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Imprinting: Toward A Multilevel Theory
TLDR
The concept of imprinting has attracted considerable interest in numerous fields including organizational ecology, institutional theory, network analysis, and career research as mentioned in this paper, and has been applied at several levels of analysis, from the industry to the individual.Abstract:
The concept of imprinting has attracted considerable interest in numerous fields — including organizational ecology, institutional theory, network analysis, and career research — and has been applied at several levels of analysis, from the industry to the individual. This article offers a critical review of this rich yet disparate literature and guides research toward a multilevel theory of imprinting. We start with a definition that captures the general features of imprinting across levels of analysis but is precise enough to remain distinct from seemingly similar concepts, such as path dependence and cohort effects. We then provide a framework to order and unite the splintered field of imprinting research at different levels of analysis. In doing so, we identify economic, technological, institutional, and individual influences that lead to imprints at the level of (a) organizational collectives, (b) single organizations, (c) organizational building blocks, and (d) individuals. Building on this framework, we develop a general model that points to major avenues for future research and charts new directions toward a multilevel theory of imprinting. This theory provides a distinct lens for organizational research that takes history seriously.read more
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The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)
Paul DiMaggio,Walter W. Powell +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them, and describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative.
Journal ArticleDOI
The governance of social enterprises: Mission drift and accountability challenges in hybrid organizations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the challenges of governance facing organizations that pursue a social mission through the use of market mechanisms, and the role of governing boards in prioritizing and aligning potentially conflicting objectives and interests in order to avoid mission drift and maintain organizational hybridity in social enterprises.
Corporate social responsibility reporting in China: Symbol or substance?
Christopher Marquis,Cuili Qian +1 more
TL;DR: A political dependence model is developed that explains how different types of dependency on the government lead firms to issue corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports and how the risk of governmental monitoring affects the extent to which CSR reports are symbolic or substantive.
References
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Book ChapterDOI
The iron cage revisited institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields
Paul DiMaggio,Walter W. Powell +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them, and describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative.
Book
Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance
TL;DR: Douglass C. North as discussed by the authors developed an analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies, both at a given time and over time.
Posted Content
Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance
Douglass C. North,John Alt +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the role that institutions, defined as the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction, play in economic performance and how those institutions change and how a model of dynamic institutions explains the differential performance of economies through time.
Journal ArticleDOI
Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony
John W. Meyer,Brian Rowan +1 more
TL;DR: Many formal organizational structures arise as reflections of rationalized institutional rules as discussed by the authors, and the elaboration of such rules in modern states and societies accounts in part for the expansion and i...
Book
The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective
TL;DR: The External Control of Organizations as discussed by the authors explores how external constraints affect organizations and provides insights for designing and managing organizations to mitigate these constraints, and it is the fact of the organization's dependence on the environment that makes the external constraint and control of organizational behavior both possible and almost inevitable.
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