Uncovering the institutional logic of digital platforms: key implications for the Chinese digital platforms

The Institutional Logic of Digitalization

PurposeThis paper reviews management control literature which draws on the institutional logics perspective as the theoretical lens to understand the current grounding of this perspective on management control research. It identifies gaps in the current literature and offers possible future research directions.Design/methodology/approachFor the purpose of this paper, five search engines (ABI INFORM, EBSCO, Emerald insight, JSTOR and Science Direct) were consulted, and 35 papers across 16 journals, which specifically fall within the area of management controls and institutional logics, were reviewed.FindingsThe review revealed that the institutional logics perspective has provided theoretical anchoring to management control-related areas such as budgeting, performance management and control tools in organizations. The extant studies have either used institutional logics as a single theoretical perspective or have integrated it with other theories such as neo-institutional theory, agency theory and structuration theory. The research settings of the papers span across firm level, industry level and government organizations and non-profit organizations. Most of the studies have used the qualitative case study approach, whereas a few have taken the mixed method research design.Originality/valueAlthough there are a number of review papers in the area of management controls as well as on institutional theory in general, such reviews have not specifically been focused on the institutional logics perspective, which is a significant development within institutional theory, having provided theoretical backing to a wide range of management control studies over the years. Addressing this omission, this paper provides important insights for future researchers on what research has been done using the lens of institutional logics and what else is worth doing. In that sense, this paper contributes to the domain of management control research, as well as to the development of institutional theory in general and the institutional logics perspective in particular.

How do institutions influence and shape cognition and action in individuals and organizations, and how are they in turn shaped by them? Various social science disciplines have offered a range of theories and perspectives to provide answers to this question. Within organization studies in recent years, several scholars have developed the institutional logics perspective. An institutional logic is the set of material practices and symbolic systems including assumptions, values, and beliefs by which individuals and organizations provide meaning to their daily activity, organize time and space, and reproduce their lives and experiences. In tracing the development of the institutional logics perspective from earlier institutional theory, the book analyzes seminal research, illustrating how and why influential works on institutional theory motivated a distinct new approach to scholarship on institutional logics. The book shows how the institutional logics perspective transforms institutional theory. It presents novel theory, further elaborates the institutional logics perspective, and forges new linkages to key literatures on practice, identity, and social and cognitive psychology. It develops the micro-foundations of institutional logics and institutional entrepreneurship, proposing a set of mechanisms that go beyond meta-theory, integrating this work with macro theory on institutional logics into a cross-levels model of cultural heterogeneity.

This chapter identifies assumptions, conceptual issues and challenges in the literature on hybrid organizations that draws on the institutional logics perspective. The authors build on the existing literature reviews as well as on an analysis of the 10 most cited and 10 most recently published articles at the intersection of hybrid organizations and institutional logics. The authors further draw from the literature on theory construction and theory development and growth to strengthen our analysis of this body of work and reflect upon future theoretical developments. From this analysis, the authors highlight four challenges to current research on organizational hybridity with an institutional logics lens and develop four suggestions to inspire future research. In doing so, they aim at seeding a more nuanced use of the institutional logics perspective and thereby foster the development of innovative and cumulative theory and empirical research on organizational hybridity.

The world's most valuable public companies today are built on digital platforms. While American digital platforms (ADPs) have successfully dominated many international markets, some Chinese digital platforms (CDPs) have managed to survive and thrive in China, with European digital platforms (EDPs) largely absent both at home and abroad. Using comprehensive longitudinal data over 6 years, this study examines the platform competition between ADPs and CDPs in China, and explores how digital platforms challenge traditional ways of thinking about strategy and international competition. Some ADPs initially dominated the Chinese market, but some CDPs used their institutional advantages in China to offset the competitive advantages of ADPs based on superior resources and capabilities and strong market positions. Their competition evolved over three distinctive episodes so far, and CDPs used successive temporary advantages to achieve sustainable competitive advantages dynamically and accomplished radical changes cumulatively through incremental changes. A new dynamic equilibrium model of platform competition – ‘the spiral model’ – between global and native digital platforms is developed, which highlights a trajectory that is different from the dominant models of change in the literature. Limitations of the study and new areas for future research are highlighted.

