On serendipity and organizing

European Management Journal (2010) 28, 319– 330

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/emj

On serendipity and organizing Miguel Pina e Cunha

a,*

, Stewart R. Clegg

b,1

, Sandro Mendonc ¸a

c

a

ˆs de Fronteira, 20, 1099-038 Lisboa, Portugal Faculdade de Economia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Rua Marque School of Management, University of Technology, Sydney, P.O. Box 123, Broadway NSW 2007, Australia c Department of Economics, ISCTE University, and SPRU, University of Sussex, Av. das Forc¸as Armadas, 1649-026 Lisboa, Portugal b

KEYWORDS Serendipity; Learning; Unsought discovery; Creativity

Summary Serendipity means the accidental discovery of something valuable. While it is sometimes presented as an element of organizational learning, it has rarely been addressed per se by organizational scholars. We discuss and elaborate the processes associated with serendipity in the organizational context. At its core, serendipity is a process of metaphorical association – seeing something in another thing. New ways of seeing may provide the necessary ingredients for creativity and exploratory learning, which will counter organizational tendencies towards inertia and the ossification of dominant mindsets and practices. ª 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

at least something that we consider true today). In the field of the sciences, this mechanism is known as serendipity’’

‘‘Have you ever given it a thought how decisively hazard – chance, fate, destiny, call it what you please – governs our lives?’’ Alexander Fleming, in Meyers (2007, p. 79) ‘‘A number of ideas that today we consider false actually changed the world (sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse) and how, in the best instances, false beliefs and discoveries totally without credibility could then lead to the discovery of something true (or

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +351 212 822 725; fax: +351 213 873 973. E-mail address: [email protected] (M.P. Cunha). 1 Stewart Clegg is also a Visiting Professor EM Lyon Business School, France, and Visiting Professor at Copenhagen Business School.

Umberto Eco (1999, p. viii).

Introduction The word ‘‘serendipity’’ was coined by an English novelist, Horace Walpole, youngest son of British Prime Minister Robert Walpole. Horace Walpole, who also invented the term ‘‘malaria’’ (from mal aria, Italian for bad air; see Meyers, 2007, p. 41), used the idea of ‘‘serendipity’’ in a letter to a friend, the British diplomat Horace Mann, in January 28, 1754 (Remer, 1965). Walpole was inspired by an exotic old tale told of the ancient princes of Sri Lanka, known as Serendip. As a child he had read The Three Princes of Serendip,

0263-2373/$ - see front matter ª 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.emj.2010.07.001

320 first published in 1557, by a Venetian, Michele Tramezzino and later translated to other languages. In his letter to his diplomatist friend Walpole mentioned a special type of luck that these princes bestow: he termed it serendipity, after the ancient tale, which resulted from the combination of an accident with sagacity or perspicacity in understanding. There are many tales, some of them well-known, of the value of the special type of luck named serendipity. Columbus was looking for a new trade route to the Orient when, in 1492, he unexpectedly came upon the Americas. Sir Alexander Fleming was conducting research on influenza when, in 1922, he discovered penicillin. In the early 1950s, George de Mestral was returning home after a walk in the countryside in Switzerland, when he noticed that his coat was covered with cockleburs. As he tried to pick them off, he wondered why they were so sticky. He used a microscope to discover that cockleburs are covered with hooks that became embedded in the loops of the fabric of his jacket. His knowledge of the cockleburs spawned the product known as Velcro, a word derived from velvet and crochet. However these tales are told today, shining bright on the heroic discoverer, it is important to note that the serendipity of these accidental discoveries is not merely the result of the good fortune of the hero: they are also the result of agency and of relational ability, whether this ability be the heroÕs or the networks around him. Columbus discovered America because he was looking for the Orient. Fleming discovered penicillin because of his research on influenza. De Mestral invented Velcro because he was curious about the cockleburs and decided to investigate them. All these accidental discoveries suggest that serendipity involves prepared, curious and open-minded people acting on the world and finding some relation of knowledge and material possibility, the potential knowledge of which was always there, which others in their society had failed to realize. In each case, organization was required to make the discovery: for Columbus, the huge business of finding sponsors, organizing ships and crew, and navigating across unknown oceans, not to mention organizing as a positive the fortunate story of finding America as opposed to the unfortunate story of missing the Orient. For Fleming, there were the resources of a well-funded and organized laboratory, and all the prestige and forms of capital that Cambridge could deploy, while De Mestral could rely on an infrastructure that produced scientific instrumentation and a locally embedded knowledge of textile weaving and machinery to make looms and proprietary hook cutting systems. Hence, in each case, serendipity was not the result of an isolated moment of accident but of curiosity coupled with organizational capability to make something good of the unknown. Hence, in major instances, serendipity requires management and organization. Despite the existence of previous work on the topic, an integrated view of the relationship between serendipity and other organizational concepts is yet to be made. With this paper we aim to provide an initial effort of articulation. In a sense we are trying to open the black box of serendipity and inviting others to explore this dimension of the organizational unexpected. While serendipity might seem to be an elusive concept, one that is difficult to capture empirically, such difficulties should serve to stimulate interest rather than discourage it.

M.P. Cunha et al. In this paper we contribute to the management literature by discussing serendipity as a relevant organizational process, one that is often disguised under other labels such as bricolaging, or by a stress on becoming, processes of creativity, or innovation; however, as we will show, serendipity can be distinguished from each of these. We discuss the role of serendipity in the organizational context, namely its potential for refreshing organizational understanding through metaphorical association. By combining ‘‘ways of seeing’’, serendipity may open new windows for organizational understanding and refresh existing pools of knowledge. The specificity of serendipity in organizations, in terms of processes associated with it, is addressed, and we also consider how serendipity may be enabled and constrained.

