ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to give one view of the psychology of this kind of innovative setting. It is a psychology based on the cultivation and use of a pattern of utopian fantasies about the nature of work in an industrial setting. The organizational settings from which they develop are usually identified as traditional ways of dealing with problems, and are thought by the managers of innovative organizations to be inadequate. The overall hypothesis is that innovative organizations frequently originate out of conflicts among organizational tasks or structures in established settings. Social systems, as well as the individuals within them, normally have a wide variety of structures to rely upon in limiting anxiety and guilt. A group or a system, out of a threat to its members well-being, may employ a variety of social defences as a means of dealing with conflict, anxiety, and guilt.
