Institutional Processes: Sources of Divergence

Collecting arguments from this and previous chapters, we see that, although institutional pressures under many conditions conduce toward isomorphic organization structure and practices, there are many ways in which “identical” institutional forces can result not in convergent, but divergent outcomes. Among the mechanisms and pro- cesses discussed, consider the following: Varying carriers whose characteristics

Conceptualizing Organization Fields

Our discussion begins with the general concept of field and then moves to its application to organizations, considering both its contribu- tions to conceptualizing the environment within which a particular organization operates as well as its value as a new object of study. 1. Fields and Organization Fields Field Conceptions The concept of a

Key Components of Organization Fields

While it is possible to identify the presence of regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive elements at work in all organization fields, for empirical purposes it is helpful to focus attention on a number of key components that vary among fields. 1. Institutional Logics As discussed in Chapter 4 and elsewhere in this volume, institu- tional

Field Structuration Processes

1. Multiple Levels As described in Chapter 4, Giddens (1979; 1984) defines the con- cept of structuration quite broadly to refer to the recursive interdepen- dence or social structures and activities. The verb form is intended to remind us that structures exist only to the extent that actors engage in ongoing activities to produce

Institutional Processes: A Revised Agenda and Framework

Davis and Marquis (2005) have suggested that the time has come to seriously consider whether the organization is the appropriate level of analysis for most of the questions we social scientists want to address and the processes we seek to understand. The view of “an organiza- tion” as a relatively independent and self-contained actor

Institutional theory: Distinctive Features

Institutional theory differs from alternative approaches to the study of organizations in a number of ways that are important to identify. The following appear to be important: Institutionalists eschew a totalistic or monolithic view of organi- zational and societal structures and processes. The institutional perspective, more so than others, emphasizes the importance of the

The Maturation of Institutional Theory and Research

More than 25 years ago, I wrote an article titled “The Adolescence of Institutional Theory” (Scott 1987). In reexamining that article, I think it accurately portrayed, even more than I realized, the undeveloped state of theoretical development of the field at that time, while also recogniz- ing its promise and potential. Taking stock now,

Institutional theory: Fragmented by Fractals?

Andrew Abbott (2001) has pointed out that all academic disciplines become more complex over time, obviously differentiating among more specialized areas of study (e.g., the sociology of the family, the sociology of religion), but also, less obviously, by creating fractals. In this process, distinctions are created by the development of dichotomies (e.g., autonomy vs.

Institutional theory: A Cautionary Comment

If one examines the grand march of ideas across the centuries, it is pos- sible to make a case for the regular repetition, and alternating domi- nance, of either more liberal or more conservative accounts of the human condition. Thus, for example, European intellectual circles dur- ing the 18th and 19th centuries experienced the

Institutional theory: A Brief Sermon

Some of us may prefer to go even further in advancing the cause of insti- tutional analysis. A productive model for doing so has been provided by the lifelong work of Philip Selznick. His work has been discussed in previous chapters, but few organization theorists have followed it beyond its early phases, in particular

Definition of power and its role

1. Three ways of fixing things The book that you have in your hands will fix some aspects of the terms ‘power’ and ‘organizations’, and we consider that fixing in three ways. First, we use ‘fixing’ as in fixing a hole where the rain gets in, that is repairing the fabric of a construction.

Power in organization and social theory

1. Investigating power In this book we will investigate various conceptions of power, focusing particularly on the intersection of these conceptions with that of organization in both theory and practice. Power is a difficult idea to pin down and has been very widely ignored, marginalized and trivialized in many discussions of organizations, for a

Modern organization theory as a science

1. Sketching the field The epitome of modern rational organization theory was the program institutional- ized as contingency theory. One reason why functionalist contingency theory became so widely debated was because the Aston Research Programme was so successful. Its findings dominated the pages of the journals, especially the Administrative Science Quarterly, during the 1960s

Sharpening the focus on power in organization theory

1. Fixing a focus Power is something that only came into sharp focus for much organization theory in the post Second World War era, when a hypothesis, that control over uncer- tainty bestowed power in otherwise rationalized systems, was widely elaborated. Organization science developed this way of addressing power in the 1950s; organi- zation

Programmatics and analytics

The logic of the book is constructed according to two principles: first, a principle of programmatics, and second, a principle of analytics.Where we address pro- grammatics we are focused on practices of power, rather more than their extant the- orization. We justify this logic in terms of the fact that the practices in question

Management and modernity

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an organization not in possession of good fortune must be in want of a good manager.1 What managers do has tradi- tionally been defined in terms of relations of handling, supervision and control.2 The precise unfolding of these relations, in part, is a charting of the forms

The emergence of modern management theory

1. Modern management As far as one is concerned with management, the maturation of modernity is marked, programmatically, by the work of F. W. Taylor, for he was responsible for creating the individual and responsible employee not just as a creature of religious imperatives such as the Protestant ethic – or habit – but

The political economy of the body

1. Efficiency at work The innovation with which Taylor is most associated is the linking of efficiency to power through the medium of the human body. At the core of the new meta-routines that systematic or scientific management ushered in was the efficient use of the human body. The program sought to drill efficiency

Power and the moving line

1. The slaughterhouse One thing that Taylor did not develop but which lifted the applicability of some ele- ments of his system to new heights, whilst seeing the abandonment of much that he held dear, was the moving production line. In 1913, 30 years after Taylor installed his first system, a revolution in manufacturing

Reforming efficiency

1. Efficiency reforming economy What we have been doing to this point is to investigate the ways in which, at a cru- cial point in its emergence, the idea of management was formed around knowledge of the individual that it produced, conceived in terms of a political economy of the body. On the eve