PA Assg#7–Please see attached instructions. Thank you.

PA Assg#7–Please see attached instructions. Thank you.
Assignment #7– Institutional Theories and Public Administration Required Readings: Inside the hybrid organization Selective coupling as a response to competing institutional logics(See attached) Institutional isomorphism and public sector organizations (See attached) Institutional logic and street-level discretion The case of HIV test counseling (See attached) Political science and the three new institutionalisms (See attached) The iron cage revisited Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (See attached) Assignment: Based on the readings, please write a short essay as a response to ONE of the following questions: 1. How do external environments affect public organizations differently from factors internal to organizations? 2. Which one (or more) of the three new institutionalisms as Hall and Taylor described do you think best explains the issues in public administration? Why? 3. Which kind(s) of institutional isomorphism as DiMaggio and Powell described do you think best explain the current public organizational structures? Why? Prepare an original and thoughtful (including references) response of 400 words. Student participation includes the following attributes: Comments show evidence of a thorough reading and analysis of the material(s) — this means the inclusion of references Points are relevant to the discussion in terms of increasing everyone’s understanding and are not merely a regurgitation of the readings.  Care is taken to distinguish among different kinds of information; i.e. facts, opinions, assumptions, or inferences.  There is a willingness to test new ideas rather than remain cautious and safe.  Submissions utilize correct word usage, spelling, and punctuation. INSTRUCTIONS TO THE WRITER: Please read the required readings. See attached materials. Follow the instructions above and response to one of the questions. You should quote at least three works mentioned in the required readings. The essay should be no less than 400 words in length. Be sure to include the question you select in the document. Sources cited should be from reading documents. Thank you, Customer
PA Assg#7–Please see attached instructions. Thank you.
Institutional Isomorphism and Public Sector Organizations Author(s): Peter Frumkin and Joseph Galaskiewicz Source: Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory: J-PART , Jul., 2004 , Vol. 14, No. 3 (Jul., 2004), pp. 283-307 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Public Management Research Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3525838 REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3525838?seq=1&cid=pdf- reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected] Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms and Oxford University Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory: J-PART This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms JPART 14:283-307 Institutional Isomorphism and Public Sector Organizations Peter Frumkin Harvard University Joseph Galaskiewicz University of Arizona ABSTRACT Although public sector organizations have long been seen as driving the institutionalization of business firms and nonprofit organizations, government agencies themselves have only occasionally been studied as subjects of institutional pressures. This research examines whether public sector organizations, when compared with organizations in the business and nonprofit sectors, are more or less as susceptible to mimetic, normative, and coercive pressures. Using data from the National Organizations Study, we discover that governmental organizations are in fact more vulnerable to all three types of institutional forces than other organizations, whereas the effect of institutional variables on for-profits and nonprofits is more sporadic. The susceptibility of public sector organizations to institutional pressures raises important questions for the field of public administration and has consequences for nonprofits and business firms, which are funded and regulated by government. Though it has not penetrated deeply into the public administration literature to date, the new institutionalism in organizational analysis has made significant contributions to our understanding of the dynamics of organizations. It has moved research away from overly rationalistic explanations of organizational behavior toward explanations that recognize that organizations are embedded in larger cultural and political contexts. It has shifted the focus of research from explaining why organizations are so heterogeneous to why organizations are so similar. Over the past decade, as its reach has extended across different topics, institutional theory has focused often on nonprofit organizations, such as art museums (DiMaggio 1991yf F R O O H J H V D Q G X Q L Y H U V L W L H V % U L Q W D Q G . D U D E H O . U D D W z 1998yf K X P D Q L W D U L D Q J U R X S V & K U L V W L D Q V H Q D Q G 0 R O L Q f, associations (Halliday, Powell, and Granfors 1993yf D Q G G U X J D E X V H X Q L W V ‘ $ X Q Q R 6 X W W R Q D Q G 3 U L F H f. A number of studies have demonstrated the relevance of the institutional approach to We would like to thank the team of researchers who conducted the National Organizations Study and allowed us to use their data. We are especially indebted to Peter V. Marsden, David Knoke, Ame L. Kalleberg, and Joe I. Spaeth. We also want to thank four anonymous JPART reviewers who gave us very useful suggestions for revising the manuscript, including one reviewer who went well above the call of duty to offer unusually detailed and helpful advice. DOI: 10.1093/jopart/muh028 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Vol. 14, no. 3 ? 2004 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Inc.; all rights reserved. This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 284 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory for-profit organizations, including large corporations (Davis and Greve 1997; Galaskiewicz and Wasserman 1989; Haunschild and Miner 1997; Holm 1995yf U D L O U R D G V ‘ R E E L Q f, law firms (Tolbert 1988yf D Q G K L J K W H F K F R P S D Q L H V 3 R Z H O O 6 X F K P D Q f. Some research has also looked at public sector organizations (Meyer et al. 1988; Meyer, Scott, and Strang 1987; Tolbert and Zucker 1983yf . On the whole, however, research in organizational theory has tended to view public sector agencies more as playing the role of catalyst and trigger to institutionalization in other organizations, rather than as the objects of institutional pressures. Through regulation, accrediting, oversight, and funding relations, public sector organizations have been de- scribed as forces pushing nonprofits and business firms toward greater levels ofhomogeneity. Our goal here is to reexamine how and why government organizations themselves might be susceptible to institutional pressures. Our exploration of this topic proceeds in four broad steps. First, we trace key developments in the evolution of neoinstitutional theory and the role public sector organizations have played in inaugurating the institutional transformation of other organizations. Second, drawing on the literature of public administration, we develop a theoretical basis for the claim that the impact of institutional forces on government organizations should actually be stronger than that in nonprofit or business organizations. Third, using a national study of organizations, we examine whether public sector organizations-compared with nonprofit and business organizations-are in fact more or less vulnerable to different kinds of institutional pressure. Finally, we explore whether any particular type of institutional pressure-that is, being subject to regulations, licensing, and accreditation (coercive isomorphismyf E H O R Q J L Q J W R D Q D V V R F L D W L R Q R I S H H U R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q s (normative isomorphismyf D Q G O R R N L Q J D W W K H S H U I R U P D Q F H R I R W K H U R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q V P L P H W L c isomorphismyf S O D V D G R P L Q D Q W U R O H L Q V K D S L Q J S X E O L F V H F W R U R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q V . THE PUBLIC SECTOR IN NEOINSTITUTIONAL THEORY In its present form, the new institutionalism in organizational analysis accommodates a broad range of theoretical, methodological, and substantive interests (Scott 1991, 1995yf . Although much work has been done to sort out and classify the many strands of institutional research, the theory remains more of an orientation than a scientific theory. Differences among institutional arguments are considerable, but a few central issues and themes do unite the approach. Early statements of the theory emphasized the symbolic and ceremonial transformation that organizations undergo, changes that reflect myths in the institutional environment rather than a detached calculus of costs and benefits (Meyer and Rowan [1977] 1991yf 2 W K H U H D U O Z R U N I R F X V H G R Q S U R F H V V H V V X F K D V L V R P R U S K L c transformation (Tolbert and Zucker 1983yf F R Q W U D G L F W L R Q V ) U L H G O D Q G D Q G $ O I R U G f, persistence (Zucker 1988, [1977] 1991yf G L I I X V L R Q 7 R O E H U W D Q G = X F N H U f, and institutionalization (Scott 1991, 1994a, 1994b, 1995yf , Q P D Q R I W K H V H W K H R U H W L F D l formulations and in the institutional case studies that have been conducted to date, government agencies play a critical role in triggering and inaugurating institutional change in nonprofit and for-profit organizations, sometimes by exerting pressure through their control of funding, sometimes by the exercise of their power to regulate. With its emphasis on legitimacy, satisfying behavior, structural decoupling, and symbols, the new institutionalism represents a major departure from rival theories such as transaction costs economics (Williamson 1981, 1985yf S R S X O D W L R Q H F R O R J + D Q Q D Q D Q d Freeman 1989yf D Q G U H V R X U F H G H S H Q G H Q F H W K H R U 3 I H I I H U D Q G 6 D O D Q F L N f, which are This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Frumkin and Galaskiewicz Institutional Isomorphism and Public Sector Organizations based to a greater or lesser extent on the model of rational action. Indeed, a common thread throughout neoinstitutional research is a commitment to seeing organizations as pursuing practices that may have little to do with maximizing efficiency and to understanding that structure may be decoupled from the organizational mission. Organizations do not always embrace strategies, structures, and processes that enhance their performance but, instead, react to and seek ways to accommodate pressures following external scrutiny and regulation. Drawing on three of the more prominent contributions to theory, we suggest that government action, or more generally state intervention, has consistently been conceived as playing a central function in initiating the structural transformation of other organizations. Although the new institutionalism is usually thought of as being primarily a cultural theory of organizations, emphasizing interorganizational diffusion of rituals and roles, the new institutionalism has a political core that points to public sector organizations as the drivers and triggers of institutionalization. Government licensing, inspection, and regulation are the levers that act on nonprofit and business organizations. The three seminal formulations of institutionalism can be seen as constituting together a slow progression toward an understanding of the centrality of public sector organizations in fueling the symbolic and isomorphic changes that these organizations undergo. Early work by Meyer and Rowan ([1977] 1991yf