Neo-institutional Approach Research Articles

Discourse and institutional change in mass retail – the case of an institutional entrepreneur in France

Purpose– Mass retail in France, as an organizational field, experienced an institutional change when the Dutreil Law was promulgated on August 2, 2005. This new text is the result of a long process through which different groups of opposing logics faced one another. Michel-Edouard Leclerc actively took part in the debate launched about the Galland Law reform. His institutional activism has contributed to this change and he can be qualified, on that account, as an institutional entrepreneur. Anchored in neo-institutional theory, this article contributes to understanding the part played by the institutional entrepreneur in the process of institutional change. Design/methodology/approachDesign/methodology/approach– The authors analyze Michel-Edouard Leclerc's discourse on his weblog to characterize the rhetorical strategies he adopts to legitimize change. The analysis is based on the works of the pragmatics of communication and on a detailed semantic analysis of reference fields (TropesFindings– This contribution has enabled the author to stress the part of the institutional entrepreneur in the transformation of an organizational field. The rhetorical strategies implemented here contribute to modifying institutional logic. From a theoretical point of view, this contribution links the neo-institutional approach with entrepreneurship by proposing to define the institutional entrepreneur as an actor pursuing political opportunities.Originality/value– One important advantage of this work is that the authors have offered a methodological framework for studying the discourse of institutional entrepreneurs. The paper proposes empirical operationalization of rhetorical strategies. This contributes to improving the validity of the research because the identification of rhetorical strategies is no longer exclusively related to the researcher's subjective interpretation. The work also has practical implications for the actors: how can their discourse play a part in the institutionalization process?

Decoupling the use and meaning of strategic plans in public healthcare

BackgroundThe culture of New Public Management has promoted the diffusion of strategic management tools throughout Public Healthcare Organisations (PHOs). There is consensus that better strategic planning tools are required to achieve higher levels of organisational performance. This paper provides evidence and understanding of the emergent uses and scope of strategic planning in PHOs, in order to answer three research questions: (i) has the New Public Management approach changed the organisational culture of PHOs in terms of how they adopt, diffuse, and use strategic planning documents? (ii) how coherent are strategic planning documents in PHOs? and (iii) what are the main purposes of strategic documents in PHOs?MethodsAn analysis was carried out in three Italian Local Health Authorities. We analysed the number and types of formal strategic documents adopted between 2004 and 2012, evaluating their degree of coherence and coordination, their hierarchy, their degree of disclosure, and the consistency of their strategic goals. A content analysis was performed to investigate overlap in terms of content and focus, and a qualitative analysis was carried out to study and represent the relationships between documents.ResultsThe analysis showed that a rich set of strategic documents were adopted by each PHO. However, these are often uncoordinated and overlap in terms of content. They adopt different language and formats for various stakeholders. The presence of diverse external drivers may explain the divergent focus, priorities and inconsistent goals in the strategic documents. This planning complexity makes it difficult to determine how the overall goals and mission of an organisation are defined and made visible.ConclusionsThe evidence suggests that PHOs use a considerable number of strategic documents. However, they employ no clear or explicit overarching strategy currently, and strategic planning appears to be externally oriented. All the documents communicate similar topics to different stakeholders, although they use different language to answer to the different expectations of each stakeholder. Therefore, strategic planning and plans seem to be driven by neo-institutional approaches, as they are means to build consensus and negotiate ground for strategic actions, rather than means to identify strategic choices and priorities.

X and Y Economies in Russia: Neoinstitutional Approaches

The article dwells on the neo-institutional approaches of R.Coase, D.North, V.Oyken and K.Polanyi to treatment of the two types of economies: the Western liberal-market and centrally controlled, redistributive economics. The author with the help of this neo-institutional methodology presents his own new concept of the structure of the Russian market, within which he singles out some other market types existing on the legal and the shadow levels.

