Processing fads and fashions: An organization-set analysis of cultural industry systems

The preselection of goods for potential consumption is a feature common to all industries. In order for new products or ideas to reach consumers, they must first be processed favorably through a system of organizations whose units filter out a large proportion of candidates before they arrive at the consumption stage (Barnett 1953). Much theory and research on complex organizations is concerned with isolated aspects of this process by which innovations flow through organization systems-such as the relation of research and development units to the industrial firm (Burns and Stalker 1961; Wilensky 1968); or problems encountered by public agencies attempting to implement new policy decisions (Selznick 1949; Bailey and Mosher 1968; Moynihan 1969).