Institutional Cognition

Institutions often preserve their past in the rules they continue to follow. A procedure introduced after an earlier failure may survive for decades, a requirement created to prevent a particular…

Imagine an institution in which the familiar behavioural causes of organisational fragmentation have largely disappeared. Departments share information when they are asked, specialists respect one another's expertise, managers encourage collaboration…

One of the more puzzling experiences inside a large institution occurs when a team spends considerable time trying to solve a problem, perhaps commissioning new analysis, searching through documents or…

Ask someone inside a long-established institution why a particular procedure exists and you may receive an unexpected answer: nobody is entirely sure. The procedure is followed carefully. Staff know when…

An institution can introduce an artificial intelligence system and quickly begin to describe its performance in familiar terms. The model is accurate a certain percentage of the time. It processes…

Institutions make many of their easiest decisions look like evidence of good judgement. When information is abundant, objectives are clear, specialists broadly agree and there is enough time to examine…