La proyección social: una estrategia para la formación integral en el programa de Bacteriología de la Universidad de Córdoba- Colombia

El presente artículo se fundamenta en el principio que concibe la proyección social como una estrategia válida en la formación integral de los estudiantes de bacteriología. Es una apuesta que implica repensar el carácter socio humanístico de los currículos de bacteriología y la responsabilidad social de las universidades, desde un enfoque neo institucionalista sociológico que convoca al restablecimiento de la confianza, la potenciación de las redes de cooperación, la visibilización de las comunidades y la sociedad civil en la toma de decisiones curriculares. A la luz de estos argumentos, se presentan las reflexiones y vivencias de un grupo de docentes y estudiantes de la Universidad de Córdoba, que sin pretender dar respuestas a todos los desafíos que enfrentan los programas de bacteriología al momento de construir sus derroteros académicos, es un aporte hacia la toma de conciencia colectiva frente a la importancia de incorporar proyectos y acciones tendientes a resignificar el concepto de formación integral desde la triada docencia- proyección social- investigación.

City and Reciprocity: The Role of Cultural Beliefs in the Roman Economy

Over the past decade, the New Institutional Economics have become a popular model for analyzing ancient economic history. However, the notion of cultural beliefs, which plays a central role in Douglass North’s recent work and Avner Greif’s analysis of institutional change, has been largely ignored. This article argues that a neo-institutional approach taking this notion into account offers a better means of understanding how ideology and moral values influenced the ancient economy than the Finleyan model. Rather than acting as a deterministic constraint on human behavior, cultural beliefs help to orient decision making and allow one to anticipate the (re)actions of others. This article explores two key sets of norms and values in Roman culture that profoundly marked the economy’s institutional framework. The first focused on reciprocity, which supported social networks beyond the confines of the familia-freedmen group and underlay the development of contract and agency law. The second was based on citizenship, which shaped political culture by creating individual rights and obligations that the political elite was given the authority to enforce in order to secure and stimulate both private and common interests. This resulted in Roman law and the distribution of justice. Ideologically, the Roman Empire presented itself as a meta-city that incorporated local communities, which were in turn gradually transformed to fit the civitas model. Both sets of beliefs lowered transaction costs without threatening the preeminent position of local and imperial aristocracies. Toward the end of the second century CE, local communities weakened as the imperial administration grew stronger, causing local and regional aristocracies to turn to the imperial court and army for status, influence, and power. The ideology of citizenship as the guiding principle of political culture gave way to that of the sacred emperor, who guaranteed divine justice and order.

Whose value is it anyway? A neo-institutionalist approach to articulating and evaluating artistic value

Abstract The neo-liberal agenda that has dominated the creative industries for the past few decades has engendered a range of problems for artists, arts managers and policy-makers. This article critiques the application of commercial strategic management and marketing tools, theory and principles to arts and cultural organizations and proposes alternative approaches to assist these organizations in creating, identifying and evaluating value on their own terms and in line with their artistic missions and objectives. The solutions proposed are generated by an application of the literature on arts management and evaluation, cultural policy and sociology and through a qualitative study of audiences’ articulations of value. The article reports and analyses the responses of 34 semi-structured in-depth interviews on the value of theatre with participants drawn from audiences in the United Kingdom and Australia. It highlights the discrepancies between the instrumental methods of evaluating value imposed on arts organizations by governments and the personal, intrinsic insights provided by audiences themselves. It argues ultimately for a neo-institutionalist and creative approach to articulating artistic value, which would evaluate organizational performance in line with artistic objectives. In so doing, it makes a valuable contribution to the ongoing debate about cultural value, and proposes a creative, alternative evaluation framework for artists, arts managers, arts marketers and cultural policy-makers.

Institutionalized erasures: How global structures acquire national meanings in Israeli popular music

This study applies a neo-institutional approach to explore how musical genres acquire national meanings even as they are adopted from exogenous global models. Drawing upon world society paradigm and glocal translation studies, it is argued that current theorizing has yet to address how a sense of national uniqueness emerges in local organizational fields despite their dependence on global isomorphism. A research strategy is offered to explore this paradox of isomorphic national uniqueness, suggesting that global structures acquire national meanings through subtle processes of institutionalized erasures in the adopting field. Drawing on a case-study of Israeli radio during privatization reforms, I analyze the emergence of a “light” version of Mizrahi music (of Middle Eastern background) and its crossover to mainstream Israeli playlists, following a market repositioning as “Mediterranean pop.” It is shown how exogenous models of US commercial format radio, as well as Arab popular music styles, were reassigned national meanings by various mechanisms of active or oblivious erasure. Correspondences with Turkish Arabesk and American rock’n’roll are discussed. It is suggested that national meanings should be studied as systematic erasures intrinsically coupled to the very spread of isomorphic global models.

