Bob Hinings

Sedimentation and Transformation in Organizational Change: The Case of Canadian Law Firms

This paper identifies two archetypes in large Canadian law firms to show how ideas of professionalism and partnership are changing, due in part to shifts in discourses in the wider institutional context. These changes in discourse themselves alter the interpretation of organizational structures and systems. This theme is explored through the concept of tracks and sedimentation. We explore the emergence of an organizational archetype that appears not to be secure, and which results in sedimented structures with competitive commit ments. The geological metaphor of sedimentation allows us to consider a dia lectical rather than a linear view of change. Case studies of two law firms show how one archetype is layered on the other, rather than representing a distinct transformation where one archetype sweeps away the residues of the other.

Institutional Pressures and Isomorphic Change: An Empirical Test

This paper examines the process of isomorphic change. It does so by examin ing the dynamics of the change process and looking at change holistically. Using a population of 36 national-level sport organizations, subject to environ mental pressures from a state agency to adopt a more professional and bureau cratic design, the paper shows that over time there is an increase in the level of homogeneity of these organizations. Although the general shift is to a more professional and bureaucratic type of organization, certain elements of struc ture do not change as much as others, thus demonstrating resistance to institu tional pressures. The processes by which the changes that occurred took place are explored.

Globalization and Nationalism in a Multinational Accounting Firm: The Case of Opening New Markets in Eastern Europe

As major multinationals involved in global expansion, the Big Six are investing in new markets throughout those parts of the world where they believe they can make money. This paper presents a detailed case of how one of the Big Six invested in the former Soviet Union, as it moved towards capitalism. The case presents issues of national pride, national stereotyping, constructing managerial identities and political decision processes in a story of an emergent global strategy. Thus, the paper applies and develops theories of identity and nationalism in explaining the detailed mechanisms of imperialism. The continuing internal debate about the objectives and motives of these firms, whether their focus is on multinational clients or on developing local firms, institutions and markets, has important implications for national public policies in relation to these firms. These issues are crucial in the emerging economies of Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe, where the spread of global capitalism is still open for debate.

Institutionally specific design archetypes: a framework for understanding change in national sport organizations.

The literature that has focused on the change in amateur sport organizations in Canada, has suggested an evolutionary movement toward a more professional and bureaucratic design. While this view of change in Canadian national sport organizations provides strong descriptive support for understanding these organizations, it neglects the differences between them. The central premise of this paper is that changes in these organizations should not simply be explained as system-wide trends toward increased professionalization and bureaucratization. Rather the variety in organizational design may be understood by identifying common design archetypes that exist within this institutionally specific set of organizations. It will then be possible to more precisely identify the nature of the change process that is occurring.

Professionalism, Structures and Systems: The Impact of Professional Staff on Voluntary Sport Organizations:

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact that the hiring of a professional staff person had on the structural and systemic arrangements of a voluntary sport organization. Six organizations were examined at critical decisions points following the hiring of a professional staff member. The introduction of these people was shown to result in an increase in both the levels of specialization and standardization within these organizations. The increases occurred differentially across organizational systems, with technical systems showing the greatest increases. Decision making was found to become more centralized immediately after the hiring of a professional, however it decentralized over time.

Power and Advantage in Organizations

This article examines the way in which recent critiques of the concept of power, notably by Clegg and Lukes, can be taken into account in the study of organizations. It is argued that this can best be done if we utilize the concepts of values and interests as well as the concept of power. Doing so allows us to consider the way in which advantage is distributed in an organization, and the contexts in which power is and is not used. Six patterns of organizational action are identified, using the concepts of values and interests, and their consequences for the exercise of power are examined. In conclusion it is argued that an understanding of power must utilize elements of both bureaucratic and political models of organizations.

Strategies of Administrative Control and Contextual Constraints in a Less-Developed Country: The Case of Egyptian Public Enterprise

Access to 31 state-owned organizations engaged in a variety of industries in Egypt enables the function of work organizations in a less-developed country to be examined. The utilization of public enterprises by government in political and developmental strategies has a considerable impact upon their form and authority. They are shown to be highly structured and highly centralized (using Aston measures) in a way similar to organizations in other socialist and developing countries. In addition, size and techno logy together appear to exert a bureaucratizing effect.

Connections Between Institutional Logics and Organizational Culture

The relationship between institutional logics and organizational culture is explored. Institutional logics have become an important research theme in institutional theory. There are elements of the concept that have strong associations with culture especially through ideas of meaning. Also, institutional logics operate at multiple levels, in ways that are informative for discussions of organizational culture. The paper examines these relationships.

