Showing papers in "Journal of Management Studies in 2013"

Planetary Boundaries: Ecological Foundations for Corporate Sustainability

Abstract: Management studies on corporate sustainability practices have grown considerably. The field now has significant knowledge of sustainability issues that are firm and industry focused. However, complex ecological problems are increasing, not decreasing. In this paper, we argue that it is time for corporate sustainability scholars to reconsider the ecological and systemic foundations for sustainability, and to integrate our work more closely with the natural sciences. To address this, our paper introduces a new development in the natural sciences � the delineation of nine �Planetary Boundaries� which govern life as we know it. We call for more systemic research that measures the impact of companies on boundary processes that are at, or possibly beyond, three threshold points � climate change, the global nitrogen cycle, and rate of biodiversity loss � and closing in on others. We also discuss practical implications of the Planetary Boundaries framework for corporate sustainability, including governance and institutional challenges.

Time and the Entrepreneurial Journey: The Problems and Promise of Studying Entrepreneurship as a Process

Abstract: We examine the growing disconnect between the process-oriented conception of entrepreneurship taught in the classroom and theorized about in premier journals and the variance-oriented conception of entrepreneurship that characterizes empirical studies of the phenomenon. We propose that a shift in inquiry from entrepreneurship as an act to entrepreneurship as a journey could facilitate process-oriented research by initiating a dialogue about the nature of the entrepreneurial journey, when it has begun and ended, whether it might be productively subdivided into variables or events, and what if anything remains constant throughout the process. Finally, we propose that a clearer understanding of the entrepreneurial journey is necessary to distinguish the field horizontally from research on creativity and strategy, and vertically from research on more practical business functions or more abstract systems-level concepts.

Do Family Firms Have Better Reputations Than Non-Family Firms? An Integration of Socioemotional Wealth and Social Identity Theories

Abstract: We draw from socioemotional wealth and social identity research to develop a theory on reputational differences among family and non-family firms. We propose that family members identify more strongly with their family firm than non-family members do with either a family or non-family firm. Heightened identification motivates family members to pursue a favourable reputation because it allows them to feel good about themselves, thus contributing to their socioemotional wealth. We hypothesize that when the family's name is part of the firm's name, the firm's reputation is higher because family members are particularly motivated for their firm to have a better reputation. Family members also need organizational power to pursue a favourable reputation; thus, we hypothesize that the level of family ownership and family board presence should be associated with more favourable reputations. We find support for our theory in a sample of large firms from eight countries with disparate governance systems and cultures.

Emerging multinationals from mid-range economies: the influence of institutions and factor markets

Abstract: This paper revisits and extends our earlier work (in 2005) in the pages of this journal. We argue that there is a need for more fine-grained understanding of the country context along two dimensions: (1) institutional development and (2) infrastructure and factor market development. Specifically, we propose an enriched typology of emerging economies with a focus on mid-range emerging economies, which are positioned between traditional emerging economies and newly developed economies. Then we examine new multinationals from these mid-range emerging economies that have internationalized both regionally and globally. We outline directions for further research based on this typology in terms of (1) government influence, (2) resource orchestration, (3) market entry, and (4) corporate governance regarding the internationalization strategy of these emerging multinationals from mid-range economies.

Has Management Studies Lost Its Way? Ideas for More Imaginative and Innovative Research

Abstract: Despite the huge increase in the number of management articles published during the three last decades, there is a serious shortage of high-impact research in management studies. We contend that a primary reason behind this paradoxical shortage is the near total dominance of incremental gap-spotting research in management. This domination is even more paradoxical as it is well known that gap-spotting rarely leads to influential theories. We identify three broad and interacting key drivers behind this double paradox: institutional conditions, professional norms, and researchers' identity constructions. We discuss how specific changes in these drivers can reduce the shortage of influential management theories. We also point to two methodologies that may encourage and facilitate more innovative and imaginative research and revisions of academic norms and identities.

Managing Legitimacy in Complex and Heterogeneous Environments: Sustainable Development in a Globalized World

Abstract: The sustainability problems with regard to the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services increasingly challenge the legitimacy of corporations. The literature distinguishes three strategies that corporations commonly employ to respond to legitimacy problems: adapt to external expectations, manipulate the perception of their stakeholders, or engage in a discourse with those who question their legitimacy. We discuss three approaches to determine the appropriate response strategy: one-best-way approach, contingency approach, and paradox approach. We argue that in the face of heterogeneous environments with conflicting demands, corporations that follow a paradox approach are likely to be more successful in preserving their legitimacy than those that adopt one of the other two approaches. We develop a theoretical framework for the application of different response strategies and explore the management of paradoxes by way of structural, contextual, or reflective means.