S R U W U D H G R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q D O V W U X F W X U H D s loosely coupled with work activity and saw roles, myths, and ceremonies as emerging and spreading within organizational fields. There are several sources of institutionalized myths, including dense relational networks and leadership of local organizations. These are not, however, the only factors that speed the spread of institutional myths. Political and legal constraints play a central role in this whole process: “The myths generated by particular organizational practices and diffused through relational networks have legitimacy based on the supposition that they are rationally effective. But many myths also have legitimacy based on legal mandates” (Meyer and Rowan [1977] 1991, 148yf 2 U J D Q L ] D W L R Q D O S U D F W L F H s may appear on the scene and gain acceptance because of external pressures from public sector organizations: “Legislative and judicial authorities create and interpret legal mandates; administrative agencies-such as state and federal government, port authorities, and school districts-establish rules of practice; and licenses and credentials become necessary in order to practice occupations” (Meyer and Rowan [1977] 1991, 148yf $ V O H J D l and regulatory pressures increase, nonprofit and business organizations respond with increasing levels of institutionalized rules and procedures. Organizational fields rich in myths and ceremonies are constructed when pressure is exerted on organizations by forces in the surrounding environment. Government agencies are some of the most potent and influential environmental actors, which come into contact at some level-be it through laws or regulations-with most organizations. Looking at some of these same issues, DiMaggio and Powell ([1983] 1991yf K D Y e identified three forces driving institutionalization: (1yf F R H U F L Y H L V R P R U S K L V P W K D W V W H P s from political influence and the need for legitimacy, (2yf P L P H W L F L V R P R U S K L V P U H V X O W L Q g from standard responses to uncertainty, and (3yf Q R U P D W L Y H L V R P R U S K L V P D V V R F L D W H G Z L W h professionalization. These three mechanisms can overlap and intermingle, but they tend to derive from different conditions. At an analytic level, only coercive isomorphism is linked to the environment surrounding the organizational field. Mimetic and normative processes are internal to the field and help explain the spread of roles and structures. When organizations are subjected to outside coercive scrutiny, evaluation, and regulation, they tend to react defensively and gravitate toward isomorphic transformation. As the pressures 285 This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 286 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory from the outside grow, organizations are led to find ways to either diffuse or eliminate this pressure by changing their practices. One of the easiest ways to change is to adopt those routines and structures that are defined by law or government agencies as legitimate. To do so may ensure survival by minimizing conflict. The process of institutionalization is intimately tied with the idea of an organizational field. Rather than simply emerging as the product of the natural interaction of organizations, fields are constructed for a purpose. They are the ultimate product of coercive, mimetic, and normative isomorphism, and they reflect the slow homogenization and convergence of organizational forms. DiMaggio and Powell take a strong position on the emergence of fields, arguing that they are constructed and that they serve as information networks fueling standardization and professionaliza- tion. By spelling out and emphasizing the role of the state in forcing organizations in the direction of isomorphism and convergence, DiMaggio and Powell provide a significant addition to Meyer and Rowan’s earlier formulation. Public sector organizations emerge as even more central actors propelling other organizations toward convergence in a subsequent institutional account. Fligstein’s (1990, 1991yf F H Q W U D O W K H V L V L V W K D W W K H Y L D E L O L W R I $ P H U L F D Q L Q G X V W U L D O H Q W H U S U L V H L V U H O D W H G W R W K e long-term shifts in the conception of how the largest firms should operate to preserve their growth and profitability: “These shifts have occurred in response to a complex set of interactions between the largest firms, those who have risen to control those firms, and the government. They originated with managers and entrepreneurs who sought control over their internal and external environments. When one solution was blocked by the actions of the government, new solutions were created and diffused” (1990, 2yf 7 K L V O H D G V W R D W Z R – part institutional theory of change: (1yf R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q V D U H V X E M H F W W R J R Y H U Q P H Q W S U H V V X U e and embrace institutional myths, and (2yf V W U D W H J L H V D Q G V W U X F W X U H V D U H G L V V H P L Q D W H G D Q d a homogenized organizational field is created. Each time major new regulations and laws are put in place, the whole process begins anew. Thus, the regulatory state and the organizational field are locked in a mutually reinforcing game of moves and countermoves. In summary, three early and important statements in the development of institutional theory can be seen as expressing a consistent appreciation of the state’s role in the production and dissemination of legitimate organizational forms. Meyer and Rowan discussed the function that government plays in institutionalization. DiMaggio and Powell recognized the centrality of state-driven coercive isomorphism but placed equal emphasis on the mimetic and normative isomorphism. In Fligstein’s work, the public sector finally emerges as the central actor in the institutional plotline, with regulation driving corporations to homogenize and adopt distinctive conceptions of corporate control. Although public sector organizations occupy an important place in explanations of the drivers of institutionalization, these same organizations have not been adequately conceptualized as being subject to the same kinds of pressures that they help initiate. We argue that the essential features of public sector organizations make them not just capable of generating institutional pressures but also potentially very vulnerable to these same pressures. PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION THEORY AND PUBLIC SECTOR UNIQUENESS Institutional theory has never explicitly theorized that public sector organizations differ that greatly from all other organizations. If institutional pressures affected public sector organizations, then they did not affect these organizations any differently than they This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Frumkin and Galaskiewicz Institutional Isomorphism and Public Sector Organizations affected nonprofits and for-profits. The same disinterest in public sector organizations sui generis is a feature of the broader organization theory literature. Indeed, when central figures in the development of organizational research like Herbert Simon (March and Simon 1958; Simon 1946, 1948, 1995; Simon, Smithburg, and Thompson [1950] 1991yf discussed sectoral issues, it was mainly to affirm that public agencies and private firms have more similarities than significant differences (Rainey 1997yf 7 K H S H U V S H F W L Y H R I W K H V e and other organizational theorists contributed over time to a broad conclusion that “organizations were simply organizations” and that “sector” was not a particularly useful distinction to make. The willingness of organization theory to blur public and private boundaries has been countered by a long tradition of research within public administration that holds that the sector of an organization needs to be an integral part of organizational research. Dahl and Lindblom’s (1953yf D Q D O V L V R I P D U N H W V D Q G S R O D U F K L H V S R V L W H G D F R Q W L Q X X P R f organizations ranging from enterprises governed by private markets to agencies operated by government. Across the continuum of pure private to pure public organizations, a large group of hybrid and mixed organizations could be located. The incentive structures within enterprises and agencies were held to be different enough as to lead the private and public sectors to adopt substantially different systems to control costs and monitor performance. These early theoretical claims about sector differences have been informed by empirical work aimed at sorting out organizational characteristics that define the sectors. Over the past three decades or more, numerous empirical investigations were produced aimed at answering the question of whether public sector organizations are structured and behave differently than all other organizations. Some of these studies found higher levels of centralization and bureaucratization in government agencies than in other organizations, whereas other research concluded that the differences were in fact small (Rainey 1997yf . Although the empirical evidence is mixed, the public administration literature has coalesced around the view that organization theory provides an incomplete analysis of the internal structure and external environment of public organizations (Murray 1975; Perry and Kraemer 1983; Pitt and Smith 1981yf 6 H Y H U D O X V H I X O I U D P H Z R U N V K D Y H H P H U J H G W R K H O p further define the critical characteristics that define organizations in different sectors. From Wamsley and Zald’s (1973yf F D W H J R U L ] D W L R Q D F F R U G L Q J W R S X E O L F R U S U L Y D W H I R U P V R I I X Q G L Q g and ownership to Bozeman’s (1987yf G L V W L Q F W L R Q E H W Z H H Q S X E O L F D Q G S U L Y D W H I R U P V R f economic and political authority, the public administration literature has attempted to bring greater clarity and depth to the discussion of sectoral identity. Over time, the critique of organization theory by public administration has gotten quite broad and led to new research not just on organizational structure but also on management and leadership practices, decision-making processes, work-related behavior, and reward systems. Attempts to codify and organize the disparate research tracks have been limited by the sheer range and variety of empirical and theoretical rejoinders that the public administration literature has produced (Rainey 1989; Rainey, Backoff, and Levine 1976yf . When public administration theory has ventured into organizational sociology and taken up the issue of institutional pressures, it has usually equated this concept to the broader phenomenon of bureaucratization. Several important branches of public administration theory have advanced explanations for why public managers are often drawn to bureaucratic forms and processes. Early theories of bureaucratic politics, for example, emphasized that the budgetary process can lead to perverse decisions and make rational planning impossible (Pressman and Wildavsky 1973; Wildavsky 1964yf 7 K e 287 This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 288 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory inability of government agencies to free themselves from political and budgetary pressure can lead to the triumph of incrementalism (Lindblom 1965yf D Q G G L P L Q L V K H G F D S D F L W I R r change. Other work has focused on the phenomenon of bureaucratic inertia in which a vicious circle emerges that pushes public agencies toward ever greater levels of impersonalism. In the absence of strong stakeholder accountability mechanisms connected to service quality, bureaucratic forms emerge that often require less personal interaction among workers. Once personal connections are severed, rules and