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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Dissertation•
20 Mar 2015
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the World Bank has never been a passive recipient of the American hegemonic agenda, and that management's strategic choices are socially anchored in the infrastructure of American financial capital.
Abstract: The literature on the World Bank in neoliberal governance tends to assume that its strategies are largely shaped by the objectives of the US. The hegemony of neoliberalism as a political paradigm in the US is conventionally considered to be expressed in the Bank as the ‘Washington Consensus’. The structural adjustment loan is the medium through which the Washington Consensus is extended to the realm of ‘development’. Yet structural adjustment lending was developed before the neoliberal paradigm became hegemonic in the US, in the service of Bank policy objectives which did not express the tenets of the Washington Consensus. The tendency of critical accounts to ignore this disjuncture and adopt the Washington Consensus narrative suggests that they take the Bank’s capacity to enact US objectives for granted. My central claim in response to this is that the Bank has never been a passive recipient of the American hegemonic agenda.
I articulate this argument at two levels of analysis. Firstly, I draw upon Constructivist accounts in arguing that the agency of management was crucial in creating an organisational structure which allowed the Bank to meet the imperatives associated with the development of its operations. The process of developing a viable organisational structure allowed management to carve out a proprietary terrain in which their agency is decisive in constructing the tools and strategies of governance. However, I move beyond the Constructivist tendency to de-contextualise managerial agency, by arguing that management’s strategic choices are socially anchored in the infrastructure of American financial capital.
Secondly, I argue that the social basis of the Bank in private American finance means its relationship with the US is defined by its imperative as an institution: is to secure access to the uniquely deeply capitalised US financial system. In pursuing this institutional imperative, the Bank’s agenda has become increasingly intertwined with US objectives. However, the parameters of its capacity to act are set by the basis of its operations in private US finance.
On this basis, I offer a revisionist history of development of Bank’s structure and lending practices at four critical moments from the 1930s to 1980s, which leads me to cast the turn to neoliberal governance in a new light. Firstly, I explore the enlistment of US financiers in support of the Bank at Bretton Woods. Secondly I illustrate how the Bank’s imperative of capitalisation crystallised as it began lending. Thirdly, I demonstrate how management’s pragmatic negotiation of the Bank’s institutional imperative shaped the technology of governance during the Bretton Woods era. Finally, I present the origins of structural adjustment lending in McNamara’s strategic renovation of the Bank’s institutional structure and lending practices in order to render pro-poor lending strategy legible to US financiers. Structural adjustment was not an artefact of American power, but was rooted in management’s pragmatic negotiation of the imperatives which followed from the social anchoring of the Bretton Woods order in the unique infrastructure of American finance.
Ultimately I will show that American hegemony cannot be understood without the agency of the Bank.
7 citations
17 May 2019
TL;DR: The Nudie Jeans Co, a textile and clothing company, has been investigated in this paper, where three rationales underlying transparency are outlined: to conform, to differentiate and to influence, with the underlying assumption that transparency can be measured and verified.
Abstract: During recent decades, a call for increased transparency has been a reaction to the increasing complexity and opaqueness of contemporary society, where information about simple items, e.g. the origin of our everyday products, is difficult to obtain. One of the industries struggling with the complexities of long supply chains is textile and clothing. To explain organisational transparency, previous research has mainly emphasised the outcomes of the organisation’s transparency attempt, in terms of degrees, with the underlying assumption that transparency can be measured and verified. Recent streams of research have problematized this understanding of transparency, by focusing on the dynamic aspects of transparency. This study explores the phenomenon of organisational transparency by examining how it can be understood from an institutional perspective, with the aim of providing insights into the making of transparency in practice. Nudie Jeans Co, serves as an example illustrating how transparency work is carried out within an organisation. By combining an institutional perspective with a longitudinal study, this study examines how transparency work is the result of a translation process within the organization; how, by combining different rationales, it serves to address legitimacy, as well as the different intended and unintended consequences of transparency work. The findings show how the organisation embraces transparency, entailing that the company has engaged whole-heartedly in actively translating and transforming transparency. Three rationales underlying transparency are outlined: i.e. to conform, to differentiate and to influence. These rationales reflect different strategic responses to institutional pressure, ranging between complying with and challenging existing norms. Based on the study’s findings as regards the consequences of transparency for the organisation and the organisational field, it is argued that transparency comes with a potential for change. The study concludes with the concept of balanced transparency, in order to explain how transparency work is a balancing act between translations, rationales and consequences. Balanced transparency thus assists in explaining what happens behind the scenes of organisational transparency.
7 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: The authors explored how deregulation of the Australian telecommunications sector and re-regulation of the labor market affected employment relations (ER) strategies at Telstra, Australia's for-mer telecommunications monopoly.
