Managing Discursive Tension: the Co–Existence of Individualist and Collaborative Discourses in Flight Centre

Our study of the travel agency Flight Centre began as a case study of a company that appears to be a 'success story' in what is a highly competitive industry. In the course of our study we found that inscribed in Flight Centre were two, differing discourses which appear to co–exist in creative tension throughout the organization. One discourse is competitive individualism and the other collaborative teamwork. Our paper focuses on how Flight Centre has made use of multiple discourses such as these in the process of achieving competitive advantage, and how people manage the differing discursive logics which confront them on a day–to–day basis. The paper proceeds by identifying the social and textual practices which constitute each discourse. It then establishes the discursive co–existence and tension which exists between the two discourses. Study is made of the conditions under which this discursive co–existence is disrupted. We then identify the interpretative routines and practices through which organizational actors maintain and reproduce discursive co–existence. Our paper concludes by considering a variety of implications of studying multiple discourses in organizations.     

Between advocacy,compliance and commitment: A multilevel analysis of institutional logics in work environment management

In this study we explore the development and enactment of institutional logics in the field of work environment management. We show how three historically developed logics constitute different values and practices that guide professionals’ organizational action. Using both historical and contemporary qualitative data, we show how the three institutional logics are present in the field of work environment, and how the logics are enacted simultaneously by actors within four large organizations in Denmark. The study contributes to the literature on institutional logics. The logics perspective is combined with critical realism to describe the inter-relatedness between the levels of society, institutional fields, and organizations, and by elaborating the near-decomposable relations between institutional logics and orders. The study contributes to the literature on work environment management by investigating the ideational lenses through which regulations and interventions are perceived by organizational actors, and how these perceptions may lead to different organizational outcomes and outlooks in work environment management.     

Analysing the Influence of Institutional,Organizational and Interpersonal Forces in Shaping Inter‐Organizational Relations*

abstract Much of the literature on inter‐organizational relations assumes that firms operate as relatively autonomous and cohesive units that are (1) unimpeded by wider institutional norms governing the industry as a whole, and (2) allow little or no role for the boundary spanning agents who oversee and monitor ‘contracts’ on a daily basis. This perspective is not surprising given that so many studies rely solely on questionnaires completed by a single respondent within one or more of the organizations. Nor has there been much recognition of the dynamic interplay between forces at the institutional, organizational and interpersonal levels. In order to address these issues, we propose a framework that explicitly focuses on forces at these three levels, as well as the interplay between them, in order to analyse how and why inter‐organizational relations take the forms they do. We argue that trusting, OCR‐type relations are more likely to be produced and reproduced when there are strong institutional forces promoting common obligations on both parties, and there is a relative mutuality of power relations between the organizations. However, because the contract is maintained by boundary spanning agents, agreed norms at the institutional and organizational levels are a necessary but not sufficient factor for OCR to develop. Conversely, in the absence of these forces, there is less incentive for either organization to establish and maintain close interpersonal relations, and indeed ACR‐type, distant relations may be beneficial for organizations and individuals that wish to dispense with existing contracts.     

‘Totally Un‐Australian!’: Discursive and Institutional Interplay in the Melbourne Port Dispute of 1997–98*

ABSTRACT We examine how discourses are mobilized and deployed by actors in an inter‐organizational domain during a critical industrial relations event. We identify the ways that business interests and union interests in the Melbourne Port industrial dispute of 1997–98 related to each other. We weave concepts from domain theory and organizational discourse theory in deriving the concept of the discursively ordered domain. This suggests that the main processes that occur in a domain are actors’‘mapping’ texts onto discourses and discourses onto interpretive schemes which make certain courses of action rational and sensible. Methodologically, we join an institutional‐historical analysis and a text‐based discourse analysis to gain a well‐rounded understanding of the situation. We extract several discursive frameworks which the major actors mobilized to make sense of the situation, and draw linkages to the actions that those positions made possible. The main findings are that actors in the two networks performed complex mapping in different ways, the material and symbolic outcomes of the dispute are products of those mapping processes, and the material and discursive aspects of the domain interweave. We discuss the value of the concept of discursively ordered domain for mutually enriching domain theory and discourse analysis and for understanding critical events such as major industrial disputes in new ways.     