This research examines the formation and development processes of interfirm collaboration among SMEs in the context of institutional logics change in an emerging economy. Building on the microfoundations lens and the institutional logics perspective, the empirical investigation focuses on the qualitative study of the interfirm collaborative relationships among SMEs in China. The research findings underscore the significant role played by government-supported broker firms in fostering the formation and development of interfirm collaboration among SMEs. In particular, these broker firms first reproduce the institutional logics by means of championing government-promoted projects and events and diffusing government policies through their sensemaking and sensegiving. The reproduction of institutional logics by broker firms facilitates the formation and development processes of interfirm collaboration among SMEs which, over time, may lead to collaboration success occurrences that are predominantly manifested by success events, artefacts and stories. In the case of new meanings emergent from the collaboration success occurrences, broker firms tend to engage in legitimating these new meanings to transform the institutional logics. Thereby, this research contributes to the theoretical advancement in the fields of inter-organizational collaborations among SMEs and institutional logics.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an important aspect of sustainable development in today’s globalized society, and yet many doubts remain about the underlying motivation behind CSR implementation. Corporations have great responsibility to society’s development due to the sheer magnitude of their power and their comprehension of the consequences of their actions. Yet a review of the literature has shown there is considerable variation in the way companies adopt CSR within a contextual setting, without a full and clear understanding of the forces that explain this diversity. Furthermore, most CSR studies have focused on the stable political-economic context of developed countries. Thus, this thesis aims to address the call for a better understanding of CSR, especially in the unstable economies typical of developing countries, such as Brazil. The main investigation refers to the following research question: What forces influence diversity in CSR practices in Brazil? In this thesis, CSR practice can be understood as the ethical way in which companies go about their business and their institutional relationships, while reducing negative social and environmental impacts towards global sustainable development (Robert, Broman, & Basile, 2013; Roberts, 2003). To address the research problem, this study draws on Roberts’ (2003) ethical view of CSR motivation and uses an institutional logics perspective as the analytical framework. In particular, the research examines the different aspects of institutional logics and forces to understand how and why companies adopt CSR practices. The methodology employs an exploratory sequential mix-method approach and the research design makes use of the collection and analysis of qualitative data from interviews as the basis of the quantitative second study. The first study built on the identified literature review research gap and aimed to exploring the forces influencing the diversity of CSR practices. The second study was applied to examine the key factors found in the first study, determining the CSR patterns of behaviour and leadership rationale. The participants in the qualitative study were selected purposively from companies with acknowledged corporate social responsibility (CSR). The participants in the quantitative study were managers and top executives with good knowledge of CSR from the largest 500 companies in terms of revenue operating in Brazil in 2018. This comprehensive approach customised to the Brazilian context is original in the CSR literature. The major conclusions provide a higher-order explanation and conceptual tool by which to theorize how the coevolution of organisations and institutions happens, as they mutually shape one another. By focusing not only on shifts in institutional logics, but by identifying the coexistence of different logics into different patterns of behaviour, the empirical research provides an innovative perspective into the academic debate. The reason behind these patterns of corporate behaviour can be justified by higher-order institutional logics common to each specific group of stakeholders in the institutional field. For instance, the groups of stakeholders in the first and second patterns are operating under the same short-term and self-oriented rationale. The groups of stakeholders in the third and fourth patterns are working under the same long-term and system-oriented rationale. This thesis argues that companies can be classified under the four patterns or versions of CSR depending on these two possible rationales: system-oriented companies or self-oriented companies. The second major conclusion elucidates the reason behind the company system-oriented or self-oriented rationale by investigating two determining factors: the maximization-optimization mechanism of success and the short-term-long-term reward system preference. The conclusion is that ‘self-oriented’ companies perceive themselves as isolated ‘individuals’ competing against others in a zero-sum world. This rationale justifies the companies’ search for maximization as the success mechanism and the preference for an instant gratification reward system. Since the concern lies only with individual preference, it is linked to an egotistic values leadership style and short-term thinking. The ‘system-oriented’ companies perceive themselves as being part of a larger system, interacting with each other in a symbiotic world. This rationale justifies the companies’ search for optimization of the system as the success mechanism, and future benefits as a normal reward system. Their concern lies with the health of the system and is linked to an altruistic values leadership style and long-term thinking. Taken as a whole, the findings from this thesis make a significant contribution to the current body of knowledge on CSR practices, in particular in non-stable economies such as the Brazilian context. A range of theoretical and management implications arise from the findings that will assist scholars and practitioners interested in promoting CSR practices, particularly in developing countries.

