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•
01 Jan 2016
6 citations
01 Jan 2019
6 citations
Dissertation•
01 Jan 2010
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored how and why corporate environmentalism has evolved in three South African fuel oil refineries (two in Durban and one in Cape Town) between 1994 and 2006.
Abstract: The environmental governance of multinational corporations in developing countries is relatively understudied. Much of the existing work on the greening of industry focuses on one scale of governance (international, national or local), without adequately accounting for the socio-spatial complexities, either external or internal to the firm, which influence the take up and implementation of corporate environmentalism at the site level. My thesis explores how and why corporate environmentalism has evolved in three South African fuel oil refineries (two in Durban and one in Cape Town) between 1994 and 2006. Institutional and organisational theory, with insights from the literature on spatialities of corporate greening, informs this study. An analytical framework of multinational corporation complexity and organisational field dynamics is established to explore the process of institutional and organisational change. At the macro or organisational field level, actors compete to construct meanings of legitimate corporate environmental practice. Organisational fields are shaped by the interaction between institutional actors, institutional logics and governance structures. At the micro level, firm legitimation strategies and characteristics may explain how corporate greening differs. The research findings are triangulated using key informant interviews, document analysis and social network analysis. Punctuated by key events, bifurcated processes of institutional and organisational change are documented. In Durban changing normative and cognitive institutions drove the evolution of regulation: above all, an internationally networked civil society exercised discursive power by demanding environmental justice and corporate accountability from the private and public sectors. In Cape Town the organisational field remained fragmented as community-driven discursive strategies did not achieve significant governance outcomes and institutional and organisational change evolved more slowly. The company with the most significant home country and parent company pressure, Shell/Sapref, made the most gains in repairing its legitimacy and improving its environmental performance. In sum, corporate environmentalism in post-apartheid South Africa has been contested and constructed by processes of scalar and place-based politics.
6 citations
Dissertation•
09 Oct 2015
TL;DR: In this paper, the impact of the reglementation des divulgations environnementales on the utilisation of such information for the investisseurs has been analyzed.
Abstract: Cette these analyse l’impact de la reglementation des divulgations environnementales ainsi que l’utilite de ces informations pour les investisseurs, partie prenante susceptible d’influencer l’entreprise en l’amenant a produire l’information environnementale utile, eventuellement imposee par la reglementation. Notre recherche s’appuie sur une approche quantitative basee sur le traitement des scores de divulgation environnementale au travers de modeles de regression ordinaire et censure. Les scores de divulgation environnementale ont ete calcules a partir d’une grille de mesure elaboree par nos soins et utilisee pour l’analyse de 121 entreprises europeennes.
Les resultats montrent que la reglementation des divulgations environnementales a un impact positif direct et induit sur le niveau de divulgation environnementale des entreprises. Par contre, l’impact des recommandations gouvernementales ou emanant d’organismes professionnels est identiquement faible. Les resultats montrent egalement que l’utilite des divulgations environnementales pour les investisseurs n’est pas uniforme : elle depend de l’opacite des divulgations financieres de l’entreprise, de son exposition aux risques environnementaux et de la structure de son actionnariat. Enfin, dans un contexte ou l’information environnementale publiee est largement, voire totalement volontaire, les resultats montrent que les entreprises orientent leur communication environnementale en fonction des parties prenantes qu’elles identifient comme prioritaires.
6 citations
Dissertation•
30 Apr 2020
TL;DR: The findings led to the conclusion that the attaches’ network influences the investigation and solution of crimes, by increasing propension to share counterpart information and promotion of availability and quality of this information, as well as speeding up its reception.
Abstract: This research aims to evaluate the influence of the Federal Police's interpersonal relations’
network of the legal attaches with the actors of similar international institutions on the
investigations and solution of crimes. The theoretical framework approached the topic of
interpersonal relationships inside the interorganizational networks on the cross-border limit
between institutions, the construct of relational trust and the sharing of information and
knowledge, focusing on the perception of the reliability of the counterpart actor as a prerequisite
for receiving and delivering information. Research was carried out through a literature review
on the theoretical framework and semi-structured interviews with Federal Police attaches of 16
countries. Through content analysis, it was possible to obtain as a result the conclusion that the
perception of trusthworthiness is suppressed when an institution has a good reputation, by
transferring organizational trust to the individual. In addition, it was perceived the extreme
relevance of the physical presence of the attache to stablish strong links, especially with actors
involved in institutions whose reputation is negative. In addition, it is also noted that the attache
portrays a validating role in the trustworthiness of the components of the institution for joint
actions between institutions. Finally, the findings led to the conclusion that the attaches’
network influences the investigation and solution of crimes, by increasing propension to share
counterpart information and promotion of availability and quality of this information, as well
as speeding up its reception. Lastly, an intervention proposal was to define strategies that will
cast the necessary requirements of an attache, as a mean to make viable the establishment of
strong interpersonal ties, by increasing interactions with actors of counterpart institutions that
serve as a cross-border link between institutions. Additionally, specific guidelines must be
defined to the attachments, according to the context and relevance of each of them to the Federal
Police, as well as a mechanism to supply the attache with informations regarding the result of
their acting supporting the investigations for the supplier or to obtain information about the
result of their performance in support of the investigations.
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.
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