procedures are put in place to stop individuals from seeking to act alone to solve problems in the few remaining areas where rules to do not apply. Bureaucratization can also result when public sector organizations are suddenly subject to oversight and scrutiny by higher levels of government. Formalization and centralization can be simple responses to uncertainty and external pressure (Wilson 1989yf . Our empirical analysis here aims to bring the new institutionalism into fuller and deeper contact with public administration research. We revisit the question of public sector uniqueness by testing for differences in levels of institutional exposure among organizations from all three societal sectors. Before looking for differences in organizational response to the three main forms of institutional pressure, we need to ask why one might expect there to be differences among sectors in terms of vulnerability to institutional pressures. The public administration literature has focused on comparisons between government and business firms and has had relatively little to say about difference between government and nonprofit organizations. To answer the comparative questions related to all three sectors, it is useful to draw on both public administration theory (Bozeman 1987; Wamsley and Zald 1973yf D Q G W K e literature on nonprofit organizations (Hansmann 1980,1996; Weisbrod 1988yf 7 K H J U R Z L Q g research on nonprofit organizations has sought like public administration theory to draw lines and sectoral differences. Unlike the public administration literature, however, nonprofit research has focused on all three societal sectors in framing a theory of sectoral differences. Across these two literatures, we locate two bases for differentiating organizations from all the three sectors: (1yf G L I I H U H Q F H V L Q W K H D E L O L W W R D F F X U D W H O P H D V X U e organizational outputs or performance and (2yf G L I I H U H Q F H V L Q W K H F R Q W U R O R Y H U W K H I O R Z R f resources or inputs into the organization. Given that institutional pressures are likely to thrive where measurement and control are weak or imprecise, that is, where accountability is low, these distinctions allow us to generate two research hypotheses about how sector modifies the effect of institutional exposure on organizational structures. Differences in Measurement of Organizational Outputs A first way to look at sectoral differences is to focus on the way outputs are measured. In the business world, owners seek to maximize their return on investment by creating firms that will generate profits. Money generated by business activity is routinely distributed to those who have ownership status in the firm and who have taken on risk in investing. Performance is measured by profits, share price, earnings, or market share or through other metrics that allow owners including shareholders to measure how well management is furthering their interests. Managers who perform poorly are routinely dismissed, and shareholders are increasingly aggressive in asserting oversight and control, especially when performance lags (Useem 1993yf $ O W K R X J K W K H U H L V V R P H D U J X P H Q W R Y H U Z K L F K P H W U L c is the best predictor of firm success, there is little doubt that common quantitative measures of firm performance are fairly clear and easily interpreted. Regulatory agencies like the This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Frumkin and Galaskiewicz Institutional Isomorphism and Public Sector Organizations Securities and Exchange Commission ensure that data on firm performance are consistently reported to all. Given these arrangements, owners and investors are in a very strong position indeed when it comes to oversight and measurement of organizational outputs. The situation of nonprofits and government agencies is more complicated because there are neither owners who have a material interest in the organization nor easily interpretable output measures. Both public agencies and nonprofits operate under what has been called the “nondistribution constraint” (Hansmann 1980yf : K H U H D V E X V L Q H V V I L U P s are able to distribute earnings to shareholders, government agencies and nonprofit organizations are not permitted to make such distributions but, rather, must retain any earnings. This means that there are no actors who have a direct financial interest in the organization, and thus no actor has a material stake in monitoring its operations. Furthermore, outputs are often more difficult to measure. The public management literature has consistently acknowledged that performance measurement is rendered more difficult given the nature of the goods and services produced (Moore 1995yf 2 I W H Q W K e outputs are indivisible; rarely is funding available to serious efforts at performance measurement; there are no large, mobilized groups pushing for a greater level of program assessment in government; sometimes benefits cannot be measured until far into the future; and considerable information asymmetries may be present. All of this makes performance measurement extremely difficult (Gormley and Weimer 1999yf . The presence of difficult-to-measure outputs can also be traced to the nondistribution constraint that binds public and nonprofit organizations. Because no private actor has claims to residual earnings, governments and nonprofits are thought to be in a better position to provide trust goods as well as collective goods that are often undersupplied in markets (Hansmann 1980yf 3 X E O L F D Q G Q R Q S U R I L W R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q V D U H D E O H L Q S U L Q F L S O H W o reassure citizens and clients that the public service goals of these organizations take precedence over the financial remuneration of any interested parties (Weisbrod 1988yf . Because there are certain services, such as child care and health care, whose benefits are difficult to measure or evaluate, governments and nonprofits are able to step in and meet this demand by promising that no investors will benefit by the cutting of corers or the delivery of unnecessary services. Furthermore, the nondistribution constraint helps to ensure wary donors and taxpayers that funds given to the organization for collective goods will be used as promised (Hansmann 1996yf $ O W K R X J K W K L V R S H Q V X S D Q G D O P R V W J X D U D Q W H H s certain markets for nonprofits and government establishments, it also means that many outputs of these organizations are difficult to measure. Compared with business organizations whose purpose is to earn profits for owners and which are accountable quarter by quarter, the performance of government and nonprofit organizations is less accurately measured, and monitoring is more sporadic (Rainey 1997, 75yf / D F N L Q J D V L Q J O H V W D N H K R O G H U J U R X S W R P R Q L W R U W K H R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q D Q G U L J R U R X V F U L W H U L a for evaluation, government and nonprofit organizations are more likely to embrace external referents of accountability to legitimate their operations. For the same reason, government and nonprofit organizations should be more susceptible to institutional pressures and more likely to be swayed by exposure to environmental pressures that promise an organization greater legitimacy. Because shareholders of business organizations constitute a dominant coalition that can more easily monitor the performance of managers, we hypothesize that these organizations will be less responsive to institutional influences than nonprofit and government organizations. Or, putting it another way, we expect that institutional forces 289 This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 290 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory will influence the behaviors of organizations whose outputs are less easily evaluated. Thus, our first hypothesis is: H1 The effects of institutional forces on organizational structures will be weaker in bus- iness firms than in government or nonprofit organizations. Differences in the Funding of Organizational Inputs Distinguishing organizations from different sectors in terms of oversight over their outputs is a first step. Answering the question of what distinguishes nonprofits from government organizations requires a second step, however, one that focuses attention on the control over organizational inputs or resources. By looking at how stakeholders make funding and allocation decisions about inputs into organizations, it is possible to sort out a core distinction between public and nonprofit organizations. Although both nonprofit and government organizations operate under the non- distribution constraint that bears on the use of profits or outputs, only nonprofits are exposed to a sea of stakeholders who are in a direct position to turn on or off the spigot of financial resources that flow into these organizations. Because many nonprofits offer services that are not provided by for-profits or that are too expensive to service targeted populations, finding patrons willing to subsidize charitable work is often critical. Many nonprofits receive contributions simultaneously from individuals, corporations, foundations, and government agencies at the city, state, and federal levels. Weaving these funding streams together is one of the most important challenges in nonprofit management, one that requires a combination of marketing, negotiation, and sales skills (Gronbjerg 1989yf $ W W L P H V W K H L Q W H U H V W V D Q d desires of funders can be in conflict with one another, and nonprofits must learn to satisfy the various demands of those who provide the charitable dollars they need to operate. Many donors make demands for recognition and put conditions on the use of their funds or limit support to a specified number of years. As the demands of donors on nonprofits have risen, many organizations have turned to earned income to supplement the contributions they receive. This stream of revenue is most often made up of fees for services that are charged to clients (Weisbrod 1998yf 8 V X D O O W K H V H I H H V D U H G L V F R X Q W H G E H O R Z P D U N H W U D W H D Q G L Q P D Q y cases they are based on the ability of the client to pay. From community health clinics that operate with a sliding scale of fees based on the client’s income to sporting clubs that charge their members annual dues for the privilege of using their facilities, nonprofits that depend on earned income end up varying greatly in their missions and target clientele. This often creates substantial choice for clients and consumers-and pressure on nonprofits to satisfy the demands of those paying the organization’s bills. The dependence of nonprofits on contributed and earned income links them to a number of powerful stakeholders. Donors and users do not have direct financial interests in nonprofit organizations, and neither group can be clearly identified per se as a key ownership group (Hansmann 1996yf + R Z H Y H U E H F D X V H R I W K H L U F O R V H F R Q W U R O R I W K H I L Q D Q F L D O U H V R X U F H V R r inputs needed by nonprofits to survive, both donors and users are positioned to influence nonprofit mission and activity. In any particular nonprofit, the relative strength of these two influence groups will depend on how an organization is funded. Donors often hold a close grip on nonprofit organizations that depend heavily on charitable contributions: when a small group of foundations or a single public sector agency is holding a nonprofit’s purse strings, there is a significant though often unspoken power imbalance separating the two sides. In This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Frumkin and Galaskiewicz Institutional Isomorphism and Public Sector Organizations nonprofit organizations that are largely