What is serendipity? Serendipity, defined as the accidental discovery of something that, post hoc, turns out to be valuable, is ‘‘the art of making an unsought finding’’ (Van Andel, 1994, p. 631). Denrell et al. (2003, p. 978) defined serendipity as ‘‘effort and luck joined by alertness and flexibility’’. Dew (2009, p.735) defined it as ‘‘search leading to unintended discovery’’. Merton and Barber (2004, p. 293) see serendipity working when one stumbles on an ‘‘unanticipated, anomalous and strategic datum that becomes an occasion for developing a new theory or for extending an existing theory’’. Unanticipated, because serendipitous discovery is a fortuitous by-product, an unexpected observation; anomalous, because serendipitous discovery is surprising as it appears inconsistent with previous theories or expected facts, and strategic when serendipitous discovery permits implications which bear upon generalized theory. In research and development, serendipity is often mentioned as a vital ingredient. When Locke and Lowe (2007) were researching an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) package, they wrote of the serendipity of attending a UK ERP interest group meeting at which Australian experience with enhancements to the module, designed to increase the capability of the package to provide CRM functionality, were discussed. It turned out to be Barramundi – the research site they were in fact investigating. Dale tells how her access to EnergyCo was aided by serendipity: ‘‘There has been an element of serendipity to the case study, stemming from a close proximity between EnergyCo and the authorÕs university, and involving thus informal contact with employees as acquaintances and students, as well as a relationship where visits and discussions have been easy to access’’ (Dale, 2005, p. 664). Another scholar remarks that ‘‘it is clear that serendipity or chance can play a major part in developing individualsÕ careers and their ability to generate theoretical ideas. The lesson appears to be that one needs to be very strongly focussed but at the same time prepared to change tack, to take advantage of different ideas and circumstances as they may arise’’ (Mansfield, 2006, p. 746). In researching mergers and acquisitions Graebner (2004, p. 752) described that there were often serendipitous value consequences from acquisitions, ‘‘such as windfalls that were not anticipated by the buyer prior to the deal. Examples include new strategic ideas, improved product

On serendipity and organizing development techniques, and unexpectedly useful technologies.’’ Serendipitous discoveries and accidental processes have been discussed in several fields of the social sciences. The role of chance as serendipity in scientific breakthroughs has been a major topic in the sociology of science but it has also been considered in economics (Landes, 1994), information studies (Foster and Ford, 2003), history (Delgadillo and Lynch, 1999), and ethnographic research (Fine and Deegan, 1996). However, apart from passing references to the chemist at 3M who inadvertently discovered Post-It Notes were useful for marking up passages in his bible, serendipity (in this case allied with persistence and effort) has had a very limited presence in the analysis of organizations and their processes ( Fry, 1987). As noted by Brown (2005, p. 1230), in management theorizing, ‘‘if luck exists at all, it lurks among the pestilential ÔuncontrollablesÕ of the external environment’’. Thus, the concept of serendipity is not new to the literature but systematic analyses of serendipity in organizations are scarce, even though serendipity is one of the possible forms of exploratory learning. We agree with those researchers (e.g., Adler et al., 2007) for whom neglect of the importance of serendipity is an indication of organization studiesÕ lack of attention to the factors that escape prediction and control.

How is serendipity possible? The notion of serendipity, while not unknown to organization and management scholars, has been described by James Shulman (2004) as ‘‘quintessentially ambiguous’’. That quintessential ambiguity, coupled with organization and management theoryÕs penchant for order, control and predictability, as well as the general lack of acknowledgement of the benefits and pleasures of disorder, are additional causes for the absence of sustained discussion of serendipity in the organizational literature, albeit with some notable exceptions (e.g., De Rond and Thietart, 2007). Chance, luck and happenstance may be as relevant in organizational life as in other domains, however far they may appear to be from the predictable matter of science. The idea that there may be logic in disorder (Warglien and Masuch, 1995) and mess (Abrahamson and Freedman, 2006), is not quite theoretical heresy but is largely excluded from the core of formal theory. That there is logic to disorder does not mean that organizations are irrational or incoherent but rather that there is an element of unpredictability and emergence in the fabric of organizations that needs to be considered and studied. The logic of emergence and disorder may be found in many instances of organizational life, ranging from strategy-making to product innovation to management learning. Cohen et al. (1972) work on garbage-can type decision making demonstrated the role of chance, luck and timing in organizational choice through the accidental confluence of problems, solutions, participants and problems. Mintzberg and McHugh (1985) showed that strategy formation is to some extent the result of spontaneous convergence of a variety of actors. Burgelman (1991) highlighted the role of internal experimentation travelling from bottom to top.

