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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Posted Content•
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that inertial mechanisms of imprinting may unintentionally shape the way that adaptation is enacted in an organization in response to field-level change, and the act of organizational adaptation can lead to new imprints sustained by the microstructures of work.
Abstract: Field-level changes create pressures for organizational change and isomorphism of the organizational field, yet stable practice heterogeneity sometimes results. We study how this is possible by examining a large health maintenance organization, Allied Health, which recently reformed its practices for diagnosing Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Despite homogenizing pressures, substantial variation emerged across Allied’s three specialized ASD clinics. In tracing the difference using qualitative and quantitative data, we find that prior imprints on key individuals led to different diagnostic practices at each clinic, which came to be rendered stable, i.e., imprinted, at the clinic level. Theoretically, we demonstrate that (1) inertial mechanisms of imprinting may unintentionally shape the way that adaptation is enacted in an organization in response to field-level change, and (2) the act of organizational adaptation can lead to new imprints sustained by the microstructures of work. We call this imprinting variation.
11 citations
Dissertation•
22 Mar 2017
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the nature and level of corporate social and environmental disclosure by the listed companies in Saudi Arabia, and found that more than 70% of the companies report social-and environmental information, most of the disclosures are related to human recourses, community involvement, and economics.
Abstract: The aim of this study is to elevate the understanding of corporate social and environmental disclosure (CSED) by examining the nature and level of CSED by the listed companies in Saudi Arabia. It analyses CSED determinant’s which includes: firm characteristics and corporate governance aspects. Four theoretical perspectives, namely stakeholder, legitimacy, institutional, and Agency theory, used to assist in better understanding and analysing the findings on the CSED in Saudi Arabia.
This study adopts a quantitative approach; the selected sample consists of 164 corporate reports of Saudi companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange, in 2012. Content analysis is used to measure the extent of social and environmental information that are reported. An information index was devised. The data were examined using descriptive and statistical tests multivariate analyses and negative binomial regression.
The results show more than 70% of the companies report social and environmental information, most of the disclosures are related to human recourses, community involvement and economics. Human recourses category rate is 41.5 %, community involvement at 24.5%, and economic disclosure is 20%. Less attention is given to environmental, customers and products reporting. The Saudi government encourages companies to follow the Saudisation regulations and the Ministry of Labour regulations. Hence companies tend to report considerably more on information issues addressed by the government.
This study examines the factors affecting the level of CSED which are firm characteristics and corporate governance. CSED level is positively associated with firm characteristics (firm size, age, profitability, and leverage), and corporate governance mechanism (government ownership and audit firm size). There were no significant results for managerial ownership, foreign ownership, CEO duality, board size and independency. The determinants of CSED categories indicate that firm age is the most influential factor affecting the five categories and human resource is the category that is related with most of the factors.
11 citations
01 Jan 2016
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine how social movements contribute to gradual and long-term processes of institutional change in Brazil, using a multi-level and inter-sectoral trajectory of pro-indigenous mobilization.
Abstract: Based on the analysis of a multi-level and inter-sectoral trajectory of pro-indigenous mobilization in Brazil, this dissertation examines how social movements contribute to gradual and long-term processes of institutional change. To do so, it draws on social movement theory, pragmatist institutional theory and cultural sociology to develop a dynamic model of mobilization and institutional change that foregrounds the organization of society within multiple and partially overlapping institutional sectors and emphasizes the dynamic and recursive interactions between movements and ever-shifting institutional contexts of action. This model is deployed in the analysis of a long-term trajectory of mobilization over indigenous land tenure and citizenship rights in Brazil from 1968 until 2016. The trajectory is composed of seven episodes, each of which is characterized by a constellation of repertoires, sites and targets of contention. I analyze the institutional, organizational and cultural outcomes of these episodes, examining how they add up to landmark moments in which institutional contexts of mobilization change significantly and mark a transition between periods of contention. By examining and comparing across these episodes, I identify two social mechanisms, understood as recurrent social processes linking initial conditions to outcomes, which were central for the movement’s ability to influence processes of institutional change: (a) the formation of inter-sectoral networks of contention and (b) institutional framing. I use the term inter-sectoral network formation to refer to processes through which ties of cooperation and mobilization are constructed and activated by actors situated across institutional sectors in the midst of contention. By incorporating different institutional repertoires into the movement and opening up multiple channels of claim-making, this mechanism increases the responsive capacity and the resilience of movements vis-a-vis shifting contexts of action. I use the term institutional framing to refer to the collective and public processes through which activists attribute and dispute the meaning of society-wide institutional elements that are relevant for their goals. By framing institutions, many of which ensue from previous episodes of contention, movements contribute to institutional innovation and produce a sense of continuity between different episodes, periods and sectors of mobilization.
11 citations
Dissertation•
21 Oct 2014
TL;DR: In this paper, a methodologie d'analyse qualitative, s'appuyant sur l'utilisation du logiciel d'analysis Lexicale Nvivo10, mobilise des cadres theoriques pertinents aux regards des themes issus du cas.
Abstract: La modification de l'environnement et l'evolution rapide du monde des affaires ont contraint les entreprises a reorganiser leurs services. Dans ce contexte la fonction Achats se transforme d'une fonction administrative a une fonction strategique. Cette these a pour objectif d'analyser la creation de valeur de la fonction Achats en se focalisant sur le role de l'acheteur. Elle s'appuie sur l'analyse de la transformation d'une fonction Achats dans le cadre d'un contrat de recherche au sein d'un groupe agroalimentaire international. La methodologie d'analyse qualitative, s'appuyant sur l'utilisation du logiciel d'analyse Lexicale Nvivo10, a mobilise des cadres theoriques pertinents aux regards des themes issus du cas. La recherche montre que l'acheteur peut a la fois creer de la valeur par les actions de productivite, et par des actions entrepreneuriales pouvant favoriser le developpement des ventes. Les resultats conceptualisent l'acheteur et mettent en evidence la necessite pour l'acheteur de detenir, en complement des competences techniques, des Meta-competence qui lui permettront de saisir les opportunites de l'ecosysteme pour les transformer en produits ou services commercialisables. Ces Meta-competences differencient les collaborateurs moyens des collaborateurs efficaces, elles permettent de soutenir les competences techniques et d'en acquerir de nouvelles. Elles s'attachent aux comportements et aptitudes individuelles et sont liees a la personnalite de l'individu. Finalement la these propose un modele integrateur des competences de l'acheteur, qui rend compte de la preponderance des Meta-competences comme socle de la capacite de l'acheteur a creer de la valeur.
11 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