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 2014
TL;DR: In this article, theoretical foundations and criteria for framework comparison are presented. But they do not specify a set of criteria for the comparison of the two frameworks, and they focus on the similarities between the two.
Abstract: ..........................................................................................................................................vi Table of Contents.......................................................................................................................... vii List of Tables ..................................................................................................................................ix List of Figures..................................................................................................................................x Chapter 1: Overview........................................................................................................................1 Section 1: Theoretical Foundations .................................................................................................5 Chapter 2: Criteria for Framework Comparison..............................................................................6 2.1 Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions...................................................................8 2.2 Lakatos’ Methodology of Scientific Research Programs ............................................11 Chapter 3: Theoretical Context of the Punctuated Evolution Framework ....................................18 3.1 The PEF’s Assumptions about the Policy Context......................................................18 3.2 The PEF’s Assumptions about the Actors Involved in the Policy Process .................21 3.3 The PEF’s Assumptions about the Policy Process ......................................................24 3.4 The Punctuated Evolution Framework ........................................................................27 3.5 Advantages of the Punctuated Evolution Framework .................................................28 3.6 Disadvantages of the Punctuated Evolution Framework.............................................31 Chapter 4: Theoretical Context of the Advocacy Coalition Framework.......................................34 4.1 The ACF’s Assumptions about the Policy Context.....................................................34 4.2 The ACF’s Assumptions about the Actors Involved in the Policy Process ................43 4.3 The ACF’s Assumptions about the Policy Process .....................................................49 4.4 The Advocacy Coalition Framework...........................................................................53 4.5 Advantages of the Advocacy Coalition Framework....................................................56 4.6 Disadvantages of the Advocacy Coalition Framework ...............................................58 Chapter 5: Compatibility Between the Punctuated Evolution and the Advocacy Coalition Frameworks ..........................................................................................................................59 5.1 Comparison of the Policy Contexts of the PEF and the ACF......................................59 5.2 Comparison of the Assumptions about the Actors Involved in the Policy Process of the PEF and the ACF..............................................................................................61
6 citations
28 Aug 2013
TL;DR: In this paper, a pesquisa qualitativa of a questionario semiestruturado and an entrevista was used to evaluate the desenvolvimento do Serido Ocidental do Rio Grande do Norte.
Abstract: Esta tese tem como objetivo analisar o processo de institucionalizacao e a legitimacao do desenvolvimento no Serido Ocidental do Rio Grande do Norte. Para isso, foi necessario conhecer e analisar o campo organizacional, a legitimacao e o processo de institucionalizacao nos sete municipios do Serido Ocidental. Na metodologia, utilizou-se a pesquisa qualitativa e o estudo de caso. Como instrumentos de pesquisa, utilizaram-se o questionario semiestruturado e a entrevista. Tambem se fez uso da pesquisa bibliografica e documental e da observacao direta. Na definicao das organizacoes a serem pesquisadas, buscou-se aquelas que tivessem uma significativa participacao em acoes de desenvolvimento ou que fizessem parte de algum forum ou rede de organizacoes que articulassem as questoes relativas ao desenvolvimento do semiarido. Uma das estrategias utilizadas para a definicao das organizacoes participantes foi conseguir uma lista inicial com o Colegiado do Territorio da Cidadania do Serido, que serviu de base para definir as organizacoes participantes. Nessa