Abstract

Sheltered for a long time within the public sector environment with high job security and professional research autonomy, defense R&D organizations faced unprecedented challenges when government support was being withdrawn and closure threatening. They needed to be led by a suitable vision in order to implement comprehensive changes to their operations and remain viable. This study explores this constitution of vision as a mechanism of intentional change, a strategic tool to reach the desired future for the organization. Going beyond the current literature, the authors ask to what extent, and how, organizational members reconstruct vision in a way that it can support or detain change, a question of importance for management scholars as well as professional managers in both public and private organizations.

Israel Drori is a Professor on the Faculty of the School of Business at the College of Management, Israel, and a Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Management, Tel-Aviv University. His publications include Transnational and Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Globalized World (2010, Toronto University Press); The Seam Line: Arab Women and Jewish Managers in The Israeli Textile Industry (2000, Stanford University Press). He is recipient of the 2008 Clifford Geertz Prize for Best Article in Cultural Sociology for “Repertoires of Trust: The Practice of Trust in Multinational Corporation amid Political Conflict,” in American Sociological Review.

Dana Landau is a Senior Lecturer in the school of Management and Economics at the Academic College of Tel Aviv (MTA). She has served as a process consultant to national and multi-national Israeli firms, in both business and governmental sectors. Her main areas of research are Organizational Theory and Culture, Qualitative Research Methods, Organizational Vision, and Organizational Change. She has published articles in European Journal of International Management (EJIM), Organizational Development Journal, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, and Journal of Change Management.

“This is an excellent body of ethnographic scholarship on institutional entrepreneurship within the defense R&D sector, beautifully written and complete with a rich description of Gamma - a truly deep ethnography.”  ·  Siri Terjesen, Indiana University

 “This book is a pleasure to read. It is a highly unusual ethnography that provides a window into an institutional space (nuclear research) that is virtually invisible to the public eye. Given the obvious security issues involved, it is even more remarkable that the work was done. The ethnography itself is brilliantly written, showing ‘Gamma’ during a major transition in organizational ethics and activities.”  ·  Benson Honig, Teresa Cascioli Chair in Entrepreneurial Leadership, MacMaster University