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.

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The iron cage revisited institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields

Many formal organizational structures arise as reflections of rationalized institutional rules. The elaboration of such rules in modern states and societies accounts in part for the expansion and i...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2778293.pdf

Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony

ABSENT fiat, the form of organization that survives in an activity is the one that delivers the product demanded by customers at the lowest price while covering costs.1 Our goal is to explain the survival of organizations characterized by separation of "ownership" and "control"-a problem that has bothered students of corporations from Adam Smith to Berle and Means and Jensen and Meckling.2 In more precise language, we are concerned with the survival of organizations in which important decision agents do not bear a substantial share of the wealth effects of their decisions. We argue that the separation of decision and risk-bearing functions observed in large corporations is common to other organizations such as large professional partnerships, financial mutuals, and nonprofits. We contend that separation of decision and risk-bearing functions survives in these organizations in part because of the benefits of specialization of

/pdf/separation-of-ownership-and-control-3cs1pezwz4.pdf

Separation of ownership and control

This article synthesizes the large but diverse literature on organizational legitimacy, highlighting similarities and disparities among the leading strategic and institutional approaches. The analysis identifies three primary forms of legitimacy: pragmatic, based on audience self-interest; moral, based on normative approval: and cognitive, based on comprehensibility and taken-for-grantedness. The article then examines strategies for gaining, maintaining, and repairing legitimacy of each type, suggesting both the promises and the pitfalls of such instrumental manipulations.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/258788.pdf

Managing Legitimacy: Strategic and Institutional Approaches

Publisher Summary This chapter addresses the universals in the content and structure of values, concentrating on the theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries, and its four basic issues: substantive contents of human values; identification of comprehensive set of values; extent to which the meaning of particular values was equivalent for different groups of people; and how the relations among different values was structured. Substantial progress has been made toward resolving each of these issues. Ten motivationally distinct value types that were likely to be recognized within and across cultures and used to form value priorities were identified. Set of value types that was relatively comprehensive, encompassing virtually all the types of values to which individuals attribute at least moderate importance as criteria of evaluation was demonstrated. The evidence from 20 countries was assembled, showing that the meaning of the value types and most of the single values that constitute them was reasonably equivalent across most groups. Two basic dimensions that organize value systems into an integrated motivational structure with consistent value conflicts and compatibilities were discovered. By identifying universal aspects of value content and structure, the chapter has laid the foundations for investigating culture-specific aspects in the future.

Universals in the Content and Structure of Values: Theoretical Advances and Empirical Tests in 20 Countries

A synthetic polyisoprene rubber latex produced by emulsifying a solution of polyisoprene rubber in an organic solvent with water and removing the solvent from the resulting oil-in-water emulsion is significantly improved with respect to mechanical stability, wet gel strength and dry film strength by utilizing, as a polyisoprene rubber, a modified polyisoprene rubber prepared by introducing from about 0.03 to 20 carboxyl groups per 100 recurring units of isoprene monomer present in the synthetic cis-1,4-polyisoprene rubber.

The Theory of Social and Economic Organization

In the history of sociological theory, Talcott Parsons holds a very special place. His The Structure of Social Action (1937), was a pioneer work that has influenced many social scientists. The present work, The Social System, presents a major scientific and intellectual advance towards the theory of action first outlined in his earlier work.

The Social System

The Theory of Social and Economic Organization grew out of Weber’s philosophical inquiries into the nature of authority and how it is transmitted. He identified three types of authority: the charismatic, based on the individual qualities of a leader and reverence for them among his or her followers; the traditional, based on custom and usage; and the rational-legal, based on the rule of objective law.

The Social System.

Downloading the book in this website lists can give you more advantages. It will show you the best book collections and completed collections. So many books can be found in this website. So, this is not only this toward a general theory of action. However, this book is referred to read because it is an inspiring book to give you more chance to get experiences and also thoughts. This is simple, read the soft file of the book and you get it.

Talcott Parsons

Papers

The Theory of Social and Economic Organization

The Social System

The Theory of Social and Economic Organization

The Social System.

Toward a General Theory of Action.