Rise and Fall of an Information Technology Outsourcing Program: a qualitative Analysis of a Troubled Corporate Initiative

 
The abilene paradox.
Leaders are susceptible to taking actions contrary to the real 
preferences of a majority (if not all) group members. In doing so, they defeat the true goals they 
are actually trying to achieve. This inability to manage agreement among group members stems 
from individuals’ beliefs that their personal preferences run counter to those of the other 
members. Leaders refrain from raising objections out of the fear of ostracism or other anxieties 
they assume will be of greater personal consequence than acquiescing to the will of the group.
When leaders fail to effectively communicate their beliefs to one another, they enter into a tacit 
and de facto collusion with one another that can lead to dire consequences for their organizations 
(Harvey, 1988). 
Harvey (1988) relates this paradox through an allegory of a car trip he takes with his wife 
and her parents from Coleman, Texas to Abilene. Harvey’s father-in-law suggests the fifty-three 

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drive, in the middle of summer, in a car with no air conditioning, to eat lunch at a “hole-in-the-
wall” diner. Each family member agrees enthusiastically. The sweaty, dusty, four-hour 
expedition leaves the travelers exhausted, possibly battling indigestion, and irritated with one 
another once they return home. In taking stock of the journey, the family members reveal they 
never really wanted to go to Abilene. As the family’s argument escalates, each suggests they 
only favored the trip to satisfy the others. In reality, the drive to Abilene was the exact opposite 
of what each wanted, which was to stay home. Harvey suggests this paradox—group members 
publicly going along with a decision that each of them privately disagrees with and knows is 
counter to the group’s best interests—is a major source of organizational dysfunction. 
Members of a group “on the way to Abilene” fail to accurately communicate their 
individual beliefs, which lead members to misperceive the collective reality. Frustration builds as 
the group continues to take counterproductive actions. Members often divide into subgroups or 
camps to blame others, or authority figures, or each other, and rationalize why they are unable to 
do anything to stop the crisis. Privately, they assign each other into “victim” and “victimizer” 
roles. Publicly, members are prone to maintain positive appearances in order to not raise the 
suspicions or ire others. These groups find themselves stuck in a cycle of what Harvey (1988) 
labels “phony conflict” because these differences, “stem from the protective reactions that occur 
when a decision that no one believed in goes sour” (p. 33). The paradox is a failure to manage 
agreement among group members, not an actual conflict or debate over what leaders truly 
believe are the right actions. Rather than coping with the paradox, which only exacerbates the 
dilemma, Harvey recommends confrontation in group settings as an effective way to stop 
“unwanted trips to Abilene.”