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)

In this article, we outline a model of how discourse can be mobilized as a strategic resource. The model consists of three circuits. First, in circuits of activity, individuals attempt to introduce new discursive statements, through the use of symbols, narratives, metaphors, etc. aimed at evoking concepts to create particular objects. These activities must intersect with circuits of performativity. This occurs when, for example, concepts are contextually embedded and have meaning for other actors; when symbols, narratives and metaphors possess receptivity; and when the subject position of the enunciator warrants voice. Third, when these two circuits intersect, connectivity occurs as the new discursive statements `take'. Using an illustrative example of an international NGO operating in Palestine, we show how an individual brought about strategic change by engaging in discursive activity.

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Discourse as a Strategic Resource

This article proposes that understanding public employee use of performance information is perhaps the most pressing challenge for scholarship on performance management. Governments have devoted extraordinary effort in creating performance data, wagering that it will be used to improve governance, but there is much we do not know about the factors associated with the use of that information. This article examines the antecedents of selfreported performance information use from a survey of local government managers. The results show that public service motivation, leadership role, information availability, organizational culture, and administrative flexibility all affect performance information use.

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The Big Question for Performance Management: Why Do Managers Use Performance Information?

This paper examines the reasons for the apparently powerful impact of management gurus' ideas (i.e. guru theory) on senior managers. An examination of the limited literature on management gurus and other related literatures suggests three explanations for the appeal of guru theory for senior managers. The first set of explanations relates to various features of management work which may heighten managers' receptivity to guru ideas. The second set focuses on the gurus themselves and emphasizes the form in which they are presented (i.e. public performances). The final set of explanations highlights the importance of the socioeconomic and cultural context within which guru theories emerge and become widely adopted. A number of criticisms of these explanations are offered: that they define the manager as passive, that the flow of ideas is one way (guru to manager), that they rely on an academic conception of knowledge. An alternative explanation of their success is outlined which suggests that their work – their analyses, presentations and theories – offer attractive conceptions of the role of managers which constitute the identity of the modern senior manager as an heroic, transformative leader. Gurus therefore not only constitute the organizational realities but also managers themselves

Telling Tales: Management Gurus' Narratives and the Construction of Managerial Identity

An important but largely unexplored issue in the study of strategy-as-discourse is how emotion affects the discursive processes through which strategy is constructed. To address this question, this paper investigates displayed emotions in strategic conversations and explores how the emotional dynamics generated through these displays shape a top management team's strategizing. Using microethnography, we analyse conversations about ten strategic issues raised across seven top management team meetings and identify five different kinds of emotional dynamic, each associated with a different type of strategizing process. The emotional dynamics vary in the sorts of emotions displayed, their sequencing and overall form. The strategizing processes vary in how issues are proposed, discussed, and evaluated, and whether decisions are taken or postponed. We identify team relationship dynamics as a key mechanism linking emotional dynamics and strategizing processes, and issue urgency as another important influence.

Emotional Dynamics and Strategizing Processes: A Study of Strategic Conversations in Top Team Meetings

Attempts at developing a taxonomic classification scheme for knowledge in the area of strategy contain major shortcomings. VVith the aim of breaking through the limitations inherent in these classification efforts, this article rejects the idea that strategic discourse is autonomous, and proposes instead that organization theories be considered, since these allow for the development of discursive forms in the field of strategy. Four types of strategic discourse are identified; these are the classical, contingency, socio-political and socio-cognitive forms. The authors also stress the importance of developing a critical form of discourse in this area of study.

Strategy and organization theories: common forms of discourse*

The Institutionalization of Efficiency-Oriented Approaches for Public Service Improvement

L'analyse des organisations : une anthologie sociologique. Tome II : Les composantes de l'organisation

In this article, we present a case of institutional development in a Quebec health care center. Drawing on a qualitative and constructivist approach, we show that an institution can undergo change while maintaining its institutional nature. The strategic changes studied lead us to consider two factors needed to succeed in an institutional change. Firstly, through a specific pattern the social worlds in the hospital are mobilized according to their relative importance. Secondly, the organizational actors must draw upon their strategic and professional competence to make changes compatible with the values embodied within their institution. These factors illustrate the role of actors in institutional change. Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.



Cet article presente un exemple de developpement institutionnel dans un etablissement de sante quebecois. A l'aide d'une approche qualitative et constructiviste, il demontre qu'une institution peut subir des changements tout en gardant son caractere institutionnel. Les changements strategiques etudies permettent de conclure a la presence de deux facteurs necessaires au succes du changement. D'abord, il s'agit de la mobilisation des mondes sociaux presents dans l'etablissement de sante selon une sequence particuliere. Ensuite, la double competence (strategique et professionnelle) des acteurs rend les actions accomplies compatibles avec les valeurs incarnees par l'institution. L'originalite de l'etude reside dans le fait qu'elle explicite le role de la competence des acteurs dans le changement organisationnel. Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Institution and change: Possible coexistence

Justine Lacoste-Beaubien avait 80 ans lorsqu'elle orchestra, en 1957, le memorable demenagement des enfants malades vers un hopital plus moderne. L'achevement de la construction de l'edifice du chemin de la cote Sainte-Catherine, entreprise au debut de la decennie, permettait enfin de quitter l'immeuble de la rue Saint-Denis. Cinquante ans plus tot, cette femme admirable, mariee au fondateur de la maison de courtage L.G. Beaubien et Cie limitee, avait accepte de presider le comite fondateur de l'Hopital Sainte-Justine de Montreal.
Cette gestionnaire hors du commun vous fera decouvrir, un a un, les ingredients du succes de son entreprise et la mysterieuse chimie qui les reunit. L'action de cette femme astucieuse, resolument tournee vers l'avenir, suggere d'interessantes reflexions sur l'art de bien diriger de nos jours.

Francine Séguin

Papers

Strategy and organization theories: common forms of discourse*

The Institutionalization of Efficiency-Oriented Approaches for Public Service Improvement

L'analyse des organisations : une anthologie sociologique. Tome II : Les composantes de l'organisation

Institution and change: Possible coexistence

Justine Lacoste-Beaubien et l'Hôpital Sainte-Justine