lista, percebeu-se que a maioria das organizacoes estava em Caico, cidade polo regional. Entretanto, foi possivel realizar a pesquisa com pelo menos dois lideres de organizacoes nas outras seis cidades que compoem o Serido Ocidental. Para analise dos dados, foram definidas categorias de analise e, quando necessario, fez-se uso da analise de conteudo. Entre os resultados, pode-se observar que o Serido Ocidental, mesmo estando localizado no semiarido brasileiro, uma regiao com graves problemas sociais, ambientais e economicos, apresenta um bom desempenho em aspectos como saude e educacao, alcancando indices significativos no Indice Firjan de Desenvolvimento Municipal (IFDM). O indicador Emprego e Renda foi o de mais baixo indice em todos os municipios do Serido Ocidental. No que se refere ao campo organizacional, nota-se que existem organizacoes internas (endogenas) e externas (exogenas) que participam desse campo, elas nem sempre se relacionam diretamente, e as organizacoes exogenas conseguem ter grande poder para influenciar politicas publicas e para conseguir recursos para a regiao, inclusive com organizacoes ligadas ao Governo Federal ou organizacoes estrangeiras. O isomorfismo coercitivo aparece atraves do poder economico e do poder legal das organizacoes que controlam o uso de recursos, e a legalidade das organizacoes, o isomorfismo regulativo e o cognitivo estao relacionados com as instituicoes locais e com a identidade das pessoas que compoem as organizacoes. Nesse ponto, atraves dos questionarios, ficou aparente uma disputa entre os grupos tradicionais locais, ligados aos ditos coroneis, e as novas organizacoes da sociedade civil. Com relacao a legitimidade, nota-se que a identidade do seridoense e bem presente nas organizacoes, as instituicoes locais, atraves dos valores, das regras e dos mitos, ajudam a explicar o ponto de vista das pessoas sobre o desenvolvimento, e como elas percebem as organizacoes que trabalham com esse tema. A identidade do seridoense e marcada pela resistencia as adversidades ambientais e pelo apego as coisas do lugar. Nota-se, nas respostas, que a legitimidade das organizacoes que trabalham com o desenvolvimento esta muita associada a solucao das questoes mais urgentes e praticas da comunidade, como, por exemplo, as questoes ligadas a saude, a educacao e ao emprego. Por fim, o termo desenvolvimento esta em processo de institucionalizacao, inclusive com caracteristicas de desinstitucionalizacao e de pre-institucionalizacao, pois da decada de 70 ate os dias de hoje o termo foi sendo reformulado e pode-se dizer que o Serido passou por varias experiencias, nem sempre exitosas, que acabaram contribuindo para nao se ter uma definicao comum do que seja desenvolvimento.
6 citations
30 Dec 2016
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate the factors that inhibit the institutionalization of the budget as a management control tool in a university hospital in Vitoria-ES, Portugal, using a qualitative and descriptive approach, using as technical procedures for data collection of non-participant observation, semi structured interviews and documentary analysis.
Abstract: The objective of the research was to investigate the factors that inhibit the institutionalization of the budget as a management control tool in a university hospital in Vitoria-ES. Thus, understanding the problem guided the choice of a case study, with a qualitative and descriptive approach, using as technical procedures for data collection of non-participant observation, semi structured interviews and documentary analysis. The data collection took place in March and April 2016. As a data analysis was used to Bardin's content analysis technique (1977) developed in the months April and June 2016. The research had as main theory the study by Frezatti, Nascimento, Junqueira and Relvas (2011), which analyzed eight impacting categories to the budget process. In the data analysis, we analyzed the budget process in theoretical and real plans. In conclusion, 27 inhibitory factors were verified, such as the control cultures and rigidity and impersonal. The hospital budget has not yet been institutionalized as a management control tool. It's just a ceremonial criterion value that stabilizes and legitimizes forward management to external control organs.
6 citations
Dissertation•
01 Dec 2015
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the influence of external advice on domestic reform in a post-communist state following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and argued that international assistance to public administrative reform in Ukraine is a form of normative institutional isomorphism involving the deliberate transfer of models of state institutions from donor countries where they are regarded as good practice.
