Managerial Imagination

• Main Author: Michael Savvas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2016-02-01
• Series: SAGE Open
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244016629186

This article analyzes the links between imagination and human resource management. The concept imagination has received little scholarly attention within the field of management, despite its potential to inform a number of lines of inquiry. At the present time, much of the research literature on imagination is confined to the visual arts, literature, and education. Human resource (HR) professionals could play a part in aligning employees with organizational goals and bring about organizational change if they developed their thinking in a more imaginative way. Developing managerial imagination can help solve the dilemmas and contradictions they face. A diagram is developed, which maps the development of the personnel function and offers four possibilities within a framework. They are biography, personal framing, history, and social structure. The outcome of this analysis provides a development of the personnel function one of which is a globally imaginative HR management. Within such a framework, the concept of “the imaginative performer” is discussed. The implications of combining imagination with management may provide a theoretical and practical way to understanding HR management.