driven by the service fees charged to clients, users, and members, the situation is somewhat different, owing to the fact that the number of stakeholders is likely to be quite large and the size of the stakes, relatively small. Still, if survival is to be ensured, nonprofits that depend on earned income must be responsive to those who use and pay for their services. Of course, there are many nonprofits that are simultaneously beholden to a group of influential contributors and also exposed to pressures from clients and members seeking improved services or lower fees. In most cases, the complex and contingent funding of nonprofits applies pressure on these organizations to be responsive and effective in their work. In public sector organizations, these funding pressures are substantially different. At the federal, state, and local levels, government collects revenue through both the charging of fees and the levying of taxes. Although government does have the power to coerce and punish those who violate the law, the ability of government to act is constrained by both elections and interest groups. The need to manage the political environment and to marshal support for spending programs tempers the power of government and ensures that real constraints exist to sudden shifts in the financial flows in government. A significant collective action problem also buffers government from sudden and decisive action by stakeholders with regard to financial inputs. This system works because citizens entrust government to provide certain collective goods and services in the name of the larger collectivity-and because citizens are willing to yield substantial control to the state in large measure because of the legitimacy of government. Although devolution and privatization have pushed many functions down to lower levels of government and out to nonprofit and private firms, the progressive hollowing of the state (Milward and Provan 1993yf K D V Q R W V R O Y H G D O O W K H S U R E O H P V W K D W S X E O L F V H F W R r agencies face. Research has shown that the environment around public organizations is fluid and capable of exerting influence over the action of public managers (Moore 1995yf . Although the flow of financial and human resources into government may be less contingent than that in nonprofit organizations, many public managers still devote important resources to controlling and shaping the political environment around their organizations. External supervision by government oversight institutions and authorities may also affect the ability of lower levels of government to carry out significant changes in policy and procedure. Ultimately, the ability of government to maintain a fair measure of control over the flow of inputs is a function of its ability not just to collect taxes and assess fees but also to win public approval so that decisions about the allocation of resources end up favoring one purpose or agency over another. The way nonprofit organizations differ from government organizations is thus a func- tion of the degree of control over inputs. Because investors and grant makers exercise control over firms and nonprofits, both types of organizations have to be especially responsive to those controlling financial resources. In government, the flow of financial inputs is harder for stakeholders to change and demands a much higher level of coordination and collective action than in nonprofits or business. The sources of government funding-taxpayers- exercise less direct control over government organizations, which creates accountability problems. Indeed, this is often one rationale that public administration theory offers for why public sector organizations are more bureaucratized. Thus, our second hypothesis is: H2 The effects of institutional forces on organizational structures and practices will be stronger in government organizations than in nonprofit organizations or business firms. 291 This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 292 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory Summary Attempts to define sectoral differences are not without controversy and contention, and some argue that the differences among organizations across the three sectors are disappearing, as nonprofits become more commercial and business firms take on social responsibilities and as government seeks closer community ties (Frumkin and Andre- Clark 2000; Weisbrod 1998yf 1 H Y H U W K H O H V V V W U X F W X U D O G L I I H U H Q F H V H P H U J H W K D W O H D G X V W o expect that (1yf L Q V W L W X W L R Q D O S U H V V X U H V Z L O O O H D V W L Q I O X H Q F H I R U S U R I L W V E H F D X V H R Z Q H U V D U e able to measure performance and control the flow of financial resources into business firms, (2yf J R Y H U Q P H Q W R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q V Z L O O E H P R V W L Q I O X H Q F H G E L Q V W L W X W L R Q D O S U H V V X U H s because outputs are very difficult to evaluate and the flow of resources is more shielded from sudden interruption by collective action problems, and (3yf Q R Q S U R I L W V Z L O O I D O l somewhere in the middle because their outputs are also difficult to evaluate but they must be responsive to their funders in order to survive financially. Building on distinctions in Wamsley and Zald (1973yf D Q G % R ] H P D Q f frameworks, the relative positions of public, nonprofit, and business organizations can be roughly depicted across two axes (figure 1yf . In the analysis that follows, we test our two hypotheses. We are also interested in exploring whether organizations in public, nonprofit, and business sectors are particularly sensitive not just to institutional pressure broadly conceived but to specific kinds of institutional pressure. Here we examine three types: coercive, normative, and mimetic (DiMaggio and Powell [1983] 1991yf , W L V L P S R U W D Q W W R U H F R J Q L ] H W K D W W K H U H L V F R Q V L G H U D E O e variation in the possible forms that convergence or isomorphism can take. On the one hand, some institutional forces might make organizations more like their peers. For example, belonging to associations of similar organizations or paying attention to the practices of other organizations may make government agencies more like other government establishments, or nonprofits more like other nonprofits (DiMaggio and Powell [1983] 1991yf 2 Q W K H R W K H U K D Q G H [ S R V X U H W R R W K H U L Q V W L W X W L R Q D O S U H V V X U H V P L J K W P D N e organizations more similar to a more abstract ideal type of a bureaucratic organization. That is, exposure leads for-profits, nonprofits, and government establishments to embrace a generic bureaucratic form. In the former case, institutional pressures homogenize organizations within different categories. In the latter case, institutional pressures lead all organizations to look more like a single organizational form. A third alternative is that institutional forces may work to break down the boundaries across sectors and result in all organizations looking very similar to the statistical average. It remains an empirical question as to how these effects might play out. Because there is little theory to guide us, our analysis is somewhat exploratory when it comes to the differential effects of these forces on different kinds of organizations. Accordingly, after detailing our methods for our study, we proceed both to test our hypotheses and to search in a more exploratory mode for differential institutional effects across sectors. DATA AND MEASUREMENT OF VARIABLES We used the data collected in the 1991 National Organizations Study (NOSyf 7 K H S U L Q F L S D l advantage of the NOS data was that it had information on for-profit, nonprofit, and governmental establishments as well as data on institutional pressures on organizations. As described by Knoke and Kalleberg: This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Frumkin and Galaskiewicz Institutional Isomorphism and Public Sector Organizations Figure 1 Measurement and Control in Public, Nonprofit, and Business Organizations Direct Business External control over Nonprofit inputs Indirect Government Imprecise Precise Ability to measure outputs [The NOS is] a multiplicity survey of establishments (single-site workplaces, including businesses, governmental, and nonprofit organizationsyf F R Q G X F W H G E W K H 6 X U Y H 5 H V H D U F h Laboratory (SRLyf D W W K H 8 Q L Y H U V L W R I , O O L Q R L V 5 H V S R Q G H Q W V L Q W K H * H Q H U D O 6 R F L D O 6 X U Y H y (GSSyf L G H Q W L I L H G W K H L U S O D F H V R I H P S O R P H Q W D Q G W K R V H R I W K H L U H P S O R H G V S R X V H V , Q D G H T X D W e information was obtained from 300 of the 1,427 GSS respondents who reported occupations. The SRL completed interviews with informants (typically personnel directorsyf I U R P R I W K e remaining 1,127 establishments, yielding a response rate of 64.5 percent. Because the 1991 GSS used area-cluster sampling, 39 organizations were duplicates: This left 688 unique establish- ments. (1994, 540; see also Kalleberg et al. 1996yf Knoke and Kalleberg (1994yf F D X W L R Q W K D W E H F D X V H H V W D E O L V K P H Q W V Z H U H L G H Q W L I L H G W K U R X J h a sample of individuals, this gives establishments of larger size a greater probability of being selected. To correct for this, all analyses were done weighting the NOS establishment sample by number of employees.1 Thus, all inferences are made to the size-weighted sample of establishments and not to a population of equally weighted establishments. l As noted by Kalleberg et al., “If the NOS sample is not weighted, statistics will describe the typical work settings to which employees in the U.S. labor force are exposed: each worker is given an equal weight…. In contrast, if observations in the NOS sample are weighted inversely proportional to the number of employees in an establishment, statistics will represent the population of U.S. establishments, as if each establishment has an equal probability of inclusion” (1996, 46yf 7 K H Z H L J K W L Q J S U R F H G X U H L V U H O D W L Y H O V W U D L J K W I R U Z D U G % H F D X V H R I W K H V D P S O L Q J G H V L J Q Z K L F h resulted in larger establishments being overrepresented in the sample, the observations in the NOS sample were weighted inversely proportional to the number of employees in an establishment. 