Isomorphic Pressures Research Articles

Rethinking family business resilience: an empirical examination of family firms’ performance amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the US

ABSTRACT Contrary to recent research suggesting heightened resilience in family firms amid crises such as COVID-19, our study based on data from publicly traded firms in the US, challenges this narrative. We find that family-owned firms did not exhibit superior market performance or profitability during the pandemic compared to their non-family counterparts, or lower idiosyncratic volatility. Moreover, there were no discernible differences in how family and non-family firms perceived the effects of COVID-19 related exposure, risk, and sentiment. A plausible explanation for this finding could be the isomorphic pressures during a pandemic where neither family nor non-family firms may better leverage their resources. Our contrary evidence is important as it challenges existing assumptions and calls for a more critical evaluation of family firm resilience during the crisis.

Determinants of Public Sector Managers' Intentions to Adopt AI in the Workplace

This study investigated the determinants of public sector managers' intentions to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) systems within their organizations. An extended technology acceptance model (TAM) was developed, incorporating additional constructs including fairness, humanity, reliability, safety, transparency, accountability, privacy, security, trust, social norms, tolerance, impact, and isomorphic pressure. A survey was conducted among 330 public sector managers, and the data were analyzed using linear regression tests to evaluate the model. The results showed significant positive influences of both perceived usefulness and perceived impact on managers' attitudes and behavioral intentions toward AI adoption. Isomorphic pressure was also a significant determinant of managers' behavioral intentions toward adopting AI systems. Our findings also indicated that perceptions related to AI ethical principles, such as transparency, privacy, and security, influenced managers' trust in AI systems.

Institutional ownership and women representation on boards in three different institutional settings

AbstractThis study aims to investigate the moderating effect of country level institutional variables on the relationship between institutional ownership and board gender diversity. Using firm and country level data of three different cultural environments (Gulf Cooperation Council countries, UK, and France) for the years 2018–2019, this study concludes that institutional elements related to women (Women Tertiary education levels; legal support, Economic Participation and culture) create isomorphic pressure on firms that enhance the role of institutional owners in increasing women representation on board of directors. Other governance elements, such as ownership concentration, board independence and board size may indicate governance levels better than board gender diversity in certain institutional environments. The study recommended that board gender diversity should not be a priority for investors and portfolio managers in financial markets where reduced female labor market participation exists. Moreover, quotas may be a good tool for enhancing female representation among boards in contexts that have reduced female labor market participation and high levels of tertiary education attainment to maintain corporate sustainability.

Imitation behavior in environmental, social, and governance disclosure: Textual analysis evidence from Chinese listed enterprises

AbstractThe era of sustainable transformation has witnessed an increase in corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure waves. Using Chinese A‐share listed companies from 2016 to 2021 as a sample, this study adopted textual analysis and machine‐learning techniques to analyze ESG reports and explore the imitation behavior of ESG disclosures in emerging Chinese markets for the first time. The results show imitation behavior exists in corporate ESG disclosures from the perspective of group association. Regarding the imitation object, enterprises tend to choose the peer average level as a reference rather than the best enterprise in the same industry, which reveals the inherent law that enterprises' ESG disclosures are satisfied with compliance rather than championship. In terms of effects, the ESG‐mimetic isomorphic pressure has no incremental information effect but has an efficiency optimization effect. Furthermore, the imitation intensity and impact effects of ESG disclosure behavior exhibit heterogeneity owing to differences in properties, sales growth rates, and external attention. This study expands the motivation for corporate ESG disclosure behavior and enriches the empirical evidence for institutional isomorphism.

