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The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

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 1994
TL;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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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the relative impacts of individual attributes, formal position, and network centrality on the exercise of individual power, measured as involvement in technical activities, were investigated, and the results showed that individual attributes and formal position had a significant impact on individual power.
Abstract: The reported research investigated the relative impacts of individual attributes, formal position, and network centrality on the exercise of individual power, measured as involvement in technical a...

1,145 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare the spreads of two governance innovations adopted in response to the 1980s takeover wave: poison pills (which spread rapidly through a board-to-board diffusion process) and golden parachutes(which spread slowly through geographic proximity).
Abstract: Changes in corporate governance practices can be analyzed by linking the adaptations of individual firms to the structures of the networks in which firms' decision makers are embedded. Network structures determine the speed of adaptation and ultimate patterns of prevalence of governance practices by exposing a firm to particular role models and standards of appropriateness. The authors compare the spreads of two governance innovations adopted in response to the 1980s takeover wave: poison pills (which spread rapidly through a board‐to‐board diffusion process) and golden parachutes (which spread slowly through geographic proximity). The study closes with a discussion of networks as links between individual adaptation and collective structures.

1,138 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors leveraged institutional theory by proposing that stakeholders, including governments, regulators, customers, competitors, community and environmental interest groups, and industry associations, impose coercive and normative pressures on firms.
Abstract: Despite burgeoning research on companies' environmental strategies and environmental management practices, it remains unclear why some firms adopt environmental management practices beyond regulatory compliance. This paper leverages institutional theory by proposing that stakeholders – including governments, regulators, customers, competitors, community and environmental interest groups, and industry associations – impose coercive and normative pressures on firms. However, the way in which managers perceive and act upon these pressures at the plant level depends upon plant- and parent-company-specific factors, including their track record of environmental performance, the competitive position of the parent company and the organizational structure of the plant. Beyond providing a framework of how institutional pressures influence plants' environmental management practices, various measures are proposed to quantify institutional pressures, key plant-level and parent-company-level characteristics and plant-level environmental management practices. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

1,134 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Fichman et al. as discussed by the authors examined direct evidence for the influence of interorganizational imitation on a voluntary, substantive strategic action that affects the economic core of the firm: corporate acquisitions and found that firm managers are exposed to the acquisition activities of other firms when they sit on those firms' boards.
Abstract: I would like to thank my dissertation committee: Mark Fichman, Gerald Salancik, Doug Wholey, and Steve Klepper for their generous support and assistance. Thanks also to Alison Davis-Blake, Anne Miner, Craig Olson, Jim Walsh, Marshall Meyer, and three anonymous reviewers for providing helpful comments and insights. Earlier versions of this paper were awarded the 1992 Academy of Management, OMT Division, Louis R. Pondy Award for the best paper based on a dissertation, and the 1991 TIMS College on Organization, Best Dissertation Proposal Award. In this study, I examine direct evidence for the influence of interorganizational imitation on a voluntary, substantive strategic action that affects the economic core of the firm: corporate acquisitions. I argue that firm managers are exposed to the acquisition activities of other firms when they sit on those firms' boards. The acquisition activities of the firms they are tied to serve as models to be imitated. Hypotheses are developed and tested on 1981-1990 acquisition data for a sample of 327 firms. Results show that firm managers are imitating the acquisition activities of those other firms to which they are tied through directorships. Competing rival interpretations of positive evidence for imitation are examined, and the imitation interpretation is found to hold.'

1,129 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose that social enterprises that combine the organizational forms of both business and charity at their cores are an ideal type of hybrid organization, making social enterprise an attractive setting to study hybrid organizing.
Abstract: Hybrid organizations that combine multiple organizational forms deviate from socially legitimate templates for organizing, and thus experience unique organizing challenges. In this paper, we introduce and develop the concept of hybrid organizing, which we define as the activities, structures, processes and meanings by which organizations make sense of and combine multiple organizational forms. We propose that social enterprises that combine the organizational forms of both business and charity at their cores are an ideal type of hybrid organization, making social enterprise an attractive setting to study hybrid organizing. Based on a literature review of organizational research on social enterprise and on our own research in this domain, we develop five dimensions of hybrid organizing and related opportunities for future research. We conclude by discussing how insights from the study of hybrid organizing in social enterprises may contribute to organization theory.

1,126 citations