Reference paper:
Dutton, J. E., & Ashford, S. J. (1993). Selling issues to top management. Academy of management review, 397–428.Conclusion:
(A 50-word quick summary from my understanding)
Article develops insights on issue selling as critical activity in organizational decision-making and clarifies value of issue selling at individual and organizational levels, from both symbolic and instrumental perspectives. An issue selling framework and propositions, drawing on 3 theoretical perspectives - upward influence, claiming behavior and impression management, are presented. Quick Notes/queries:
(For my further delving)
Alternatives- What are the possible alternatives to issue selling (such as silence, taking charge and quitting) that individual considers before assessing the relative efficacy and costs of each?
Groups
- Could groups rather than individuals be instigators of issue-selling? If so how is issue selling symbolically and instrumentally important to groups as instigators?
- How is strategic importance of an issue, and thereby attention given by top management, influenced by whether the issue-seller is a group or an individual? How is the top management attention influenced when the instigating group is mobilized informally as an influencing strategy?
Strategic importance
- What individual and contextual factors influence how top management views whether an issue is of strategic importance that deserves attention?
- How is top management's openness, attention and substantive action to issue influenced by source of the issue (individual/group/scanning system/external constituents)?
- What factors signal to issue sellers that certain issues are of strategic importance to top management?
- What are possible mechanisms through which top management could communicate the legitimacy of organizational issues?
- How does attributing strategic unimportance to an issue affect subsequent issue-selling behavior of the individual? How does perceived process fairness moderate this influence?
Success indicators
- What is perceived as success in issue selling when the implications of the issue on the seller (individual or group) is, both instrumentally and symbolically, critical? For ex - consider a victim of gross racial/gender discrimination raising discrimination as an organizational issue. In this case, success may not be mere naming of the issue, gathering required information, conversing about the issue or creating task force to address the issue. Perhaps, it also involves addressing the immediate issue in the instigator's context.
- Alternatively, what is perceived success in issue selling when the implications of the issue on the issue seller (individual or group) is not instrumentally or symbolically critical, but only critical at organizational level? (For ex - consider the case of a corporate social responsibility issue raised by an employee)
Others
- What are the implications on the commitment to strategic direction when middle level managers are not involved in issue identification, but are instead provided a voice in early stages of decision making in which an issue has been identified through other means (such as scanning systems or involvement of external constituencies)? In particular does the commitment differ from situation when the managers are also involved in issue identification?