The moderating role of environmental factors between institutional isomorphic pressures and the adoption of IFRS for SMEs: application of SEM

The moderating role of environmental factors between institutional isomorphic pressures and the adoption of IFRS for SMEs: application of SEM

Modeling Emergent Variables to Assess the Adoption of Activity-Based Costing in Tanzania: The Application of Confirmatory Composite Analysis

Research Aims: The applications of composite models in explaining the adoption of innovations continue to gain widespread recognition in contemporary research. This study examines the role of a composite model comprising innovation attributes, contingency factors, and isomorphic pressures in explaining the adoption of activity-based costing (ABC) in Tanzania. The examined causal relationship between the model and ABC adoption is subject to mediation by behavioral preferences. More importantly, this study evaluates the overall fit of the model based on confirmatory composite analysis (CCA) as a prerequisite for path analysis.
 Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 188 manufacturing and service companies in Tanzania using a cross-sectional survey design. As part of CCA, the study employed principal component analysis (PCA) to form the three emergent variables namely innovation attributes, contingency factors and isomorphic pressures. It is these variables that were merged together to form the composite model whose influence on ABC adoption was analyzed based on partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).
 Research Findings: It was found out that, it is only normative beliefs that positively mediated the causal - relationship between the composite model and ABC adoption. This suggests that, the combined influences of internal and external factors defined by innovation attributes, contingency factors and isomorphic pressures towards ABC adoption is mediated by the belief that manufacturing and service companies should adopt the system. On the other hand, the perceptions of the system’s usefulness and ease to use do not play role in explaining the combined influences of factors on ABC adoption.
 Theoretical Contribution/Originality: The findings are paramount in creating the reference base for future studies as there were no previous studies of similar nature conducted to assess the impact of the composite model on ABC adoption.
 Keyword: Composite model, Innovation attributes, Contingency factors, Isomorphic pressures, Activity-based costing, Confirmatory composite analysis

Analysing the interplay of isomorphic pressures, perceived benefits and top management support on social responsibility performance of Belt and Road megaprojects

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the factors influencing the social responsibility performance of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) megaprojects. Specifically, it examines the role of isomorphic pressures and the joint influence of perceived benefits and top management support on megaproject social responsibility performance (MSRP).Design/methodology/approachDrawing from institutional theory, social exchange theory, and top management literature, this study established a conceptual model featuring eleven hypotheses. Subsequently, a questionnaire survey was administered to collect data from 238 actively engaged participants in BRI megaprojects. Structural Equation Modelling was utilised to analyse the data.FindingsThe empirical findings indicate that mimetic and coercive pressures positively influence MSRP. Perceived benefits and top management support significantly enhance MSRP. Moreover, perceived benefits and top management support partially mediate the effects of coercive and mimetic pressures. However, when it comes to normative pressures, their impact on MSRP is solely channelled through the support of top management.Originality/valueThis study is one of the early endeavours to explore the factors influencing the social responsibility performance of BRI megaprojects. It sheds light on the interplay between external pressures and internal factors in shaping social responsibility efforts in these projects. These findings are of particular significance for BRI actors and stakeholders, offering guidance for enhancing social responsibility strategies within the context of BRI megaprojects.

Prioritizing institutional pressures, green supply chain management practices for corporate sustainable performance using best worst method

The emerging institutional concerns regarding the environmental crisis over the past decades have promoted the implementation of green initiatives within the supply chain, aiming to reduce environmental harm while maintaining efficiency. This study employed the BWM from a double perspective, aiming to identify and rank institutional pressures for GSCM practice implementation and the importance of these practices for sustainable performance in the Moroccan manufacturing industry. The study used purposive sampling to identify respondents with supply chain management expertise. A survey was distributed to 124 potential respondents, resulting in 55 responses. Data collection occurred between April and August 2022, with an effective response rate of approximately 38%. The results indicate that institutional pressure increases the likelihood of firms improving their GSCM activities. Normative pressures are found to be the main influencing factor for businesses to implement GSCM practices, while mimetic pressures are the least important. However, certain GSCM practices, such as GP, ECO-D, and IEM, remain among the top three most affected by isomorphic pressures. The study also highlights the importance of certain GSCM practices, such as IEM, GP, and ECO-D, for firms' sustainable performance. Economic outcomes are perceived as the experts' priority, followed by environmental and social performance. This research provides a theoretical and practical foundation for decision-makers seeking to identify the pressures affecting the implementation of GSCM practices along with the activities that most likely contribute to improving various aspects of sustainable performance.