Towards a Social Theory of Agency

We challenge critics of agency theory who suggest that agency theory's value does not extend outside a narrow context dominated by egocentric agents seeking only to maximize wealth at the expense of the principal. Instead, we argue that agency theory's flexibility allows for its application to a variety of non‐traditional settings where the key elements of agency theory, such as self‐interest, information asymmetry, and the mechanisms used to control agency costs can vary beyond the narrow assumptions implied in traditional agency‐based research. We suggest that extending agency theory to diverse settings using a deductive approach can be accomplished by formally recognizing and incorporating the institutional context surrounding principal–agent (P–A) relations into agency‐based models. Thus, criticisms that agency theory fails to acknowledge the social context in which P–A relations occur provides not a barrier but an opportunity for extending our understanding of P–A relations to a variety of diverse contexts.     

Institutional Logics in Police Performance Indicator Development: A Comparative Case Study of Spain and Finland

Police performance is not easily measurable and the organization and circumstances of police work vary among European countries. Further, police work is surrounded by multiple pressures to make it both economical and effective. Consequently, there are multiple institutional logics in decision-making which may affect the selection and the use of police key performance indicators (KPIs). The KPI selection and use processes reflect the institutional logics, though KPI use may also sometimes influence the institutional logics of police work. In this study, we analyze the KPIs and institutional logics in police work in Finland and Spain. A comparative case research approach is used in order to highlight the differences in institutional logic emphases and in circumstances. Data from semi-structured interviews, internet reports, project work, and discussions are used. Both similarities and differences in the KPIs and in the institutional logic emphasis are found between the Finnish and Spanish police. Understanding the partly general and partly locally constructed nature of institutional logics may facilitate the development of police work performance measurement. We also suggest ways of coping with multiple institutional logics. For example, risk analyses and selecting KPIs against the current institutional logic may facilitate organizational developments.     

Conflicting logics? The role of HRM in a professional service firm

HRM is considered of vital strategic importance in professional service firms, but professionals generally resist these managerial initiatives. In this article, I report on an in‐depth case study of a tax consultancy department in a major accounting firm by exploring the way professionals reconcile the logics of professionalism and HRM. Results indicate that the logics are reconciled in several ways as they are simultaneously replicated, revised, and rejected. Whereas current theories argue that the different logics balance each other, this study indicates that the professionals strengthen professional logic by acknowledging HRM and its procedures, simultaneously circumventing them through inverted appropriation. Results suggest that hybridity between conflicting logics may appear on an organisational level, whereas a single logic dominates in everyday work. The study contributes to in‐depth studies of institutional logics and to a detailed understanding of the workings of HRM in professional contexts.     

Does Illegitimate Corporate Behaviour Follow the Forms of Polity? The Turkish Experience

In this study, we argue that illegitimate corporate actions can not only be strategic responses to the conflicting technical and institutional demands at the field level but also manifestations of the contradictory higher‐order institutional logics at the polity level. By focusing on the statist polity, somewhat neglected by the new institutional theory, we argue that the contradictory nationalist and capitalist institutional logics in the statist polity generate illegitimate corporate actions. We also propose that uncertainties and opportunities created by statist polity characteristics such as weak policy‐making capacity, neopatrimonialism, and clientelism lead to illegitimate corporate actions by triggering conflict between nationalism and capitalism. To demonstrate this, we examine the Turkish case, by focusing particularly on a recent example of illegitimate corporate action, namely the pursuit of non‐operating revenues. The case supports our arguments. It implies that illegitimate corporate behaviours may be ‘institutionalized’ as continuously reproduced by the actors embedded in a polity. It also implies that the impression management techniques to legitimate illegitimate behaviours may vary according to the forms of polity. Finally, it suggests that organizations may adopt hybrid missions as a survival strategy in a contradictory and uncertain business environment, paradoxically ultimately restricting their competitive capacities.     

Rethinking Institutions and Organizations

In this Point–Counterpoint article we argue that institutional scholarship has become overly concerned with explaining institutions and institutional processes, notably at the level of the organization field, rather than with using them to explain and understand organizations. Especially missing is an attempt to gain a coherent, holistic account of how organizations are structured and managed. We also argue that when institutional theory does give attention to organizations it inappropriately treats them as though they are the same, or at least as though any differences are irrelevant for purposes of theory. We propose a return to the study of organizations with an emphasis upon comparative analysis, and suggest the institutional logics perspective as an appropriate means for doing so.     

Coordination Networks Within and Across Organizations: A Multi‐level Framework*

ABSTRACT There are important organizational phenomena that cannot be fruitfully examined without crossing levels of analysis, as others have shown. We argue that coordination of patient care in the current institutional environment is one such phenomenon. As organizations vertically disintegrate and outsource services that were once produced internally, coordination with external organizations becomes increasingly important for achieving desired performance outcomes. We describe the efforts of one hospital to extend the intra‐organizational coordination of patient care to encompass coordination with its external partners. The organization design and network perspectives are both conducive to spanning multiple levels of analysis. We show that the two perspectives together serve as a useful vehicle for developing a framework that links intra‐ and inter‐organizational coordination.     

