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 1993
TL;DR: The authors examine internal complaint handlers' conceptions of civil rights law and the implications of those conceptions for their approach to dispute resolution, and find that complaint handlers tend to subsume legal rights under managerial interests.
Abstract: Many employers create internal procedures for the resolution of discrimination complaints. We examine internal complaint handlers' conceptions of civil rights law and the implications of those conceptions for their approach to dispute resolution. Drawing on interview data, we find that complaint handlers tend to subsume legal rights under managerial interests. They construct civil rights law as a diffuse standard of fairness, consistent with general norms of good management. Although they seek to resolve complaints to restore smooth employment relations, they tend to recast discrimination claims as typical managerial problems. While the assimilation of law into the management realm may extend the reach of law, it may also undermine legal rights by deemphasizing and depoliticizing workplace discrimination.
230 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors demonstrate that local agendas played a decisive role in sustaining local, national, and regional violence and argue that analyzing discursive frames is a fruitful approach to the puzzle of international peacebuilding failures beyond the Congo.
Abstract: ?Por que los constructores internacionales de la paz no toman en consideracion las causas locales de los procesos de paz que fallan? A traves del presente articulo demuestro como las agendas locales jugaron entonces un rol decisivo en fomentar la violencia a nivel local, regional y nacional. Sin embargo, la existencia de un marco de construccion de la paz posbelica configuraba la vision internacional de la violencia y de la intervencion de tal manera que la resolucion del conflicto local era considerada como irrelevante e ilegitima. Este marco incluyo enseguida cuatro elementos fundamentales: los actores internacionales etiquetaron la situacion en Congo de “postconflicto”; estos mismos actores creyeron que la violencia constituia un componente innato en la sociedad congolesa y, por lo tanto, aceptable incluso en tiempos de paz; conceptualizaron la intervencion internacional como un asunto exclusivo de la esferas nacional e internacional; y consideraron la celebracion de elecciones, en lugar de la resolucion del conflicto local, como una herramienta viable, apropiada y efectiva para la construccion del estado y de la paz. Este marco, al autorizar y justificar practicas y politicas especificas mientras impedia otras, en particular la resolucion de conflictos locales, acabo condenando en ultima instancia los esfuerzos para la construccion de la paz. Para concluir, sostengo que el analisis de los marcos discursivos es un enfoque fructifero para intentar resolver los puzles de los fracasos internacionales en la construccion de la paz que se dan, tambien, mas alla de las fronteras del Congo. Why do international peacebuilders fail to address the local causes of peace process failures? In this article,I demonstrate that local agendas played a decisive role in sustaining local, national, and regional violence. However, a postcon?ict peacebuilding frame shaped the international understanding of violence and intervention in such a way that local con?ict resolution appeared irrelevant and illegitimate. This frame included four key elements: international actors labeled the Congo a “postcon?ict” situation; they believed that violence there was innate and therefore acceptable even in peacetime; they conceptualized international intervention as exclusively concerned with the national and international realms; and they saw holding elections, as opposed to local con?ict resolution, as a workable, appropriate, and effective tool for state- and peacebuilding. This frame authorized and justi?ed speci?c practices and policies while precluding others, notably local con?ict resolution, ultimately dooming the peacebuilding efforts. In conclusion, I contend that analyzing discursive frames is a fruitful approach to the puzzle of international peacebuilding failures beyond the Congo.
166 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: It is argued that experience codification gives rise to inertial forces that hamper the customization of routines to any given acquisition, and that successful acquirers develop higher-order routines that prevent the generalization of inapplicable ('zero-order') codified routines.
Abstract: Building on the codification and dynamic capabilities literatures, we pursue deeper insight into the underlying mechanisms of deliberate learning in the context of postacquisition integration. We argue that experience codification gives rise to inertial forces that hamper the customization of routines to any given acquisition. We theorize, therefore, that successful acquirers develop higher-order routines-as manifested in two complementary sets of concrete organizational practices-that prevent the generalization of inapplicable ('zero-order') codified routines. After drawing on in-depth qualitative data to help build our theoretical argument, we test it formally with unique survey data on 85 active acquirers.
160 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine when established firms participate in corporate venture capital and find that firms in industries with rapid technological change, high competitive intensity and weak appropriability engage in greater CVC activity.
Abstract: This study examines when established firms participate in corporate venture capital (CVC). We build on the resource-based view of interfirm collaboration and emphasize the strategic flexibility of CVC relationships. We use longitudinal data on 477 firms from 1990 to 2000 to test our hypotheses. We find that firms in industries with rapid technological change, high competitive intensity and weak appropriability engage in greater CVC activity. We also show that firms that possess strong technological and marketing resources and resources developed from diverse venturing experience engage in greater CVC activity. Finally, we find that these firm resources moderate the influence of the observed industry effects in paradoxical ways.
136 citations
01 Jan 2009
TL;DR: This article conducted a survey with non-profit managers in the UK, USA, and Australia to test three hypotheses: non-profits follow a customer-centered approach to marketing; marketing is run by marketing-trained staff; and cross-continental differences in the adoption of marketing in UK, the USA and Australia exist due to difference in the operating environment.
Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to tests three hypotheses: non‐profit organizations follow a customer‐centered approach to marketing; marketing is run by marketing‐trained staff; and cross‐continental differences in the adoption of marketing in the UK, the USA, and Australia exist due to differences in the operating environment.Design/methodology/approach – A survey study was conducted with non‐profit managers. The sample contains 136 respondents; 36 from the UK, 33 from the USA and 67 from Australia.Findings – Non‐profit managers indicated that the most important marketing activities are promotional in nature. The importance of market research and strategic marketing was acknowledged only by a small proportion of non‐profits, supporting Andreasen and Kotler's assertion that non‐profit organizations have an “organization‐centered” mindset. Only one fifth of marketing staff are trained in marketing. Non‐profit organizations in the UK, the USA, and Australia did not differ in their use of marketing a...
129 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