ISO Certificates as Organizational Degrees? Beyond the Rational Myths of the Certification Process

This paper explores both the concrete and symbolic aspects of how ISO 9000 certification audits are prepared for and passed. Based on interviews with 60 respondents employed in certified organizations, this study analyzes the process of preparing for and passing an ISO certification audit through the lens of the degree-purchasing syndrome (DPS) in education, which refers to the disconnect between the acquisition of academic degrees and the learning process they should entail. This perspective makes it possible to go beyond the neo-institutional approach to shed light on the scholastic, ethical and contradictory aspects of the ISO certification process, which remain largely unexplored in the literature. The findings debunk the rhetoric of impartiality, objectivity and rigor surrounding the ISO certification process. They also reveal the tendency to acquire ISO certification as a sort of “organizational degree” after passing a quite predictable exam, with all the pitfalls that entails, such as rote preparation, procrastination, short-term focus and cheating.

Critical analysis of developments in Romanian accounting during the 20th century: a neo-institutional approach

There is very little material in English language academic journals regarding accounting history in Romania. Most prior research has focused on a specific year or a short period of time without providing a theoretical explanation or interpretation. The goal of this article is to provide a longitudinal presentation of developments in Romanian accounting during the 20th century and to propose a neo-institutional explanation of this evolution. The study identifies a normative influence in Romanian accounting practices during the first 50 years of the 20th century, a coercive one, imposed until 1989, by a centralised communist system, and from 1989 to the present, a mixed isomorphism oriented around French, European and international accounting systems. Lacking a period of introspection, the authors feel that there is little hope that Romanian accounting will rediscover its unique culture, or will manage to build upon or improve its indigenous base in the current international context.

The „Soziale Stadt“ – a neo-institutional perspective

Since the 1990s, integrated development programs have been implemented in most European cities. Addressing the „crisis of the neighborhoods“, and with the aim to foster social cohesion, integrated development programs are based on co-operation by interpersonal relations between a multiplicity of local actors. Applying a neo-institutional approach this article identifies regulatory, normative and cultural-cognitive institutions during the daily implementation of an integrated development program in Frankfurt/Main, called “Soziale Stadt, Aktive Nachbarschaften”. This article illustrates the institutional framework of the Frankfurt program and the actor capacity to act by addressing informality and opacity associated with program implementation.

Attitudinal and Neo-Institutional Models of Supreme Court Decision Making: An Empirical and Comparative Perspective from Israel

This study examines decision making in Israel's Supreme Court regarding freedom of religion, while implementing models of decision making that were researched in other high courts, mainly the U.S. Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of Canada. Two theoretical models were studied: the attitudinal model, according to which justices decide disputes consistent with their ideological positions; and the neo-institutional approach, according to which the roles and norms of the court as an institution affect the justices' decisions. Conclusions indicate that justices' attitudes in Israel have a very strong influence on their votes on the merits. Religiously observant justices were significantly more likely to support freedom of religion claims than nonobservant justices. At the same time, the neo-institutional claim that the law does matter is also supported by the findings. The results of the study, as compared to former studies conducted in other countries, can help better understand the influence of institutional arrangements on decision making in high courts.

Analisi teorica e verifica empirica della produzione organizzata del settore ittico italiano

The fishery and aquaculture sector constitutes negligible part on income formation of the primary sector and, more generally, on value added. The importance of the sector, however, is far superior to that of its economic contribution, as it forms the basis of employment and income of significant part of the coastal population and some areas where most of the activity is concentrated. Starting from this basic consideration and the opportunities afforded by Council Regulation (ec) No 104/2000, the objective of the paper is to analyze the problems of the sector and the possibilities of certain solutions according the reform of the Common Organisation of the markets in fishery and aquaculture products. In particular, the purpose of the reform was to develop the role of Producer Organisations (pos) with the aim of making markets more competitive and strengthen their bargaining power with the rest of the marketing chain. However, to date, the role of pos at national level remains little studied and evaluated, although it takes major importance in view of the revision of the Common Fisheries Policy. The paper analyzes the pos currently operating in Italy, the relations in a horizontal line for the constitution of associations of pos and in a vertical line with the downstream operators. In parallel, the theory of neo-institutional approach is the toolbox approach in order to carry out the analysis on the capacity of pos to implement measures to encourage the planning of production and adaptation to demand, both from terms of quantity and quality, as required by eu regulation.