321 Olsen (1976) referred to organizations characterized by a lack of shared and consistent goals, clear technology and member participation, as ‘‘organized anarchies’’. PascaleÕs (1984) work on HondaÕs entry to the American market is a classic example of unexpected discovery, of how organizations make sense of unplanned opportunities as they go along. Serendipity has also been presented as an outcome of exploratory learning efforts (March, 1991). It is often said that highly prescribed and standardized processes lead to good products as the fruit of hard work and tight control (Cooper, 1998); yet, the importance of serendipity has been seen as particularly visible in the case of innovation, especially in new product development. The role of chance and serendipity, elements of ‘‘the unexpected’’, as Drucker (1985) put it, have been illustrated in theory and practice. For example, Pfizer scientists were assessing sildenafil citrate as a medication for blood pressure and serendipitously discovered that it was effective in the treatment of a totally different problem: erectile dysfunction, an incidental discovery that led to the creation of Viagra. The effort involved to make accidents work through their development as new products, however, is often discounted from popular narratives. The event or happenstance that is serendipityÕs trigger has to be enacted as a datum whose relevancies are constituted in new and surprising ways. For instance, when new or unimagined properties of natural reality become seen as a surprising datum they will always be something that was always already present. Nature does not surprise us with new laws. Prior to whatever enactment unfolds, the message that enactment interprets as being sent must already have been there. There is a significant point here: in serendipity, enactment is crucial because surprises can happen and nothing be made of them. Making something from the unexpected is not purely a matter of luck. Merton and Barber (2004, p. 171) note that luck tends to favour prepared minds, those ready to benefit from it. Preparedness itself, they argue, is linked with qualities such as alertness, flexibility, courage, and assiduity. There is merit in being able to reap the fruits of serendipity by connecting discoveries and needs and it is in this sense that serendipity may be viewed as capability rather than chance (De Rond, 2005). Sometimes both the discovery and the need are new. The process of serendipity thus involves the relational ability to see anew, whether this ability belong to the serendipitous hero in a tale of discoveries or is vested in the surrounding networks.

The specificity of serendipity A crucial element in serendipity, distinguishing it from seemingly analogous terms, is bisociation. Bisociation is the functional basis for metaphorical thinking. When a person combines previously unrelated matrices of skills or information, acting beyond routine thinking and on one single plane (Koestler, 1964), serendipitous learning may occur as a possible outcome, leading to the discovery of a solution to a different problem than that initially posed. Such a context defines bisociation. Bisociation entails an exercise of intuition, the intuitive recognition of possibilities hitherto

322

Table 1

The specificity of serendipity. Bricolage

Creativity

Improvisation

Serendipity

Materiality

Making do with what is available

Representation of existing material in new ways

Familiar instruments, new chord changes

Application

New uses for old materials

Design is paramount

Form of knowledge

Deliberative, applied

Systematic: ‘‘intentional efforts to produce variations relative to a particular domain’’ (Ford, 1996, p. 1117)

Collective co-creation; a conversation between the players The temporal convergence and coexistence of planning and execution (Moorman and Miner, 1998)

Example

Baker and NelsonÕs (2005) study of entrepreneurship Garud and Karnoe (2003) illustrate how a consistent bricolage approach led to a desired goal

Many commercial products are the result of creative inventions, with the process of invention often being industrialized in the context of bureaucratic structures (Meyer-Thurow, 1982)

Surprise; the shock of the new – materiality intrudes itself in new and unexpected ways Suggested through analogy and metaphor Bisociation – The mixture of cues from two contexts or categories of objects that are normally considered separate. It is the functional basis for metaphoric thinking Meyers (2007) described serendipitous discoveries as ‘‘happy accidents’’

Kind of Blue, Miles Davis Quintet (1959) Radical simplicity empowered and freed DavisÕ players to improvise and create without requiring them to put their technical mastery on show. In business terms, as Rob Austin (Lagace, 2009) says: get great materials, simplify the task down to its essential elements, put your smartest people on it, and force them to listen—to each other, to the interaction between the company and its customers, and to the market With regard to improvisation, Cunha et al. (2003) showed how IT experts improvised to solve pressing problems with no desire whatsoever for surprises – quite the contrary

M.P. Cunha et al.

On serendipity and organizing to be discovered when ideas are combined in an original way. Bisociation occurs when someone combines previously unrelated matrices of skills or information (Koestler, 1964). After a period of mental incubation, matrices are related and a new way of representing a problem emerges; thus, a bisociative process happens when unsuspected connections or hidden analogies are revealed, enabling the momentary burst of creativity reported by Hargadon and Bechky (2006). These analogies often result from serendipitous links between information sources, whether conjoined factually or by analogy (Foster and Ford, 2003). Kekule ´Õs intuition of the structural formula for the benzene ring resulted from seeing imaginary snakes in the fireplace, one of which formed a ring by biting its tail. The association between metaphorical snakes of fire and the benzene ring demonstrates the potentially strange paths and lack of analytic logic that can accompany serendipitous discovery. Individuals engaged in bisociation may discover unexpected things due to their new ways of approaching a problem. These new ways of seeing have been differently labelled as either ‘‘flashes of insight’’ or ‘‘illuminations’’ (Mintzberg and Westley, 2001; Ireland et al., 2003). Serendipity may be distinguished from other organizational concepts with which it has some resonance, namely bricolage, creativity, and improvisation (see Table 1 which highlights the different emphases of each). The distinguishing features of serendipity are that it involves an element of surprise, often works through analogy and metaphor, using bisociation to create an unintentional discovery or ‘‘happy accident’’ ( Meyers, 2007). It is, as De Rond (2005) explained, more capability rather than chance event. As the literature has shown, there may be nothing accidental in creativity, improvisation and bricolage. The management of creativity for innovation purposes has been the subject of voluminous research and there are virtually hundreds of texts on the management of creativity with the goal of achieving intentional variation. With regard to improvisation, Cunha et al. (2003) showed how IT experts improvised to solve pressing problems with no desire whatsoever for surprises – quite the contrary. Garud and Karnoe (2003) illustrate how a consistent bricolage approach led to a desired goal. ‘‘Happy accidents’’ were not involved in any of these processes but they are the essence of the serendipity process. Serendipity starts accidentally, when someone is looking for a solution to a given problem – problem A; in the process, the person notices something that will lead to the solution of a different problem (problem B) that may be of even greater value. For the discovery of a solution for B while looking for A, a metaphorical leap has to occur: A has to become seen as an attribute of or equal to B in some way. There are a number of attributes of the process entailed in serendipity, which we may think of in terms of cues for bisociative thinking. Using the concept of serendipity allows us to understand and interpret ‘‘creative processes’’ in a different way than has traditionally been done. Furthermore it implies an inherent critique of rationalist account explaining organizational development of innovations. It emphasises the element of surprise; the importance of networks in being able to render the surprise into something that is good and fortunate. Serendipity is distinctive from seemingly

