ideology

Jim Collins' view of ideology --
The organization's ideology and envisioned future make up the fundamental purpose of the organization.

An organization's ideology is made up of its values and the fundamental reason for being pursued in line with those values. It is the foundation for the culture, identity, and strategies of the organization. The ideology is reflected in the decisions made. It is an invisible hand governing the organization. Ideology is identity, thus the destiny of the organization. The ideology is what fulfills the need of people to be part of something good and positive that is bigger than themselves.

Ideology is the unchanging element of purpose. Everything else in the organization is subject to change based on the needs of the organization to change its behavior in order to achieve and sustain a competitive advantage. Even the envisioned future changes as the organization makes progress towards the ambitious goals and achieving the vision. With everything else in the business model subject to change, the ideology is the one point of stability, the creator of identity, thus the glue that holds the members of the organization together and the reminder that the business has an overriding idealistic purpose to be pursued indefinitely.

See Jim Collins, 1996 for an in depth discussion.

Stacey's view of ideology as part of responsive processes (Stacey, 2007, pp 347-348) --
Norms and values together form ideology --

In complex responsive processes terms, values are themes organizing the experience of being together in a voluntary compelling, ethical manner, while norms are themes of being together in an obligatory, restrictive way. Furthermore, in complex responsive process terms, norms and values constitute a paradox. When humans interact, they enable and constrain each other at the same time. It is the actions of human bodies that enable and constrain. However, in their ongoing negotiation of these enabling-constraining actions, all are taking the attitude of others, specifically and in a generalised/idealised way. In other words, they are continually negotiating the evaluations of their actions. The criteria for evaluation are at the same time both obligatory restrictions, taking the form of what they ought and ought not to do (norms), and voluntary compulsions, taking the form of what they are judging it good to do (values). The evaluative themes forming and being formed by human interaction are norms and values at the same time, together constituting ideology.

Ideological spectrum, fascism to anarchy --
Ideology can be thought of as an imaginative 'whole' that is simultaneously the obligatory restriction of the norm and the voluntary compulsion of value, constituting the evaluative criteria for the choice of actions. As such it is largely habitual and so unconscious processes of self and social at the same time. If people in a group rigidly apply the ideological 'whole' to their interactions in all specific, contingent situations they co-create fascist power relations and cults which can easily be taken over by collective ecstasies. The result is to alienate people from their ordinary everyday experience and so create a false consciousness. Alternatively, if the ideological `whole' is so fragmented that there is little generalised/idealised tendency to act, then people will be interacting in ways that are almost entirely contingent on the situation, resulting in anarchy. Usually, however, people particularise/functionalise some ideological wholes in contingent situations and this is essentially a conflicts process of negating the 'whole', which always involves critical reflection.

'Anything goes' is impossible --
From a complex responsive processes perspective, there are no universals outside of human interaction, but this does not mean that norms and values are purely relative in an 'anything goes' kind of way because generalisations and idealisations can only be found in their particularisation in specific interactive situations. This always involves negotiation of conflict; power relating, in which 'anything goes' is impossible.

Norms and values as aspects of ideological themes --
From a complex responsive processes perspective, desires, values and norms are all understood to be particular narrative and propositional themes emerging in interaction and at the same time patterning that interaction. Norms are constraining aspects of themes, providing criteria for judging desires and actions. Emotions, such as shame and fear of punishment or exclusion, provide the main constraining force. Values, on the other hand, are highly motivating aspects of themes that arise in particularly intense collective and individual experience, involving imagination and idealization, serving as the basis for evaluating and justifying desires and actions as well as the norms constraining them. Emotions such as altruism, gratitude, humility self-worth, guilt and outrage provide the attractive, compelling force of value experiences. For each person, these intense value experiences are particularly linked to interactions over a life history with important others, such as parents, who are a perceived to enact values ascribed to them. These important others cannot unilaterally prescribe such values because they emerge in the relationship.

Ideology, basis for action choices --
However, while the separation of values and norms is an aid to understanding, it is an abstraction from lived, practical experience in which norms and values are inseparable aspects of the evaluative themes, the ideologies, which are the basis of our choices of actions.

Ideology's role in organization membership and preserving power differentials --
See communicative interaction for ideology's role in organization membership and preserving power differentials.