Institutional Sources of Change in the Formal Structure of Organizations: The Diffusion of Civil Service Reform, 1880-1935

Abstract

The authors are jointly responsible forthe theoretical argumentand analysis. M. Craig Brown suggested the topic of civil service reform. Maureen J. McConaghy, Nancy Brandon Tuma, Glenn R. Carroll, and P. Y Liu provided methodological advice, Sharon Stevens aided early computational work. Both of us are grateful to Phillip Bonacich for his advice throughout the research, and to Marshall W. Meyer, John W. Meyer, William G. Roy, Herman Turk, Richard A. Berk, David McFarland, Oscar Grusky, and Jeffrey Pfeffer fortheir helpful comments on an eariner draft. This paper investigates the diffusion and institutionalization of change in formal organization structure, using data on the adoption of civil service reform by cities. It is shown thatwhen civil service procedures are required bythe state, they diffuse rapidly and directly from the state to each city. When the procedures are not so legitimated, they diffuse gradually and the underlying sources of adoption change overtime. In the lattercase, early adoption of civil service by cities is related to internal organizational requirements, with city characteristics predicting adoption, while late adoption is related to institutional definitions of legitimate structural form, so that city characteristics no longer predict the adoption decision. Overall, the findings provide strong support for the argument that the adoption of a policy or program by an organization is importantly determined by the extent to which the measure is institutionalizedwhether by law or by gradual legitimation.