A Comment at the Border Between Institutional and Organizational Culture Theories

We see several fruitful ways in which the relationships between institutions and organizational culture can be further developed. They emerge from our empirical observations in areas where the world is indeed changing and from the theoretical assumption that organizations and institutions are intertwined and interdependent. The first observation is that multiplicity in meanings systems is found at the organizational and institutional level. We see competing institutional logics reflected at the cultural level in terms of subcultures, so clearly there are competing meaning systems and practices that are mirrored at field level and organizational level. We can study how these different competing logics coexist as well as trace their origin. In examining how they coexist, the work on subcultures and the different relationships between them (e.g., Martin, 2002) can be used to further develop the relationships between competing institutional logics. But more importantly, if the different kinds of tensions, conflicts, or peaceful coexistence are located at both the institutional and organizational levels of analysis, we open up a set of issues regarding if and how organizations adapt to competing institutional logics and/or how organizational distinctiveness may serve as the origin for new competing logics. There is also the notion of hybrid identities, as suggested by Albert and Whetten (1985), offering the possibility of playing with the idea of hybrid cultures integrating competing institutional logics—such as business and philanthropy, global and local. An interesting question comes from the observation that many of the most significant subcultures emerge from different occupational and professional cultures (e.g., doctors vs. administrators, human resources vs. marketing). These logics are specific to fields, defined as a community of organizations, but refer to institutions that are even more general, as suggested by Friedland and Alford (1991). It is important to acknowledge which sources of internal conflicts and tensions emerge from differences in meaning systems from outside the organization. How do we distinguish between institutional logics that are embedded within a specific field, such as health care and education, and logics that are more general, implicated in a wide range of organizations? Therefore, dealing with the multiplicity in meaning systems at the organizational and institutional level involves examining how institutional logics and organizational cultures interact. And, in particular, it requires analysis of how conflicting and competing logics, at the organizational level, intersect with subcultures and how far they are implicated in each other. The second area relates to the need for a process perspective, which focuses on how the relationships between culture and institutions develop over time. This enables a more sophisticated understanding of how organizational culture, for periods of time, may be able to challenge or transform dominant institutional logics, just as it allows for a better understanding of how institutions take hold in individual organizations. For example, how do challenger cultures develop and shift to institutionalized cultures and challenger institutions to dominant logics and how are these processes interrelated? Work on the emergence of institutional logics and the transformation of organizational cultures needs to be examined in conjunction. A process perspective raises the notion of how we study culture as a source of distinctiveness. Culture is clearly not the only source of distinction, but culture may have a special role as the local meaning systems that express local distinctiveness in relation to the broader institutionalized environment and translate institutional requirements to the local context. Also, the fact that some institutions are more temporary than we expect (compare “proto-institutions”; Lawrence, Winn, & Jennings, 2001) may pose new challenges in our studies. It may be the case that institutional logics “discarded” at the field level may survive in cultural pockets at the organizational level. The third area for examining the institution or organizational culture relationship concerns the challenges from globalization and how globalization influences the role of institutions across national cultures. We witness how more and more companies are seeking to create global organizational cultures, sharing values and practices as a way to create organizational cohesiveness across national boundaries and create credibility and recognition among their stakeholders. This has been a prominent theme in studying organizational culture, whereas 419800 JMIXXX10.1177/1056492611419800Schu ltz and HiningsJournal of Management Inquiry

Digital innovation and transformation: An institutional perspective

Abstract In this conceptual piece we suggest that the institutional perspective is a prolific lens to study digital innovation and transformation. Digital innovation is about the creation and putting into action of novel products and services; by digital transformation we mean the combined effects of several digital innovations bringing about novel actors (and actor constellations), structures, practices, values, and beliefs that change, threaten, replace or complement existing rules of the game within organizations and fields. We identify three types of novel institutional arrangements critical for digital transformation: digital organizational forms, digital institutional infrastructures, and digital institutional building blocks. From this vantage point, an institutional perspective invites us to examine how these novel arrangements gain social approval (i.e. legitimacy) in the eyes of critical stakeholders and their interplay with existing institutional arrangements. Questioning the disruptive talk associated with digital transformation, we draw on the institutional change literature to illustrate the institutionalization challenges and that existing institutional arrangements are pivotal arbiters in deciding whether and how novel arrangements gain acceptance. We close this essay with discussing the implications of an institutional perspective on digital transformation for policy, practice and research.