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
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the role that environmental disclosures might play in producing a legitimating effect on investors within the context of the chemical industry and explore effects of negative, and the offsetting effects of positive, environmental disclosures surrounding chemical firms' liabilities for toxic waste site liabilities.
Abstract: This paper explores the role that environmental disclosures might play in producing a legitimating effect on investors within the context of the chemical industry. By way of an experimental decision case it examines effects of negative, and the offsetting effects of positive, environmental disclosures surrounding chemical firms’ liabilities for toxic waste site liabilities. The paper outlines the theoretical bases for the process of organizational legitimation, and sets the decision experiment in a detailed historical analysis of the toxic waste problems of the 1970s that led to the enactment of legislation requiring clean up and imposing significant liabilities on chemical firms. The results from the decision experiment, which indicate that under some circumstances positive disclosures can restore or repair an organization’s legitimacy, are discussed in the context of the earlier theoretical and historical analysis.
538 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that under certain conditions entrepreneurs are likely to supplement, or surpass, the efforts of governments, NGOs and existing firms to achieve environmental sustainability, and demonstrate how entrepreneurs can contribute to solving environmental problems through helping extant institutions in achieving their goals and by creating new, more environmentally sustainable products, services and institutions.
537 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that American schools increasingly define and manage the problem of student discipline through a prism of crime control, and most theoretical explanations fail to situate school criminalization in a broader...
Abstract: American schools increasingly define and manage the problem of student discipline through a prism of crime control. Most theoretical explanations fail to situate school criminalization in a broader...
535 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the de-diversification activity of publicly held American firms from 1985 to 1994 and found that managers of such firms face pressure from analysts to dediversify so that their stock is more easily understood.
Abstract: The issue of corporate control is examined through an analysis of the de-diversification activity of publicly held American firms from 1985 to 1994. Prominent accounts of such behavior depict newly powerful shareholders as having demanded a dismantling of the inefficient, highly diversified corporate strategies that arose in the late 1950s and the 1960s. This paper highlights an additional factor that spurred such divestiture: the need to present a coherent product identity in the stock market. It is argued that because they straddle the industry categories that investors—and securities analysts, who specialize by industry—use to compare like assets, diversified firms hinder efforts at valuing their shares. As a result, managers of such firms face pressure from analysts to dediversify so that their stock is more easily understood. Results indicate that, in addition to such factors as weak economic performance, de-diversification is more likely when a firm's stock price is low and there is a significant mi...
535 citations
21 Dec 2006
TL;DR: In this paper, Lasswell et al. discuss the role of policy networks in policy learning and argue that they can be used as a tool for policy analysis, as well as as evidence for rationality in policy decision-making.
Abstract: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES The Policy Sciences at the Cross-Roads Promoting the Policy Orientation: Lasswell in Context Public Policy, Social Science and the State: An Historical Perspective POLICY PROCESSES Theories of the Policy Cycle Agenda Setting in Public Policy Policy Formulation: Design and Tools Implementing Public Policy Do Policies Determine Politics? An Analysis of Lowi's Policy Typology POLICY POLITICS, ADVOCACY, AND EXPERTISE A Guide to the Advocacy Coalition Framework Policy Communities Policy Analysis and Think Tanks POLICY DECISION MAKING: RATIONALITY, NETWORKS, AND LEARNING. Rationality in Policy Decision-Making Rational Choice in Public Policy: The Theory in Critical Perspective Taking Stock of Policy Networks: Do They Matter? Theories of Policy Learning: Agency, Structure, and Change DELIBERATIVE POLICY ANALYSIS: ARGUMENTATION, RHETORIC, AND NARRATIVES Deliberative Policy Analysis as Practical Reason: Integrating Empirical and Normative Arguments Rhetoric in Policy-Making: Between Logos, Ethos, and Pathos Narrative Policy Analysis COMPARATIVE, CULTURAL, AND ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES Comparative Public Policy Applied Cultural Theory: Tool for Policy Analysis Ethical Issues and Public Policy Public Policy and Democratic Citizenship: What Kinds of Citizenship Does Policy Promote? QUANTITATIVELY-ORIENTED POLICY METHODS Quantitative Methods for Policy Analysis The Use (and Misuse) of Survey Research in Policy Analysis Social Experiments and Public Policy Evaluation Research in Policy Analysis QUALITATIVE POLICY ANALYSIS: INTERPRETATION, MEANING, AND CONTEXT Qualitative-Interpretive Methods in Policy Research Qualitative Research and Public Policy Interpretation and Intention in Policy Analysis Context Sensitive Policy Methods POLICY DECISION TECHNIQUES Cost-Benefit Analysis Environmental Impact Assessment: Between Bureaucratic Process and Social Learning. Technology Assessment as Policy Analysis: From Expert Advice to Participatory Approaches Public Policy Mediation: From Argument to Collaboration COUNTRY PERSPECTIVES Policy Analysis in Britain Evolution of Policy Analysis in the Netherlands Policy Analysis and Evaluation in Sweden: Discovering the Limits of the Rationalistic Paradigm Policy Analysis in Germany Policy Analysis in India Policy Analysis in Korea: From Economic Efficiency to Public Participation
535 citations