Professions and Institutional Change: Towards an Institutionalist Sociology of the Professions

Abstract: Beginning with this article, our special issue advances the understanding of the role of professions in processes of institutional change and through this it proposes a retheorization of contemporary professionalism. Using institutionalist lenses in professional settings, we highlight the relationship between professionalization and broader institutionalization projects. We start by critically reviewing existing approaches in the sociology of the professions, identifying a functionalist and a conflict-based approach. Then, we build on and further elaborate an institutionalist perspective on professional work. Such a perspective affirms the importance of studying professions as institutions and connecting professionalization to broader patterns of institutionalization; it highlights the role of professions and professionals as agents in the creation, maintenance, and disruption of institutions, and recognizes the importance of accommodating contemporary patterns of professionalization within the organizational context. We also illustrate how, empirically, the eight papers in this issue advance our understanding of professional agency in contemporary change and, theoretically, contribute to the reconceptualization of the study of professionalism. Finally, we briefly summarize our contribution and identify a series of directions for further research.

Where do we go from here? New perspectives on the black box in strategic human resource management research

Abstract: The main objective of the present research is to briefly review the strategic human resource management (HRM) literature from multilevel theoretical perspectives to summarize what we know about mediating mechanisms in the HR�performance relationship. By doing so, we highlight future research needs to advance theoretical understanding of the �black box� in strategic HRM research. Furthermore, by offering additional theoretical perspectives that can be used to understand the mediating mechanisms at different levels, we suggest future research directions that capture the complexities associated with strategic HRM through a multilevel theoretical lens. Implications of the model are discussed.

How Do Developmental and Accommodative HRM Enhance Employee Engagement and Commitment? The Role of Psychological Contract and SOC Strategies

Abstract: In the context of the changing workforce, this study introduced two perspectives on HRM and distinguished universalistic developmental HRM from contingent accommodative HRM. We predicted two separate pathways for the effects on two employee outcomes: work engagement and affective commitment. We expected that developmental HRM would universally relate to employee outcomes by rebalancing the psychological contract between the employee and organization into a less transactional to a more relational contract. We also predicted that accommodative HRM would relate to outcomes only when fulfilling specific needs of employees, associated with their selecting, optimizing, and compensating strategies. Results of a multilevel study among 1058 employees in 17 healthcare units fully supported our expectations regarding the role of the psychological contract. Additionally, we found support for the expected roles of selection and compensation, but not for optimization strategy. This study contributes to the literature by demonstrating that HRM relates to employee outcomes through multiple pathways, which can be either universal or contingent.

Re-Theorizing Change: Institutional Experimentation and the Struggle for Domination in the Field of Public Accounting

Abstract: Using change theory integrated with Bourdieusian sociology, we re-theorize a major institutional shift in the field of public accounting The case we examine involves the consolidation of commercial values in the auditing profession In reinterpreting this shift, we highlight an institutional process structured around a conflict between commercial innovators and guardians of the professional tradition Our analysis indicates a peculiar kind of institutional work, wherein economic capital is reinforced at the field level while the logic of commercialism is strengthened in accounting firms' structures and practitioners' mindset From our studying of the field of accountancy, we develop the concept of institutional experimentation in order to offer a view of institutional work as a fragile and unpredictable process Specifically, the latter is subject to trials and tests by actors involved in a series of more or less connected experiments in trying to extend their professional jurisdiction through institutional innovation, while seeking to consolidate the traditional foundations of their jurisdictional legitimacy through institutional reproduction Our paper also challenges the notion of organizational archetypes While a focus on the firms' formal organizational parameters may suggest archetypical stability, the picture is more complex when one takes into account processes of institutional experimentation and the duality of institutional change and stability

In Pursuit of Greatness: CEO Narcissism, Entrepreneurial Orientation, and Firm Performance Variance

Abstract: Building upon the perspective that narcissism is a leadership trait with both �bright� and �dark� sides, the present study examines the question of whether companies led by narcissistic CEOs exhibit higher levels of entrepreneurial orientation (EO). Moreover, this research examines whether EO partially explains why narcissistic CEO-led firms experience greater variability in firm performance. Using survey data collected from 173 CEOs, and an archival measure of firm performance variance, we find support for our model. These findings offer an improved understanding of how CEO narcissism influences performance variance, and why the firms they lead may even, at times, be viewed as on a path to success. Study implications are discussed.