Coherent identities and roles? Hybrid professional managers’ prioritizing of coexisting institutional logics in differing contexts

This article explores how hybrid professional managers relate to coexisting institutional logics in their everyday work. It examines coherence between the logic that informs managers’ identity and that prioritized in their role. By comparing interview data from managers in two settings, a faith-based hospital and a religious organization, this article analyses primary and secondary identities and roles. Findings show that experiences of coexisting logics differ according to the organizational context. Hospital managers identify with a managerial logic in both their identity and role. A professional logic informs church managers’ identity, yet they prioritize a managerial logic in their role. The article proposes a model that links hybrid professional managers’ identities and roles with a framework of coexisting logics proposed earlier.     

Do Institutionalized Traditions Matter During Crisis? Employee Downsizing in Korean Manufacturing Organizations

This study examines the downfall of the permanent employment tradition in South Korean manufacturing organizations in the aftermath of the 1997 East Asian economic crisis. We explore whether organizations abandon their traditional institutionalized practices under discontinuous environmental change or despite the change continue these time‐honoured practices. We examine both the organizational factors that inhibit lay‐offs and performance indicators that trigger organizations to re‐evaluate their lifetime employment practices under drastic environmental upheaval. We test our hypotheses on 574 Korean manufacturing organizations and find that under discontinuous change: (1) economic and institutional factors simultaneously apply opposite forces on organizational actions; (2) organizational factors such as poor performance on productivity and export create a need for headcount reductions while factors such as size, domestic ownership, government support, and unionization create social and institutional pressures that inhibit downsizing; and (3) prior experience with downsizing moderates the relationship between institutional factors and further downsizing.     

Logics,Leaders, Lab Coats: A Multi‐Level Study on How Institutional Logics are Linked to Entrepreneurial Intentions in Academia

Situated in the context of academia, this study integrates ideas from institutional theory, person‐environment fit theory and leadership research to conceptualize and examine the cross‐level link between the organizational‐level institutional logic of research commercialization and the entrepreneurial intentions of researchers. Multi‐level analyses based on a sample of 254 researchers working for 85 research group leaders in 49 German research institutes reveal that two distinct attributes of research group leaders – that is, their track records of entrepreneurial behaviour and their entrepreneurial intentions – play a significant role in transmitting the organizational‐level logic to the individual level. We also observe a complementary interaction between organizational‐level commercialization logic and the entrepreneurial track records of leaders. We discuss how these findings advance our understanding of science commercialization through academic entrepreneurship and how they inform institutional theory and theory development in other domains of entrepreneurship research.     

Institutional Regime,Opportunity Space and Organizational Path Constitution: Case Studies of the Conversion of Military Firms in China

This study examines organizational path constitution from an institutional regime view. The research setting is the conversion of military firms to the civilian market in China since the country's economic reform in 1978. We begin with a questionnaire survey to better understand the situation and context of military conversion, and then conducted an embedded multiple‐case study method that shows how different patterns of organizational path constitution arise from a process of change efforts, change outcomes and opportunity space. Our context further allows us to examine how heterogeneous locally‐based institutional regimes affect the opportunity space of embedded organizations, enabling or constraining their change actions. The overall contribution is a theoretical model that reveals the relations between heterogeneous institutional regimes, opportunity spaces and organizational path constitution. Our findings have implications for the path dependence literature.     

Environmental management systems and green supply chain management: complements for sustainability?

Some researchers question the legitimacy of EMSs since organizations can claim to have one when in fact they make no attempt to reduce their environmental harm. In instances where EMSs enhance an organization's environmental performance, critics argue that improvements are likely to occur within the organization's operational boundaries rather than being extended throughout the supply chain. However, previous research suggests that the organizational capabilities required to adopt an EMS may facilitate GSCM implementation and the institutional pressures to adopt both management practices are similar. Consequently, EMS adopters may have a greater propensity to expand their focus beyond their organizational boundaries and utilize GSCM practices to minimize system‐wide environmental impacts. This research illuminates the debate by empirically evaluating the relationship between EMS and GSCM practices. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Global Standardization of Organizational Forms and Management Practices? What New Institutionalism and the Business‐Systems Approach Can Learn from Each Other*

