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)

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

Revolutionizing product development

Strategy and Structure

Examines the motivation for achievement as a psychological factor that shapes economic development. Refuting arguments based on race, climate, or population growth, the book instead argues for cultural customs and motivations - especially the motivation for achievement - as the major catalysts of economic growth. Considering the Protestant Reformation, the rise of capitalism, parents' influences on sons, and folklore and children's stories as shaping cultural motivations for achievement, the book hypothesizes that a high level of achievement motivation precedes economic growth. This is supported through qualitative analysis of the achievement motive, as well as of other psychological factors - including entrepreneurial behavior and characteristics, and available sources of achievement in past and present highly achieving societies. It is the achievement motive - and not merely the profit motive or the desire for material gain - that has advanced societies economically. Consequently, individuals are not merely products of their environment, as many social scientists have asserted, but also creators of the environment, as they manipulate it in various ways in the search for achievement. Finally, a plan is hypothesized to accelerate economic growth in developing countries, by encouraging and supplementing their achievement motives through mobilizing the greater achievement resources of developed countries. The conclusion is not just that motivations shape economic progress, but that current influences on future people's motivations and values will determine economic growth in the long run. Thus, it is most beneficial for a society to concentrate its resources on creating an environment conducive to entrepreneurship and a strong ideological base for achievement. (CJC)

The Achieving Society

Przedsiębiorczość i kapitał intelektualny

The widely held contemporary perspective on entrepreneurship is dangerously premature. Currently existing theories are insufficient to understand the dynamic interplay among entrepreneurship, the state, and external environment forces, as well as the organization's capacity to facilitate entrepreneurship and resulting effectiveness. In this exploratory paper I identify organizational architecture variables that help to shape a firm's entrepreneurship. The topic of organizational enablers is introduced. The primary purpose of the investigation falls under a category of exploration of dialectics' potential for entrepreneurship theory and development concept that refers to strategic contradictions, organizational enablers, and entrepreneurial behaviors. In particular, it focuses on understanding the organizational context of entrepreneurship and understanding the entrepreneurial reconciliation made by managers who seek to increase their company's growth. I investigate empirically how reconciliation of primary and secondary contradictions is related to entrepreneurial behaviors. The in-depth examination of organizational enablers and entrepreneurial behavior is only one example of how a dialectical approach can reshape our understanding of the complex, multilevel entrepreneurship process, which may have less to do with the behavior of individual members than with impersonal and seemingly insignificant forces. Finally, implications for future research are discussed. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Hum Factors Man 15: 15–33, 2005.

Mariusz Bratnicki

Papers

Przedsiębiorczość i kapitał intelektualny

Organizational entrepreneurship: Theoretical background, some empirical tests, and directions for future research

Refleksje teoretyka nad przedsiębiorczością i przedsiębiorcami współczesnego biznesu

Konfiguracyjne ujęcie przedsiębiorczości organizacyjnej

On the frontiers of entrepreneurship: complexity, contradictions and strategic management