The changing concept of doctoral education: an insight from Portuguese universities

ABSTRACT Doctoral education in Europe has changed significantly in the last two to three decades. This transformation, visible in the structuring dimensions of doctoral education, appears to indicate a move to a more instrumental approach. This paper aims to determine the prevalence of an instrumental concept of doctoral education in Portuguese universities. It draws on the findings of a 2020 study that focused on how these institutions are adhering to this concept. The study relied on the analysis of the information disclosed by the institutional websites of 118 doctoral programmes, selected to be representative of all the doctoral offer in the country. Findings suggest the existence of a hybrid concept of doctoral education among Portuguese universities, which is revealed by its association sometimes with a traditional concept, other times with an instrumental concept, or with a combination of both. Especially in these two last cases, the influence of academic capitalism and isomorphic pressures is evident.

‘We need the activists to be more entrepreneurial’: Global versus local modes of thought on the development of social enterprise support systems in transitioning economies

AbstractAs the processes of market liberalization and globalization increase the confidence of international actors involved in national third sectors, there exists a cosmopolitan tension between ‘mobile elites’ and ‘locked in’ nationals. This paper explores the impact of these tensions on the social enterprise ecosystem in the Republic of Poland and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Focused on the internationalized mechanisms of support, the relationship between the social enterprise incubators and international stakeholders, and power distance inherent to the global versus local debate, the findings suggest that normative isomorphic pressures are causing a fundamental ecosystem shift. The monopolization of support and terms of reference have led to entrepreneurs detrimentally being treated as ‘organizational heroes’ risking burnout, the primacy of international voices within the local context, and the transference of nationals from being ‘locked in’ to national processes to being ‘locked out’ of national support. The research suggests the cosmopolitan‐led transformation of activists into entrepreneurs needs to be more carefully considered, to ensure that enforced alignment to international system does not alienate them from other sources and means of sustainability.

Context is key: A 34‐country analysis investigating how similar HRM systems emerge from similar contexts

AbstractUsing an institutional lens, we investigate the isomorphic effects of both external and internal contexts on human resource management (HRM) systems. Our analysis uses data from 4768 organizations across 34 countries to focus on the similarities in HRM systems. By employing distance matrices, a commonly adopted method in geographic science, we find that both external and internal contexts affect (dis)similarities in HRM systems. Organizations in similar environments exhibit more similar HRM systems. Furthermore, we find that the devolvement of HRM activities from HRM to line management reduces the similarity of HRM systems across organizations. By contrast, a strong strategic position of HRM does not yield a comparable effect. Our study's main contributions include elucidating the multifaceted relationship between context and HRM, highlighting the HRM department's role in this relationship, clarifying the context–HRM connection via the concept of isomorphic pressures, and illustrating the use of distance matrices as tool with great explanatory power for the analysis of similarities among HRM phenomena.

Gender and the Multilateral Development Banks: From WID to GAD to Retroliberal WID

Multilateral development bank (MDB) engagement with ‘gender’ is controversial in review and uneven in practice. The authors analyse 1,928 gender-focused projects financed by the World Bank and regional development banks between 1967 and 2021. We propose three eras into which MDB gender engagement divides and argues that isomorphic pressures have aligned their approaches. The article concludes that gender is not an investment priority and projects have conceptually narrowed over time to focus on private entrepreneurship at the expense of addressing systemic gendered inequalities. This is significant for what the MDB finance signals to investors the feasibility of development projects.

Social Enterprises Within the Public Sector’s Purview: A Taxonomy-Based Study on South Korea

This study applies a hierarchical clustering approach to identify social enterprise models that have appeared in a setting of public sector-led incubation. Within such a context, a high degree of conformity ought to be apparent due to the coercive isomorphic pressures associated with public sector patronage. We nominate South Korea for our analysis, given that the rising number of social enterprises in the country is closely related to a regulatory intervention. Based on an analysis of 468 social enterprises, we find, contrary to expectations, that distinct clusters of government-certified social enterprises have emerged, namely social utility niche, job outsourcing, market opportunity, and integrated balanced models. We typologize these models according to their strategic orientation, mission focus, and institutional alignment. In doing so, we contribute to social enterprise research by illustrating how organizational pluralism may manifest when the growth of a population of social enterprises is directly linked to public sector intervention and regulation.