293 This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 294 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory Dependent Variables This study focused on ways that organizations structured their activities. Hypotheses 1 and 2 were stated in very general terms. The focus was on the interaction of sector (public, for-profit, nonprofityf H [ S R V X U H W R L Q V W L W X W L R Q D O L Q I O X H Q F H V D Q G R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q D l structures. There were clearly many different organizational structures that we could have studied. The NOS collected particularly good data on organizational structures and practices related to human resource management. Of the various functions that we could have focused on, human resource management seems to be the one most generic to all three types of organizations. Because our focus was more on environmental influences and sector effects, we decided to identify three dependent variables and then test to see if the effects of institutional factors varied by sector across these three dependent variables. Because we were particularly interested in bureaucratic controls, we selected three variables that measure the extent of bureaucratization within the work establishment. We looked at whether hiring decisions were made at high or low levels within the organization, the extent to which rules governing hiring were written down or formalized, and the extent to which various functions in the organization were organized as departments. The NOS team measured the degree to which personnel decisions were centralized or decentralized. The SRL asked respondents: “We are interested in who is responsible for making different kinds of decisions in your workplace. I am going to read a list of decision areas and ask you to tell me who actually makes the final decision in each area. Is it the head of (establishmentyf V R P H R Q H E H O R Z W K D W > R U V R P H R Q H D W O D U J H U R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q L f establishment is part of a larger organizationyf @ ” 7 K H G H F H Q W U D O L ] D W L R Q V F D O H Z D V W K H P H D n level at which the eight decisions were made in the establishment (decent [Kalleberg et al. 1996, 77]yf 3 The NOS team also constructed an index measuring the degree to which estab- lishments’ hiring practices were formalized. To create an index of formalization, the SRL asked respondents, “Do each of the following documents exist at (establishment nameyf ? What about… ?”4 The formalization scale was the proportion of the seven documents present in an establishment (formal [Kalleberg et al. 1996, 75]yf . They also computed a measure of departmentalization. They asked respondents, “Is there a separate department or section responsible for (functionyf ” 7 K H G H S D U W P H Q W D O – ization scale was the proportion of the eight departments present in an establishment (depart [Kalleberg et al. 1996, 74]yf ) R U H D F K R I W K H V H L W H P V W K H 1 2 6 W H D P L P S X W H G Y D O X H s where there were missing data. Descriptive statistics are in table 1. 2 The eight issues were performance evaluation, scheduling/overtime, which employees to hire, promotions, use of subcontractors/temporaries, discharges/layoffs, wage/salary levels, and number of employees. Respondents were able to respond: someone at larger organization (1yf H V W D E O L V K P H Q W K H D G D Q G V R P H R Q H D W O D U J H U R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q f, establishment head (3yf H V W D E O L V K P H Q W K H D G D Q G V R P H R Q H E H O R Z f, or someone below establishment head (5yf . 3 The variable names are taken from the NOS 1 data file and codebook. They are included only to inform readers who are familiar with the data file as to the exact variables we used. 4 The items were rules and procedures manual, documents on fringe benefits, written job descriptions, documents on safety and hygiene, written performance records, documents on hiring/firing procedures, and documents on personnel evaluation. 5 The functions were finance, personnel/labor relations, accounting, health and safety, public relations, research and development, long-range planning, and marketing or sales. This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Frumkin and Galaskiewicz Institutional Isomorphism and Public Sector Organizations Table 1 Variable Means, Standard Deviations, Minimum and Maximum Values, and Number of Cases (Weighted by Number of Employees in the Establishment [N = 688]yf Variable Mean SD Minimum Maximum n Control Variables Number of employees in establishment 1.170 0.867 0 10.7 683 Branch of an organization 0.198 0.399 0 1 685 Union pressure scale 1.060 0.230 1 3 683 Products 0.073 0.261 0 1 685 Services 0.853 0.354 0 1 685 Competitive product/service markets 2.310 0.779 0 4 577 Competitive product/service markets dummy for missing cases 0.085 0.280 0 1 685 Sector Variables For-profit 0.893 0.310 0 1 685 Nonprofit 0.037 0.189 0 1 685 Government 0.070 0.256 0 1 685 Institutional Variables Subject to reviews/accreditation/licensing 0.343 0.475 0 1 683 Belongs to association of similar organizations 0.436 0.496 0 1 683 Pays attention to practices of other organizations 0.678 0.468 0 1 682 Organizational Structure Variables Decentralized decision-making scale 2.940 0.650 1 5 661 Proportion of (7yf G R F X P H Q W V I R U P D O L ] H G 5 Proportion of (8yf I X Q F W L R Q V G H S D U W P H Q W D O L ] H G 7 Control Variables Many factors could affect which organizational structures were adopted, and Kalleberg et al. (1996yf D U H Y H U X V H I X O L Q L G H Q W L I L Q J W K H V H I D F W R U V : H U H Y L H Z H G W K H L U I L Q G L Q J V D Q d identified seven variables that were consistently important in explaining variance across these three dependent variables. In all our analyses we controlled for the log of the number of employees (Insize [Kalleberg et al. 1996, 49]yf Z K H W K H U R U Q R W W K H H V W D E O L V K P H Q W Z D V D n independent company (i.e., the parentyf R U D E U D Q F K L H W K H F K L O G Y > . D O O H E H U J H W D O . 1996, 65]yf X Q L R Q S U H V V X U H X Q L R Q S > . D O O H E H U J H W D O @ f, the level of competition in their main market or service area and a dummy for missing values on this variable (v328yf Z K H W K H U R U Q R W W K H H V W D E O L V K P H Q W R Q O S U R G X F H G D S U R G X F W S U R G X F W > . D O O H E H U J H W D O . 1996, 17]yf D Q G Z K H W K H U R U Q R W L W R Q O S U R Y L G H G V H U Y L F H V V H U Y L F H V > . D O O H E H U J H W D O , 48]yf 7 K H V H O D V W W Z R G X P P L H V Z H U H X V H G L Q F R Q W U D V W W R H V W D E O L V K P H Q W V W K D W S U R Y L G H G E R W h products and services. Sector The SRL asked respondents to identify the sector of their establishment. For-profit estab- lishments constituted 65.7 percent of the unweighted sample, public sector establishments 6 Nineteen percent of the cases had missing data for the level of competition in the main market or service area. To address this we used mean substitution (values ranged from 1 = none to 4 = a great dealyf D Q G F U H D W H G D G X P P y variable for those cases that had missing data, which we included in all our analyses. 295 This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 296 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory were 26.9 percent of the total, and nonprofit establishments were only 7.4 percent of the total. Weighting by number of employees, the percentages changed: 89.3 percent of the establishments were for-profit, 7.0 percent were public (pubnonpyf D Q G S H U F H Q W Z H U e nonprofit (privnonpyf 7 K L V L V E H F D X V H R I W K H I D F W W K D W W K H I R U S U R I L W I L U P V W H Q G H G R Q D Y H U D J e to be smaller than public or nonprofit organizations (Kalleberg et al. 1996, 47yf . Institutional Exposure The SRL asked respondents: “Is (establishmentyf V X E M H F W W R D S H U L R G L F U H Y L H Z E D Q R X W V L G e accreditation or licensing organization [iv315]? Does (establishmentyf E H O R Q J W R D n association of organizations like it [iv316]? In evaluating (establishment’syf S H U I R U P D Q F H , to what extent do you pay attention to the practices of other organizations like (establishmentyf > L Y @ ” 7 K H I L U V W W Z R L W H P V Z H U H G L F K R W R P R X V D Q G Z H U H U H F R G H G Q R = 0, yes = 1yf D Q G W K H W K L U G K D G W K U H H U H V S R Q V H V W K D W Z H U H F R G H G Y H U O L W W O H V R P H Z K D W = 0, very much = 1yf 7 K H I L U V W L W H P Z D V R X U P H D V X U H R I F R H U F L Y H S U H V V X U H W K H V H F R Q G Z D V R X r measure of normative pressure, and the third was our measure of mimetic pressures. For cases that had missing data, the NOS team imputed values if the respondent answered the other items (Kalleberg et al. 1996, 61yf ‘ H V F U L S W L Y H V W D W L V W L F V I R U W K H V H Y D U L D E O H V E D V H G R n the weighted sample are in table 1. Our analysis builds on and extends that of Kalleberg et al. (1996yf L Q W Z R L P S R U W D Q t ways. We first break apart their measure of institutionalization and treat coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures separately. This allows us to examine whether different isomorphic pressures shape particular kinds of human resource practices. Beyond adding some clarity to the explanatory model, this decision to disassemble the earlier measure of institutionalization seems justified given the only modest level of internal consistency in the broader measure of institutionalization (Cronbach alpha = 0.56yf 7 K H V H F R Q G Z D R X r research is different from Kalleberg and associates’ is that we are able to test research hypotheses about the interaction effect of sector on the link between isomorphic pressures and human resource practices. Societal sector was included in Kalleberg et al.’s study only as a control, and little theorizing about the effect of sector was attempted. We put sector at the forefront of the analysis. MODELS We now make specific predictions about which sectors should be more vulnerable to institutional effects and the direction that the effects should take. Our dependent variables are the three structural variables, and our model tries to explain differences in their values across organizations. As noted earlier, Kalleberg et al. (1996yf K D Y H P D G H F R Q V L G H U D E O e headway in explaining these differences. Our goal is now to see if exposure to institutional pressures can explain additional variance in these three dependent variables. Our hypothesis is that among for-profits, the three institutional variables should have little effect; among government organizations, the effects should be significantly stronger; and 7 In computing the weighted scores we used the weight variable in the NOS data file (which is the inverse of the number of establishment employeesyf D Q G W K H D Q D O W L F Z H L J K W V R S W L R Q L Q 6 7 $ 7 $ . 8 The fourth institutional variable, how much operations are regulated by government agencies, was not used because all government organizations are subject to such controls. This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Frumkin and Galaskiewicz Institutional Isomorphism and Public Sector Organizations among nonprofits, the effects should be stronger than they are among for-profits but not as strong as they are among government organizations. We also want to examine the direction of the effects, but we do this in an exploratory analysis. As noted earlier, institutional forces might make organizations more like their peers, more similar to the ideal bureaucratic type, or more like a statistical average. For now it remains an empirical question as to how these effects might play out. All analyses included multiplicative interaction terms and took the following general form: Yj = aj + bjXl + bjX2 + bjX3 + bjZI + bjZ2 + bj(XI*ZIyf E M ; , = f + bj(X2*ZIyf + bj(X2*Z2yf E M ; = O f + bj(X3*Z2yf E M L : M L H j XI, X2, andX3 were dummy variables that measured the extent to which organizations were exposed to coercive, normative, and mimetic influences. Zl and Z2 were dummy variables indicating if the organization was government or nonprofit (for-profit organizations was the reference categoryyf : L L Q F O X G H G W K H F R Q W U R O Y D U L D E O H V W D N H Q I U R P W K H . D O O H E H U J H W D O f analyses: the number of employees (loggedyf Z K H W K H U R U Q R W W K H H V W D E O L V K P H Q W Z D V D E U D Q F h of a parent organization, union pressure, the level of competition in markets, a dummy for missing data on this last item, and dummies for product-only and service-only establishments. We centered all our regressors, except for the dummies, so as to make our intercepts more intelligible. Yj indicated three dependent variables including decentralized decision making, formalization, and departmentalization. In all our models we tested for interaction effects. All the analyses used weighted least squares. To test H1 and H2, we will examine the absolute size of the regression coefficients associated with XI, X2, and X3. Thus, we hypothesize: (HIyf E O ) R U S U R I L W O > E O 1 3 2 , O E O * R Y W l (H’yf O E ) R U S U R I L W O @ E 1 3 2 , E L * R Y W l (Hiyf / E ) R U S U R I L W O E 1 3 2 E O L * R Y W l (H2yf O E ) R U S U R I L W O , E O 1 3 2 , , E * R Y W l (H2yf , E ) R U S U R I L W E O 1 3 2 , O E * R Y W l (H2yf O E ) R U S U R I L W O E O 1 3 2 , O E * R Y W O 9 This simply formalizes our hypotheses that the effects of coercive, normative, and mimetic influences (XI, X2, and X3yf Z L O O E H V W U R Q J H V W I R U J R Y H U Q P H Q W V D Q G Z H D N H V W I R U I R U S U R I L t business establishments and that nonprofits will be somewhere in-between. RESULTS We begin our discussion by reviewing the human resource practices of for-profit, nonprofit, and government establishments. In table 2 we present three one-way analyses of variance. We see that for all three of the dependent variables, differences across sectors are statistically significant at the 0.001 level. It is important to notice that in almost every case the mean value for the variable is comparable to the mean value for business establishments. This is not surprising because 89 percent of the weighted sample was 9 Note, bl,for-profit = for-profit businesses; bl,NPO = nonprofit organizations; and bl,Govt = governments. 