"What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as afield, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes—coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p. 147; abstract
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_DiMaggio
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Paul DiMaggio
13 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Paul DiMaggio →
Related Quotes
"[Schemata are] knowledge structures that represent objects or events and provide default assumptions about their char…"
"By , we mean those organizations that, in the aggregate, constitute a recognized area of institutional life: key supp…"
"Organizations may try to change constantly; but, after a certain point in the structuration of an organizational fiel…"
"Organizations compete not just for resources and customers, but for political power and institutional legitimacy, for…"
"Organizations tend to model themselves after similar organizations in their field that they perceive to be more legit…"
"Institutional theory presents a paradox. Institutional analysis is as old as Emile Durkheim's exhortation to study 's…"
"purportedly represents a distinctive approach to the study of social, economic, and political phenomena; yet it is of…"
"Although there are as many ‘new institutionalisms’ as there are social science disciplines, this book is about just o…"
"The new institutionalism in organization theory and sociology comprises a rejection of rational-actor models, and int…"
"Both the old and new approaches share a scepticism toward rational-actor models of organisation, and each views insti…"