The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)
01 Jan 2008-
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.
Abstract: 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.
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01 Jan 2018
TL;DR: In this paper, an increasing pressure is found on public sector organisations both to be efficient and innovative, and ambidexterity has found its ground in the public sector showing significant impact on fi...
Abstract: An increasing pressure is found on public sector organisations both to be efficient and innovative. Recently ambidexterity has found its ground in the public sector showing significant impact on fi ...
8 citations
Dissertation•
02 Nov 2012
TL;DR: In this article, the authors study how the hospital in Mali has been transformed under the pressure of the decentralization of state powers and to study how groups of actors are responding to these changes from two analytical frameworks.
Abstract: In Mali, a hospital law was passed in 2002 to define the institutional framework of a major reform. This law decreed substantial transformation of the internal structure, both administrative and clinical public hospitals including the involvement of local people in decision making of the establishment, administrative and financial autonomy through the delegation and the budget involvement of health professionals in the management, integration services and specialty private sector participation in the public hospital. However, the ability of hospitals to achieve the planned changes has been questioned by the majority of internal and external stakeholders. The objective of this thesis was to study how the hospital in Mali have been transformed turns under the pressure of the decentralization of state powers and to study how groups of actors are responding to these changes from two analytical frameworks. The first part incorporates the essential characteristics of hospital transformations in terms of different types of decentralization and the second part inspired by the work of Crozier and al. (1977) analysis the power games between groups of actors hospital at two levels namely strategic and systemic levels. For this, we conducted a study of two cases multiple studies we used three modes of data collection ie semi-structured interviews with key informants, document analysis, and observation during meetings. Initially, the analyzes revealed for the changes in the structure, depending on the size of the assigned responsibilities to the public hospital, (1) several variants of decentralization. Overall, the intent was focused on a political delegation and deconcentration and devolution, the mechanisms put in place have swung more towards devolution and delegation and devolution while the transformations actually worked in public hospitals have tended to confirm a deconcentration and more particularly of a delegation in the case of the involvement of local people in hospital management. While the public hospital could make revenue from the partial recovery of costs of care among users, the state kept a strong hand on financial management and personnel management, and defined guidelines and objectives to be pursued. (2) They provide an understanding of the linkages between different elements of the reform process, the type of mechanism put in place as part of the reform seems to determine the type of processing performed according to the functions that can ensure the public hospital. The logic reflects a shift from the delegation to a devolution which is judged as the least advanced form of decentralization. In a second step, the results confirm the presence of conflict between professional standards and recognized by health professionals and institutional and organizational standards put forward by the reform. They are defended by the majority of managers who are facing due
8 citations
Posted Content•
01 Jan 2020TL;DR: In this paper, a ranking-type Delphi study with three distinct, yet mutually supportive expert panels was conducted to compare vendors' intentions to acquire web assurance seals and perceived effects by consumers.
Abstract: Web assurance seals are actions taken by e-commerce vendors to increase their trustworthiness and alleviate consumers’ concerns. In their essence, web assurance seals are a product of negotiations, adoptions, and settlements among various groups of interests (e.g., seal authorities, vendors, consumers, or governmental institutions). However, previous research has hitherto used a unilateral research perspective when studying web assurance seals (i.e., either consumer- or vendor-centric), which has acted as a gridlock for web assurance seal literature development. Drawing on signaling theory, we use a ranking-type Delphi study with three distinct, yet mutually supportive expert panels (N = 60) to compare vendors’ intentions to acquire web assurance seals and perceived effects by consumers. Our results uncover a mismatch between consumers’ perceptions and vendors’ intentions of web assurance seals, unintended side effects as well as vendors targeting other stakeholders than consumers, ultimately providing starting points for research to move forward.
8 citations
Dissertation•
17 Jan 2011
TL;DR: Corporate environmental performance deviation as mentioned in this paper is defined as the extent to which a firm's environmental performance deviates from its predicted performance, and is used to capture within-firm strategic choices in environmental management.
Abstract: This dissertation examines two main research questions: Why do firms deviate from their predicted level of toxic emissions, and how do these differences relate to financial performance? The objective is threefold: (1) to understand deviation in corporate environmental performance by looking at both industry and firm level variables, (2) to see how this deviation relates to both profitability and fluctuations in financial performance, and (3) to see if, and how, corporate environmental legitimacy affects the relationship between corporate environmental deviation and corporate financial performance. To achieve this objective the construct ―corporate environmental performance deviation‖ is developed. It is defined as the extent to which a firm‘s environmental performance deviates from its predicted performance, and is used to capture within-firm strategic choices in environmental management. Predicted environmental performance is calculated based on certain firm characteristics such as size and industry. Actual environmental performance is calculated using a weighted score of air emissions obtained from the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) database. The difference between these two values represents a corporation‘s environmental performance deviation. Corporate environmental performance deviation focuses on strategic choices related to environmental management, while recognizing that environmental management is the result of both institutional pressures and within-firm strategic decisions. Aligned with this focus, variables
8 citations
01 Jan 2018
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe relationships as "central and significant part of our lives and form the very foundation on which organizations are built." They provide meaning to work, create connections, and ultimately...
