The Social Psychology of Organizations.

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)

Social identity theory and the organization

Research in closed-loop supply chains (CLSCs) has grown rapidly over the last 10 years. The authors offer a critical review of influential CLSC research that takes a business economics perspective. Much of the research was inspired by practice-driven thoughtpieces, and this helped to keep research focused on relevant issues. However, CLSC research has several assumptions, such as perfect substitution between new and remanufactured products that risk becoming institutionalized. There is a strong need to carefully examine current industrial practice so that research remains focused on relevant problems. Deeper understanding of consumer perceptions of remanufactured products, product diffusion, and valuation of returned products are needed for the field to continue to add insights into developing sustainable economies.

Production and Operations Management

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature suggests CSR initiatives extend beyond meeting the immediate interests of stakeholders of for-profit enterprises, offering the potential to also enhance performance. Growing disillusionment of for-profit business models has drawn attention to social entrepreneurship and social innovation to ease social issues. Adopting a systematic review of relevant research, the article provides collective insights into research linking social innovation with social entrepreneurship, demonstrating growing interest in the area over the last decade. The past 5 years have seen a surge in attention with particular focus on the role of the entrepreneur, networks, systems, institutions, and cross-sectoral partnerships. Based on the findings of the review, the authors synthesize formerly dispersed fields of research into an analytical framework, signposting a “systems of innovation” approach for future studies of social innovation and social entrepreneurship.

Social innovation and social entrepreneurship: : A systematic review

More and more firms are engaging in greenwashing, misleading consumers about firm environmental performance or the environmental benefits of a product or service. The skyrocketing incidence of greenwashing can have profound negative effects on consumer and investor confidence in environmentally friendly firms and products. Mitigating greenwashing is particularly challenging in a context of limited and uncertain regulation. This article examine the external (both institutional and market), organizational and individual drivers of greenwashing and offers recommendations for managers, policymakers, and NGOs to decrease its prevalence.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1966721_code235565.pdf?abstractid=1966721&mirid=1&type=2

The Drivers of Greenwashing

More and more firms are engaging in greenwashing, misleading consumers about their environmental performance or the environmental benefits of a product or service. The skyrocketing incidence of greenwashing can have profound negative effects on consumer and investor confidence in green products. Mitigating greenwashing is particularly challenging in a context of limited and uncertain regulation. This article examines the external (both institutional and market), organizational and individual drivers of greenwashing and offers recommendations for managers, policymakers, and NGOs to decrease its prevalence.

/pdf/the-drivers-of-greenwashing-4m0dpl3qqy.pdf

This paper examines the effects of employer social responsibility on the wages workers demand through randomized field experiments in two online labor marketplaces. Workers were recruited for short-term jobs and I manipulated whether or not they received information about the employer’s social responsibility. I then observed the payment workers were willing to accept for the job. In the first experiment, information about the employer’s social responsibility marginally reduced prospective workers’ wage requirements on average and had a significant effect on the highest performers, who were willing to give up the wage differential they would otherwise demand. In the second, prospective workers submitted 44% lower wage bids for the same job after learning about the employer’s social responsibility. This paper provides causal empirical evidence of a revealed preference for social responsibility in the workplace, and of a greater preference among the highest performers. More broadly, it provides evidence that...

Social responsibility messages and worker wage requirements: : Field experimental evidence from online labor marketplaces

Despite a recent surge in corporate activism, with firm leaders communicating about social-political issues unrelated to their core businesses, we know little about its strategic implications. This...

The Demotivating Effects of Communicating a Social-Political Stance: Field Experimental Evidence from an Online Labor Market Platform

This article describes randomized field experiments implemented on two online labor market platforms examining the effect of employer charitable giving on a source of human capital that is becoming...

Vanessa Burbano

Papers

The Drivers of Greenwashing

The Drivers of Greenwashing

Social responsibility messages and worker wage requirements: : Field experimental evidence from online labor marketplaces

The Demotivating Effects of Communicating a Social-Political Stance: Field Experimental Evidence from an Online Labor Market Platform

Getting Gig Workers to Do More by Doing Good: Field Experimental Evidence From Online Platform Labor Marketplaces: