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•
01 Jan 1994TL;DR: In this paper, a natural resource-based view of the firm is proposed, which is composed of three interconnected strategies: pollution prevention, product stewardship, and sustainable development, and each of these strategies are advanced for each of them regarding key resource requirements and their contributions to sustained competitive advantage.
Abstract: Historically, management theory has ignored the constraints imposed by the biophysical (natural) environment. Building upon resource-based theory, this article attempts to fill this void by proposing a natural-resource-based view of the firm—a theory of competitive advantage based upon the firm's relationship to the natural environment. It is composed of three interconnected strategies: pollution prevention, product stewardship, and sustainable development. Propositions are advanced for each of these strategies regarding key resource requirements and their contributions to sustained competitive advantage.
902 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors reconceptualize the firm-level construct absorptive capacity as a learning dyad-level measure, relative absorptive capacities, and test the model using a sample of pharmaceutical-biotechnology R&D alliances.
Abstract: Much of the prior research on interorganizational learning has focused on the role of absorptive capacity, a firm's ability to value, assimilate, and utilize new external knowledge. However, this definition of the construct suggests that a firm has an equal capacity to learn from all other organizations. We reconceptualize the firm-level construct absorptive capacity as a learning dyad-level construct, relative absorptive capacity. One firm's ability to learn from another firm is argued to depend on the similarity of both firms' (1) knowledge bases, (2) organizational structures and compensation policies, and (3) dominant logics. We then test the model using a sample of pharmaceutical–biotechnology R&D alliances. As predicted, the similarity of the partners' basic knowledge, lower management formalization, research centralization, compensation practices, and research communities were positively related to interorganizational learning. The relative absorptive capacity measures are also shown to have greater explanatory power than the established measure of absorptive capacity, R&D spending. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
335 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: This paper employs a difference-in-differences approach to compare premove versus postmove citation rates for the recruits' prior patents and corresponding matched-pair control patents and generates results that are robust to a more stringently matched control sample.
Abstract: When firms recruit inventors, they acquire not only the use of their skills but also enhanced access to their stock of ideas. But do hiring firms actually increase their use of the new recruits' prior inventions? Our estimates suggest they do, quite significantly in fact, by approximately 202% on average. However, this does not necessarily reflect widespread "learning-by-hiring." In fact, we estimate that a recruit's exploitation of her own prior ideas accounts for almost half of the above effect. Furthermore, although one might expect the recruit's role to diminish rapidly as her tacit knowledge diffuses across her new firm, our estimates indicate that her importance is surprisingly persistent over time. We base these findings on an empirical strategy that exploits the variation over time in hiring firms' citations to the recruits' pre-move patents. Specifically, we employ a difference-in-differences approach to compare pre-move versus post-move citation rates for the recruits' prior patents and the corresponding matched-pair control patents. Our methodology has three benefits compared to previous studies that also examine the link between labor mobility and knowledge flow: 1) it does not suffer from the upward bias inherent in the conventional cross-sectional comparison, 2) it generates results that are robust to a more stringently matched control sample, and 3) it enables a temporal examination of knowledge flow patterns.
322 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the relationship between CSR and government and highlight the varied role that the governments can play in order to promote CSR in the context of the wider national governance systems.
Abstract: Abstract This paper explores the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and government. CSR is often viewed as self-regulation, devoid of government. We attribute the scholarly neglect of the variety of CSR-government relations to the inadequate attention paid to the important differences in the way in which CSR has ‘travelled’ (or diffused), and has been mediated by the national governance systems, and the insufficient emphasis given to the role of the government (or government agency) in the CSR domain. We go on to identify a number of different types of CSR-government configurations, and by following empirically the CSR development trajectories in Western Europe and East Asia in a comparative historical perspective, we derive a set of propositions on the changing dynamics of CSR-government configurations. In particular, we highlight the varied role that the governments can play in order to promote CSR in the context of the wider national governance systems.
278 citations
01 Apr 2017
TL;DR: A review and synthesis of existing research on institutional voids, tracking the evolution of institutional void scholarship since the inception of the concept, can be found in this article, where the authors highlight four different strategies for responding to them: internalization, substitution, borrowing and signaling.