297 This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 298 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory Table 2 One-Way Analysis of Variance in Human Resource Practices by Sector (N = 688yf Decentralized Formalization of Departmentalization of Decision Making Documents Functions Sector Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD For-profit 2.98 0.607 0.204 0.305 0.022 0.080 Nonprofit 3.07 0.453 0.473 0.257 0.131 0.222 Government 2.60 0.950 0.818 0.272 0.149 0.294 Total 2.94 0.650 0.257 0.342 0.035 0.122 F (p valueyf f 99.3 (0.000yf f for-profit. We also see that government establishments had the most extreme values. They tended to be more centralized, to be more formalized, and to have more departments than the other two types of establishments. These findings are not unexpected because re- searchers often associate greater bureaucracy with government organizations. Turning to table 3, we see that the control variables were exceptionally strong predictors in our models. In the three models, the control variables themselves (log size, branch facility, union pressure, products, services, market competition, and the market competition dummy for missing casesyf D F F R X Q W H G I R U S H U F H Q W S H U F H Q W D Q G 3 percent of the variance in our four models. Thus, the difference in R2 between the models with only the control variables and those with the substantively interesting variables and interactions ranged from 4.9 to 10.4 percent. Two control variables had strong effects in almost every model. Establishments that had more employees were more decentralized, were more formalized, and had more departments. Establishments that were branches of organizations headquartered elsewhere were more centralized, were more formalized, and had fewer departments. Establishments with a strong union presence were more centralized, and establishments that only produced a product or only provided a service (in contrast to establishments that did bothyf Z H U H P R U H F H Q W U D O L ] H G . The purpose of this article is to see if the sector of an organization is important in modifying the effect of the institutional environment on organizational behavior. We expected that, in general, government would be most vulnerable to institutional pressures; business firms, least vulnerable; and nonprofits to fall somewhere in between. We also were interested in the direction that the influence took. When institutional forces had an effect, establishments could either become more like their peers, more like the Weberian bureaucracy typified by the government establishment, or more like the statistical average. The results in table 3 are difficult to interpret, and so we provide table 4 as an aid. Table 4 has the same information as table 3, but we did the arithmetic to compute the values of “bl,For-profit,” “bl,NPO,” “bl,Govt,” “b2,For-profit,” “b2,NPO,” “b2,Govt,” “b3,For-profit,” “b3,NPO,” and “b3,Govt,” and we reran the analyses to derive the proper standard error for each effect. The values in the parentheses are the differences between the regression coefficients for different combinations of organizational sectors, and the asterisks indicate the statistical significance. Our first research question was: are for-profits less vulnerable to institutional effects than nonprofits (H1yf ” : H F R P S D U H G U R Z V D Q G L Q W D E O H ) R U W K L V Z H I L U V W O R R N H G D W H D F h of our three institutional variables separately. First, in two analyses (formalized documents and departmentalizationyf W K H H I I H F W V R I F R H U F L Y H L Q I O X H Q F H V Z H U H V W U R Q J H U I R U Q R Q S U R I L W s than for business establishments at the 0.05 level and at the 0.01 level; for decentralized This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Table 3 Weighted Least Squares Predicting Three Human Resource Practices Decentralized Decision Making Formalized Documents Departmentalized Functions Dependent Variable (1yf f (3yf f (5yf f (7yf f (9yf Model b b b b b b Number of employees (lnyf . Branch -0.887**** -0.878**** -0.911** 0.404**** 0.404**** 0.418**** -0.038*** -0.033*** -0.036*** Union pressures -0.236*** -0.217*** -0.205** -0.006 -0.016 -0.020 0.004 -0.001 -0.005 Products -0.389**** -0.413**** -0.410**** -0.069* -0.058 -0.063 0.001 0.001 0.003 Services -0.194*** -0.212*** -0.195** -0.011 -0.000 -0.007 0.000 -0.000 0.000 Market competition -0.043 -0.040 -0.040 0.020* 0.019* 0.019* 0.010* 0.008 0.009 Market competition dummy for missing cases 0.041 -0.012 0.010 -0.104** -0.097* -0.106** 0.014 0.002 0.016 Government organization (Govtyf 0 Nonprofit organization (NPOyf 4 Subject to reviews/accreditation/ licensing -0.142*** -0.091** -0.109** 0.016 -0.009 -0.001 -0.009 -0.017 -0.015 Govt*Subject to reviews/ accreditation/licensing 0.604**** -0.376**** -0.187**** NPO*Subject to reviews/ accreditation/licensing -0.225 0.219** 0.147*** Association membership 0.117*** 0.063 0.109** 0.001 0.023 0.005 0.033*** 0.017* 0.031 Govt*Association membership 0.503**** -0.242**** 0.119*** NPO*Association membership 0.090 -0.029 0.250**** Pays attention to others 0.143*** 0.127*** 0.167**** 0.060*** 0.067**** 0.058*** 0.009 0.011 0.003 Govt*Pays attention to others -0.694**** 0.249*** 0.095** NPO*Pays attention to others -0.051 0.036 0.193** Constant 3.96**** 4.01** 3.98**** 0.543** 0.512**** 0.515** 0.154**** 0.142**** 0.145** R2 0.473** 0.464**** 0.468**** 0.654** 0.638** 0.636**** 0.267**** 0.267**** 0.229**** n 654 654 654 678 678 678 672 672 672 *p < 0.10; ** < 0.05; *** < 0.01; ****p < 0.001. w to ‘a UJ sDThis content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms ?A Table 4 Summary of Interaction Effects in Table 3 (Change in Value of Dependent Variable Given Exposure to Institutional Environmentyf Decentralized Decision Making Formalized Documents Departmentalized Functions Subject to Subject to Subject to reviews/ Pays reviews/ Pays reviews/ Pays accreditation/ Association attention accreditation/ Association attention accreditation/ Association attention licensing membership to others licensing membership to others licensing membership to others Sector b b b b b b b b b For-profit (ForPyf 3 Nonprofit (NPOyf * (NPO-ForPyf f (0.090yf f (0.219**yf f (0.036yf f (0.250 ***yf f Government (Govtyf * (Govt-ForPyf f (0.503****yf f (-0.376****yf f (0.249***yf f (0.119***yf f (Govt-NPOyf f (0.413*yf f (-0.595****yf f (0.213*yf f (-0.131**yf f < 0.10; ** < 0.05; *p < 0.01; ****p < 0.O1. This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Frumkin and Galaskiewicz Institutional Isomorphism and Public Sector Organizations decision making, the difference was not significant. Second, in only one analysis (departmentalizationyf Z D V W K H U H D V W D W L V W L F D O O V L J Q L I L F D Q W G L I I H U H Q F H L Q W K H H I I H F W R f associational membership on organizational structure (p < 0.001yf 7 K L U G L Q R Q O R Q e analysis (departmentalizationyf Z D V W K H H I I H F W R I P L P H W L F L Q I O X H Q F H V V W U R Q J H U I R U Q R Q S U R I L W s than for business establishments (p < 0.001yf 7 K X V Z H I R X Q G V W D W L V W L F D O O V L J Q L I L F D Q t differences between nonprofits and for-profits in only four of the nine tests, therefore finding little support for the first half of H1. Our second research question was: are government establishments more vulnerable to institutional effects than for-profits (H1, H2yf ” : H F R P S D U H G U R Z V D Q G L Q W D E O H 7 K e results are simpler to summarize. For all three dependent variables, the effects of coercive, normative, and mimetic influences were stronger for government establishments than for business establishments. Governmental agencies were more vulnerable to institutional influences than business establishments, thus amply supporting the second half of H1 and the first half of H2. Our third research question was: are government establishments more vulnerable to institutional effects than nonprofits (H2yf ” : H F R P S D U H G U R Z V D Q G L Q W D E O H $ J D L Q Z e looked at each of our three institutional variables separately. The situation is not easy to summarize. First, we see that the effects of being subject to reviews/accreditation/licensing were in a different direction for nonprofits and governments. Thus, the effects in some absolute sense were not that different (the absolute values of the effects were similaryf E X t the effects were not similar in nature. Second, the pattern for the association membership variable was mixed. For all three, the signs were in the same direction, but the institutional effects in two out of the three analyses were not significantly different at the 0.05 level, and in the third (departmentalizationyf W K H H I I H F W Z D V V W U R Q J H U I R U Q R Q S U R I L W V W K D Q I R r government establishments. Third, we see a complicated pattern when looking at the mimicry effect as well. Only in one case was the effect significantly different at the 0.05 level and in the hypothesized direction (decentralizationyf L Q W K H R W K H U W Z R F D V H V W K H H I I H F W s were significantly different only at the 0.10 level. Either the effects of institutional variables among nonprofits were different than those among governmental agencies, but not in the hypothesized direction, or we found no significant differences between the two. Thus, the second half of H2 received little support. Further Issues Institutional forces have long been thought to lead to conformity. But “conformity to what”? Because institutional theory has been vague about the precise nature of iso- morphism, we took the opportunity to scrutinize this central question. The issue is whether institutional effects resulted in organizations looking like organizations similar to them- selves, to some ideal type (e.g., a Weberian bureaucracyyf R U W R D Q D Y H U D J H W K D W F X W V D F U R V s all types of establishments. Drawing on our analysis, we focus on the different ways institutional effects impacted for-profits, nonprofits, and government organizations. We can address these questions by again looking at table 4. Looking first at coercion, we see that being subject to reviews/accreditation/licensing seemed to make for-profits and nonprofits more bureaucratic, that is, more like government organizations. For-profits and nonprofits that were subject to these effects were more centralized at the 0.01 and 0.10 levels, respectively. Nonprofits that were subject to coercive influences also were more formalized and had more departments. In contrast, government organizations, which 301 This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 302 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory were subject to