Many countries in the world recently initiated the Open Government Data (OGD) to achieve transparency, accountability, value from the data and to transform public sector into smart and open government. However, the (OGD) initiatives faces challenges that hinders the initiatives to achieve the desired objectives, particularly in developing countries. The information systems adoption literature indicates a lack of studies investigating OGD adoption at an early stage from the national ecosystem perspective. This research investigates the early stage of adoption of the national OGD. The study adopts the institutional perspective to investigate the role of institutional logics and institutional pillars. The research aims to answer the research question: How do the institutional logics affect the emergence and adoption of the Open Government Data initiative in the public sector? This study adopts the interpretive research methodology with data collected from a singleembedded case study that encompasses nine government organisations in Oman. It captures the institutional logics qualitatively, by applying pattern inducting technique, that affects the adoption of OGD in the public sector in a complex institutional environment. The phenomena investigated reveals that the institutional pillars affect the institutional logics in the institutional environment. It shows how the institutional logics and institutional pillars interplay at the macro- and micro-level. It also shows that normative and cultural-cognitive pillar have a prominent effect, whereas the regulative pillar has less-prominent effect. This study captured one dominant and three competing logics that enable/hinder the OGD initiative from achieving the desired objectives: Institutional Acceptance Logic (ACL), Institutional Roles Logic (IRL), Ownership and Control Logic (OCL) and Institutional Capabilities Logic (ICL). The findings show that dominant logic is complemented by three co-existing subordinate institutional logics. This research contributes to the IS literature and to the institutional theory and further explains how the institutional logics and institutional pillars affect the adoption of the OGD initiative. It outlines how institutional logics are shaped and reconciled in the complex environment at the national level. It offers a holistic view from an ecosystems perspective and explains how institutional logics interact in a heterogeneous institutional environment. Given the tensions between the dominant and competing institutional logics, the adoption progresses at a slower pace. These tensions exist between micro and macro levels, and contribute negatively to the adoption of the OGD initiative. The study suggests that in order to reconcile the competing logics, a combined collaborative initiative to be formed between regulatory authorities at the national level. In addition, it offers a conceptual framework for OGD adoption at an early stage, and assists the policymakers and practitioners by presenting a holistic view from the institutional perspectives to attain the desired objectives.

In this article, we aim to examine the responses of individual actors to the use of management controls during the hybridization of public-sector organizations. We draw on an institutional logics perspective and the literature regarding the role of management controls in hybridizing organizations to analyze findings derived from a single case study of a public university in Vietnam. We find that the partial hybridization of an organization is a factor that may explain individuals’ responses toward competing institutional logics. In the Vietnamese university we studied, the management controls in use were not contested, unlike their contents and formulae. Similarly, the compartmentalization strategy by the organizational leaders was uncontested due to traditional institutional logics being left mostly untouched. To the literature on hybrid organizations, we add the notion of “partial hybridization” and offer an emerging markets case, as evidence of the role management controls play in hybridizing emerging-market public-sector organizations has thus far been scant.

