Peer C. Fiss

The Diffusion of Ideas Over Contested Terrain: The (Non) Adoption of a Shareholder Value Orientation Among German Firms

This study offers a sociopolitical perspective on the international spread of corporate governance models. We unpack the heterogeneity of interests and preferences across and within types of shareholders and senior managers over time in an analysis of the adoption of a shareholder value orientation among contemporary German firms. Using extensive data on more than 100 of the largest publicly traded German companies from 1990 to 2000, we find that the influence of major shareholder groups (e.g., banks, industrial corporations, governments, and families) and senior manager types (differing educational backgrounds and ages) can be clearly observed only after redefining these key actors according to common interests and preferences. We also find evidence that German firms engage in decoupling by espousing but not implementing a shareholder value orientation but show that the presence of more powerful and more committed key actors reduces the likelihood of decoupling. We discuss the implications of our findings for research on symbolic management, the diffusion of corporate practices, and the debate over the convergence of national governance systems. *

The symbolic management of strategic change: Sensegiving via framing and decoupling

This study develops a symbolic management perspective on strategic change to predict and test the antecedents and consequences of how firms frame strategic change. Using data from a sample of contemporary German corporations, we find support for our predictions that firms (1) use specific framing language that fits better with their divergent stakeholder preferences, (2) use language that decouples espousal and actual implementation of strategic change, and (3) realize positive market responses to institutionally appropriate frames of change.

The Discourse of Globalization: Framing and Sensemaking of an Emerging Concept

While the literature on framing has importantly expanded our understanding of frame creation and contests from an interpretive point of view, previous studies have largely neglected the structural contexts in which framing activities occur. In this study, we propose extending the framing approach by incorporating insights from the literature on sensemaking to examine how and when opportunities for meaning creation open up and how this affects subsequent discursive processes. Connecting framing and sensemaking better enables us to examine how structural factors prompt and bound discursive processes, affecting when and where frame contests emerge. We demonstrate the utility of this approach by examining changes in the discourse of globalization. Using qualitative and quantitative analyses of newspaper articles and corporate press releases, we trace the emergence of globalization discourse, its diffusion, and the increasing contention that surrounds it. Our findings show how and where globalization discourse emerged in response to greater U.S. involvement with the international economy, and how later frame contests over the meaning of globalization have depended on the interests of the actors involved.

How Golden Parachutes Unfolded: Diffusion and Variation of a Controversial Practice

We contribute to a growing focus on variation in diffusion processes by examining the ways in which contested practices are modified as they spread among adopters. Expanding on prior diffusion accounts, we argue that the extensiveness and similarity of a practice will vary in response to both population-and organization-level mechanisms. To examine these issues, we study variation in “golden parachute” contracts, a controversial corporate governance practice that emerged and spread widely during the hostile takeover wave of the 1980s. Using a concept network approach to analyze the composition of parachute plans, we find evidence of mechanisms that both increase and decrease extensiveness and variation of golden parachutes. Our findings hold implications for accounts of practice diffusion over contested terrain by revealing substantial variation in the course of diffusion.

Chapter 3 The Two QCAs: From a Small-N to a Large-N Set Theoretic Approach

Although QCA was originally developed specifically for small-N settings, recent studies have shown its potential for large-N organization studies. In this chapter, we provide guidance to prospective researchers with the goal of opening up QCA’s potential for widespread use in organization studies involving large-N settings, both as an alternative and as a complement to conventional regression analyses. We compare small-N and large-N QCA with respect to theoretical assumptions and objectives, processes and decisions involved in building the causal model, selecting the sample, as well as analyzing the data and interpreting the results. Finally, we discuss the prospects for large-N configurational analysis in organization studies and related fields going forward.