coercive influences, were more decentralized, less formalized, and less departmentalized than those that were not subject to such pressures. That is, they looked more like for-profit and nonprofit organizations. Thus, it appears that the coercive influences studied here did not make organizations more like their peers; nor did they lead them to become more bureaucratized. Rather, coercion made them look more the same, converging on a middle ground. Looking at normative pressures, we again see some convergence toward a middle ground, but the effect is not as dramatic. For-profits and nonprofits that were members of associations of similar organizations had more departments to handle their human service needs. The effects were significant at the 0.10 and 0.05 levels, respectively. However, neither nonprofits nor for-profits that belonged to associations tended to be more centralized or more formalized. In contrast, being exposed to normative institutional influences resulted in government agencies being more decentralized and less formalized. However, for some reason, these organizations also had more departments, which is a more bureaucratic pattern. Finally, we looked at mimetic effects. Here we found something different. Nonprofits that paid attention to other nonprofits were more departmentalized, a pattern converging on the bureaucratic model. For-profits that paid attention to others like themselves were more formalized, but they were also more decentralized. Finally, government establishments that paid attention to organizations similar to themselves-which we presume were other government establishments-were more centralized, more formalized, and more de- partmentalized. Mimesis resulted in government agencies becoming more like the prototypical bureaucratic governmental organization. Thus, in five of the six significant effects, paying close attention to similar organizations led to greater bureaucratic controls. CONCLUSION The results presented here have implications for both theory and practice. The significance of our findings for organization and public administration theory is threefold. First, as predicted, institutional pressures do not affect all organizations the same. Hypothesis 1 argued that institutional pressure would be weaker for for-profits than for nonprofits and government establishments because the former have owners who monitor performance and assert claims over residual earnings whereas the latter do not. In contrast, the latter would be vulnerable to institutional or legitimizing influences because of their lack of accountability for performance indicators such as sales and profits. This is the reason cited by many in the public administration literature for why government establishments tended more to bureaucratic structures. However, if exposed to institutional forces, these organizations seemed to adapt and change, seeking legitimacy by conforming to insti- tutional pressures. We found that governmental organizations were much more vulnerable to institutional forces than for-profits. However, the differences between nonprofits and for-profits were not as great. Hypothesis 2 argued that for-profits, nonprofits, and government establishments have different levels of external control over inputs. Nonprofits, like for-profits, have funders that are in a position to cut off funding either by denying grants or disinvesting. Government agencies are administered by managers who have considerably more protection from input providers or taxpayers, but with this separation come accountability problems. Contrary to what we expected, we did not find a clear pattern of differences This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Frumkin and Galaskiewicz Institutional Isomorphism and Public Sector Organizations between nonprofits and government establishments. Either the differences were only marginally different (i.e., several effects were significant at the 0.10 levelyf W K H L Q V W L W X W L R Q D l effect for nonprofits was stronger, or the effects were in the opposite direction. These two sets of findings highlight that government and for-profits are quite different in their vulnerability to institutional pressures but that the differences between nonprofits and the other two sectors are not that clear-cut. Second, our results suggest that institutional theorists rethink what they mean by “conformity” and the “norm.” In DiMaggio and Powell’s ([1983] 1991yf F O D V V L F D U W L F O H W K e “norm” was the bureaucratic organization of Max Weber, which epitomized the rationality agenda. Yet even in their discussion it soon becomes apparent that the bureaucratic form is not the only form that could spread, via institutional processes, across actors in an organizational field. Any number of experiments, innovations, technologies, and man- agement styles could be driven by exposure to institutional influences (see, e.g., Davis and Greve 1997; Galaskiewicz and Wasserman 1989; Haunschild and Beckman 1998; Haunschild and Miner 1997yf . In our analysis, it appears that there was no clear norm and that different institutional pressures were having different effects. Institutional forces-particularly coercive and, to a lesser degree, normative forces-seemed to be working to break down the differences among for-profit, nonprofit, and governmental agencies, resulting in the adoption of hybrid structural patterns of control. Exposure to these types of institutional influences homog- enized organizational structures across the entire organizational population. In contrast, paying attention to others like oneself (mimetic influencesyf V H H P H G W R P D N H R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q s look more like the classic bureaucratic model-more centralized and more formalized. These findings were illustrated nicely in the case of government establishments. Looking at the simple descriptive statistics in table 2, we learned that government agencies were more bureaucratized than for-profits and nonprofits. Decision-making structures were more centralized, rules were formalized, and there were more functional departments. Yet our analysis discovered that exposure to coercive as well as normative influences made government organizations less like traditional bureaucracies and more like for-profits and nonprofits. In contrast, exposure to mimetic pressures made government establishments more like traditional bureaucracies. One way to understand these finding is that when public managers are subject to external oversight or when they are embedded in professional networks, they are liberated to some extent from the internal pressures they face on a daily basis to bureaucratize. Our results suggest that public sector managers respond to external oversight and professional norms by finding ways to capitalize on the presence of these external pressures to move their organizations away from hierarchy and formalization and toward the mean of all organizations regardless of sector. We therefore believe that one possible interpretation of these results is that the presence of external influences on public sector organizations may rival internal controls within the agencies and open the door for more liberating structural transformations. This is an interesting contrast to the prediction that bureaucratic theory would usually make. Finally, we believe that these results have practical implications. The vulnerability of public sector organizations to institutional pressures is significant for two reasons. The first relates to government’s role as the principal funder of the nonprofit human services. With increasing amounts of nonprofit agency finance flowing from public sector agencies of all kinds, the vulnerability of government agencies to institutional pressure may have clear 303 This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:30:58 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 304 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory spillover effects on nonprofits that could shape the scope and character of contracting relations. One effect might well be a narrowing of the range of programmatic innovations that government agencies are willing to consider under conditions of uncertainty. This could in the long run have serious implications for the diversity of nonprofit initiatives and might well put a damper on the drive for innovation that nonprofits often bring to their work. The second reason that our findings are significant is connected to government’s traditional role as a regulator of business through a myriad of laws and statutes in areas as diverse as antitrust, environmental protection, and consumer rights. Because government takes an active role in regulating business activity, the vulnerability of government agencies to institutional pressures is significant in that it may well impose externalities on business firms, especially if regulations rest more on institutional considerations than on rational requirements for increased oversight. However, to the extent that institutional pressures lead toward broad convergence toward a universal model, some of these issues may be minimized. In thinking about the effect of institutional pressures, it is useful to recall that many of the recent efforts to “reinvent government” have aimed to make government organizations more responsive to client groups. 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INSIDE THE HYBRID ORGANIZATION: SELECTIVE COUPLING AS A RESPONSE TO COMPETING INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS Author(s): ANNE-CLAIRE PACHE and FELIPE SANTOS Source: The Academy of Management Journal , August 2013 , Vol. 56, No. 4 (August 2013), pp. 972-1001 Published by: Academy of Management Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43589202 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected] Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Academy of Management is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Academy of Management Journal This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms © Academy of Management Journal 2013, Vol. 56, No. 4, 972-1001. http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amj.2011.0405 INSIDE THE HYBRID ORGANIZATION: SELECTIVE COUPLING AS A RESPONSE TO COMPETING INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS ANNE-CLAIRE PACHE ESSEC Business School FILIPE SANTOS INSEAD This article explores how hybrid organizations, which incorporate competing institu- tional logics, internally manage the logics that they embody. Relying on an inductive comparative case study of four work integration social enterprises embedded in competing social welfare and commercial logics, we show that, instead of adopting strategies of decoupling or compromising, as the literature typically suggests, these organizations selectively coupled intact elements prescribed by each logic. This strat- egy allowed them to project legitimacy to external stakeholders without having to engage in costly deceptions or negotiations. We further identify a specific hybridiza- tion pattern that we refer to as “Trojan horse,” whereby organizations that entered the work integration field with low legitimacy because of their embeddedness in the commercial logic strategically incorporated elements from the social welfare logic in an attempt to gain legitimacy and acceptance. Surprisingly, they did so more than comparable organizations originating from the social welfare logic. These findings suggest that, when lacking legitimacy in a given field, hybrids may manipulate the templates provided by the multiple logics in which they are embedded in an attempt to gain acceptance. Overall, our findings contribute to a better understanding of how organizations can survive and thrive when embedded in pluralistic institutional environments. The biggest problem with hybrid companies is that they