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)

Innovation is one of the most important issues in business research today. It has been studied in many independent research traditions. Our understanding and study of innovation can benefit from an integrative review of these research traditions. In so doing, we identify 16 topics relevant to marketing science, which we classify under five research fields: - Consumer response to innovation, including attempts to measure consumer innovative-ness, models of new product growth, and recent ideas on network externalities - Organizations and innovation, which are increasingly important as product development becomes more complex and tools more effective but demanding - Market entry strategies, which includes recent research on technology revolution, exten-sive marketing science research on strategies for entry, and issues of portfolio manage-ment - Prescriptive techniques for product development processes, which have been transformed through global pressures, increasingly accurate customer input, web-based communica-tion for dispersed and global product design, and new tools for dealing with complexity over time and across product lines - Defending against market entry and capturing the rewards of innovating, which includes extensive marketing science research on strategies of defense, managing through metrics and rewards to entrants For each topic, we summarize key concepts and highlight research challenges. For pre-scriptive research topics, we also review current thinking and applications. For descriptive top-ics, we review key findings.

Research on Innovation: A Review and Agenda for Marketing Science

http://dimetic.dime-eu.org/dimetic_files/EdlerGeorghiou2007.pdf

Public procurement and innovation?Resurrecting the demand side

Innovation is one of the most important issues in business research today. It has been studied in many independent research traditions. Our understanding and study of innovation can benefit from an integrative review of these research traditions. In so doing, we identify 16 topics relevant to marketing science, which we classify under five research fields:


Consumer response to innovation, including attempts to measure consumer innovativeness, models of new product growth, and recent ideas on network externalities; Organizations and innovation, which are increasingly important as product development becomes more complex and tools more effective but demanding;.
Market entry strategies, which includes recent research on technology revolution, extensive marketing science research on strategies for entry, and issues of portfolio management;
Prescriptive techniques for product development processes, which have been transformed through global pressures, increasingly accurate customer input, Web-based communication for dispersed and global product design, and new tools for dealing with complexity over time and across product lines;
Defending against market entry and capturing the rewards of innovating, which includes extensive marketing science research on strategies of defense, managing through metrics, and rewards to entrants.



For each topic, we summarize key concepts and highlight research challenges. For prescriptive research topics, we also review current thinking and applications. For descriptive topics, we review key findings.

/pdf/research-on-innovation-a-review-and-agenda-for-marketing-3tl8dfo5vf.pdf

Winning Through Innovation: A Practical Guide to Leading Organizational Change and Renewal Tushman, Michael L. and O'Reilly, Charles A., 256 pp., Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1997. Reviewed by Subodh P. Kulkarni, Assistant Professor in School of Business at Howard University, Washington, D.C. Professors Tushman and O'Reilly are well known for their research on innovation and organizational culture. In this book, the authors address a fundamental and interesting issue underlying organizational change and innovation: that of how firms can achieve a balance between stability and change. Businesses are not likely to prosper or survive in the long run without this balance. One of the book's key premises is that short-term success may constrain a firm's ability to change. Short term successes often occur in larger, older, more structured organizations, the source of structural and cultural inertia, which yields success in stable environments and failure when environments change. Therefore, a company's culture holds the key to success (or failure) in the long run. To create and sustain a competitive edge in the long run, companies must learn how to manage incremental and revolutionary change. The key, according to the authors, is to develop an "ambidextrous organization." Tushman and O'Reilly define ambidextrous organizations as those having internally consistent structures and an internal operating culture that provides for excelling today, while also planning for the future. The ambidextrous organizations are, thus, engaged in a balancing act between the management of incremental and revolutionary technologies. Further, these organizations have very different cultures within a company (or even a business unit, for that matter). Vision is vital to ambidextrous organizations, often displaying one vision that hosts multiple cultures in the unit. Of course, a firm can have multiple cultures under one roof by spinning off different business units and managing them independently. This is unacceptable to the authors. It is important to manage them as a whole, or as a system. The thing that holds the system components together is the overarching vision for the technology firm. That is why the book emphasizes strategic intent or competitive vision; because without a common, overarching purpose and set of values, the ambidextrous company just does not hold together. So it is not only different cultures, but different structures, systems, rewards, and competencies that need to be managed together. Drawing on their extensive research, consulting practice, as well as the experiences of managers from several "ambidextrous companies," the authors develop a model that can be used by executives to understand the dynamics of change necessary for long-term success. Toward this end, the book provides several tools for identifying and diagnosing the causes of performance gaps and for developing action plans to attain, and maintain, industry leadership. The book is divided into nine chapters. Chapter 1 is introductory, and it outlines the concepts underlying the authors' model. Chapter 2 highlights the significance of the concepts introduced earlier in the context of global change and innovation. Chapters 3 through 6 focus on the building of capabilities, competencies, and cultures that can generate a sustainable competitive advantage. Chapter 4 develops a model that highlights the congruence among an organization's strategies and four distinct factors: critical tasks, culture, structure, and people. A lack of congruence often results in performance gaps. Chapter 5 outlines how organizational culture-the selecting, socializing, and rewarding of workers consistent with the company's goals-promotes this congruence. It also illustrates how to assesses an organization's culture. Chapters 7 and 8 stand out in particular because in these chapters the authors introduce techniques for building an ambidextrous organization. …