An Ontological Turn in Categories Research: From Standards of Legitimacy to Evidence of Actuality

In this Counterpoint to Durand and Paolella, we argue that prior work on categories has neglected processes of category emergence and dissolution. In response, we call for studies of categories that focus on how they emerge and fall out of use and on what they come to mean. We call this an ontological turn in categories research because systems of categorization and their associated meanings capture and reflect what societies view as social realities, or ontologies. As a guide to this broad topic, we develop a framework that relates the effects of categories to the familiarity of (1) occasions and motivations for their usage and (2) meanings and ontologies they carry, and we use this framework to elaborate two paths by which previously unfamiliar categories become accepted as elements of common knowledge. These paths jointly inform the recognition front of the emergence question, an understudied problem in organization studies. Finally, we outline two methodologies – set theoretic analysis and network‐based analysis – that offer particular promise for analysing processes of category emergence and dissolution.

Embracing Causal Complexity: The Emergence of a Neo-Configurational Perspective

Causal complexity has long been recognized as a ubiquitous feature underlying organizational phenomena, yet current theories and methodologies in management are for the most part not well-suited to its direct study. The introduction of the Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) configurational approach has led to a reinvigoration of configurational theory that embraces causal complexity explicitly. We argue that the burgeoning research using QCA represents more than a novel methodology; it constitutes the emergence of a neo-configurational perspective to the study of management and organizations that enables a fine-grained conceptualization and empirical investigation of causal complexity through the logic of set theory. In this article, we identify four foundational elements that characterize this emerging neo-configurational perspective: (a) conceptualizing cases as set theoretic configurations, (b) calibrating cases’ memberships into sets, (c) viewing causality in terms of necessity and sufficiency relations between sets, and (d) conducting counterfactual analysis of unobserved configurations. We then present a comprehensive review of the use of QCA in management studies that aims to capture the evolution of the neo-configurational perspective among management scholars. We close with a discussion of a research agenda that can further this neo-configurational approach and thereby shift the attention of management research away from a focus on net effects and towards examining causal complexity.

Configurational theory and methods in organizational research : introduction

The notion of configuration – that the whole is best understood from a systemic perspective and should be viewed as a constellation of interconnected elements – is arguably one of the central ideas of organization studies. Yet, this idea also remains one of the field’s least understood aspects. In this volume and its introduction, we outline a new perspective for understanding configuration. Our starting point is the emergence of set theoretic configurational methods, and especially Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), which provides novel ways for analyzing configurations. Our volume goes beyond introducing a new method to the fields of management and organization, as these methods furthermore offer an opportunity to rethink our understanding of the field and to develop different ways of theorizing the rich complexity of relationships that characterize organizational life. In this introduction, we introduce some of the key themes that differentiate the approach taken here from previous work on organizational configurations and provide evidence for the emerging renaissance of the configurational approach in organizational theory and research.

Comparative organizational analysis across multiple levels: A set-theoretic approach

The contrast of multilevel and comparative research may seem counterintuitive at first. After all, one might argue that comparative research on organizations by necessity spans several levels of analysis (Rokkan, 1966). Yet, multilevel and comparative research on organizations present rather distinct traditions in organization studies, each with its own epistemological assumptions and associated methods. Accordingly, an approach that aims to incorporate both multilevel and comparative ideas needs to start with taking inventory of these prior literatures to situate itself. In the following, we thus turn to the literatures on multilevel and comparative research as different traditions with surprisingly little overlap.

Making Snowflakes Like Stocks: Stretching, Bending, and Positioning to Make Financial Market Analogies Work in Online Advertising

Analogies to financial markets have proven powerful in establishing novel or potentially controversial business concepts, even in contexts that deviate significantly from financial markets. This phenomenon challenges theory that suggests analogies work best when elements from a source and target domain map closely to each other. To develop a theory that explains how organizations make initially imperfect analogies “work,” we use a case study of online advertising exchanges, a market-inspired model for buying and selling online advertising space. We find that as organizations stretch an initially misfitting exchange analogy from financial markets to online advertising, they iteratively bend their activities in superficial, structural, and generative ways to match the analogy and position themselves for advantage in the new space being created. Whereas prior studies emphasize shared cognition about familiar domains as the reason why analogies work, our study offers a dynamic account in which stretching, bending, and positioning combine to not only establish the financial market analogy but also subtly change the understanding of markets.