323 similar processes such as bricolage, creativity, and improvisation in terms of three key variables: materiality, application, and forms of knowledge. In terms of materiality bricolage makes do with the materials at hand; creativity seeks to represent them in new ways; improvisation rings the changes on familiar themes, while serendipity registers the shock of the new. Bricolage addresses application through finding new uses for old materials while creativity hinges on design; improvisation is collective co-creation in practice while serendipity works through analogy and metaphor. Each has a specific form of application: bricolage is deliberative and applied; creativity is a process of systematic variation, while improvisation fuses planning and execution in the moment. By contrast the key form of knowledge for serendipity is the bisociation of cues from different contexts.

Serendipity and organization theory To advance knowledge of the bisociative moment, two theoretical streams appear to be valid for guiding future research: JungÕs synchronicity, and PeirceÕs abduction. The Jungian concept of synchronicity ( Jung, 1960) refers to the occurrence of meaningful coincidences in time, which evokes such notions as pre-cognition, incubation, interconnection, clairvoyance, and a-causality. These ideas should be studied in the context of organizational discovery, where their relevance has been suggested in fields as diverse as career development (Guindon and Hanna, 2002), idea generation ( Govier, 2003), new venture creation (Baker et al., 2003), and the functioning of financial markets (Taleb, 2004). The notion of abduction was introduced by Charles Sanders Peirce in 1878 and was recently readdressed by Santanella (2005) and Hansen (2007). It relates to ‘‘the creative act of constructing explanations to account for surprising observations in the course of experience (hypothesis generation). Abduction results in a tentative and subjective interpretive synthesis among our sensitizing concepts’’ (Hansen, 2007, p. 457). Such thinking may favour moments of insight. These moments sometimes lead to discoveries with human and commercial value, but they can still be perceived as mysterious, sudden acts of awareness, or instant revelations, ‘‘Eureka’’ or ‘‘Aha! moments’’. In the remainder of this section we associate these two streams with organizational processes that may facilitate their occurrence. We start by discussing how synchronicity may be facilitated by mindfulness, deference to knowledge rather than position in so-called creative compartments, exploration of the periphery, and social networks. Next, we articulate abduction with the presence of tight deadlines combined with free space, teamworking, and opportunities for playing with ideas.

Synchronicity Mindfulness When acting mindfully, the chances of unexpected learning increase because serendipity thrives on alertness. Fairtlough (2007) makes a similar argument: relatively autonomous actors have more space in which to explore even as they are constrained by the need to report. Certain

324 organization arrangements that design Ôcreative compartmentsÕ on the lines of a Habermasian ideal speech situation (Fairtlough, 1994; Habermas, 1971) will be more conducive to serendipity than more conventional organization designs. Exploratory effort creates the willingness to learn that ends up producing unexpected discoveries; appropriate or inappropriate organizational design can enhance or reduce opportunities for this to occur. Serendipity plays a more important role at the beginning of an exploratory effort, when alertness and mindfulness are higher, as concluded in MiyazakiÕs (1999) research on Japanese optoelectronics firms. Kornberger et al. (2005) have demonstrated how polyphony favours serendipity by opening the organizationsÕ strategic mix to surprising things that flow from the margins and from other places where they are least expected. Deference to knowledge rather than position in creative compartments Deference to knowledge rather than expertise and a free flow of information are among the facilitators of serendipity. An explicit emphasis on expertise restricts knowledge rather than enables it because it creates zones of control and exclusion, insiders and outsiders, identities based in specific disciplinary formations. Polyphony flourishes best in the type of creative compartment that Fairtlough (1994) designed at Celltech – small enclaves with minimal barriers to communication between them. In a creative compartment the key issue is not whether one is expert – everyone within the compartment is an expert of some kind – but that there are a sufficient number of people with enough resources to tackle significant projects, whilst retaining face-to-face communications. Each compartment has a clear boundary, a well-understood and shared common purpose and common understanding. Members support each other and engage in open communications about personal as well as task issues. When information flows freely, associations may be established between pieces of information not previously articulated, and relationships may emerge between people who were previously not connected, which facilitates the nurturing of social capital and enhances further exchanges. Day and Schoemaker (2008) illustrate this process in their account of a secretary observing subtle changes in behaviour by the participants in an experiment. She subsequently alerted the members of the medical research team; the unplanned effects of a drug under trial were then recorded, leading to the reconsideration of the research direction. Here knowledge trumped expertise decisively; her observations were important despite her lack of credible expertise to translate the observations into actions. It was fortunate for the patients that she worked in a creative compartment where her observations were taken seriously, establishing the unusual associations that characterize bisociation. A situation in which information flows across several organizational levels as a matter of happenstance or luck – for instance, when smokers gather outside an organization to service their addiction and, incidentally, discuss what they do and discover surprising elective affinities that were unknown previously – is associated with the capacity to change and self-organize (Wheatley and Kellner-Rogers, 1996), which is critical for serendipity to flourish. Existing organisations can move towards working as creative com-