Abstract: Relationships constitute a central and significant part of our lives and form the very foundation on which organizations are built. They provide meaning to work, create connections, and ultimately ...
8 citations
References
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TL;DR: This article synthesize the large but diverse literature on organizational legitimacy, highlighting similarities and disparities among the leading strategic and institutional approaches, and identify three primary forms of legitimacy: pragmatic, based on audience self-interest; moral, based upon normative approval; and cognitive, according to comprehensibility and taken-for-grantedness.
Abstract: This article synthesizes the large but diverse literature on organizational legitimacy, highlighting similarities and disparities among the leading strategic and institutional approaches. The analysis identifies three primary forms of legitimacy: pragmatic, based on audience self-interest; moral, based on normative approval: and cognitive, based on comprehensibility and taken-for-grantedness. The article then examines strategies for gaining, maintaining, and repairing legitimacy of each type, suggesting both the promises and the pitfalls of such instrumental manipulations.
13,229 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a theory of stakeholder identification and saliency based on stakeholders possessing one or more of three relationship attributes (power, legitimacy, and urgency) is proposed, and a typology of stakeholders, propositions concerning their saliency to managers of the firm, and research and management implications.
Abstract: Stakeholder theory has been a popular heuristic for describing the management environment for years, but it has not attained full theoretical status. Our aim in this article is to contribute to a theory of stakeholder identification and salience based on stakeholders possessing one or more of three relationship attributes: power, legitimacy, and urgency. By combining these attributes, we generate a typology of stakeholders, propositions concerning their salience to managers of the firm, and research and management implications.
10,630 citations
TL;DR: The authors applied the convergent insights of institutional and resource dependence perspectives to the prediction of strategic responses to institutional processes, and proposed a typology of strategies that vary in active organizational resistance from passive conformity to proactive manipulation.
Abstract: This article applies the convergent insights of institutional and resource dependence perspectives to the prediction of strategic responses to institutional processes. The article offers a typology of strategic responses that vary in active organizational resistance from passive conformity to proactive manipulation. Ten institutional factors are hypothesized to predict the occurrence of the alternative proposed strategies and the degree of organizational conformity or resistance to institutional pressures.
7,595 citations
TL;DR: This article conducted a meta-analysis of 52 studies and found that corporate virtue in the form of social responsibility and, to a lesser extent, environmental responsibility is likely to pay off, although the operationalizations of CSP and CFP also moderate the positive association.
Abstract: Most theorizing on the relationship between corporate social/environmental performance (CSP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) assumes that the current evidence is too fractured or too variable to draw any generalizable conclusions. With this integrative, quantitative study, we intend to show that the mainstream claim that we have little generalizable knowledge about CSP and CFP is built on shaky grounds. Providing a methodologically more rigorous review than previous efforts, we conduct a meta-analysis of 52 studies (which represent the population of prior quantitative inquiry) yielding a total sample size of 33,878 observations. The meta-analytic findings suggest that corporate virtue in the form of social responsibility and, to a lesser extent, environmental responsibility is likely to pay off, although the operationalizations of CSP and CFP also moderate the positive association. For example, CSP appears to be more highly correlated with accounting-based measures of CFP than with market-based ...
6,493 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider structural inertia in organizational populations as an outcome of an ecological-evolutionary process and define structural inertia as a correspondence between a class of organizations and their environments.
Abstract: Considers structural inertia in organizational populations as an outcome of an ecological-evolutionary process. Structural inertia is considered to be a consequence of selection as opposed to a precondition. The focus of this analysis is on the timing of organizational change. Structural inertia is defined to be a correspondence between a class of organizations and their environments. Reliably producing collective action and accounting rationally for their activities are identified as important organizational competencies. This reliability and accountability are achieved when the organization has the capacity to reproduce structure with high fidelity. Organizations are composed of various hierarchical layers that vary in their ability to respond and change. Organizational goals, forms of authority, core technology, and marketing strategy are the four organizational properties used to classify organizations in the proposed theory. Older organizations are found to have more inertia than younger ones. The effect of size on inertia is more difficult to determine. The variance in inertia with respect to the complexity of organizational arrangements is also explored. (SRD)
6,425 citations