Ciencia y tecnología como instituciones sociales: del Ethos Mertoniano al Neoinstitucionalismo

Los actuales estudios sociales de la ciencia y la tecnología han identificado la emergencia de un nuevo giro institucional de la ciencia y la tecnología. Dicho giro se caracteriza por la transformación de la ciencia y la tecnología, entendidas como instituciones sociales; es decir, por la aparición de nuevas prácticas y nuevas formas organizativas inherentes a la producción de conocimiento científico y tecnológico. En el presente artículo se analizan los problemas que unen a la visión institucionalista clásica de la ciencia con el enfoque neo-institucional, haciendo énfasis en aquellos aspectos generadores de encuentros y desencuentros entre ambas visiones.

Governmental subsidies and coercive pressures. Evidence from sport clubs and their resource dependencies

This contribution aims to analyse the adoption of subsidy conditions by voluntary sport clubs in relation to their dependence on government funding. Using a sociological neo-institutional approach based upon Pfeffer and Salancik’s (1978) resource dependence theory and DiMaggio and Powell’s (1983) concept of coercive isomorphism, this paper analyses the possible use of sport clubs by governments as instruments of sport policy. Data for these analyses are drawn from the Flemish Sport Club Panel 2009 and the Flemish Local Sport Authorities Panel 2010. The results show that sport clubs display a variety of resources. Although subsidies from the local government are relevant resources for the majority of voluntary sport clubs, the significance of these subsidies in the overall budgets is limited. Nevertheless, the outcomes of a multinomial logistic regression model indicate that there is a relationship between the share of governmental subsidies in the total income of sport clubs and their adoption of subsidy conditions with regard to the qualification of the sport technical staff. In general, however, the effect of the coercive pressure of the government through its funding seems to be rather low. Nevertheless, local sport authorities consider subsidy regulations as an effective instrument to achieve policy goals. Policy implications are discussed.

Une analyse néo-institutionnelle de la dynamique du guanxi en Chine

AbstractHow to explain the economic development of China since the country does not have the institutional matrix of market economies yet? The neo-institutional approach of North that emphasizes the role of informal rules in a society can mobilize the guanxi as part of the answer. This particular form of relational governance, peculiar to the Chinese confucian society, found a second wind with the development of business affairs to compensate for the inadequacies of the formal institutional architecture under construction. As form of capital social, guanxi produces trust and develops implicit incentives necessary to economic dynamism. By reducing uncertainty and transaction costs, it could be a substitute for formal rules during the ripening time of the latter.

The Imbalance between Patient Needs and the Limited Competence of Top-Level Health Providers in Urban China: An Empirical Study Based on a 2008 National Household Survey

Objective: To show the pattern of patient satisfaction with top-level delivery organizations (Level 2 and Level 3 hospitals), and using neo-institutionalism approach to explain the relatively low satisfaction and to explore the limitations with top providers, focusing on how to improve the competence of Level 2 and Level 3 hospitals at both the individual hospital level and the whole delivery system level.Data Sources/Study Setting: The household survey by the National Bureau of Statistics in China in 2008; China Health Statistics Yearbooks.Data Collection/Extraction Methods: The analysis uses a 2008 sample medical experiences of 5,036 residents from 17 provinces collected in a household survey by the National Bureau of Statistics in China. The linear regression model, the structural difference regression model, and the ordered probit model are used in our framework.Principal Findings: The imbalance between the needs of patients and the limited competence of top-level providers, and the conflict between the business expansion and the limited competence of those providers are deeply and widely influenced by patterns of patient needs, the top providers’ expansion, and the institutional environment.Conclusions: In order to effectively respond to patient needs, top and lower level providers need to set their own individual priorities. The government needs to improve institutional arrangements to respond to patient needs with the development of a fair and appropriate reimbursement and compensation pricing mechanism, and with further evaluation of top level providers’ advanced and limited health services.

Translating Global Values into National Contexts

Since the 1970s, the global rise of environmentalism has attracted growing attention from the social sciences. Although most studies acknowledge the lack of a direct link between environmental activism and environmental policy changes, grassroots activists, social movements and NGOs are widely considered to have made a significant contribution to the global spread of environmentalism. Recently, this standard account has been strongly challenged by neoinstitutionalist approaches. In lieu of elevating the role of local activists, they explain the global rise of environmentalism as a top-down process by stressing the importance of the so-called ‘world environmental regime’. In an attempt to bridge this conceptual divide, the present article examines the interaction between local/national activists and the world environmental regime in the case of South Korea. Based on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of statements, network data and surveys, this study describes the social mechanism driving the rise of environmentalism and demonstrates that its accession was equally shaped by the expansion of the world environmental regime, national configurations of power and the cultural creativity of environmental activists.

