The complexity of political, regulatory, and technological changes confronting most organizations has made radical organizational change and adaptation a central research issue. This article sets out a framework for understanding organizational changes from the perspective of neo-institutional theory. The principal theoretical issue addressed in the article is the interaction of organizational context and organizational action. The article examines the processes by which individual organizations retain, adopt, and discard templates for organizing, given the institutionalized nature of organizational fields.

Understanding Radical Organizational Change: Bringing Together the Old and the New Institutionalism

In recent years, a market-oriented corporate culture increasingly has been considered a key element of superior corporate performance. Although organizational innovativeness is believed to be a pot...

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Market orientation and organizational performance: Is innovation a missing link?

Empirical research on complementarity between organizational design decisions has traditionally focused on the question of existence of complementarity. In this paper, we take a broader approach to the issue, combining a productivity and an adoption approach, while including a search for contextual variables in the firms strategy that affects complementarity. Analysis of contextual variables is not only interesting per se, but also improves the productivity test for the existence of complementarity. We use our empirical methodology to analyze complementarity between innovation activities: internal research and development (R&D) and external knowledge acquisition. Our results suggest that internal R&D and external knowledge acquisition are complementary innovation activities, but that the degree of complementarity is sensitive to other elements of the firms strategic environment. We identify reliance on basic R&Dthe importance of universities and research centers as an information source for the innovation processas an important contextual variable affecting complementarity between internal and external innovation activities.

In Search of Complementarity in Innovation Strategy: Internal R&D and External Knowledge Acquisition

Providing a retrospective and prospective overview of organization studies, the Handbook continues to challenge and inspire readers with its synthesis of knowledge and literature. As ever, contributions have been selected to reflect the diversity of the field. New chapters cover areas such as organizational change; knowledge management; and organizational networks.
Part One reflects on the relationship between theory, research and practice in organization studies.
Part Two address a number of the most significant issues to affect organization studies such as leadership, diversity and globalization.
Comprehensive and far-reaching, this important resource will set new standards for the understanding of organizational studies. It will be invaluable to researchers, teachers and advanced students alike.

Institutions and Institutional Work

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)

Recent developments in organizational theory emphasize the need to examine the relationship between organizational values and structure. Values underpin organizational structure and give it meaning. Drawing on concepts of culture, institutional theory, and archetypes, this paper tests hypotheses on the value/structure relationship. The sample used for the study was a set of Canadian amateur sport organizations undergoing institutional change. This test shows that there is a fit between elite values and the nature of the institutionally prescribed organizational archetype.

Values and Organizational Structure

This is a text for students on Sport Management Courses, and a reference for sport administrators and managers. It aims to provide the reader with a greater understanding of the issues and theoretical construction behind sport organisations. Case studies and profiles allow reader to apply knowledge from each chapter to a real life example. It features new chapters on strategic alliances and doing research in sport management and includes a new section in each chapter on key issues for sport managers.

Understanding Sport Organizations: The Application of Organization Theory

The purpose of this research was to explore how the pace, sequence, and linearity of change can affect the outcome of radical transformations. Real-time data collected over 12 years showed that, contrary to popular belief, wide-scale rapid change was not a determining factor. However, early change to specific “high-impact” elements was found to be necessary for completing radical transitions. Further, analysis conducted at the suborganization level provided insight into the ways in which change unfurls in a nonlinear manner.

The pace, sequence, and linearity of radical change

This paper examines the process of isomorphic change. It does so by examin ing the dynamics of the change process and looking at change holistically. Using a population of 36 national-level sport organizations, subject to environ mental pressures from a state agency to adopt a more professional and bureau cratic design, the paper shows that over time there is an increase in the level of homogeneity of these organizations. Although the general shift is to a more professional and bureaucratic type of organization, certain elements of struc ture do not change as much as others, thus demonstrating resistance to institu tional pressures. The processes by which the changes that occurred took place are explored.

Institutional Pressures and Isomorphic Change: An Empirical Test

Presents the results of an analysis of 28 national and multi-national Canadian firms that had been involved in sport sponsorships at the national or international levels. Detailed interviews were conducted with senior marketing personnel in each company to determine how sponsorships were created and managed. Suggests that those firms which were successful had, either knowingly or fortuitously, developed their sponsorship into a distinctive competence and made it an intrinsic part of the overall marketing and communications mix. By contrast, those that were unsuccessful entered into sponsorship agreements on a more piecemeal basis with little thought of building a coherent marketing image. Sport sponsorship involves the allocation of scarce resources with the intent of achieving certain organisational objectives (Slack and Bentz, 1996). Consequently, it has frequently been described in the marketing literature as a strategic activity (Carter, 1996; Gilbert, 1988; Otker, 1988). The use of recent developments in the strategic management literature to provide insights that will further our understanding of sport sponsorship, as has been the case in the wider marketing field, therefore appears logical and germane. Unfortunately, this is an avenue of research that has been largely neglected. Although the linkages with strategic management have long been recognised in marketing research (e.g. Biggadike, 1981), similar connections are conspicuously absent in the sponsorship literature. In this paper, we attempt to address this void by extending our previous arguments that sponsorship agreements should be considered as strategic investments (cf. Amis et al., 1997). Specifically, we contend that any firm entering into a sponsorship agreement should treat its sponsorship as a resource which, either singly or in combination with other resources, can be developed into an area of distinctive competence which in turn can assist the firm to a position of sustainable competitive advantage. To this end, the remainder of the paper is divided into six sections. In the first of these we argue that sport sponsorship should be considered a resource which can be the basis of competitive advantage. In the next section we present arguments to suggest that for this advantage to be sustainable, the sponsorship The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of Sport Canada for funding the research upon which this study is based.

Trevor Slack

Papers

Values and Organizational Structure

Understanding Sport Organizations: The Application of Organization Theory

The pace, sequence, and linearity of radical change

Institutional Pressures and Isomorphic Change: An Empirical Test

Sport sponsorship as distinctive competence