What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

/pdf/the-iron-cage-revisited-institutional-isomorphism-and-xas5qn5nhy.pdf

The iron cage revisited institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields

In this paper, the concept of social capital is introduced and illustrated, its forms are described, the social structural conditions under which it arises are examined, and it is used in an analys...

/pdf/social-capital-in-the-creation-of-human-capital-1836wo2872.pdf

Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital

Job Demands, Job Decision Latitude, and Mental Strain: Implications for Job Redesign

A model is presented to account for the natural selection of what is termed reciprocally altruistic behavior. The model shows how selection can operate against the cheater (non-reciprocator) in the system. Three instances of altruistic behavior are discussed, the evolution of which the model can explain: (1) behavior involved in cleaning symbioses; (2) warning cries in birds; and (3) human reciprocal altruism. Regarding human reciprocal altruism, it is shown that the details of the psychological system that regulates this altruism can be explained by the model. Specifically, friendship, dislike, moralistic aggression, gratitude, sympathy, trust, suspicion, trustworthiness, aspects of guilt, and some forms of dishonesty and hypocrisy can be explained as important adaptations to regulate the altruistic system. Each individual human is seen as possessing altruistic and cheating tendencies, the expression of which is sensitive to developmental variables that were selected to set the tendencies at a balance ap...

/pdf/the-evolution-of-reciprocal-altruism-36v5rn897k.pdf

The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism

■ Abstract The recent proliferation of scholarship on collective action frames and framing processes in relation to social movements indicates that framing processes have come to be regarded, alongside resource mobilization and political opportunity processes, as a central dynamic in understanding the character and course of social movements. This review examines the analytic utility of the framing literature for un- derstanding social movement dynamics. We first review how collective action frames have been conceptualized, including their characteristic and variable features. We then examine the literature related to framing dynamics and processes. Next we review the literature regarding various contextual factors that constrain and facilitate framing processes. We conclude with an elaboration of the consequences of framing processes for other movement processes and outcomes. We seek throughout to provide clarifi- cation of the linkages between framing concepts/processes and other conceptual and theoretical formulations relevant to social movements, such as schemas and ideology.

/pdf/framing-processes-and-social-movements-an-overview-and-2fo6scjphe.pdf

Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment

The manner in which the concept of reciprocity is implicated in functional theory is explored, enabling a reanalysis of the concepts of "survival" and "exploitation." The need to distinguish between the concepts of complementarity and reciprocity is stressed. Distinctions are also drawn between (1) reciprocity as a pattern of mutually contingent exchange of gratifications, (2) the existential or folk belief in reciprocity, and (3) the generalized moral norm of reciprocity. Reciprocity as a moral norm is analyzed; it is hypothesized that it is one of the universal "principal components" of moral codes. As Westermarck states, "To requite a benefit, or to be grateful to him who bestows it, is probably everywhere, at least under certain circumstances, regarded as a duty. This is a subject which in the present connection calls for special consideration." Ways in which the norm of reciprocity is implicated in the maintenance of stable social systems are examined.

The norm of reciprocity: a preliminary statement *

This is a study in industrial sociology; it a partial report, to be followed by another, of an investigation of singel factory seen in the light of Max Weber's theory of bureacracy.

Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy.

Cosmopolitans and locals : toward an analysis of latent social roles-II

Patterns of industrial bureaucracy

An examination of the title of Alvin Gouldner' s new book, The Coming Crisis of_~e~t~~n So~i21ogv, reveals some of the things that are wrong with what one finds between the covers of the book. Despite its title, the book is not concerned with a corning crisis, nor is it concerned with ~vestern sociologv. In reality, it is focally concerned \vith the lo~l~..-~:-st!!.~dinf'l. crisis whLch has faced Pars..Q.!lsian theorv. In my view Gouldner is wrong on two points: the crisis facing Parsonsian theory is not comin~, it has arrived; and Parsonsian theory does not equal Western sociology. Despite the misconceptions tlhich are communicated by its title, the-book does have some merits, but these are far outweighed by its liabilities. Whatever its failings, the book should not simply be dismissed. I would like to underscore this by discussing its assets first before t~rnin~ to a more len~thv discu~sion on the inadequacies in Gouldner's work.

Alvin W. Gouldner

Papers

The norm of reciprocity: a preliminary statement *

Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy.

Cosmopolitans and locals : toward an analysis of latent social roles-II

Patterns of industrial bureaucracy

The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology