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Coping with Competing Institutional Logics: Decoupling, Compromising and Experience
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2016-05-25
Author(s)
Abstract
Neo-institutionalism refers to organizational responses to institutional referents’ expectations. In this realm, research has long centered on institutional isomorphism studying the processes, which create similarity amongst organizations. Recently, institutional theorists’ attention has shifted towards competing institutional logics to investigate practice variation between organizations. A prominent tension exists between the commercial and the social logic, which can be addressed by adopting different strategies. Through the analysis of social audit reports of the Business Social Compliance Initiative for 100 producers from emerging markets supplying clothing and textiles to brands, retailers and traders from developed countries, the findings suggest that the strategic response depends on a tension’s salience or latency. When a conflict between the commercial and the social logic unearths, the garment suppliers pursue a decoupling strategy by prioritizing the commercial over the social logic. When economic growth eases the pressure in the commercial dimension, the textile producers follow a compromising strategy by balancing up the social logic and meeting the associated obligations. The results also imply that strategy variation attributed to competing institutional logics is a temporary phenomenon since growing experience leads to a manifestation of a similar strategic pattern across organizations, which can be interpreted as isomorphism.
Language
English
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
HSG Profile Area
SoM - Business Innovation
Pages
32
Event Title
GRONEN Research Conference 2016
Event Location
Hamburg, Germany
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
248422