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The influence of rhetorical schemes on innovation decisions
Author(s) -
King W. R.,
Kugler J. L.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
information systems journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.635
H-Index - 89
eISSN - 1365-2575
pISSN - 1350-1917
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2575.1993.tb00129.x
Subject(s) - rhetorical question , argumentation theory , judgement , construct (python library) , rhetoric , process (computing) , rhetorical device , face (sociological concept) , epistemology , order (exchange) , knowledge management , sociology , management science , computer science , psychology , political science , business , economics , linguistics , social science , philosophy , finance , programming language , operating system
. Innovation may be viewed as a political process in which rival ideas, sponsored by rival individuals or groups, compete for acceptance and support. Sponsors of a particular idea must build, through argumentation, a consensus to support their idea. This paper addressed rhetorical schemes as a potentially important element of the innovation decision. While rhetorical actions have been studied in other contexts, they have not been investigated in innovation decision situations. The construct of rhetorical scheme is developed in this paper as a way to explain the outcomes of the innovation decision process. A scenario was devised in which decision makers face two different rhetorical schemes, emotional/affective and technical/logical, both related to a technology innovation. A hypothesis is tested in order to make a preliminary judgement on the impact of the rhetoric scheme on the financial choices made by the decision makers. The results suggest that the current innovation paradigms might be usefully extended by incorporating rhetorical actions as explanatory elements.