Breaking free from the invisible cage: Leveraging institutional logics to understand and facilitate organizational change projects

The institutional logics perspective in management and organizational studies

This paper aims to enhance future theorisations of variability in corporate responsibility (CR) by conceptualising the interplay between distinct yet interrelated constructs of culture, structure and agency as firms and their stakeholders contest CR. It integrates the morphogenetic approach, the institutional logics perspective and the strategic action fields (SAF) theory. The morphogenetic approach helps to develop critical realist meta- theoretical assumptions about an explicit ontic and temporal separation between culture, structure and agency as constituents of CR. The institutional logics perspective helps to operationalise CR as culturally embedded agency as the ‘categories-actions-beliefs’ coherences within a firm-level institutional logic informed by societal-level institutional logics. The SAF theory helps to operationalise CR as structurally embedded agency as organised around the ‘resources-rules-social skills’ interplays of a firm and its stakeholders in roles of an incumbent, challengers or governance units. This paper contributes to the institutional analysis of CR, advancing the evolving critical realist approach to it and offering an alternative view of an organisational field of CR; to the institutional logics perspective and the SAF theory, proposing how institutional logics constitute power structures that carry the force thereof; and to the morphogenetic approach, improving its operationalisation and adding a theoretical depth of social interactions.

This chapter conceptualises aspects of accounting for sustainability using insights from the institutional logics perspective. An institutional logics theoretical lens, with its emphasis on the role of multiple and competing logics in shaping organisational behaviour and practices, offers useful pointers to critically understand some of the issues related to accounting for sustainability. To date, institutional logics theory has been used by a handful of scholars in the accounting for sustainability field, whereas in other closely-related disciplines (e.g. organization studies), there is a more mature institutional logics-led strand of research. I will draw on such extant works to introduce some key conceptual tenets of this theory and in particular, the notions of institutional logics, institutional complexity and pluralism, and the role that accounting may play in regulating the institutional logics-related dynamics. The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate this theory and to discuss how it might assist scholars to theorize and make sense of accounting for sustainability practices.

Grievance petitioning is a prevailing venue for voicing citizens’ discontent and seeking redress in China. Extant literature documents the simultaneous growth of citizen petitions and local containment, without addressing the dynamics of such a paradox. Inspired by the institutional logics perspective, this study surveyed over 300 onsite petitioners and explored how multiple institutional logics are at work and together produce the paradox. Citizens embrace the grassroots logic, flooding petitions into the grievance system. Local governments follow the state logic, engaging in comprehensive containment. Grievance agencies cope strategically with the rise of citizen petitions and bureaucratic influences, demonstrating the ombudsman logic. Despite local containment and often less than satisfactory resolutions, citizens still hold favorable attitudes toward the grievance system, as well as the top bureaucracy, thus sowing the seeds for more petitions. The paradox manifests the coexistence and interactions of multiple institutional logics, raising challenges for governance and accountability. Points for practitioners The simultaneous growth of citizens’ grievances and local containment presents a paradox. Citizens follow the grassroots logic, filing more petitions. Local governments adhere to the state logic, prescribing containment efforts. In face of competing demands, grievance agencies embrace the ombudsman logic. The coexistence of and interactions among different logics help to explain the recurrent patterns for all parties. Future reforms need to be designed with a sophisticated understanding of interactive institutional logics.

The primary objective of this study is to explore the diversification of airline business models in Turkey in four decades and show the link between the reasons and logic behind the diversification from the institutional logic perspective. For this purpose, airline business models were examined, and critical events in the organizational field were explored based on secondary data. The case study research was conducted to explore the link between the diversifications of the business model and institutional logic. The unit of analysis in this study is multiple cases, and gathered data were examined with the content analysis method. The results show that multiple institutional logics (state and commercial logic) in the field can pave the way or prevent diversifying airline business models. Multiple logics shape the regulations and approaches of the state and other organizations in the field, and these changes may play a role as a barrier or driver for diversification. Each barrier and driver may affect each airline's business model differently. This study contributes to business models and institutional logics literature by providing evidence of the effect of the pattern of approaches of the actors on the airline business models and by showing the relations between these approaches and institutional logic.