Category stretching: : Reorienting research on categories in strategy, entrepreneurship, and organization theory

Abstract: We advocate for more tolerance in the manner we collectively address categories and categorization in our research. Drawing on the prototype view, organizational scholars have provided a �disciplining� framework to explain how category membership shapes, impacts, and limits organizational success. By stretching the existing straightjacket of scholarship on categories, we point to other useful conceptualizations of categories � i.e. the causal-model and the goal-based approaches of categorization � and propose that depending on situational circumstances, and beyond a disciplining exercise, categories involve a cognitive test of congruence and a goal satisfying calculus. Unsettling the current consensus about categorical imperatives and market discipline, we suggest also that audiences may tolerate more often than previously thought organizations that blend, span, and stretch categories. We derive implications for research about multi-category membership and mediation in markets, and suggest ways in which work on the theme of categories in the strategy, entrepreneurship, and managerial cognition literatures can be enriched.

Harnessing Innovation for Change: Sustainability and Poverty in Developing Countries

Abstract: To date, a well-developed business perspective on how to promote sustainability for those in poverty is sorely lacking. For sustainability enhancing innovations in developing countries, poverty presents unique challenges. In this paper, we argue that if sustainability enhancing innovations introduced in developing countries are to stick, they need to be designed with local customers, networks, and business ecosystems in mind. We illustrate this view using case examples from mobile telephony, fuel efficient stoves, clean drinking water, and household electrification. Our paper underscores the need for today's managers to understand poverty as an integral part of the sustainability nexus and the new international business equation.

Categories, Identities, and Cultural Classification: Moving Beyond a Model of Categorical Constraint

Abstract: We advocate for more tolerance in the manner we collectively address categories and categorization in our research. Drawing on the prototype view, organizational scholars have provided a �disciplining� framework to explain how category membership shapes, impacts, and limits organizational success. By stretching the existing straightjacket of scholarship on categories, we point to other useful conceptualizations of categories � i.e. the causal-model and the goal-based approaches of categorization � and propose that depending on situational circumstances, and beyond a disciplining exercise, categories involve a cognitive test of congruence and a goal satisfying calculus. Unsettling the current consensus about categorical imperatives and market discipline, we suggest also that audiences may tolerate more often than previously thought organizations that blend, span, and stretch categories. We derive implications for research about multi-category membership and mediation in markets, and suggest ways in which work on the theme of categories in the strategy, entrepreneurship, and managerial cognition literatures can be enriched.

Organizational Performance Consequences of Age Diversity: Inspecting the Role of Diversity-Friendly HR Policies and Top Managers’ Negative Age Stereotypes

Abstract: This paper seeks to advance the diversity literature by investigating organizational performance consequences of age diversity. Drawing from social-identity and social- categorization theory, we theoretically argue that, in age-diverse companies, age-based subgrouping processes occur, favouring a shared perception of a negative age-discrimination climate. This perceived negative age-discrimination climate in turn negatively relates to organizational performance. As the main contribution, top managers' negative age-related stereotypes and diversity-friendly HR policies are introduced as organizational-level moderators that increase and attenuate, respectively, the social categorization processes affecting performance in age-diverse companies. We utilized structural equation modelling (SEM) to test the proposed hypotheses using a multisource dataset comprising 147 companies. The results supported all hypotheses, indicating that low negative top managers' age stereotypes as well as high diversity-friendly HR policies are potential organizational factors that can prevent the negative relation of age diversity with organizational performance transmitted through the negative age-discrimination climate. These results are discussed in light of their contribution to the diversity literature and social-categorization theory as well as their implication for practitioners.

