Week 10 Student Led readings

Question 1

Authors: DiMaggio & Powell

Year: 1983

Answer 1

Explores how organizations within a specific field tend to become more alike over time, a phenomenon termed “institutional isomorphism.” They argue that organizational homogeneity arises less from competitive pressures for efficiency and more from the influences of state policies, professional standards, and norms.

Question 2

Authors: Tolbert & Zucker
Year: 1983

Answer 2

The authors analyze the spread and institutionalization of civil service reforms in U.S. cities. They explore how cities adopted these reforms to meet organizational and social pressures. When reforms were state-mandated, they spread quickly, with cities adopting them directly from the state. Without mandates, adoption was gradual, with early adopters motivated by organizational needs and later adopters influenced by societal norms.

Question 3

Authors: Zucker
Year: 1987

Answer 3

The author reviews institutional theory in organizational studies, examining how organizations are influenced by external normative pressures from the state and internal professional standards.

Zucker distinguishes between two views: one where the environment acts as an institution, shaping organizations through coercive external pressures like regulations; and another where organizations themselves create institutional norms internally.

Main mechanisms driving institutionalization: Mimetic, Normative, and Coercive

Question 4

Authors: Vancouver
Year: 1996

Answer 4

Vancouver presents Living Systems Theory (LST) as a framework for understanding organizational behavior. LST posits that organizations function similarly to biological systems, focusing on the flow and processing of information, energy, and matter to maintain stability and adapt to change. Vancouver argues that LST offers a more holistic view than traditional organizational theories, integrating aspects of both individual and systemic behavior.

Question 5

Authors: Westphal, Gulati, & Shortell
Year: 1997

Answer 5

The authors analyze how organizations implement Total Quality Management (TQM) practices, focusing on the tension between adapting practices to fit unique organizational contexts (customization) and following established norms to gain legitimacy (conformity). They use institutional theory and network analysis to explore these adoption patterns, finding that organizations often choose conformity to secure legitimacy from external stakeholders. However, when organizations have extensive professional networks, they are more likely to customize TQM practices, leveraging network support for legitimacy.

Question 6

Authors: Kast & Rosenzweig
Year: 2001

Answer 6

This article introduces the General Systems Theory (GST) as a framework to understand organizations. They argue that GST enables a holistic view of organizations by examining them as complex, interrelated systems interacting with their environments. This perspective emphasizes the importance of open systems, where information, energy, and resources flow between an organization and its environment.

Question 7

Authors: Heugens & Lander
Year: 2009

Answer 7

The authors analyze institutional theory debates using meta-analysis, particularly examining the role of social structure versus agency in organizational behavior, the performance impacts of isomorphic conformity, and field-level influences on isomorphism.

Question 8

Authors: Pfeffer, Jeffrey & Salancik
Year:1978

Answer 8

Explores how external constraints affect organizations and provides insights for designing and managing organizations to mitigate these constraints. All organizations are dependent on the environment for their survival. As the authors contend, “it is the fact of the organization’s dependence on the environment that makes the external constraint and control of organizational behavior both possible and almost inevitable.” Organizations can either try to change their environments through political means or form interorganizational relationships to control or absorb uncertainty.

Question 9

Authors: Meyer & Rowan
Year: 1977

Answer 9

Argues that organizations often adopt formal structures that primarily serve as a symbolic display of legitimacy rather than reflecting their actual day-to-day operations, essentially “performing” the right structures to appear well-run even if they aren’t fully functional in practice; this phenomenon is referred to as “decoupling.”