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 2018
TL;DR: A court may impose penalties and award damages in relation to offences and infringements relating to copyright material as mentioned in this paper, and higher penalties may apply, and higher damages may be awarded, for offences and inferences involving the conversion of material into digital or electronic form.
Abstract: University of Wollongong Copyright Warning You may print or download ONE copy of this document for the purpose of your own research or study. The University does not authorise you to copy, communicate or otherwise make available electronically to any other person any copyright material contained on this site. You are reminded of the following: This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this work may be reproduced by any process, nor may any other exclusive right be exercised, without the permission of the author. Copyright owners are entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. A reproduction of material that is protected by copyright may be a copyright infringement. A court may impose penalties and award damages in relation to offences and infringements relating to copyright material. Higher penalties may apply, and higher damages may be awarded, for offences and infringements involving the conversion of material into digital or electronic form. Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Wollongong.
46 citations
Dissertation•
03 Dec 2018
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a model of an organization transversale (fonction Innovation Intensive) which permet de capitaliser sur de nouveaux metabolismes collectifs, avec ses reperes et ses ressources, dans l'activite quotidienne de l'entreprise.
Abstract: Alors que s’affirme la necessite vitale de ruptures techniques, economiques et sociales, leurs conditions d’emergence et d’institutionnalisation dans les grandes entreprises demeuraient encore un objet de recherche fondamentale et de nombreuses questions etaient encore ouvertes : quelle ingenierie de conception face a l’innovation intensive ? Quelle organisation mettre en place pour professionnaliser les processus de rupture et les integrer a l’agenda strategique ? Quel modele d’institutionnalisation est compatible avec ce nouveau regime de l’entreprise ? En s’appuyant sur de nombreux travaux etales sur plus d’une decennie, dans de grandes entreprises de transports publics, cette these montre que l’institutionnalisation de l’innovation de rupture se construit et s’analyse selon un modele a trois dimensions complementaires : l’industrialisation des methodes de conception innovante, la metabolisation d’acteurs professionnalises et la gouvernance de l’innovation intensive. En outre, ce modele met en lumiere le processus d’endogeneisation du pilotage de l’innovation intensive qui est au cœur de cette institutionnalisation. Celui-ci, debute avec la routinisation de dispositifs collaboratifs d’innovation (KCP) sous la forme de « laboratoires/reseaux ». Demontree de facon repetitive, la puissance generative de ces dispositifs credibilise de nouveaux domaines innovants, ainsi que les multiples acteurs impliques. Emerge ensuite une organisation transversale (fonction Innovation Intensive) qui permet de capitaliser sur de nouveaux metabolismes collectifs : l’innovation de rupture s’integre alors, avec ses reperes et ses ressources, dans l’activite quotidienne de l’entreprise. Sur ces bases, une veritable gouvernance « conceptive », adaptee a l’innovation de rupture, est alors rendue possible. Ainsi, l’institutionnalisation de l’innovation de rupture mobilise des formes classiques d’institutionnalisation mais elle s’en eloigne aussi par son couplage necessaire a la generativite cognitive forte qu’exige la rupture. In fine, ce modele renvoie d’une certaine maniere a l’emergence de l’entreprise moderne elle-meme, quand elle a du institutionnaliser la recherche scientifique.
46 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify existing explanations, extend or refine some of them, suggest new ones, classifies these various explanations, and integrate them into an organized framework, based on economics and organizational institutionalism.
Abstract: Abstract Why do economic agents conform with existing institutions? Drawing on economics and organizational institutionalism, this article identifies existing explanations, extends or refines some of them, suggests new ones, classifies these various explanations, and integrates them into an organized framework. One set of explanations focuses on conformity out of habit. The other refers to more conscious thought and behavior and considers coordination and increasing returns to adoption, social sanctions, informational differences, uncertainty, legitimacy, naturality, and lack of power/resources to deviate.
45 citations
Dissertation•
01 Jan 2018
TL;DR: In this article, a study of a group of academics at an Australian university and how their beliefs impacted their assessment practice was conducted, finding that an academic's beliefs do have a role in their assessment practices.
Abstract: This thesis details a study of a group of academics at an Australian university and how their beliefs impacted their assessment practice. Despite the extensive discussions in the extant literature relative to the importance of teachers’ pedagogical beliefs, the multidimensional nature of academics’ beliefs and their relevance to assessment practice has been sparsely addressed. This thesis offers an in-depth response to this lacuna and this study found that an academic’s beliefs do have a role in their assessment practices.
The theoretical framework providing the lens for this study consisted of a combination of the theory of reasoned action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 2010) and the theory of personal knowledge (Polanyi, 1958, 1974, 1996, 2012). These theories provided a framework for an understanding of how beliefs drive action. This study deployed a qualitative approach involving a case study method, enacted through a naturalistic, interpretivist lens using a phenomenological approach informed by a lifeworld-lived experience philosophical stance. It was through an investigation of the complex and nuanced facets of academics’ beliefs that insights into how beliefs impacted on and influenced assessment practices are offered here.
The significance of this study lays in the understandings it provides for how quality assessment could be better developed and maintained and how academics’ understandings around their implementation of quality assessment might proceed. This thesis also explored the creative and intuitive processes academics bring to situations of uncertainty in their practice.
44 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