Institutional isomorphic pressures: the impact for women on boards

Purpose This study aims to analyze the connection between institutional isomorphic pressures and both women serving on boards and women’s influence on boards within large American firms. Design/methodology/approach This study examines a longitudinal panel data set of all Standard and Poor’s (S&P) 500 organizations across a seven-year period from 2009 to 2015. Findings The analyses affirm that institutional isomorphic pressures impact the prevalence and influence of women on boards. Evidence suggests that coercive and normative pressures strongly impact the number of women serving as corporate directors, whereas the power of women directors is linked only to mimetic pressures. Practical implications The research suggests that to increase the number of women serving as directors, the industry must first increase the overall number of women serving in senior management roles. Once women directors gain a critical mass of three women on the board, the association with the total number of women directors, the number of boards upon which they concurrently serve, the power of women directors being selected to board leadership and the influence of women directors increase. Originality/value This paper extends existing board diversity work by examining institutional pressures at the international, national and firm levels. By examining the relationship between coercive, normative and mimetic pressures on both the prevalence of women on boards and the influence of women on boards, the authors illuminate certain mechanisms that shape the likelihood of board appointment and placement in more powerful positions.

Auditor practices and auditee responses to corporate governance audit regulation in Nigeria

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine both the responses of auditees to corporate governance audit (CGA) regulation and the practices of CGA auditors.Design/methodology/approachThe study used a mixed method. Content analysis of 200 annual and CGA reports was carried out for 13 years, from 2008 to 2021, split into voluntary disclosure and mandatory disclosure periods. Quantitative analysis was also conducted using Kruskal–Wallis and Dunn's tests. Data gathered were interpreted through the lens of isomorphism and Oliver's (1991) strategic responses to institutional processes.FindingsThe study revealed that in the voluntary disclosure period, auditees responded mainly with acquiescence, motivated by mimetic isomorphic pressure. In the mandatory disclosure period, auditee responses ranged from acquiescence to dismissal of corporate governance regulation (i.e. coercive isomorphic pressure). Auditor reporting of CGA findings was found to be heterogeneous, suggesting that normative and mimetic isomorphism did not homogenize auditor practices.Practical implicationsThe absence of uniform auditee responses to CGA regulation during the mandatory disclosure period suggests that the purpose of mandating the regulation has not yet been achieved and may signal inadequate coercive isomorphic pressure from the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN). Similarly, heterogeneous reporting of CGA findings by corporate governance auditors inhibits the comparability of audit findings, limiting their value for information users.Originality/valueThis study examines corporate governance auditor practices and auditee responses to corporate governance audit regulation.

Governing early childhood education and care quality development among diverse private ECEC providers in Norway

ABSTRACT This article sheds light on governance mechanisms at work when decentralised implementation of national educational and welfare policies encounters a heterogeneous sector of private service provider organisations. It illuminates how isomorphic pressure plays out at the interface between local governance and private providers’ organisational strategies for quality development in early childhood education and care (ECEC). Key informant interviews are employed to investigate the function of local non-mandatory quality and competence-developing networks (QCDNs) as a locus for these interactions. Findings indicate that QCDNs contribute to shaping private ECEC providers’ quality development efforts, and that coercive, normative, and mimetic isomorphic pressures become intertwined in this process. Most private provider organisations choose to participate in these non-mandatory networks. However, ECEC corporations and small private providers assign different meanings to their participation, and the networks thus appear to spur different organisational strategies. While small private providers harmoniously align their ECEC quality development strategies with institutionalised municipal practice, the provider corporations, while in formal compliance, exploit the resulting inter-municipal variation as one argument among many for more stringent national governmental standardisation. We demonstrate how isomorphic pressure may create and enable an impetus for endogenous and gradual institutional change agency.

