Stan Xiao Li

The Multiplicity of Institutional Logics and the Heterogeneity of Organizational Responses

This paper shows that organizations in market settings face complex institutional contexts to which they respond in different though patterned ways. We show how both regional state logics and family logics impact on organizational responses to an overarching market logic. Regional logics are particularly potent when the activities of firms, especially of large firms, are concentrated in regions whose governments champion regional distinctiveness and where the regional activities of the firm are significant. Family logics affect the decision to downsize, especially in smaller firms. This paper advances institutional theory by showing the influences of nonmarket institutions on market behavior, contributes to the growing recognition of community influences, and highlights the importance of historical context.

Ownership and Performance of Professional Service Firms

Understanding the effects of ownership upon organizational performance is a well-established theme in organization theory, but comparison across ownership forms has been neglected. We develop hypotheses comparing public corporations, private corporations and partnerships and test them in a sample of large management consultancies. We find that private corporations and partnerships outperform public corporations. We attribute this difference to increased monitoring by owners and greater motivation by professional workers seeking ownership stakes. Contrary to Durand and Vargas (2003), we find that organizational complexity has neither a direct nor a moderating effect.

The Prince and the Pauper: Search and Brokerage in the Initiation of Status-Heterophilous Ties

We combine structural hole theory with performance feedback theory to identify determinants of partner selection in networks. Specifically, we examine how a brokerage position coupled with aspiration--performance gaps affects an organizations propensity to initiate ties to partners of different status. We find that organizations in brokerage positions are more likely than nonbrokers to initiate such ties systematically. However, when the performance of an organization in a brokerage position deviates from its aspirations, the organization changes its partner selection strategy and starts initiating ties to partners of similar status. Our results also suggest that organizations in brokerage positions set social and historical aspiration levels differently from nonbrokers, levels that in turn affect decisions about partner selection.

Where Do Social Ties Come from: Institutional Framework and Governmental Tie Distribution Among Chinese Managers

This study identifies the societal institutional framework as the cause for the tie distribution issue the sizes of ego-networks of social actors are unevenly distributed across social categories of these social actors. The analysis of 250 Chinese firms showed that managers employed by state-owned enterprises possess more governmental tie channels conduits to get acquainted with government officials than those employed by non-state-owned enterprises. Governmental tie channels completely mediated the relationship between ownership types and the number of government ties in the managers social network.

Royston Greenwood, Christine Oliver, Roy Suddaby, and Kerstin Sahlin-Andersson: The Sage Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism.GreenwoodRoyston, OliverChristine, SuddabyRoy, Sahlin-AnderssonKerstin, eds. The Sage Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2008. 840 pp.

Since its conceptual foundations in the late 1970s, the institutional perspective has gradually become prominent in organization theory research. The perspective has embraced various theoretical themes and analytical levels, ranging from intra-organizational studies of diffusion, cross-organization and cross-fi eld examinations of isomorphism, and cross-country comparisons of institution dissemination to inspection of multilevel institutional logics. The literature is vast and still growing. Inevitably, perhaps, we are struck not only by the richness but by the complexity of theoretical themes embedded in this three-decade-long research journey. It is thus timely to trace and tabulate the key tributaries of this growing theory to better grasp its outlines and contribution and to ponder possible future directions.