Abstract: The thesis examines the influence of external advice on domestic reform in a post-communist state following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. As an example of this, the research analyses the role of international assistance in the reform of public administration in Ukraine in the period 2000 to 2012, with particular reference to the relationship between the national and sub-national tiers of government. Two empirical case studies, on fiscal decentralisation and regional policy, are employed to provide an in-depth analysis of reform programmes introduced by the Government of Ukraine and an examination of the contribution of external advice to each. The thesis draws on concepts from Institutional Theory, Comparative Politics and Development Studies to explain the interaction between external donors and the domestic recipients of their advice. It is argued that international assistance to public administrative reform in Ukraine is a form of normative institutional isomorphism involving the deliberate transfer of models of state institutions from donor countries where they are regarded as good practice. The findings of the case studies indicate the narrow circumstances in which this transaction may lead to short-term progress with reform, through the establishment of a policy transfer network linking domestic and external actors. However the case studies also demonstrate that in the longer term both these attempts at reform, and the international advice which contributed to them, failed to achieve a sustained outcome. Employing the political economy analysis of development aid the thesis argues that the international community bears a large share of the responsibility for this owing to the technocratic nature of assistance programmes and their limited engagement with the political realities of reform processes.
6 citations
01 Jan 2011
TL;DR: Spain et al. as mentioned in this paper investigated how districts responded to 2009 legislation deregulating about 40 state categorical aid programs, commonly referred to as Tier 3 categorical flexibility, and found that political and cultural pressures influenced how board members and district administrators engaged in resource decision making.
Abstract: Author(s): Spain, Angeline Kathryn | Advisor(s): Coburn, Cynthia E | Abstract: Deregulation advocates have long argued that local educational leaders can make better resource decisions than state and federal policymakers. But viewed from the central state, without regulatory requirements locals will spend too little on underserved students and specific educational reforms. Lacking direct authority over local districts, the California Legislature has frequently used mandates and sanctions, tied to targeted "categorical aid" grant programs, to encourage attentiveness to state reform aims. Categorical aid programs' rules, layered on over time, have produced a range of bureaucratic tasks which have become part of the taken-for-granted fabric of work in the central office, but remain loosely connected to instructional aspects of districts' work. At the same time, tacit cultural conceptions of schooling have come to overlap with some of the educational objectives funded through categorical resources, from providing supplementary dollars for particular kinds of students to reducing class size. Deregulation proponents argue that districts will cut administrative costs, reconsider local fiscal priorities, and deploy resources in ways that boost students' achievement. But little is known about how organizational routines, neoinstitutional conceptions of the district's work, and local political pressures shape how district organizations implement large-scale deregulation. What, then, is the relationship between the institutionalized practices used to manage categorical aid resources inside districts and deregulation?Conventional politics of education explanations suggest that decentralization expands locally powerful constituents' influence and control over how deregulated resources are used. But neoinstitutional theorists, on the other hand, suggest that pressures from the institutional and technical environment of schooling will shape how deregulation unfolds. Some categorical aid programs, supported by a web of work practices, norms, and cultural expectations, will remain firmly in place while others that are less deeply embedded will be redeployed to address salient institutional and technical pressures.This study uses a qualitative, comparative case study to investigate how districts responded to 2009 legislation deregulating about 40 state categorical aid programs, commonly referred to as Tier 3 categorical flexibility. At face value, this reform freed up six percent of annual revenues. But it was enacted in the context of mid-year budget cuts and ongoing fiscal austerity. I analyze Tier 3 categorical flexibility implementation in two California districts to investigate the processes used to make decisions about Tier 3 categorical resource reallocation. I examine how these processes connected to tacit conceptions of schooling. I also examine the role of power and constituencies in how discretionary resources came to be distributed. Data include: observations of district budgeting routines; interviews with central office administrators, board members, and stakeholders; and a review of budget materials. The two study districts reallocated some, but not all, Tier 3 categorical resources. I found that political and cultural pressures influenced how board members and district administrators engaged in resource decision making, and these pressures were constrained and enabled by the formal structure of district positions, relational trust, and the distribution of expertise in district management and operations. These processes did not mirror the rationalized responses of deregulation's theory of action. In particular, I found that districts' resource decision making was shaped by the fiduciary role of the elected school board, a role that has generally been overlooked in research on education policy implementation.
6 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.
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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.
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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