homogeneity or heterogeneity? On the nature of management ideas and their spread

This paper offers an alternative approach to the spread of management ideas. It is an approach that can explain, better than the fashion perspective, the differences between organisations adopting the same management idea and that can explain, better than the translation perspective, the similarities between the practices of organisations. Management ideas have a socially constructed nature and ideas existing in the same area consist of the same set of themes, albeit differently emphasised. Management ideas are both ambiguous and unambiguous, organisations are becoming both more similar and more dissimilar as a consequence of the spread of management ideas and the ideas are both new and old. Following fashion is thus quite an easy task; organisations do not have to make very big changes in order to become or remain legitimate. This argument is illustrated by the following management ideas: knowledge management, the learning company, the learning organisation and organisational learning.