M.P. Cunha et al. partments through skill development, especially in interpersonal and communication skills, compartmentalization of tasks, networking and critique, as well as by formally emphasising the separation of the compartment from the parent organization. Exploration of the periphery and boundary spanning Recent evidence suggests that exploration of the periphery may also lead to discovery by means of serendipity. Regne ´rÕs (2003) study of how the periphery informs the strategy process shows that people working at the periphery use inductive approaches that involve trial and error, informal contacts and noticing, experiments and heuristics, whereas those at the core tend to rely on deductive approaches, formal reports, intelligence documents and other means that discourage serendipitous findings. When organizations cultivate a propensity for exploring the periphery, they may be better positioned to discover something through the serendipity that polyphonic voices can stimulate (Kornberger et al., 2006). Graebner (2004, p. 752) found that serendipitous value is created when acquired personnel take on cross-organizational responsibilities that encompass both the acquired and acquiring firms. Social networks Accidental discovery may be facilitated by social connections and interactions, including ‘‘inadvertent ones’’, suggesting that serendipity benefits from social capital (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998). Pixar, the animation studio, designed its buildings with this purpose. According to cofounder Ed Catmull, ‘‘most buildings are designed for some functional purpose, but ours is structured to maximize inadvertent encounters.’’ (Catmull, 2008, p. 71). One episode reported by Lovas and Ghoshal (2000, p. 884) illustrates how serendipity can occur by virtue of rich networks. Jes Olsen, a manager at Oticon, a Danish multinational company, was seeking to develop a microprocessor small and powerful enough to fit inside a hearing aid. One evening, while having a beer with some friends from Microtonic, a firm specializing in micromechanics, Olsen mentioned the problem and ‘‘one of his friends knew of such a microprocessor, which was subsequently used in the Multifocus product line.’’ Serendipity travels in good social networks. People are willing to open up to friends, and friends with knowledge may provide adequate if unexpected solutions: ‘‘meetings and social events provide the unplanned and unstructured opportunities for the accidental coming together of ideas that may lead to the serendipitous development of new intellectual capital’’ (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998, p. 258). Firms with higher circulation of social capital tend to facilitate knowledge creation and intuitive discovery in bisociative ways. People may more easily imagine the solution to the problem they have been dealing with for a long time, when they contact experts in different fields (Lovas and Ghoshal, 2000).

Abduction Tight deadlines and free space Minimal structuring through the use of tight deadlines, combined with space for creativity, also facilitates the

On serendipity and organizing discovery of unexpected opportunities. While such situations create pressure, they provide ample space for creativity, for surprising things to happen and be registered as such by heedful actors, thus circumventing the traditional opposition between organic and mechanistic forms (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1997). As Davis et al. (2009, p. 437) have pointed out, ‘‘less structure opens up the organization to the possibility of addressing a wide range of opportunities that serendipitously occur’’. Under these conditions a tentative and subjective interpretive synthesis may occur. By contrast, the combination of clear time limits with well-defined processes may discourage people from plunging into new experiences. The introduction of Six Sigma at 3M created a culture of discipline with a focus on execution, but it discouraged exploration ( Hindo, 2007) and therefore openness to the unexpected. Teamworking The specific dynamics of teams will establish the fate of a given discovery. Let us illustrate this point with an example: the discovery of the importance and applicability of penicillin was the result not only of the initial discoveries of Alexander Fleming but also of the use of those ideas by a group of people (the so-called Oxford team) that gave them full use in medical practice (Meyers, 2007, pp. 78–81). The collective nature of the processes of interpretation, integration and institutionalization following the individual unsought discovery is reflected in the fact that the 1945 Nobel Prize for Medicine was shared by Fleming with Howard Florey and Ernst Chain, two of the members of the Oxford team. The ‘‘Fleming myth’’, however, discounts the importance of team dynamics and stresses the role of individual genius, a simplification that hides the importance of the group level in terms of bridging the individual and organizational levels of analysis. Serendipity may also benefit from more general attributes that are commonly associated with teams, such as high levels of organizational trust and support. When trust and feelings of psychological security (Edmondson, 1999) prevail, people may explore new and ambiguous opportunities more easily, whereas in their absence they may prefer to follow rules and avoid untested and informal courses of action. Trial and error, and the willingness to expose puzzling findings, will not occur unless people feel the surrounding environment is safe, a place where their insecurities will not be exposed or outright ridiculed. Regardless of the context, some people will potentially be more competent in finding something serendipitously than others. Van Andel (1994, p. 645) has suggested that ‘‘most serendipitists are open-minded, perceptive, curious, intuitive, smart, flexible, artistic, humorous, and diligent’’. This list of dispositional antecedents is yet to be tested, but traits and skills may play an important part in the process. In addition to the list of attributes considered by Van Andel, there are skills that have been associated with the capacity to transform the unexpected into a valuable discovery: these are preparedness and competence. As Louis PasteurÕs famous quote puts it, ‘‘where observation is concerned, chance favours only the prepared mind’’ (in Meyers, 2007, p. 32). The combination of these individual dispositions and skills can express itself in a combination of intuition, imagination, and creativity; such combinations may