Abstract: textFor nearly two decades, scholars in international business and management have explored the implications of institutional voids for firm strategy and structure. Although institutional voids offer both opportunities and challenges, they have largely been associated with firms' efforts to avoid or mitigate institutional deficiencies and reduce the transaction costs associated with operating in settings subject to those institutional shortcomings. The goal of this special issue is to advance scholarship on this topic by (a) exploring institutional voids that are new to the literature, (b) providing a deeper assessment of the different ways in which firms respond to these voids, and (c) utilizing diverse disciplines and theoretical approaches to do so. In this introduction, we first review and synthesize extant research on institutional voids, tracking the evolution of institutional void scholarship since the inception of the concept (Khanna & Palepu, Journal of Economic Literature, 45(2):331-372, 1997) and providing our perspective on its contributions and limitations. We then summarize the contributions of the articles included in this special issue. In addition to identifying an array of institutional voids - economic and social - the articles highlight four different strategies for responding to them: internalization, substitution, borrowing and signaling. Drawing on these, we develop new insights on the implications of institutional voids for firm behavior. We conclude with suggestions for future research.
249 citations
References
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TL;DR: In an effort to determine the basis for the assumed relationship between accountability and performance that pervades much of contemporary administrative reform efforts, the authors applies a "social mechanisms" approach to elaborate the factors that might be involved in account giving and various forms of administrative performance.
Abstract: In an effort to determine the basis for the assumed relationship between accountability and performance that pervades much of contemporary administrative reform efforts, this paper applies a "social mechanisms" approach to elaborate the factors that might be involved in account giving and various forms of administrative performance. This search for mechanisms indicates that the relationship is paradoxical and either spurious or so contingent as to raise questions regarding administrative reforms based on it. Various theoretical approaches for dealing with the relationship are considered.
390 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw from theories of institutions and collective identities to present a threefold framework of institutional change, involving institutional logics, resources, and social actors, that furthers our understanding of the mitigation of corruption.
Abstract: We draw from theories of institutions and collective identities to present a threefold framework of institutional change—involving institutional logics, resources, and social actors—that furthers our understanding of the mitigation of corruption. Those social actors intent on reforming corruption function as institutional entrepreneurs, and their success depends both on articulating an anticorruption institutional logic that incorporates corruption-disabling identities, cognitive schemas, and practices and on having or developing the resources necessary to propagate the new anticorruption institutional logic.
390 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors adopt and develop an institutional perspective to advance understanding of how host country environments influence subsidiary staffing strategies and find that firms rely more on expatriates in institutionally distant environments for reasons related to the efficient transfer of management practices and firm-specific capabilities and the positive influence of expatriate staffing levels on subsidiary performance is dependent on the institutional distance between the host and home country, and subsidiary experience.
390 citations
TL;DR: The theoretical concept of role as resource is introduced and illustrated in this article, which combines critical elements of the structural, interactionist, and network approaches to role, and the role is a resource in two senses: it is a means to claim, barbain for, and gain membership and acceptance in a social community, and it grants access to social, cultura and material capital that incumbents and claimants exploit in order to pursue their interests.
Abstract: The theoretical concept of role as resource is introduced and illustrated. The concept combines critical elements of the structural, interactionist, and network approaches to role. A role is a resource in two senses: it is a means to claim, barbain for, and gain membership and acceptance in a social community, and it grants access to social, cultura, and material capital that incumbents and claimants exploit in order to pursue their interests. This article examines the impact of a major transformation-the rise of the blockbuster-on roles and positions in Hollywood filmmaking and discerns two processes underlying the growth and decline of roles in culture production. Through adaptation, filmmakers adopt role combinations with intrinsic capabilities of solving technical and organizational problems. Through imitation, filmmakers copy the role combinations associated with early blockbusters and gain legitimacy in Hollywood's institutional environment. These responses resulted in two fundamental trends: the in...
390 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, two fundamental contrasts among major organizational paradigms are used to construct a typology of organizational learning: these are voluntarism vs. determinism, and methodical vs. emergent behavior.
389 citations