How useful are the strategic tools we teach in business schools

Abstract: Strategic tools are indispensible for business and competitive analysis. Yet we know very little about managers' internal logic as they put these tools into practical use. We situate our study in a business school context using action learning prior to the manifestation of practice to complement our understanding of practice. Using Personal Construct Theory and Repertory Grids, our mid-range theorizing showed that, contrary to current thinking about strategic tools, managers think in dualities (often paradoxically) and have a preference for multiple-tools-in-use, tools that provide different perspectives, peripheral vision, connected thinking, simultaneously help differentiate and integrate complex issues, and guide the thinking process. These findings are important for designing better tools and the nurturing of critical managerial competencies needed for a complicated world. Our study's focus also has wider implications for scholars as we see our own material evaluated by those who will put these lessons into practice.

The Relationship between Slack Resources and the Performance of Entrepreneurial Firms: The Role of Venture Capital and Angel Investors

Abstract: In this study, we seek to further delineate factors that condition the relationship between slack resources and firm performance. To do so, we develop and test a model that establishes the role of venture capital (VC) and angel investors as powerful external stakeholders who positively moderate the slack�performance relationship. In addition, we provide more insight into this relationship by examining differences between these two types of private investors and by examining the role of their ownership stakes. We test our hypotheses using a sample of 1215 private firms, including VC-backed firms, angel-backed firms, and similar firms without such investors. We find that the presence of VC investors positively moderates the relationship between both financial and human slack resources and firm performance, while angel investors only positively moderate the effect of human resource slack. Further, VC investors are only marginally better at helping entrepreneurs to extract value from human resource slack than angel investors and they are no better when it comes to financial slack. Finally, we find that the impact of financial and human resource slack on firm performance is more positive in VC-backed firms when investors hold high ownership stakes, an effect which is significantly stronger than when angel investors hold high ownership stakes.

Social Intermediation in Base-of-the-Pyramid Markets

Abstract: Our study explores the structuring decisions made by intermediaries seeking to alleviate poverty by connecting base-of-the-pyramid markets with more developed markets. Using intermediation theory to ground our study, we collected qualitative data on 29 social intermediation projects located within Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Our findings suggest that �socializing� intermediation theory to more accurately explain and predict structural outcomes across more diverse contexts requires three key modifications: (1) the attenuation of opportunism, which creates an internalizing social force; (2) the accommodation of non-monetary objectives, which creates an externalizing social force; and (3) the perception of transaction capabilities as tractable, which serves as a guidepost for reconciling these two opposing social forces.

Still Blue‐Collar after all these Years? An Ethnography of the Professionalization of Emergency Ambulance Work

Abstract: This paper explores the professionalization project of paramedics, based on an ethnographic study of UK National Health Service ( NHS) ambulance personnel. Drawing on concepts derived from institutional theory and the sociology of professions, we argue that the project is enacted at two levels, namely a formal, structural and senior level reflecting changing legitimation demands made on NHS practitioners and pursued through institutional entrepreneurship, and an informal, agentic, 'street level' enacted by the practitioners themselves via 'institutional work'. Focusing on this latter, front-line level, our ethnographic data demonstrate that the overall impact of the senior level professionalization project on the working lives of paramedics has been somewhat muted, mostly because it has had limited power over the organizations that employ paramedics. Given the slow progress of the senior level professionalization project, paramedics at street level continue to enact subtle forms of institutional work which serve to maintain 'blue-collar professionalism' - a form originally identified in Donald Metz's ethnography of ambulance work. Our analysis draws attention to the complex and contested nature of professionalization projects, in that their enactment at senior and street levels can be somewhat misaligned and possibly contradictory.

An Ontological Turn in Categories Research: From Standards of Legitimacy to Evidence of Actuality

Abstract: In this Counterpoint to Durand and Paolella, we argue that prior work on categories has neglected processes of category emergence and dissolution. In response, we call for studies of categories that focus on how they emerge and fall out of use and on what they come to mean. We call this an ontological turn in categories research because systems of categorization and their associated meanings capture and reflect what societies view as social realities, or ontologies. As a guide to this broad topic, we develop a framework that relates the effects of categories to the familiarity of (1) occasions and motivations for their usage and (2) meanings and ontologies they carry, and we use this framework to elaborate two paths by which previously unfamiliar categories become accepted as elements of common knowledge. These paths jointly inform the recognition front of the emergence question, an understudied problem in organization studies. Finally, we outline two methodologies � set theoretic analysis and network-based analysis � that offer particular promise for analysing processes of category emergence and dissolution.