325 find it difficult to flourish and thrive in bureaucratic environments that do not favour deviance and rule-questioning. Sagacious people are those that have the right individual characteristics, plus the knowledge necessary, to explore and seek explanation of the anomalous things that they witness. Research may study how individual dispositions, such as openness to experience (Barrick and Mount, 1991), intrinsic motivation (Ryan and Deci, 2000), self-efficacy (Bandura, 2000), and an innovator tendency (Kirton, 1980), predict a willingness to engage in serendipitous discovery. The importance of teamwork throughout the serendipitous process is even clearer if one considers that the literature indicates that processes of unsought variation are potentially viewed as lacking legitimacy, either because they were developed informally as ‘‘skunkworks’’ (Gwynne, 1997), resulting from chance or happenstance, and/or because they contradict existing paradigms ( Kuhn, 1970). Support of unconventional discoveries or ‘‘weird ideas’’ (Sutton, 2001) may depend heavily on how they are interpreted by their most immediate stakeholders (initially the serendipitist and close team members), and how they can be integrated in the organizationÕ established innovation processes. It is well-documented that ideas that deviate from normal may be received with indifference or even with scorn by an ‘‘establishment’’ (Meyers, 2007) that regards technologies of foolishness with scepticism. The perception of the adequacy of a novel solution will depend, among other things, upon the organizationÕs culture: is the organization mature enough to accept a new unsought idea? Is the political landscape favourable to the idea? Is the discoverer in an influential position at the creative moment or in receipt of support from powerful actors? All these factors may influence the fate of a discovery: it is not just the merit of the discovery that counts per se but also the context in which it emerges. For example, when the Project Alliance Leadership Team of the Sydney Olympics infrastructure NorthSide Storage Tunnel project sought breakthrough innovations rather than business as usual, they designed an organizational culture that was intended to encourage innovation and risk-taking (Pitsis et al., 2003; Clegg et al., 2002). The most important principle was the establishment of a Ôno blame cultureÕ. Organizations with cultures that provide a sense of psychological safety (Edmondson, 1999) and a capacity to cope with ambiguity provide a good space for serendipity to thrive. In cultures that show an appreciation for the unexpected, ideas coming from ‘‘strange circuits’’, i.e. from processes other than deliberative search, may be defended by their inventors or by well-placed supporters. Opportunities for iterating and playing with ideas Before being implemented, serendipitous discoveries may endure a very lengthy process. Cases such as those of penicillin (Meyers, 2007) or the development of the Post-it notes (Fry, 1987), indicate that discoverers whether they be one or many may need significant periods of time to interpret the implications of their discoveries and to persuade others of their respective merits. The interpretative process creating value through connecting discoveries and needs is the writing of a tale of serendipity. Integration of a serendipitous discovery in the existing body of knowledge may be challenging both for those ÔsellingÕ as well as for those

326 ÔbuyingÕ the new connections. For example, the discovery by Barry Marshall and J. Robin Warren that ulcers are caused by bacteria – not by bad diet or stress – was rewarded by the Nobel committee with the 2005 medicine award. A few years earlier, however, the initial reports of their discovery, which was partly serendipitous, were simply rejected by the scientific community and the two researchers were described as ‘‘crazy guys saying crazy things’’ (Meyers, 2007, p. 111). When initial judgmental processes are subjected to retrospective justification their original contours may change significantly and the confusion and ambiguity that characterized them at their first appearance may be reinvented in a mythology that contributes to the persistence of the mystery of serendipity.

Obstacles to serendipitous discoveries Unexpected discoveries may occur because people are in the right place at the right time. Temporal happenstance may be a domain of unsuspected and unexpected discovery. People discover things because they were lucky to be there when what they can see as ÔsomethingÕ (rather than nothing) happened. Thus, there are contextual elements to serendipity that may either ignite or, on the contrary, impede any creation of value. Impedance is most likely to occur through vested interests, power dynamics or the lack of visibility and/or credibility of the person who made the discovery. Potentially serendipitous discoveries may therefore be further used or not. If good although unconventional ideas are protected and implemented with some regularity, the soil may be fertile for more cases of serendipity. If, on the contrary, the outcomes of serendipity become objects of criticism or cannot stir interest one may speculate that they will not flourish. Individuals may engage in self-censorship if they feel that their discovery is not attuned to the organizational context or if they anticipate that it might agitate peers in their professional community, something that is especially likely if the unsought discovery is unorthodox and challenges existing beliefs, or if the discoverer feels threatened by the fact that the discovery did not follow the usual rational, deliberative scheme. KuhnÕs (1970) classic account of the emergence of new paradigms through scientific revolutions would be a case in point. As explained by Meyers (2007), many valuable discoveries made serendipitously are even the object of retrospective falsification in order to appear as if they were rational and purposeful from the beginning. When the casual discoverer tries to explain the bisociative leap, s/he may be forced to make sense of a process that was to a great extent, preconscious. Shared understanding and coordinated action are necessary to translate a discovery across an organization (Czarniwaska, 2008). Depending on the effectiveness of bisociative integration in existing circuits of knowledge/power, the discovery may be implemented or rejected (Clegg, 1989). In the first case it becomes institutionalized, i.e. organizational mechanisms will be put in place in order to embed the discovery in the organizational systems. Alternatively, it may be forgotten. The foregoing is consistent with Crossan et al.Õs (1999) distinction of levels of analysis. The process starts