Privatization and Coercive Isomorphic Pressure in Norwegian Early Childhood Education and Care (1987-2020)

This article analyses the privatization of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) provision in Norway between 1987 and 2020. My analytical framework combines theories of structured organizational fields and gradual institutional change to investigate how the scope and field position of private ECEC providers have evolved during this period. Based on an analysis of official policy documents, I illuminate how ECEC quality enhancement has gradually been institutionalized as the common, legitimizing endeavour of the ECEC provision field by means of coercive isomorphic pressure. Along with increasing regulation of working conditions, this has altered the meaning of private ECEC provision. Both the scope and field position of private provider organizations have evolved accordingly. Currently, small providers and larger provider corporations face different sets of legitimacy challenges, resulting in a conflict of interests. Tensions between these groups are likely to fuel ongoing field dynamics that are capable of yielding institutional stability as well as change. My analysis contributes towards building a more comprehensive theoretical framework for organizational fields by illuminating the interplay between coercive isomorphic pressure and organizational characteristics within a structured field.

Words Matter: Measuring the Co-Operative Identity Crisis

Identity is at the core of a rich body of business communications research, spanning studies on organizational identity, branding, and corporate social responsibility. This work has, however, neglected the question of corporate identity from the perspective of co-operatives—democratically-controlled businesses owned and controlled by their users—and the existential challenge posed by an operating environment often hostile to the business model. At the same time, the question of identity permeates the scholarly organizational and co-operative literature, shaping studies into co-operative identity crises, isomorphism, and from a transactions-cost economics perspective, the co-operative lifecycle. Bridging these literatures, we develop a first-ever conceptual dictionary of terms that we associate with co-operative and investor-owned firms (IOFs). Using text-as-data techniques, we apply the dictionary to a 15-year sample of credit union (a type of co-operative) and bank (IOFs) annual report texts. The resulting model ranks credit unions and banks on a co-op versus IOF firm scale and identifies credit unions that may be at risk of losing their identity because of their use of IOF language. To validate our results, we employ a variety of strategies, including novel machine learning models. Generally, these strategies support the findings from our dictionary model but also suggest the model may not be picking up on some creeping isomorphic pressures on credit unions to conform to IOF language. We conclude by noting that identity questions have important real-world implications, noting potential legal and public policy implications (e.g., loss of preferential tax measures) and pointing to literature that associates co-operative “identity crises” with business failures and demutualizations which, in turn, can lead to higher consumer prices.

Acquiesce, Compromise, or Avoid? Collaboration, Coordination, & Cooperation as Different Strategic Responses to Institutional Pressures

Collaboration is often touted as the ideal interorganizational relationship (IOR) to tackle many challenging social problems; however, collaboration is just one of many types of IORs that public managers can undertake. This article presents public managers’ decisions to cooperate, coordinate, or collaborate with program partners as strategic responses of avoiding, compromising, or acquiescing, respectively. We argue that perceptions of coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures influence the likelihood to undertake different IORs; specifically, as managers experience combined isomorphic pressures, they are more likely to acquiesce and collaborate with program partners. Findings from our qualitative study of federal and state preschool programs in Virginia, USA reveal that as managers perceive additional pressures they are more likely to pursue more involved IORs. Unexpectedly, we find that cooperators perceive few isomorphic pressures, and we also find that perceived deterrent isomorphic pressures distinguish coordinators from collaborators. These findings offer insight about how organizational field pressures can affect strategic IOR responses.

Institutional pressures and the adoption of responsible management education at universities and business schools in Central and Eastern Europe

AbstractBusiness schools, and universities providing business education, from across the globe have increasingly engaged in responsible management education (RME), that is in embedding social, environmental and ethical topics in their teaching and research. However, we still do not fully understand the institutional pressures that have led to the adoption of RME, in particular concerning under‐researched regions like Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Hence, we undertook what is to our knowledge the most comprehensive study into the adoption of RME in CEE to date (including 13 countries: Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia and Ukraine). We find that, with regard to RME, isomorphic pressures seem to shape teaching and research in different ways, which suggests that the idea of a holistic approach to RME, promoted by, for example, the Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME), needs to be revisited; rather, different trajectories of organizational engagement may emerge for each principle. As a contribution to institutional theory, we discuss how a highly fragmented organizational field—like RME with its multiple dimensions—impacts on notions of actor centrality, where actors achieve centrality with regard to some dimensions of the field but fail to do so for others. In particular, we found that the European Union holds centrality in the area of RME teaching, but not in RME research. Our findings thus suggest that the concept of field centrality needs further clarification.