Shifting Practices

This is a book Donald Schön would have been proud of: it is enviably well written, philosophically informed, theoretically sophisticated, and empirically rich. Giovan Francesco Lanzara's reflective theorizing and subtle writing add what has been missing from the pioneering work of Schön (a theory of surprise), break through unhelpful dualisms, and elevate design thinking to a new level of sophistication. The book appeals, equally, to the scholar and the reflective practitioner. A great accomplishment!

Haridimos Tsoukas, The Columbia Ship Management Professor of Strategic Management, University of Cyprus; Distinguished Research Environment Professor of Organization Studies, University of Warwick; and author of Complex Knowledge

Innovation—an elusive elixir and obscure object of desire. Lanzara uncovers innovation as a swampy, ambiguous, eventful, discontinuous, drifting, entangled, discursive, metaphorical, dynamic process of bricolage in which practice is paramount. He has composed a beautifully written and wonderfully insightful book in the finest traditions of ethnographic research.

Stewart Clegg, Professor, Management Discipline Group, University of Technology Sydney

Shifting Practices recounts the lifelong experience of Giovan Francesco Lanzara with the challenges posed by the intrusion of radically new technologies into established domains of social practice. With wisdom, precision, and sharp analytic gaze, Lanzara reconstructs the complex fabric of action and interpretation through which professional actors relate to and assimilate into their routines and mindsets the hidden logic of technological artifacts, and the predilections these last embody. A unique, extraordinary book that carries the analytic potency of the field of organization studies into its apex.

Jannis Kallinikos, Professor of Management, London School of Economics