Politician’s Dilemma: The Interplay of Commitment and Conformity in Pluralism

Abstract

Through a multiple case study covering two Indian microfinance organizations, it is demonstrated how organizations resolve the politician’s dilemma (Kraatz & Block, 2008) in a pluralistic context. The researcher elaborates on how organizations adopting a divergent institutional logic face the dilemma of attending to both the problems of commitment and conformity. He endeavours to uncover the “commitment problem” in institutional pluralism and subsequently address the issue of politician’s dilemma. He suggests that an organization maneuvers through the dilemma by constructing a new organizational identity and this is followed by complimentary organizational structure. This research is a contribution to the literature on institutional pluralism by arguing that interplay between conformity and commitment cannot be resolved merely through decoupling, and organizations need to take into account the negotiability of legitimacy sources.