Towards an eclectic theory of the internet commons

Recent developments in communications technologies and, in particular, the advent of the Internet and its widespread applications in all spheres of human activity, have posed a serious challenge to the mainstream neo-institutional theory of the commons (common goods) and, especially, common pool resources theory (CPR). Although the term ‘new commons’ has been coined to describe a new area of study, previous attempts to analyze Internet goods within the framework of CPR theory have not been successful, as they have not been able to capture the important new characteristics of the Internet commons. Based upon an empirical analysis of over 20 Internet goods, the current author proves that, basically, Internet goods do not fall within the common pool category of goods. In addition to the key characteristics used so far within mainstream theory - excludability and substractability, other attributes such as sharing potential, joint use in production rather than in consumption only, and non-hierarchical governance of production definitely are relevant, and should be included in any analysis of Internet commons. This analysis has proven that the neoinstitutional approach retains its explanatory power with respect to the Internet commons, especially by emphasizing the path-dependent evolution of the Internet and the role of informal and formal rules shaping its operating environment. At the same time, it does not capture the direct impact of major breakthroughs in information and telecommunication technologies (ICT) on the Internet commons. The proposed eclectic framework, one which addresses the specific features of Internet goods, allows to grasp the full complexity of the Internet commons. It integrates new concepts developed in various disciplines of social sciences (economics, sociology, history, anthropology) with the mainstream theory of the commons, developed from the neo-institutional perspective. Among those new concepts and theories, the most important are general purpose technologies (GPT), network externalities, positive free riding, the concept of shareable goods, the architecture of participation, peer production, and the gift economy.

Towards an eclectic theory of the internet commons

Recent developments in communications technologies and, in particular, the advent of the Internet and its widespread applications in all spheres of human activity, have posed a serious challenge to the mainstream neo-institutional theory of the commons (common goods) and, especially, common pool resources theory (CPR). Although the term ‘new commons’ has been coined to describe a new area of study, previous attempts to analyze Internet goods within the framework of CPR theory have not been successful, as they have not been able to capture the important new characteristics of the Internet commons. Based upon an empirical analysis of over 20 Internet goods, the current author proves that, basically, Internet goods do not fall within the common pool category of goods. In addition to the key characteristics used so far within mainstream theory - excludability and substractability, other attributes such as sharing potential, joint use in production rather than in consumption only, and non-hierarchical governance of production definitely are relevant, and should be included in any analysis of Internet commons. This analysis has proven that the neoinstitutional approach retains its explanatory power with respect to the Internet commons, especially by emphasizing the path-dependent evolution of the Internet and the role of informal and formal rules shaping its operating environment. At the same time, it does not capture the direct impact of major breakthroughs in information and telecommunication technologies (ICT) on the Internet commons. The proposed eclectic framework, one which addresses the specific features of Internet goods, allows to grasp the full complexity of the Internet commons. It integrates new concepts developed in various disciplines of social sciences (economics, sociology, history, anthropology) with the mainstream theory of the commons, developed from the neo-institutional perspective. Among those new concepts and theories, the most important are general purpose technologies (GPT), network externalities, positive free riding, the concept of shareable goods, the architecture of participation, peer production, and the gift economy.

Privatização e processo decisório

This article examines the political determinants of privatization of the fixed telephony sector in four countries, based on a neo-institutionalist approach. These countries faced similar pressures by telephone companies in favor of privatization, suggesting an apparent convergence in the sector's reorganization. However, although all four adopted some degree of privatization, the process followed different paths and designs in each country. This variation can be explained by the different institutional contexts in which the reforms were carried out. Where there was concentration of power in the Executive, privatization was launched earlier and approved more quickly than in countries in which such concentration waslessintense. Meanwhile, the existence of multiple veto points and stakeholders with veto power did not impede the reform, but increased the cost of its unilateral adoption by the Executive, forcing the latter to negotiate and form a minimum consensus within the governing coalition.