How has Japan become a major economic power, a world leader in the automotive and electronics industries? What is the secret of their success? The consensus has been that, though the Japanese are not particularly innovative, they are exceptionally skilful at imitation, at improving products that already exist. But now two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hiro Takeuchi, turn this conventional wisdom on its head: Japanese firms are successful, they contend, precisely because they are innovative, because they create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. Examining case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, 3M, GE, and the U.S. Marines, this book reveals how Japanese companies translate tacit to explicit knowledge and use it to produce new processes, products, and services.

The knowledge-creating company : how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation

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.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

The theory of the growth of the firm

The study of institutional work has emerged as a dynamic research domain within organization studies. In this essay, we situate the papers published in the Special Issue. We first review the evolution of institutional work as a scholarly conversation within organization studies. We then introduce the papers in the Special Issue, focusing in particular on where they fit into the current scholarly conversation and how they move us in important new directions. Finally, we discuss a set of neglected issues that deserve further attention.

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Institutional Work: Current Research, New Directions and Overlooked Issues

The New Masters of Capital: American Bond Rating Agencies and the Politics of Creditworthiness. By Timothy J. Sinclair. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005. 208p. $29.95. In his book, Timothy J. Sinclair makes a strong theoretical and empirical contribution to the growing political economy literature on the increasing influence of nonstate actors. More specifically, he draws upon a cogent interweaving of rationalist and constructivist approaches to reveal the various forms of power exercised by American bond raters, such as Moody's and Standard & Poor's. Moreover, by means of detailed case studies on the rating of corporations, municipalities, and national governments, he demonstrates the broad political implications of rating agency power in terms of both geopolitical and distributive questions. In both cases, Sinclair's central argument is that “rating agencies help to construct the context in which corporations, municipalities, and governments make decisions. Rating agencies are not, as often supposed, ‘neutral’ institutions. Their impact on policy is political first, in terms of the processes involved, and second, in terms of the consequences of competing social interests” (p. 149).

The New Masters of Capital: American Bond Rating Agencies and the Politics of Creditworthiness

This article combines the theory of justification developed by Boltanski and Thevenot with the concept of institutional work to analyse how actors’ discursive engagement can lead to the maintenance of legitimacy. In controversies over the regulation of credit rating, actors perform institutional work based on the use and arrangement of several forms of legitimacy in order to promote a certain view of justice. A longitudinal qualitative study of the justifications produced by stakeholders in credit rating between 2000 and 2010 reveals three different mechanisms that lead to institutional maintenance. The first is a straightforward case of confirmation work in which the actors repeat or reformulate the existing regulatory arrangement or simply refuse to take part in the debate. The second involves qualifying objects according to the existing concept of regulation. In the third, reference to the model of the circular figure can explain the mechanism that prevents the controversy from ending: the actors’ inability to resolve a debate involving several orders of morality is precisely what leads to the reaffirmation of the foundations underlying the legitimacy of credit rating regulation.

https://management-aims.com/index.php/mgmt/article/download/3942/9663

The More Things Change . . . Institutional Maintenance as Justification Work in the Credit-Rating Industry

Cet article se fonde sur la cartographie et l’analyse bibliometrique de la production en sciences de gestion publiee par la
Revue francaise de gestion (RFG) entre 2002 et 2017. Les
auteurs mettent en lumiere les references theoriques utilisees
comme inspiration par les auteurs de ces articles et les
thematiques principales traitees au fil des mandatures des
differents redacteurs en chef de la revue. Leurs analyses
rendent compte de la diversite du champ francophone des
sciences de gestion tout en soulignant les evolutions constatees
pendant la periode etudiee.

Une analyse bibliométrique de la recherche en gestion

This article examines the role played by a nonhuman entity, the Atlantic Ocean, in institutional work. It uses the results of an in-depth case study concerning the local economy of a surfing-focused seaside town in the south-west of France, where relations with the ocean have been modified by institutional work facilitated by extreme coastal erosion during winter storms in 2013-2014. This work, performed by the actors of the local economy – which include the ocean – aims to change the institutions of surfing, and local planning in a coastal town, by acting to influence the relation between this local economy and the ocean. The study involves a qualitative analysis of 32 interviews with stakeholders in the local surfing industry to identify the role played by a nonhuman entity in deliberate action to influence institutions. Mobilization of the theoretical framework of the anthropologist Philippe Descola concerning the types of relations between humans and nonhumans leads to 1) the suggestion that the nonhuman agency of natural elements should be included in consideration of institutional work, and 2) a reconsideration of the relational influence of the material dimension in organization and management theory.

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The role of nonhuman entities in institutional work: the case of the ocean in a surfing-centered local economy

Cet article propose une etude des evolutions subies par la fonction deontologie au sein des etablissements de credit et des entreprises d’investissement entre 2003 et 2006. Partant d’une approche qualitative associant observation-participante et analyse de donnees secondaires, nous mettons en evidence la coexistence de deux conceptions du controle interne : l’une trouvant ses racines dans la deontologie financiere (intervenant ex ante), l’autre dans le controle effectue a posteriori (intervenant ex post). Sur le plan theorique, l’analyse se fonde sur les travaux consacres par Paul Ricœur a l’articulation des notions d’ethique et de morale, et entend contribuer a la litterature en controle interne dans le secteur bancaire et financier. Nous montrons ainsi comment l’introduction de la notion de risque de non-conformite dans les textes reglementaires en 2005 a modifie la fonction deontologie. Cette analyse permet enfin de mettre en perspective les consequences de cette evolution, qui consacre la conformation demonstrative a la norme aux depens de la capacite a reconnaitre en pratique dans les normes une pretention legitime a regler les conduites.

The Rise and Fall of the Compliance Function. A Perspective on Internal Control in Banking and Finance

La sociologie pragmatique francaise (SP), inspiree des travaux de Luc Boltanski et Laurent Thevenot, est de plus en plus utilisee par les etudes organisationnelles en management. Pourtant, la dimension critique de cette approche n'a pas encore ete integree au profit de la connaissance en management et organisations (MOK). Dans cet article, nous explicitons l'apport que cette sociologie peut representer pour les etudes critiques en management (CMS). En tant que science de la science des acteurs, nous suggerons que la SP est fertile pour developper une approche de performativite critique. En particulier, nous demontrons que l'approche permet de mettre en lumiere les nouvelles formes de domination plus complexes s'exercant dans les organisations contemporaines. En utilisant des etudes empiriques d'organisations mobilisant la SP, nous montrons comment les concepts de compromis et d'epreuve developpes par cette approche presentent un outillage permettant de renouveler la critique des organisations au profit de la MOK.

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Benjamin Taupin

Papers

The More Things Change . . . Institutional Maintenance as Justification Work in the Credit-Rating Industry

Une analyse bibliométrique de la recherche en gestion

The role of nonhuman entities in institutional work: the case of the ocean in a surfing-centered local economy

The Rise and Fall of the Compliance Function. A Perspective on Internal Control in Banking and Finance

L'apport de la sociologie pragmatique française aux études critiques en management