Turning Agents into Psychological Principals: Aligning Interests of Non-Owners Through Psychological Ownership

Abstract: Principals who delegate tasks to agents face the perennial challenge of overcoming agency problems. We investigate whether feelings of ownership among senior managers in the absence of formal ownership can align agents' interests with those of principals, thus turning agents into psychological principals. Using a moderated mediation model, we find that psychological ownership is positively related to company performance through the mediating effect of individual-level entrepreneurial behaviour. We also find that the effect of psychological ownership on individual-level entrepreneurial behaviour and, ultimately, company performance is weaker for high levels of monitoring compared to low levels. These findings offer important contributions to agency, psychological ownership, and entrepreneurship literatures.

Transforming New Ideas into Practice: An Activity Based Perspective on the Institutionalization of Practices

Abstract: We develop an activity-focused process model of how new ideas can be transformed into front line practice by reviving attention to the importance of habitualization as a key component of institutionalization. In contrast to established models that explain how ideas diffuse or spread from one organization to another, we employ a micro-level perspective to study the subsequent intra-organizational processes through which these ideas are transformed into new workplace practices. We followed efforts to transform the organizationally accepted idea of �interdisciplinary teamwork� into new everyday practices in four cases over a six year time period. We contribute to the literature by focusing on de-habitualizing and re-habitualizing behaviours that connect micro-level actions with organizational level theorizing. Our model illuminates three phases that we propose are essential to creating and sustaining this connection: micro-level theorizing, encouraging trying the new practices, and facilitating collective meaning-making.

When Do Outsider CEOs Generate Strategic Change? The Enabling Role of Corporate Stability

Abstract: When academic researchers, business commentators, and boards of directors have debated the merits of hiring new CEOs from outside the firm, the implicit or explicit assumption typically made is that outsider CEOs will provide an advantage in achieving strategic change. In this study, we challenge this assumption by employing a duality perspective on stability/change, and we provide an original conceptual framework to posit that it is the presence of corporate stability (ordinary succession, a long-tenured predecessor CEO, and good firm performance) that allows outsider CEOs to generate a greater degree of post-succession strategic change. We use extensive longitudinal data from US airline and chemical industries between 1972 and 2010 to test our hypotheses, and we discuss how our supportive findings challenge long-standing assumptions regarding the outsider succession�strategic change relationship, and we advocate embracing the non-intiutive notion that stable (unstable) conditions can be enablers (barriers) of strategic change for outsider CEOs.

The Mutation of Professionalism as a Contested Diffusion Process: Clinical Guidelines as Carriers of Institutional Change in Medicine

Abstract: The Anglo-American institution of the profession is mutating: we propose to analyse this mutation as a contested diffusion process that spreads new organizing practices among professionals. We offer an integrated account of the roles played in this diffusion/mutation process by facilitating and impeding factors at three levels: individual professionals (their autonomy, expertise, values, identities, and ties), professional organizations (their strategies, structures, cultures, skills, and systems), and the broader institutional field (professional associations, accountability demands, and competition). At the occupational and organizational level, we show how the distinctive and evolving features of professionalism moderate the mechanisms found in prior research on diffusion in other, non-professional settings; and at the field level, we show how field-level forces moderate the impact of professionalism on these diffusion dynamics. Changes at each of these levels interact with changes at the others, with influences flowing both downward and upward. We ground and illustrate this theoretical synthesis with evidence from the case of clinical guidelines as carriers of institutional change in the medical profession.

Managing Partners and Management Professionals: Institutional Work Dyads in Professional Partnerships

Abstract: This study presents an empirical analysis of the micro-dynamics of institutional work. Examining the ‘corporatization’ of large international law firm partnerships, the study identifies the dyadic relationship that develops between two different types of professionals, the managing partner and management professional, and demonstrates how their relationship becomes a key mechanism for institutional work. The study shows how, by working together, these individuals take advantage of differences in their relative social positions: specifically their formal authority, specialist expertise, and social capital. The study identifies seven forms of institutional work in which they engage and demonstrates how these multiple forms simultaneously encompass the creation, maintenance, and disruption of the institution of partnership. The study argues that this simultaneous occurrence helps to account for the phenomenon of sedimentation, whereby the gradually emerging institutional logic of the corporatized partnership is being integrated into the traditional partnership form.

Corporate Turnarounds: The Duality of Retrenchment and Recovery

Abstract: Corporate turnaround research has described retrenchment and recovery as contradictory forces that should be addressed separately. While a few scholars have argued that retrenchment and recovery are interrelated and may have to be integrated, others have contended that such arguments are flawed since they downplay the contradictions between the two activities. In this paper, we clarify the nature of the retrenchment–recovery interrelations, as well as their importance for turnaround performance. Drawing on the paradox literature, we argue that retrenchment and recovery form a duality: they are both contradictory and complementary. Integrating the two activities allows turnaround firms to create benefits that exceed the costs of their integration, which affects turnaround performance positively. We test our arguments through an empirical study of 107 Central European turnaround initiatives and find evidence for the assumed duality between retrenchment and recovery. Our main contribution is integrating the hitherto disparate theory perspectives of corporate turnaround into an overarching framework.

In Their Profession's Service: How Staff Professionals Exert Influence in Their Organization

Abstract: This paper seeks to better understand the way staff professionals bring professional practices inside their organization by examining how they enact a practical agency to promote or disrupt practices. From an inductive study of occupational safety and health managers in a multinational construction company, we develop a framework of how staff professionals build perceived legitimacy and exert unobtrusive influence tactics to manoeuvre around social constraints. We contend that our principal contribution to the literature on institutional work is to provide a situated account of the practical agency of staff professionals inside one organization. In doing so, we extend current knowledge of the embedded agency paradox. Finally, our analysis offers new insights into the literature on professions and institutions by highlighting the work of staff professionals in a real-life context, which has received scant attention in the last three decades.

R&D Outsourcing and the Effectiveness of Intangible Investments: Is Proprietary Core Knowledge Walking out of the Door?

Abstract: Intangible relationship-specific investments can be double-edged swords, as they facilitate not only the governance of business relationships but also undesired knowledge transfers. Building on transaction costs theory and the relational view of alliances, we analyse the effectiveness of these investments in R&D outsourcing agreements from the viewpoint of the client. We argue that, when outsourcing to business firms, the safeguards adopted by the clients to prevent spillovers may reduce the effectiveness of the supplier's specialized investments. Using original survey data from 170 European and US technology-intensive firms, we find that the contribution of these investments to client performance decreases the more a client's core knowledge is required to perform the service, except when outsourcing to non-profits. This suggests that as the appropriability hazards associated with outsourcing to business firms rise, the client is able to capture less value from the supplier's relationship-specific investments.

The Driving Forces of Subsidiary Absorptive Capacity

Abstract: The study investigates how a multinational corporation (MNC) can promote the absorptive capacity of its subsidiaries. The focus is on what drives the MNC subsidiary's ability to absorb marketing strategies that are initiated by the MNC parent, as well as how the subsidiary enacts on this absorptive capacity in order to compete in its focal market. The dual embeddedness of MNC subsidiaries plays a key role in this investigation, as subsidiaries belong to the MNC network and are simultaneously embedded in their host country environment. We argue that subsidiary absorptive capacity is formed as a purposeful response to this dual embeddedness. An analysis of marketing strategy absorptions undertaken by 213 subsidiaries reveals that MNCs can assist their subsidiaries to compete in competitive and dynamic focal markets by forming specific organizational mechanisms that are conducive to the development of subsidiary absorptive capacity. The findings hold important theoretical and practical implications.

From Taken-for-Granted to Explicit Commitment: The Rise of CSR in a Corporatist Country

Abstract: This article contributes to a thriving line of research that examines issue interpretation and social accounts in order to study the adoption and diffusion of organizational concepts and management practices. It employs the empirical example of the rise of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Austria between 1990 and 2005 to investigate the complex role institutional pressures and social positions of actors play in the local adoption of globally theorized ideas. More specifically, the study reveals distinct patterns in rhetorical CSR adoption that illustrate the initial hesitation and reluctance of an established elite in the Austrian business community towards the Anglo-American notion of 'explicit' CSR, while non-elite actors who were less favourably positioned in the social order readily embraced the concept. It is in such a sense that CSR is nevertheless instrumentalized to challenge, reinterpret, or explicitly evoke the autochthonous idea of institutionalized social solidarity. Conceptually, this research takes into account social structure, actors' positions in the social order, and resulting divergent adoption motivations - i.e. the individual, yet socially derived, relevance systems of actors - and relates them to mechanisms and processes of institutional change. (author's abstract)