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)

This paper investigates competition in dynamic product markets from combined resource base and strategic flexibility perspectives. A concept of strategic flexibility in product competition is developed in which flexibility depends jointly on (1) the resource flexibility of the product creation resources avaialble to a firm and (2) the coordination flexibility of the firm in using its available resources in product markets. Two recent technological innovations affecting product creation processes—CADD/CIM systems and modular product design—are argued to have greatly increased the potential flexibilities of key product creation resources. Managerial innovations in the use of these technologies have also led to important new coordination flexibilities. The combination of recently achievable resource and coordination flexibilities is argued to have transformed the competitive environments of many product markets, leading to new kinds of product strategies, new organizational forms, and a new dominant logic for competing in dynamic product markets.

Strategic flexibility in product competition

This study reports an investigation of the relationships of work hours, job complexity, and control over work time to satisfaction with work-family balance. Based on data from a sample of 570 telephone call center representatives, a moderated hierarchical regression analysis revealed that work hours were negatively related to satisfaction with work-family balance, consistent with the resource drain perspective. Job complexity and control over work time were positively associated with satisfaction with work-family balance. Control over work time moderated the relationship such that as work hours rose, workers with low control experienced a decline in work-family balance satisfaction, while workers with high control did not. Results encourage greater research attention to work characteristics, such as job complexity and control over work time, and skills that represent resources useful to the successful integration of work and family demands.

Work-based resources as moderators of the relationship between work hours and satisfaction with work-family balance.

Colloquium in Oxford. A wide‐ranging debate about the impact of the new technologies of connectivity on Higher Education, libraries, and the publishing industry took place in the ‘parliamentary’ debating chamber of the Oxford Union on Thursday 23rd April. The event was organized by the Oxford University Computing Services Humanities Computing Unit, and was entitled ‘Beyond the Hype’. The one‐day colloquium, which was attended by about one hundred and twenty people, was the fourth in a series of colloquia hosted by the Humanities Computing Unit. In 1995 the Unit kicked the series off with the first event, entitled ‘Beyond the Book’, which appeared, paradoxically enough, in printed form (eds. Chernaik, Deegan, and Gibson, Oxford: OHC, 7, 1996). They followed this up with a look at teaching in ‘Beyond the Classroom’ (a report of which can be found on the Web at http://info.ox.ac.uk/oucs/humanities/events/beyond/). In 1997 the Unit targeted the library sector with ‘Beyond the Library’ (again a report of which can be found on the Web at http://info.ox.ac.uk/oucs/humanities/events/beyond/).

Beyond the hype

Existing communication models and definitions of interactivity provide both background and structure for a new model of cyber-interactivity that is introduced and explored in this article. Two primary dimensions, direction of communication and level of receiver control over the communication process, provide the primary framework for this new model of computer-mediated cyber-interactivity. A study designed to explore the applicability of this model analyzed 108 health-related websites using both perception-based and feature-based measures of these two dimensions. No significant correlation was found between the perception-based and feature-based models. The perception-based model was a better predictor of attitude toward the website and perceived relevance of the subject of the website than the feature-based model. However, the feature-based model may hold greater promise as a tool for website developers who seek to incorporate appropriate levels of interactivity in their websites.

A four-part model of cyber-interactivity Some cyber-places are more interactive than others

We study inbound call centers in fourteen businesses, using interview-based case studies. Contrary to the notion that U.S. businesses are eliminating job security and internal career tracks, these firms still incorporate these features in their job structures, and in many cases businesses that initially dismantled job and career structures ended up rebuilding them. The paper suggests a more nuanced account of changing job structures that incorporates market, institutional, and agency factors.

/pdf/under-construction-the-continuing-evolution-of-job-568hx3ffbg.pdf

Under Construction: The Continuing Evolution of Job Structures in Call Centers

Integrating people, organization, and technology in advanced manufacturing: A position paper based on the joint view of industrial managers, engineers, consultants, and researchers

A rational decision is inherently paradoxical because its necessity goes hand-in-hand with its impossibility. Not only is our rationality bounded, as Herbert Simon has so convincingly shown, but we also must make decisions under conditions in which there are no rules by which we can make a decision - even if it be just a satisficing decision. We have to decide when we don't really know and cannot know how to decide. This essential fact of decision making is ever the more true for strategic decisions which are, at their very core, about action under uncertainty and contingency. This paper discusses the recursive process through which corporate strategy, decision making, and restructuring occur.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID894334_code601357.pdf?abstractid=894334&mirid=2

Stumbling Giants: The Emptiness, Fullness, and Recursiveness of Strategic Management

Limits to Market-Mediated Employment: From Deconstruction to Reconstruction of Internal Labor Markets

The impact of CAD (computer-aided design) on employment and skill is examined. First, the relationship between the adoption of mechanical CAD systems and employment of drafters in the aerospace and automobile industries is assessed. Contrary to many employment projections, drafting employment in these industries increased with increases in the adoption of CAD systems. Second, the effects of design automation and skill transformation capacities of electronic CAD systems on printed circuit board designers are evaluated. Third, the limits to automation of design are explored, suggesting that there are trade-offs between automation of the design process and innovation in product design. The logical limits of software, flaws in programming, and the dynamic nature of product markets are evaluated as factors limiting automation. >

Harold Salzman

Papers

Under Construction: The Continuing Evolution of Job Structures in Call Centers

Integrating people, organization, and technology in advanced manufacturing: A position paper based on the joint view of industrial managers, engineers, consultants, and researchers

Stumbling Giants: The Emptiness, Fullness, and Recursiveness of Strategic Management

Limits to Market-Mediated Employment: From Deconstruction to Reconstruction of Internal Labor Markets

Computer-aided design: limitations in automating design and drafting