abstract The debate as to the effects of globalization on organizational forms and management practices is well known. Our paper focuses on two institutionalist traditions in organization theory which make a significant contribution to this discussion: new institutionalism and the business‐systems approach. Both emphasize the adaptation of organizations to their institutional environments but come to very different conclusions as to the global standardization of organizational forms and management practices. Our paper aims to move them beyond the convergence‐divergence dichotomy to account for signs of both global standardization and continued persistence of national differences. We do so by systematically comparing the two traditions, suggesting how they can be cross‐fertilized and developing an agenda for future empirical research. We also highlight that they cannot learn from each other on the issue of agency and point to structuration theory as a way in which they can integrate agency into their accounts of the global standardization debate.     

The Continuity–Change Duality in Narrative Texts of Organizational Identity*

abstract This paper focuses on how continuity and change are managed discursively in narrative texts of organizational identity and thus helps move forward the discussion about persistence and change in organizational identity. The study reports on the content, context and authorial elements of the evolving narrative composed by a Canadian bank's senior managers. The analysis indicates that the discursive strategies employed by organizational authors to establish confluence (or simultaneous continuity and change) include the selective reporting of elements from the past, present and future, the juxtaposition of the ‘modern and attractive’ with the ‘outdated and undesirable’, the persistent use of expansive labels that allow the addition and subtraction of meanings attached to the labels, and the importation of selected themes from the wider macro‐discourses. In keeping with the view that organizations are plurivocal, evolving narratives of the organization in the business press are also presented. These narratives contribute themes that are at times concordant with senior managers’ accounts and thus confirm the value of the changes in identity elaborated by management; at other times, press accounts are discordant with senior managers’ narratives and provide alternative evaluations of the changes. The paper concludes with reflections on the indeterminacy of both organizational identity – for the texts that constitute it remain open to multiple readings and to subsequent re‐writing that continually destabilize it – and the narrative research enterprise that falls short of providing comprehensive and incontrovertible accounts of the voices that constitute organizations.     

Logics' shift and depletion of innovation: A multi-level study of agile use in a multinational telco company

The use of Agile practices is typically associated to a wide array of benefits for organizations. This paper extends growing research on the ‘dark’ side of Agile by investigating the depletion of innovation in a large telco company following the large-scale implementation of Agile in R&D units. Our qualitative study reveals a shift in the organizational logics underpinning new product development, from a “navigating through unchartered waters” to a “putting out fires” logic. We tracked the change in key components of logics (goals of teams, source of legitimacy of team members and support and control systems) and explained the multi-level mechanisms through which the shift occurred, i.e., changes in processes of workflow management, work allocation, and performance management. We found that the new organizational logic negatively impacted individual attitudes towards the generation of new ideas by promoting the internalization of short-termism, a perceived drain in competences and confidence, and the lack of accountability for innovation. By focusing on changes in organizational logics, our insights expand current knowledge about the relationship between Agile implementation and individual attitudes. We also explain why unexpected effects of Agile implementation may go undetected in organizations, because they derive from multi-level, diffused, changes in the organization.     

‘Don't Waste a Crisis’: Opening up the City Yet Again for Neoliberal Experimentation

This essay calls for a systematic investigation of the financial‐economic crisis as a source of new urban governance rationalities across Europe. We propose combining an understanding of neoliberalization as a variegated social phenomenon with a cultural political economy approach sensitive to the discursive dimension of variegation and the evolutionary mechanisms through which discursive variation is translated into geo‐institutional differentiation. We illustrate how this theoretical framework may help to analyse the impact of the crisis on urban governmental rationalities. Rather than offering a complete cultural political economy account of the responses of European cities to the financial‐economic crisis, we analyse how the crisis and the responses to it have been represented in discourses on urban policies and development by focusing on two discursive sites that are of strategic importance, namely OECD LEED and URBACT. Our preliminary findings suggest a re‐assemblage of existing discourses rather than the emergence of a new post‐neoliberal urban government rationality.     

社会价值、经济价值与社会企业创业策略的选择 ——基于制度逻辑理论的案例研究

社会企业在创业过程中如何选择市场逻辑与公益逻辑,以平衡社会价值和经济价值之间的冲突,促进企业的可持续发展?其作用机理是怎样的?影响不同逻辑选择背后的因素是什么?基于制度逻辑视角,以三家典型社会企业为研究对象,对上述问题进行了研究,发现:①相对于单一的公益逻辑、单一的市场逻辑,混合逻辑是社会企业最佳的创业策略,可以很好地...