Mind, Self and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist

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)

After virtue, a study in moral theory

Interpersonal relations — a theory of interdependence

In this article, the authors examine the acquisition and utilization of information in new product alliances. Drawing from research in social network theory with a focus on the strength-of-ties literature, the authors suggest that horizontal alliances have lower levels of relational embeddedness and higher levels of knowledge redundancy than vertical alliances. The authors then suggest that though embeddedness enhances both the acquisition and utilization of information in alliances, redundancy diminishes information acquisition but enhances information utilization. The authors test these ideas using a sample of 106 U.S. firms that recently have participated in new product alliances. Although the results are broadly supportive of the predictions, they are also surprising because they question key underlying assumptions of the strength-of-ties literature. For example, closely tied individual actors are typically assumed to share both high levels of embeddedness and high levels of redundancy, but t...

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The acquisition and utilization of information in new product alliances: A strength-of-ties perspective

Over the past two decades, several newperspectives have emerged in the physical and naturalsciences and are collectively referred to as thecomplexity sciences. Insights from these emergingperspectives have implications that merit consideration fordevelopments and extensions of existing work at themetatheoretical, theoretical, and methodological levelsin organization theory. The purpose of this manuscript is to: (a) provide an overview of thecomplexity sciences, (b) provide a justification andrationale for their inclusion into the social sciences,and (c) review the current organizational literaturewhich utilizes and applies concepts from thecomplexity sciences to organizationalphenomena.

Why Study the Complexity Sciences in the Social Sciences

The ubiquity of family dominated firms in economies worldwide suggests that inquiry into the nature of the ethical frames of these types of firms is increasingly important. In the context of a social exchange approach and the norm of reciprocity, this manuscript addresses social cohesion in a dominant family firm coalition. It is argued that the factors underlying this cohesion, direct versus indirect reciprocity, shape unique attributes of family firms such as intentions for transgenerational sustainability, the pursuit of non-economic goals, and strong interpersonal ties. Exchange structures, represented by direct and indirect reciprocity, lead family and non-family firms toward development of distinctive ethical frames of reference.

Ethics in the Family Firm: Cohesion through Reciprocity and Exchange

Arguments deriving from the importance of the strength of social ties between individuals are being applied in social and organizational analysis; however, lack of empirical verification of the com...

Association of indicators and predictors of tie strength

Discovering the temporal limits to predictability is a prime area for research into a perspective of social organization as a complex adaptive system with emergent properties. However, to the extent that these insights on predictability and control apply to social systems, both the objectivist and subjectivist positions can be considered the true state of affairs. The purpose of this manuscript is to (a) examine the present state of theoretical diversity in organization theory, particularly, the notion of paradigm incommensurability, and (b) how the problem of prediction and control may be dealt with by the emerging complexity sciences.

K. Michael Mathews

Papers

Why Study the Complexity Sciences in the Social Sciences

Ethics in the Family Firm: Cohesion through Reciprocity and Exchange

Association of indicators and predictors of tie strength

The Problem of Prediction and Control in Theoretical Diversity and the Promise of the Complexity Sciences

Ethics in the Family Firm