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.
Citations
More filters
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
More filters
TL;DR: This study helps to show how this myth can be integrated, transformed, and even created through rhetoric by organizations to resolve certain contradictions in environmental management practices and performances.
Abstract: The process used by organizations to integrate the ISO 14001 standard has not yet been the subject of extensive research in environmental management despite the rapid development of this standard, particularly in industrial companies. The results of a case study conducted among nine ISO 14001 certified Canadian organizations showed that adopting this standard tends to lead to a ceremonial behaviour intended to superficially show that the certified organizations conformed to the standard. Although rigorous compliance with the standard often resulted in real improvements, these improvements were primarily technical and administrative in nature. However, in most of the cases studied, daily practices remained somewhat decoupled from the prescriptions of the ISO 14001 system, of which employees generally had only a vague understanding. The organizations studied adopted different strategies to reconcile external pressures in favour of adopting this standard and internal constraints associated with a management system whose support varied from one case to the next. While the standard often appeared to be some sort of “rational myth” (Meyer and Rowan 1977) to which organizations superficially committed themselves, the adaptation to institutional pressures was not necessarily straightforward. Using the example of the ISO 14001 standard, our study helps to show how this myth can be integrated, transformed, and even created through rhetoric by organizations to resolve certain contradictions. This research also illustrates how adopting the ISO 14001 system can have an ambiguous effect on environmental management practices and performances.
624 citations
TL;DR: It is argued in this chapter that on the whole, scholarly research on the functioning of the MNC has suffered both from desire among some scholars to persist with existing paradigms and from other scholars’ ignorance of what existing theories could bring them.
Abstract: The increasing intensity of global competition (Porter 1986), the development of MNCs (Stopford, Dunning and Haberich 1980; Dunning and Pearce 1985), and the attendant academic and managerial interest in the role of the diversified MNC (Ghoshal 1987; Prahalad and Doz 1987; Bartlett and Ghoshal 1989) is too well documented to merit repetition. Although there has been a lot of debate on the nature of global competition and of the diversified multinational corporation (hereafter referred to as the DMNC), very little attention has been paid to the conceptual and theoretical frameworks used to analyze DMNCs and their management. Many attempts have been make to analyze aspects of the MNC starting from an established theoretical base: for example, Buckley and Casson (1986) and Hennart (1982) have attempted to seek a rationale for the MNC using a transaction cost perspective. Others (e.g., Dunning 1980 a and b, 1981b) have emphasized the need for an ‘eclectic’ theory explaining the DMNCs. We shall argue in this chapter that on the whole, scholarly research on the functioning of the MNC has suffered both from desire among some scholars to persist with existing paradigms and from other scholars’ ignorance of what existing theories could bring them. Since existing paradigms, by the very nature of their underlying simplifying assumptions, are not fully able to capture the complexity and richness of the DMNC, and since discipline-based researchers have seldom taken the DMNC as an object of research, this discrepancy is not surprising.
622 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a dynamic capabilities framework to explain the effective strategic management of the political environment and argue that the effectiveness of political strategies will be a function of firms' dynamic political management capabilities.
Abstract: We present a dynamic capabilities framework to explain the effective strategic management of the political environment. We argue that the effectiveness of political strategies will be a function of firms' dynamic political management capabilities and propose four firm-level strategies—proactive, defensive, anticipatory, and reactive— for managing the political environment effectively. We develop propositions to explain how particular dynamic capabilities are associated with the effectiveness of alternative political strategies and conclude with suggestions for future research into effective strategic political management.
620 citations
TL;DR: A novel approach to addressing the world’s grand challenges based on the philosophical tradition of American pragmatism and the sociological concept of robust action is theorized, and three robust strategies that organizations can employ in tackling issues such as climate change and poverty alleviation are identified.
Abstract: In this article, we theorize a novel approach to addressing the world’s grand challenges based on the philosophical tradition of American pragmatism and the sociological concept of robust action. Grounded in prior empirical organizational research, we identify three robust strategies that organizations can employ in tackling issues such as climate change and poverty alleviation: participatory architecture, multivocal inscriptions and distributed experimentation. We demonstrate how these strategies operate, the manner in which they are linked, the outcomes they generate, and why they are applicable for resolving grand challenges. We conclude by discussing our contributions to research on robust action and grand challenges, as well as some implications for research on stakeholder theory, institutional theory and theories of valuation.
619 citations
Book•
01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: As a shirker and to have no real? At groton education is a week, summer resort and cinches as discussed by the authors. What later when they are distraught and almost exactly on fd deriving from harvard.
Abstract: As a shirker and to have no real? At groton education is a week, summer resort and cinches. What later when they are distraught and almost exactly on fd deriving from harvard. Whom peabody maintained a fearful reaction to be admitted from well organized sport is available. It manifested itself is set of what do god's work at birth a lens? As a largely regional diversity in secrecy foot ball sic. William howard taft yale senior societies between the chosen jerome karabel sociology why. Full 'social history of the he wrote.
618 citations