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.

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

Adopted by an increasing number of organizations around the world, the ISO 9000 standards have become a growing concern for more and more managers who are often compelled to adopt this system without really knowing its requirements and implications for employees. Though the effects of this standard on quality management and on performance improvement have been widely debated, there is little knowledge of how the managers and employees who are asked to implement and maintain it perceive the ISO 9000 standards or resist its use. This study will thus attempt to analyze this perception and resistance with regard to both the standard and the certification process. So as to avoid the traditional and idealised view of this standard, whose commercial stakes often give rise to uncritical statements, almost 50 interviews were conducted outside of the workplace. The results of these interviews revealed highly contrasting attitudes that were frequently critical of the ISO 9000 system, which was often given only superficial support. A qualitative analysis of the data allowed us to identify three types of respondents. They were grouped according to their opinions and attitudes about the implementation of this standard. The three groups were ceremonial integrators, quality enthusiasts and dissidents. Although the "quality enthusiasts" discourse often reflects managers' "rhetoric of success" described by Zbaracki (1998) about the implementation of total quality programs, this rhetoric is not shared by the other respondent categories. Hence, this research project contributes to a better understanding of how institutional pressures, which create "isomorphic" organizations by leading them to adopt identical management models, are reinterpreted, renegotiated, and modified within organizations. The proposed typology casts doubt on the mechanistic, consensual, and monolithic view of the ISO 9000 system that underlies most of the work on this theme. In particular, this study demonstrates the relevance of adopting both the institutionalist and critical approaches in efforts to explain the respondents' opinions. In so doing, the personnel's support for the ISO 9000 system and the certification process can then be analyzed from different angles. This certification process would ultimately appear to be a rite of passage that gives rise to various strategies that depend on the respondents' category and their support for the standard.

ISO 9000: Outside the iron cage

Analyzing the effect of social support and community factors on customer engagement and its impact on loyalty behaviors toward social commerce websites

One of the mysteries of store-level scanner data modeling is the lack of a dip in sales in the week(s) following a promotion. Researchers expect to find a postpromotion dip because analyses of household scanner panel data indicate that consumers tend to accelerate their purchases in response to a promotion that is, they buy earlier and/or purchase larger quantities than they would in the absence of a promotion. Thus, one should also find a pronounced dip in store-level sales in the week(s) following a promotion. However, researchers find such dips usually neither at the category nor at the brand level. Several arguments have been proposed for the lack of a postpromotion dip in store-level sales data. These arguments explain why dips may be hidden. Given that dips are difficult to detect by traditional models (and by a visual inspection of the data), we propose models that can account for a multitude of factors which together cause complex pre- and postpromotion dips. We use three alternative distributed lead- and lag structures: an Almon model, an Unrestricted dynamic effects model, and an Exponential decay model. In each model, we include four types of price discounts: without any support, with display-only support, with feature-only support, and with feature and display support. The models are calibrated on store-level scanner data for two product categories: tuna and toilet tissue. We estimate the dip to be between 4 and 25 percent of the current sales effect, which is consistent with household-level studies.

The estimation of pre- and postpromotion dips with store-level scanner data

A survey on emerging broadband wireless access technologies

Purpose – The purpose of this study is twofold. First, to examine the contingent role of the product life cycle on the efficacy of purchasing practices. Second, to use the results of the first investigation to explore the adequacy of the profit‐maximization framework for explaining purchasing decision making. This second investigation is motivated by growing evidence on the role of institutional factors in explaining supply chain management practices.Design/methodology/approach – Survey data from a sample of North American manufacturing firms, across four standard industry sectors, are analysed using ANOVA and linear regression, to examine the hypotheses.Findings – The results indicate that product life cycle has a contingent effect on the efficacy of some purchasing practices but not on others. Interestingly, the results suggest that the profit‐maximization framework is capable of explaining only some purchasing decisions but not others; firms adopt certain purchasing practices in certain product life cy...

The influence of product life cycle on the efficacy of purchasing practices

The Imitator's Dilemma: Why Imitators Should Break Out of Imitation

Social bundling: A novel method to enhance consumers’ intention to purchase online bundles

This work analyzes reservation request access delay in reservation multiple access protocols in light of frame contention slot allocation. Variations of the reservation MAC protocol are widely used in local and cellular network technologies. We derive an analytical model for access delay of reservation request packets that reflects the impact of per-frame number of contention slots on access delay of a request packet. We obtain insightful observations on this relation and as a result show that a new family of delay and throughput constrained dynamic contention slot allocation schemes can be developed.

http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/LCN.2004.11

Access delay analysis in reservation multiple access protocols for broadband local and cellular network

Although imitation is more abundant and prevalent than innovation in firms’ product and process development activities, it has been understudied in research on innovation and R&D management. For example, a valid and reliable objective firm-level measure of the intensity of imitation activity is lacking in the extant literature. This measure is necessary to understand the antecedents and consequences of firms’ imitation activity, which has implications for R&D management. In this paper, we present novel methods that employ patent infringement litigations data to improve on the validity and reliability of measuring firms’ imitation activity. We validate our proposed measure by presenting a first model and test of R&D as a multiple-output production function with R&D expenditure as the primary input, and innovation and imitation as joint outputs. This is in contrast to current R&D models as a single-output production function of either innovation or imitation. This study uses a sample of 227 public firms from the computer, semiconductor, and pharmaceutical industries in the United States during 1991–2010.

Measuring firms’ imitation activity

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