Winning through Innovation: A Practical Guide to Leading Organizational Change and Renewal

Sales takeoff is vitally important for the management of new products Limited prior research on this phenomenon covers only the United States This study addresses the following questions about takeoff in Europe: 1) Does takeoff occur as distinctly in other countries, as it does in the United States? 2) Do different categories and countries have consistently different times-to-takeoff? 3) What economic and cultural factors explain the intercountry differences? 4) Should managers use a sprinkler or waterfall strategy for the introduction of new products across countries? We gathered data on 137 new products across 10 categories and 16 European countries We adapted the threshold rule for identifying takeoff (Golder and Tellis 1997) to this multinational context We specify a parametric hazard model to answer the questions above The major results are as follows: 1) Sales of most new products display a distinct takeoff in various European countries, at an average of six years after introduction 2) The time-to-takeoff varies substantially across countries and categories It is four times shorter for entertainment products than for kitchen and laundry appliances It is almost half as long in Scandinavian countries as in Mediterranean countries 3) While culture partially explains intercountry differences in time-to-takeoff, economic factors are neither strong nor robust explanatory factors 4) These results suggest distinct advantages to a waterfall strategy for introducing products in international markets

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID904142_code117251.pdf?abstractid=904142&mirid=3

The International Takeoff of New Products: The Role of Economics, Culture, and Country Innovativeness

Sales takeoff is vitally important for the management of new products. Limited prior research on this phenomenon covers only the United States. This study addresses the following questions about takeoff in Europe:

1 Does takeoff occur as distinctly in other countries, as it does in the United States?

2 Do different categories and countries have consistently different times-to-takeoff?

3 What economic and cultural factors explain the intercountry differences?

4 Should managers use a sprinkler or waterfall strategy for the introduction of new products across countries?

We gathered data on 137 new products across 10 categories and 16 European countries.

We adapted the threshold rule for identifying takeoff Golder and Tellis 1997 to this multinational context. We specify a parametric hazard model to answer the questions above. The major results are as follows:

1 Sales of most new products display a distinct takeoff in various European countries, at an average of six years after introduction.

2 The time-to-takeoff varies substantially across countries and categories. It is four times shorter for entertainment products than for kitchen and laundry appliances. It is almost half as long in Scandinavian countries as in Mediterranean countries.

3 While culture partially explains intercountry differences in time-to-takeoff, economic factors are neither strong nor robust explanatory factors.

4 These results suggest distinct advantages to a waterfall strategy for introducing products in international markets.

/pdf/the-international-takeoff-of-new-products-the-role-of-3ldc1iv1zy.pdf

Despite extensive research on consumer innovativeness, the literature does not contain a parsimonious construct that has been validated for use across countries, demographics, and categories. This study attempts to fill this gap by studying consumer innovativeness across 15 major world economies. Significantly, the authors find that four negatively valenced items constitute a construct of innovativeness that seems reasonably applicable across most countries. Although this construct of innovativeness varies systematically from country to country, common demographic antecedents emerge across countries. Within these commonalities, a measure of innovativeness shows some distinct category × demographics and category × country differences.

Global Consumer Innovativeness: Cross-Country Differences and Demographic Commonalities

Antecedents and implications of disruptive innovation: Evidence from China

Researchers disagree about the critical drivers of success in and efficiency of high-tech markets. On the one hand, a few researchers assert that high-tech markets are efficient with best quality brands dominating. On the other hand, many authors suspect that network effects lead to perverse markets in which the dominant brands do not have the best quality. We develop scenarios about the relative importance of these effects and the efficiency of markets. Empirical analysis of historical data on 19 categories shows that while both quality and network effects affect market share flows, markets are generally efficient. In particular, market share leadership changes often, switches in share leadership closely follow switches in quality leadership, and the best quality brands, not the first to enter, dominate the market. Network effects enhance the positive effect of quality.

Eden Yin

Papers

The International Takeoff of New Products: The Role of Economics, Culture, and Country Innovativeness

The International Takeoff of New Products: The Role of Economics, Culture, and Country Innovativeness

Global Consumer Innovativeness: Cross-Country Differences and Demographic Commonalities

Antecedents and implications of disruptive innovation: Evidence from China

Does Quality Win? Network Effects versus Quality in High-Tech Markets