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)

Much effort goes into building markets as a tool for economic and social development, often overlooking that in too many places social exclusion and poverty prevent many, especially women, from participating in and accessing markets. Building on data from rural Bangladesh and analyzing the work of a prominent intermediary organization, we uncover institutional voids as the source of market exclusion and identify two sets of activities – redefining market architecture and legitimating new actors – as critical for building ‘inclusive' markets. We expose voids as ‘analytical spaces' and illustrate how they result from conflict and contradiction among institutional ‘bits and pieces' from local political, community, and religious spheres. Our findings put forward a perspective on market building that highlights the ‘on the ground' dynamics and attends to the ‘institutions at play', to their consequences, and to a more diverse set of ‘inhabitants' of institutions.

Building Inclusive Markets in Rural Bangladesh : How Intermediaries Work Institutional Voids

Institutions and Organizations

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Central Problems In Social Theory Action Structure And Contradiction In Social Analysis

Recent studies suggest that Lean concepts can be successfully adopted only when it is aligned with the organizational culture (OC). OC can be defined as the shared values and beliefs of people, according to which they perceive, react and act in any situation. For sustained and effective adoption of Lean, it is important to institute Lean philosophy in the core culture of an organization. To enable effective adoption, it is important to analyze and understand the organizational culture and its dimensions before inducing a change management strategy for sustaining Lean. The objective of this study is to understand the impact of prominent cultural dimensions on the different management levels of employees. The paper presents, results and discussion of an exploratory study conducted using a case study approach. A construction company based in a metropolitan city in India was chosen based on its active program in Lean implementation. To analyze the cultural dimensions of the organization, Competing Values Framework (CVF) was chosen. The key dimensions based on which CVF assess the OC are dominant characteristics, management of employees, organizational leadership, organizational glue, criteria for success and strategic emphases. The data was collected through “Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI)” and the target respondents were the top-management and middle-management staff. The data was analyzed by standard scoring mechanisms, to arrive at the particular type of organizational culture. Apart from the questionnaires, views, and opinions from the experts were also taken. From the study, it was found that the perception of employees about the organizational culture varies with different management levels, which might be a potential threat to sustain Lean philosophy. The study concludes by emphasizing the need for detailed understanding on the impacts of cultural dimensions in an organization. 1 Doctoral Research Scholar, Building Technology & Construction Management Division, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of TechnologyMadras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.mannasimon92@gmail.com 2 Professor, Building Technology & Construction Management Division, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. koshy@iitm.ac.in Assessment of Organizational Culture in Construction – A Case Study Approach People, Culture and Change 349

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Assessment of Organizational Culture in Construction – A Case Study Approach

A manufacturing organisation in India contemplated augmenting their capacity and took up a green-field expansion project in a new location. The internal construction division of the organisation decided to introduce Lean construction philosophy. A study was taken up to understand the impact of Lean on the engineering, procurement and construction phases where multiple stakeholders who are entrenched in traditional approaches are involved. A detailed case study and actionbased approach was adopted. The data included both primary observation data collected by the researchers present in meetings and other data from various reports. . There were some interesting insights into the dynamics involved when groups with diverse approaches are brought together on a Lean construction journey. There was also a challenge of implementing Lean with multiple project teams all working in the same organisation and therefore with little or tacit contracts involved in the project. The initial attitudes of the people which ranged from enthusiasm to outright scepticism and engagement with reservations evolved progressively over time to embracing Lean in varying degrees and formats. The complexities present in the organisational structure contributed to the formation of institutional voids which were leveraged by the Lean group to promote Lean practices.

https://iglcstorage.blob.core.windows.net/papers/attachment-7d39e454-ec78-4549-aa8a-bfce6e0bfea9.pdf

Introducing Lean Construction Philosophy in E-P-C Phases of a Large Industrial Project

In line with the trend of spread of Lean Construction concepts in the recent past, Lean construction philosophy was introduced in a large industrial project of a leading organisation about two years back. The drive by the top management, augmented by efforts of the Lean champions in the project team, helped the project team to transition from the conventional project delivery method to the Lean Construction method. The present study looks at the developments in Lean implementation in the Project over time, based on observations on such dynamics and understanding the strategies which might help to mainstream Lean philosophy introduction in other similar organisations and construction projects. A detailed case study based approach was adopted to this end. The mentoring coach closely observed the behavioural developments of the Project team over time. Data for analysis included primary observations by the mentoring coach, minutes of the various meetings of the project team under study and oneonone interactions with various team members. The analysis gave some significant insights on how to continue the initial momentum gained towards sustained Lean implementation on construction projects and in organisations.

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Initial Euphoria to Sustained Change - Mainstreaming Lean Culture

India will develop at a rapid pace over the next decade. Lack of infrastructure poses a serious constraint to achieving its developmental objectives. To overcome this, India plans to invest substantially in infrastructure over the forthcoming years. Private participation in Indian infrastructure in the form of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) has gained momentum in the last decade, both in terms of public policies as well as visible participation in infrastructure service delivery. PPPs in infrastructure projects are complex long term contractual arrangements with a multitude of stakeholders. The institutional contexts in which these projects are executed have a significant impact on the sustainability and the success of these projects. In this paper, we bring in empirical evidence to look at the diffusion of institutions surrounding PPP programs. We take the context of three Indian states and show that even under coercive isomorphic pressures, local contexts and the cultural biases may lead to adoption of institutions in different forms. The emergent organizational fields are highly contingent on local conditions and institutional adoption is tailored based on the existing fields and the cultural cognitive biases. We make use of Strategic Action Fields to explain this phenomenon and in the process provide empirical evidence and extend this conceptual theory.

Organizational field configurations for state level public private partnership programs in india

The Last Planner System (LPS TM )is becoming popular for project management all over the world. Though the practitioners are able to follow the concepts quite well, they sometimes find it difficult to develop the required processes and templates, particularly in organisations and environments where systematic planning practices are not that prevalent. Structured templates, simulations, or games for LPS are also not freely available in the open domain. A simulation exercise, COLPLASSE (COLlaborative PLAnning System Simulation Exercise), has been developed to cater to this felt need. COLPLASSE is based on simple Excel spreadsheets and uses work plans for developing Look Ahead Plans and Weekly planning over the many weeks required for project completion. It has provisions to simulate random delays due to inclement external environmental conditions or variations in productivity due to various causes. It computes PPC automatically and simultaneously draws continuous charts for PPC and Root Cause Analysis over the Project completion period. It is simple to use and with further improvements being planned, can develop into a powerful tool for training or simulation or actual use along with LPS. Further research is proposed to be done using this simulation with various groups to evaluate its capabilities for helping early practitioners to use LPS.

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Venkata S. K. Delhi

Papers

Introducing Lean Construction Philosophy in E-P-C Phases of a Large Industrial Project

Initial Euphoria to Sustained Change - Mainstreaming Lean Culture

Organizational field configurations for state level public private partnership programs in india

Simulation Exercise for Collaborative Planning System / Last Planner System (COLPLASSE)