M.P. Cunha et al. at the micro-individual level and travels to the macro-organizational one. Connections take shape through their articulation in discourses, mock-ups, and prototypes, are enriched by group interactions, and move through the organizational hierarchy in a process of translation in the context of power relations that constantly pose threats and opportunities for the evolving materiality of the ideas in question. Power may interrupt the process of translation at any given level as what is translated threatens or provides opportunities for the knowledge interests of those whose action is required to translate it further. In other words, the individual originator or the surrounding team may interrupt it before it moves upward. It is also possible that a serendipitous discovery may not necessarily evolve through to institutionalization. In organizations that prefer rationalistic processes of search and experimentation, potentially serendipitous discoveries may be ‘‘killed’’ by their own creators before they acquire organizational traction and proceed to integration in the organizational status quo. The existence of ‘‘go/nogo’’ formal processes of innovation management may be recreated at the individual and group levels (Cooper, 1993). Individuals interpret the meaning and potential of discoveries with colleagues, with whose tutelage and advice they will determine if new connections between discoveries and needs are worth further defence or not, if they can be made valuable. Often the judgments are entirely politically pragmatic – is the connection likely to be sponsored by those who count – rather than principled in terms of the quality of the emergent ideas. Whether people and resources are mobilized to push a connection further inside the organization in a spirit of resolve or it is simply forgotten often bears no necessary relation to the quality of insight, innovation and creativity embedded in such a connection but more to political phenomena such as the Ôrule of anticipated reactionÕ (Friedrich, 1963). The rule applies where the instigator of an idea refrains from promoting it because they anticipate the reaction to it will be sufficiently negative that it is unlikely to garner much support. The two processes of resolve and anticipated reaction are well-known in the context of invention but may equally apply to the process of discovery. The case of the Post-It Notes also illustrates how the two possibilities may actually coexist: ‘‘he [Dr. Spencer Silver, a 3M researcher] discovered the Post-It Note adhesive accidentally, while trying to discover the opposite – super strong adhesives. Although the adhesive wasnÕt his original target, Silver was convinced of its merits. He took it to others within 3M and asked how they thought it might be used. There was a definite lack of enthusiasm for his discovery’’ (Fry, 1987, p. 5). The rest of the story is well-known. Given the championing of the idea by a bunch of researchers, and the ultimate support of a number of people in high places, including a divisional Vice-President, Post-It Notes finally emerged from the laboratory. It was the collective effort that made the discovery valuable through connecting it to several uses (some of which were not even recognized as a need). The collective revelation/creation of needs fitted the discovery, and thus made it serendipitous. In the face of the dominance of notions of efficiency and rigor, the liberties and caprices of serendipity may be unwel-

On serendipity and organizing come. They may be perceived not only as eruptions of uncertainty but also as symptoms of loose managerial control. When this happens, even potentially positive anomalies may be buried to conform to the expected and admissible. Regardless of its merit, a discovery may not survive the circuits of power through which any innovation has to move: there may be questions about the resources available for research and development, the problemÕs position in the organizational hierarchy of ‘‘issues’’, as well as the capacity of support provided by the champion or his/her colleagues and superiors. The recent push for evidence-based management illustrates the need to have hard facts to challenge half-truths, established knowledge, and paradigmatic ‘‘truths’’ (Pfeffer and Sutton, 2006). It cuts two ways: ideas that are not hardevidence backed may be rejected because of their lack of accord with the criteria of the dominant paradigm; on the other hand, the evidence that is presented may not accord with the embedded prejudices of the existing system of beliefs and practices. The diffusion of unconventional knowledge may be especially difficult if it was created in an unconventional way, namely by means of serendipity – which partly explains attempts to rationalize findings ex post. It is not clear how one should organize to help serendipity happen. Organizations are complex entities and no one solution will work for them all. However, using the concept of serendipity creates the possibility of describing the non-rational, the narrative, the elements of change connected to discoveries in organizations, thus potentially making organizations more aware and prepared for such discoveries. When a serendipitous discovery is perceived as relevant enough to be pursued and institutionalized in product or process innovations, it signals that this type of approach is legitimate and, in principle, potentially organizationally valuable. The organization has incorporated the finding into the routines of its circuitry. Good serendipitous circles can be institutionalized. Implementation increases the further receptivity of the organization to serendipity. On the other hand, failure of serendipitous discoveries to become legitimated may condition organizational members to understand that organizational norms favour deliberative rather than random search. In such a context non-conventional processes of discovery will be discouraged as deviations from appropriate methods of learning. In the first case, people may become more alert and vigilant, whereas in the second they may self-censor their ideas. Despite the potential relevance of the notion of serendipity for organizational theory and management practice, there are clear difficulties associated with it. One of these difficulties is detectable in Santos et al. (2004) piece of advice: because knowledge is sometimes discovered by accident, managers should ‘‘constantly be on the lookout for unexpected sources of knowledge’’ (p. 35). The tricky part of this good suggestion is that unexpected sources of knowledge are by definition impossible to predict. Therefore organizations cannot depend on serendipity and unintentional learning alone. Nevertheless, serendipitous discoveries may result from intentional exploratory search processes, exploration of which may help us understand why some organizations are luckier than others.

327 In a literature review of organizational learning, Huber (1991) observed that little research effort has been devoted to unintentional learning. There may be many reasons for this lack of attention, including the presumed superior quality of intentional learning, and the methodological difficulties and challenges inherent in the study of a phenomenon that is unpredictable, irregular, random, ambiguous, and unmanaged in its emergence. We contribute to this field by suggesting serendipity as one of the possible shapes of unintentional learning. Chance, luck, and accidental discoveries are often presented as the result of the random combination of multiple factors that are beyond control (Barney, 1986), but the effort expended in better understanding this ambiguous concept may be relevant, as explained by researchers in other fields of scientific inquiry, such as medicine (Meyers, 2007). Recent management research indicates that the discovery of strategic opportunities is sometimes a matter of serendipity (Denrell et al., 2003) and that major decisions, such as internationalization, may be driven by a high degree of serendipity (Meyer and Skak, 2002). We discussed the meaning of chance and luck involved in the process of serendipitous discovery and proposed that chance tends to favour people and organizations that are prepared to seize the opportunity when it manifests itself. If this is the case, organizations can cultivate and nurture the factors that lead to serendipity and appreciation of its fruits when it emerges. We are aware of the dangers involved in an organizationÕs reliance on serendipity as a means of discovery, given its unpredictable, non-programmable, and untamed nature. ‘‘Happy accidents’’ are ‘‘happy’’ only post hoc, which means that the facilitation of serendipity will potentially result in the increase of errors – including those of the ‘‘unhappy’’ type. As such, while we are attempting to increase familiarity with the concept in management studies, we are not suggesting that serendipity is superior to other forms of learning and discovery, such as those described by Miller (1996), or to the structured management of innovation value chains.

Conclusion Random errors play a role in the process of change and evolution (March, 2006), which means that scholars of organization should incorporate this element in their theorizing. Serendipity may help to illuminate the meaning and impact of other relevant but under-researched concepts, such as abduction (Hansen, 2007) and chance (Thiry-Cherques, 2005). The analysis of serendipity may also add to the knowledge management and organizational learning literatures. The combination of knowledge inherent to the bisociative process may shed new light on how organizations refresh their knowledge base through emergence. The understanding of serendipity may contribute to our knowledge of how organizational processes develop valuable but unintentional by-products. Serendipity may be an organizational by-product worth considering. The present text may be read as an invitation for organizational scholars and managers to develop further research in a vein contrary to the dominant logic of organization and management theory, centred as they are on questions of

328 control, routine and predictability, bequeathed by the engineering foundations of the field and nurtured as a central legacy. Abandoning the bias for routine and predictability, accompanied by the appreciation of the unplanned and the fortuitous (Plowman et al., 2007), can unshackle organizations from the legacy of much organization and management theory. Indeed, our paper is not only an example of an argument constructed in terms other than those of a hypothetico-deductive method; it is also an argument against the primacy attached to such work in management theory – and practice – in general. For research, we consider that serendipitous opportunities exist with regards to serendipity, serendipitists, and organizational contexts in which it might emerge. In the first case, exploring the occurrence of serendipity systematically is necessary. What we know about the topic results mostly from anecdotes that were surprising enough to attract the attention of some observer. But there is space to explore serendipitous occurrences of more modest profile, including, of course, those that failed. In terms of the people involved in serendipity, we can learn more about the process by studying who discovers something by accident and persists in the development of unexpected discoveries. It can be interesting, in other words, to profile the ‘‘lucky ones’’ that engage in serendipitous discovery. At the organizational context level, researchers may analyse the times and places of serendipity, namely by identifying the companies or units where valuable discoveries of this type have been produced regularly and ask why this should be the case. What are the organizational characteristics that seem to incubate serendipity? A major challenge for researchers will consist in finding adequate methods to do such research on a process that is both unpredictable and unsought. It is most likely to emerge from grounded theory (Glazer and Strauss, 1966). For managers, consideration of serendipity may be valuable. Regarding the process, managers may need to accept that learning and discovery may be programmed but also, in some cases, non-programmed. Therefore creating organizational openness to the non-programmed, for example by instilling the psychological safety for people to speak about ‘‘weird’’ findings, may be a first need. To stimulate the imagination of serendipitists, it may be advantageous to invite people to look beyond what is usual and familiar. Putting people at the periphery of their ÔnormalÕ capabilities could be one way of operationalizing this. Challenging tradition by involving people with the ‘‘wrong’’ background in some projects may be another possibility. In terms of context, managers may facilitate strange connections, mix networks that normally do not blend and assume that organizing is as much about freeing than it is about controlling. Serendipitous discovery, as we have argued, does not emerge from what is already thought and known and its systematic application. It is not generated by systematic disconfirmation processes. Instead, the essential nature of serendipity is surprise. In its effort to reduce uncertainty, organizational scholars have almost ignored the role of surprising and serendipitous events. It is time, we suggest, for theorizing to reconsider the role of surprise and serendipity and we offer this paper as our contribution in that direction.

M.P. Cunha et al.

Acknowledgements We are grateful to the Editor and the anonymous reviewers for the comments and suggestions. Previous versions benefited from the inputs offered by Ad van Iterson, Kjersti Bjørkeng, Ellen Baker, Daved Barry, Joao Vieira da Cunha, Hans Hansen, Mary Jo Hatch, Kristian Kreiner, Stefan Meisiek, and Eduardo Pinheiro, for their comments and suggestions. Miguel Cunha gratefully acknowledges support from Nova Forum.

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M.P. Cunha et al. MIGUEL PINA e CUNHA is Professor of Organizational Theory and Behaviour at the Faculdade de Economia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. He has a PhD from Tilburg University and is mainly conducting research in the area of emergent change and positive organizing.

STEWART CLEGG is a professor at the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. Stewart is also a Visiting Professor EM Lyon Business School, France, and Visiting Professor at Copenhagen Business School.

SANDRO MENDONC ¸A is a member of ISCTE, in Lisbon. He is completing his PhD at SPRU, the University of Sussex.