The Sensible Organization: A New Agenda for IS Research

IS research and practice does not adequately address modern organizational forms of flatter hierarchies; decentralized decision-making, greater capacity for tolerance of ambiguity, permeable internal and external boundaries, capacity for renewal, self-organizing units, self-integrating coordination mechanisms and continual change. The important challenge for IS is to determine what sort of organizational forms, structures and systems are most appropriate to meet the demands of the current and foreseeable environment. We argue that this challenge can be met through a new agenda for IS based on the concept of the ‘sensible organization’. Our argument is grounded in evidence drawn from the findings of a number of our empirical studies. We conclude that the new agenda for IS needs to targets the agile, social and networked organization, in the context of its chaotic, complex environment, in order to support knowledge work practices that integrate thinking and doing.

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