‘Nature has no outline, but imagination has’1 contrasting executive renditions of the ‘commitment to innovation’

SummaryIn recent years, corporate and governmental agency declarations of a commitment to, and exploitation of, ‘innovation’ has been pervasive and powerful. In this paper we show how executives rearrange such a dominant societal thematic in order to control their organization in a manner which fits with their interpretative schemas. Drawing upon in-depth research of discourse and action in two major corporations – one in banking and the other in advanced telecommunications equipment design and manufacture – we reveal how senior executives ‘ruled in’ certain ways of talking about innovation and strategy and also as a direct result, ‘ruled out’ other, alternative ways of thinking. Antecedent, formative thinking leading up to the banking crisis of 2008 is explored.