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 2008
22 citations
Dissertation•
01 Dec 2016
22 citations
Dissertation•
01 Jul 2019
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze the evolution of the culture of coworking in the 21e siecle and propose a set of pratiques de legitimation, which ont peu a peu contribue a l'emergence of a veritable champ du coworking.
Abstract: Le coworking est un phenomene emergent du 21e siecle. L’ouverture du premier espace de coworking a Paris remonte a 2008. Ce travail de recherche a ete mene entre 2015 et 2018 a partir d’une autoethnographie. Le chercheur a pris les roles de manager de communaute tout en cultivant des perspectives a la fois critiques et phenomenologiques. Il s’agissait de comprendre le phenomene « de l’interieur ». A partir de deux terrains et d’une exploration plus large de l’ecosysteme parisien du coworking, la these identifie douze pratiques de legitimation du coworking qui ont peu a peu contribue a l’emergence d’un veritable champ du coworking. Parallelement, ces pratiques de legitimation ont remis en question la place de l’individu dans la communaute et dans la societe. En complement de la theorie institutionnelle et de la phenomenologie, nous analysons cette evolution a partir la tradition anarchiste humaniste.
22 citations
Dissertation•
18 May 2015
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on how water sector reforms are unfolding in the state of Maharashtra, India, and show how a seemingly "apolitical" initiative aimed to dilute the authority of the State in the water sector is subverted to shape and reinforce its control.
Abstract: This research focuses on how water sector reforms are unfolding in the state of Maharashtra, India. In 2005, Maharashtra launched an ambitious reform programme with support from the World Bank to establish an independent water regulator and make water user associations mandatory for water delivery in the state. The establishment of the regulator, the first of its kind in the Indian water sector, invited much attention from policy makers and civil society organisations after which several Indian states followed Maharashtra’s footsteps. Celebrated for its ‘independent’ and ‘apolitical’ virtues, this model of regulation was designed to provide answers to inefficiency and political opportunism in the water sector. What gained immense traction in the regulatory discourse was the concept of entitlements and the possibility of introducing water markets for ‘efficient’ pricing and distribution of water. To date, however, this reform project has faced reversals, limitations and subversions which have been described as ‘evolution’ by pro-reformers and ‘failures’ by the resisting groups.
This thesis shows how a seemingly ‘apolitical' initiative aimed to dilute the authority of the State in the water sector is subverted to shape and reinforce its control. Though the idea of independent water regulator is increasingly getting mainstreamed into water policy discourses in India, divergent framings and rationales have made regulation a deeply contested political process. In Maharashtra, the turf war between politicians, the water resources department and the water regulator coupled with cases of corporate water grab lie at the heart of rule-making for regulation. This has made the authority of the water regulator and the meaning of regulation ambiguous and blurred. This ambiguity in turn shapes the distribution of water entitlements. In the sugarcane belt of Western Maharashtra where farmers access water from different sources, entitlements are shaped by persistent inequities in water distribution. They take on different meanings as they are subsumed into struggles over water control between the irrigation officials and the farmers on one hand, and amongst different groups of the farmers on the other. This struggle over meanings and practices across the reform process constitutes what I call “regulatory cultures” in this thesis.
Using anthropological methods to study policy processes, this work shows how water regulation is discursively shaped and becomes a deeply political practice embedded in networks of power. These networks are formed at the intersection of donors, different layers of irrigation bureaucracy, water user associations and prosperous sugarcane farmers. I argue that the architecture of the Indian State, embedded in these very networks, is central to understanding the politics and practice of water regulation in Maharashtra.
22 citations
01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: In this article, acknowledgements and acknowledgements are given for the work presented in this article. And a list of tables and figures of figures are presented. But they are not discussed.
Abstract: .............................................................................................iii Acknowledgements ..................................................................................iv List of Tables .......................................................................................viii List of Figures .......................................................................................ix Chapter
21 citations
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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