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 this article, the relations between corporate environmental reporting in annual reports and corporate governance variables, industry variables and country variables are hypothesized and tested, and empirical evidence is gathered from large corporations in Finland, Norway, Spain and Sweden.
316 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors suggest that the market serves as a magnet around which groups of actors consolidate, and that cognition of markets occurs through the creation, distribution, and interpretation of a web of information about the "market."
Abstract: In this paper we outline a key mechanism through which organizational fields are constituted. We suggest that in competitive fields, the market serves as a magnet around which groups of actors consolidate, and that cognition of markets occurs through the creation, distribution, and interpretation of a web of information about the "market." To illustrate our theory, we present a case study of theBillboard music chart from the commercial music industry to show that changes in either scope, methodology, or political tone with which market information is presented can provide a major jolt to the participants' understanding of their field.
316 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify a framework for analyzing public entrepreneurship and its relationship to private entrepreneurial behavior, and describe four levels of analysis for studying public entrepreneurship, provide examples, and suggest new research directions.
Abstract: This paper explores innovation, experimentation, and creativity in the public domain and in the public interest. Researchers in various disciplines have studied public entrepreneurship, but there is little work in management and economics on the nature, incentives, constraints, and boundaries of entrepreneurship directed to public ends. We identify a framework for analyzing public entrepreneurship and its relationship to private entrepreneurial behavior. We submit that public and private entrepreneurship share essential features but differ critically regarding the definition and measurement of objectives, the nature of the selection environment, and the opportunities for rent seeking. We describe four levels of analysis for studying public entrepreneurship, provide examples, and suggest new research directions.
316 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a combination of analytical and normative arguments that highlight the leading role of practices in explaining the expansion of security communities is presented. But they do not discuss the role of practice in the formation of such communities.
Abstract: This article invokes a combination of analytical and normative arguments that highlight the leading role of practices in explaining the expansion of security communities. The analytical argument is that collective mean- ings, on which peaceful change is based, cognitively evolve — i.e. they are established in individuals' expectations and dispositions and they are institutionalized in practice — because of communities of practice. By that we mean like-minded groups of practitioners who are bound, both infor- mally and contextually, by a shared interest in learning and applying a common practice. The normative argument is that security communities rest in part on the sharing of rational and moral expectations and dispo- sitions of self-restraint. This thesis is illustrated by the example of the suc- cessful expansion of security-community identities from a core of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) states to Central and Eastern European countries during the 1990s, which was facilitated by a 'cooperative-security' community of practice that, emerging from the Helsinki Process, endowed NATO with the practices necessary for the spread of self-restraint.
315 citations
TL;DR: The variation of IT Governance archetypes suggests that even when top management approval is required, the IT department may not play a key role in the IT investment decision process and that the allocation of final decision rights is only a part of IT governance.
Abstract: This study identifies governance patterns for information technology investment decision processes and explores the impact of organizations' investment characteristics, external environment, and internal context on the shaping of those patterns. By identifying the lead actors of the initiation, development, and approval stages in IT governance, the patterns of 57 IT investment decisions at 6 hospitals are analyzed. The results reveal seven IT governance archetypes: (1) top management monarchy, (2) top management-IT duopoly, (3) IT monarchy, (4) administration monarchy, (5) administration- IT duopoly, (6) professional monarchy, and (7) professional- IT duopoly. Each archetype is analyzed by taking into account four specific factors: IT investment level, external influence, organizational centralization, and IT function power. This study makes several contributions to IT governance theory and practice. First, IT governance is reframed to include pre-decision stages, highlighting the importance of participants other than the final decision maker. Second, the variation of IT governance archetypes suggests that even when top management approval is required, the IT department may not play a key role in the IT investment decision process. Third, governance of the pre-decision initiation and development stages is found to be jointly affected by several contextual factors, suggesting that the allocation of final decision rights is only a part of IT governance. While decision rights may be allocated by the organization a priori, the actual patterns of IT governance are contingent on contextual factors. It is important to understand how IT governance archetypes are shaped because they may affect desired outcomes of IT investments.
315 citations