Abstract: Using interview data collected between 1992 and 2009, the authors explore how deregulation of the Australian telecommunications sector and re-regulation of the labor market affected employment relations (ER) strategies at Telstra, Australia’s former telecommunications monopoly. Labor market re-regulation reversed much of the previous institutional support for union activity, and unions struggled to adjust to this changed institutional context. Telstra’s ER strategies included large-scale downsizing and outsourcing. It moved dramatically toward unitarist (anti-union) ER approaches, with a shift away from collective bargaining toward individual employment contracts. This history raises a more general question of the extent to which employers make strategic ER choices autonomously and the extent to which such choices reflect the influence of the national institutional context. The authors conclude that while the changing institutional context - in this case, primarily government regulation - facilitated Telstra’s strategic choices, management ideology was an important intervening variable in determining such choices.
7 citations
Dissertation•
08 Aug 2013
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate the role of CEO strategy narratives on the firm's trajectory and find that, collectively, CEO narratives act as a self-reinforcing process that encourages the adoption of other firm-level processes.
Abstract: CEOs have long been considered the grand architects of firm strategy. Research not only supports their pivotal role in strategy making, but also suggests that CEOs directly influence outcomes of strategy. CEOs are often blamed for corporate failure and credited for corporate success. What is less clear is how CEOs influence strategy. Although research attributes the CEO’s influence on performance to demographics, personality and previous experience, how a CEO influences the firm’s strategic trajectory over time is less clear. -- This research investigates the role of CEO strategy narratives on the firm’s trajectory. Grounded in organizational path dependence theory, the thesis analyzes how CEO narratives, produced for both internal and external consumption, influence strategic direction. -- Organizational path dependence theory argues that the future is influenced by the past and that, over time, through a series of incremental decisions, options are reduced and outcomes are constrained. Core to the argument is the theorized existence of rent-seeking self-reinforcing social processes that may eventually lead the organization towards rigidity and an inefficient locked-in organizational state. -- Narrative in strategy is considered a primary means of sensemaking for organizational stakeholders. Narratives both represent and construct organizational reality by giving meaning to the past and setting expectations of the future, while creating and reinforcing organizational identity through the communication of norms, values, and beliefs. Strategy narratives focus on creating a discourse of direction to represent the past and influence the behaviour of organizational members. -- This thesis joins theory on organizational path dependence and strategy narratives to investigate the influence of CEO narratives on strategic lock-in. Through a historical document analysis, the thesis presents a case study of a Canadian-based multinational firm (Nortel) using strategy texts authored by the company’s four Chief Executive Officers from 2002 to 2010. The texts include public documents (shareholder letters, news releases, media articles, and analyst conference calls) along with a unique data set consisting of 168 CEO all-employee emails. -- Findings indicate that, collectively, CEO narratives act as a self-reinforcing process that encourages the adoption of other firm-level processes. CEO narratives represent a discourse of direction and a discourse of behaviour, to encourage both the understanding of firm strategy and the implementation of associated processes. Although the CEO narratives initially create benefits, over time they are constrained by what was said in the past and contribute toward the persistence of the firm’s organizational path.
7 citations
01 Jan 2018
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored organizational motives to join and participate in cross-sector social partnerships project on a local level, and organizational challenges during implementation of it. And they found that organizational motives have an important role that determines the sustainability of partnerships, whereas the different organizational motivations between the partners to participate in CSSPs project could present as a barrier that strains the relationships between the partner.
Abstract: The project is based on cross-sector partnerships to address societal problems (CSSP’s). CSSP’s are increasingly needed to address sustainability around the world. Previous studies on partnerships literature mostly investigated the organizational motives and key success factors. Regarding organizational motives, many studies investigated the motives of the organization to join partnerships in the context of dyadic partnerships such as non-profit and business partnerships. There is a need to investigate further the motives of the organization to join the social partnerships project with more than two sectors participated in the project. Meanwhile, the complexity of partnerships is increasing when more than three-sectors partnerships involved in the project. Some scholars also argued that cross-sector partnerships have a higher failure rate of partnerships rather than within sector partnerships. Therefore, this study aims to explore organizational motives to join and participate in cross-sector social partnerships project on a local level, and organizational challenges during implementation of it. A case study of Tillväxt Malmö project was chosen in this study as the project consists of more than three-sectors partnerships, which are a non-profit organization as the focal organization, and their partners are private sector (companies and investors), university and local governments. This study found there are four themes of organizational motives, which are society, resources, legitimacy, and competency that emerges from empirical finding. Most of the motives that are mentioned by organizations who joined and participate in the Tillväxt Malmô project is to address societal issues, to promote positive change, to bring benefits and help the growth of local business in Malmö city, and to support the development of social incubator in Malmö. This study also discovered four types of challenges which are (1) the different and changing of organizational mission and objectives, (2) the different of language, logic and perspective, (3) the difficulty to make organizational to work together and see each other as equal, and (4) the lack of transparency. Furthermore, the study also found that organizational motive has an important role that determines the sustainability of partnerships, whereas the different organizational motive between the partners to participate in CSSPs project could present as a barrier that strains the relationships between the partners. The paper illustrates the organizational motives and challenges in cross-sector social partnerships project which includes more than three-sectors in the domain to support the local economic development. Theoretically, this contributes to providing comprehensive literature about the motives and challenges in cross-sector social partnerships. In practical, it also gives an insight for project leaders or managers to address the relevant issues that face during implementation of cross-sector social partnerships project.
7 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