are inherently confused organizations, buffeted by all sorts of contradictory pressures. This means that their internal operations can be hard to under- stand and their behavior may be hard to predict. -Economist, 2009 Hybrid organizations are gaining prevalence in modern societies (Kraatz & Block, 2008; Econo- mist , 2009yf ‘ H I L Q H G D V R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q V W K D W L Q F R U S R – We are especially indebted to Associate Editor Tima Bansal for her guidance throughout the reviewing pro- cess, as well as to three anonymous reviewers for their very valuable comments on our manuscript. We also wish to acknowledge the insightful feedback and sugges- tions received on earlier versions of this work from Phil Anderson, Thomas D’Aunno, Giuseppe Delmestri, Kathy Eisenhardt, Morten Hansen, and the discussants of the 2010 EGOS conference subtheme “Microfoundations of Institutions.” Finally, we are deeply grateful to our infor- mants and interviewees for sharing their time and expe- rience. This article was improved while the second au- thor was on sabbatical during 2011 at the Nova School of Business and Economics in Lisbon. rate elements from different institutional logics (Battilana & Dorado, 2010yf K E U L G V D U H E Q D W X U e arenas of contradiction. Social enterprises, for in- stance, whose goal is to achieve a social mission through commercial activities, are caught between the competing demands of the market logic and the social welfare logic that they combine: should they incorporate as for-profit or as not-for-profit enti- ties? Should they distribute profit to their owners or reinvest it in their social mission? Should they mobilize paid professionals prioritizing efficiency concerns or volunteers favoring a deep commit- ment to the mission? Just as social enterprises need to address these dilemmas to operate, all hybrids need to find ways to deal with the multiple de- mands to which they are exposed. The purpose of this article is to explore how they may do so. Hybrids are not limited to organizations blending market and social logics. They can take different forms, including public-private partnerships incor- porating elements from state, market, and civil so- ciety logics (Jay, 2013yf E L R W H F K Q R O R J F R P S D Q L H s incorporating science and market logics (Powell & Copyright of the Academy of Management, all rights reserved. Contents may not be copied, emailed, posted to a listserv, or otherwise transmitted without the copyright holder’s express written permission. Users may print, download, or email articles for individual use only. This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 2013 Pache and Santos 973 Sandholtz, 2012yf D Q G P H G L F D O V F K R R O V L Q F R U S R U D W – ing health care and academic logics (Dunn & Jones, 2010yf 7 K L V J U R Z L Q J S H U Y D V L Y H Q H V V R I K E U L G V F D n be explained by the increasing prevalence of plu- ralistic institutional environments (Greenwood, Raynard, Kodeih, Micelotta, & Lounsbury, 2011; Pache & Santos, 2010; Seo & Creed, 2002yf , Q W K H V e complex environments, organizations are exposed over lengthy periods of time to multiple institu- tional logics that prescribe what constitutes legiti- mate behavior and provide taken-for-granted con- ceptions of what goals are appropriate and what means are legitimate to achieve these goals (Lounsbury, 2007b; Thornton & Ocasio, 2008yf + – brid organizations are likely to emerge and do well in these complex environments because they incor- porate elements prescribed by various logics and are therefore likely to project at least partial appro- priateness to a wider set of institutional referents (Greenwood et al., 2011; Kraatz & Block, 2008yf . The existence and functioning of hybrid organi- zations poses interesting conceptual questions for institutional theory because hybrids challenge the conceptualization of organizations as entities re- producing a single coherent institutional template in order to gain legitimacy and secure support from external institutional referents (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983yf $ F H Q W U D O I H D W X U H R I K E U L G V L V W K D W W K H L Q V W L – tutional logics that they embody are not always compatible (Greenwood et al., 2011yf $ V W K H G H J U H e of incompatibility between logics increases, hybrid organizations face heightened challenges (Besharov & Smith, 2012yf 7 K H P D K D Y H W R L Q F R U S R U D W H D Q – tagonistic practices that may not easily work to- gether (Tracey, Phillips, & Jarvis, 2011yf , Q D G G L – tion, because adopting elements prescribed by a given logic often requires defying demands of the other logics, hybrid organizations may potentially jeopardize their legitimacy vis-à-vis important in- stitutional referents (D’Aunno, Sutton, & Price, 1991yf ) L Q D O O K E U L G V L Q F R U S R U D W L Q J L Q F R P S D W L E O e logics often see coalitions representing these logics emerge inside themselves (Pache & Santos, 2010yf . These coalitions are likely to fight against each other to make the template they favor prevail, thus bringing the institutional conflict inside (Glynn, 2000; Zilber, 2002yf 7 K H V H F K D O O H Q J H V D U H S D U W L F X – larly acute for hybrid organizations that are ex- posed to long-term institutional pluralism, which requires them to incorporate competing logics over the long run, rather than in a temporary fashion. Research suggests that hybrid organizations try to address these challenges either by keeping logics separate or by attempting to reconcile them inter- nally (Besharov & Smith, 2012; Greenwood et al., 2011; Murray, 2010; Simsek, 2009yf 7 K L V O L W H U D W X U e provides a useful framework for starting, to explore the functioning of hybrids organizations. Yet, by providing mainly an organization-level perspec- tive, it reveals little about how the incorporation of logics is actually achieved inside organizations (Greenwood et al., 2011; McPherson & Sauder, 2013yf 6 S H F L I L F D O O Z K D W L V P L V V L Q J L V D F O H D U H r picture of which elements of the logics organiza- tional actors enact as they try to navigate competing demands as well as what factors drive these behav- iors. This gap is important to address in order to account for the microfoundations of hybrid organ- izational forms (Powell & Colyvas, 2008yf . We address this gap by exploring how hybrid organizations internally incorporate elements of the competing logics that they embody. To do so, we use a comparative case study of four French work integration social enterprises (WISEsyf 7 K H V e organizations aim at reintegrating long unem- ployed people into the workforce by hiring them to produce goods and services that are sold on the market. By virtue of their reliance on market-based principles to serve a social mission, these organi- zations are hybrids that incorporate competing so- cial welfare and commercial logics. In the context of this study, we explore how these four organiza- tions incorporated these two logics as they scaled their operations nationally. Our study makes two important contributions. First, it highlights that hybrid organizations com- bine competing logics in a systemic fashion by selectively coupling, at the organizational level, in- tact elements drawn from each logic. Selective cou- pling allows hybrids to manage the incompatibility between logics and thus reduce the risks and costs of alternative practice-level strategies, such as de- coupling or compromising. Second, our findings suggest that the origins of a hybrid organization determine how it implements selective coupling. Through a pattern that we name “Trojan horse,” organizations that entered the field with low legit- imacy due to their embeddedness in a contested logic strategically incorporated a majority of ele- ments from the predominant logic to gain legiti- macy and acceptance. As a consequence, WISEs with a commercial origin drew more from the so- cial welfare logic than WISEs with a social origin, which contradicts predictions from the imprinting literature (Stinchcombe, 1965yf 7 K H V H I L Q G L Q J V V X J – gest that, when lacking legitimacy in a given field, This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 974 Academy of Management Journal August hybrids may manipulate the templates provided by the multiple logics in which they are embedded in an attempt to gain acceptance. Overall, our work contributes to an emergent theory of hybrid organ- izations. We clarify how hybrid organizations op- erate and explain when and how they are capable of taking advantage of the wide repertoire of orga- nizing elements available to them in pluralistic environments. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND What is known about the way hybrid organiza- tions incorporate competing institutional logics? To deepen our understanding of hybridization strategies and assess the degree to which they may entail the separation or the reconciliation of com- peting logics, we reviewed research on organiza- tional responses to competing institutional logics. While early institutional research pointed to de- coupling (Meyer & Rowan, 1977yf D Q G F R P S U R P L V – ing (Oliver, 1991yf P R U H U H F H Q W Z R U N K L Q W V D W V W U D W – egies involving logics combination (Greenwood et al., 2011; Lounsbury & Crumley, 2007; Tracey et al., 2011yf : H U H Y L H Z W K H V H V W U D W H J L H V L Q P R U H G H W D L l below, by exploring their microfoundations and probing their applicability to the specific context of hybrid organizations. Decoupling Decoupling studies have a long tradition in insti- tutional theory (Boxenbaum & Jonsson, 2008; Brom- ley & Powell, 2012; Crilly, Zollo, & Hansen, 2012; Fiss & Zajac, 2006; Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Westphal & Zajac, 1994, 1998, 2001yf 7 K H V H V W X G L H V S U H G L F t that, under conditions of competing institutional logics, organizations symbolically endorse prac- tices prescribed by one logic while actually imple- menting practices promoted by another logic, often one that is more aligned with organizational goals. Decoupling has traditionally referred to the process through which organizations separate their norma- tive or prescriptive structures from their opera- tional structures (Bromley & Powell, 2012; Meyer & Rowan, 1977yf , Q R W K H U W H U P V L W U H I H U V W R L Q V W D Q F H s in which “organizations conform closely to the meanings and categories ritually defined by the environment, but do not attempt seriously to im- plement them at the operational level” (Scott, 2003: 279yf 2 U J D Q L ] D W L R Q V W K X V F U H D W H D Q G P D L Q W D L Q J D S s between symbolically adopted policies and actual organizational behavior (Tilcsik, 2010yf . Decoupling is particularly adapted to situations in which a policy prescribed by external institu- tional referents conflicts with an institutionalized practice promoted internally by an organization’s members (Boxenbaum & Jonsson, 2008; Greenwood & Hinings, 1996; Tilcsik, 2010yf , Q W K D W F D V H R U J D Q – izations symbolically adopt the externally pro- moted policy while actually implementing the practice that is coherent with their internal institu- tional influences. Such a strategy increases an or- ganization’s chance of survival, as it prevents con- flicts from escalating between internal and external institutional referents. It thus becomes a safeguard- ing mechanism to minimize legitimacy threats (Boxenbaum & Jonsson, 2008; Brunsson, 2002yf 2 U – ganizations have been shown to decouple during transition periods when facing conflicting prescrip- tions regarding a wide variety of policies, including quality management (Kostova & Roth, 2002; West- phal, Gulati, & Shortell, 1997yf D X G L W U H S R U W L Q g (Basu, Dirsmith, & Gupta, 1999yf & ( 2 F R P S H Q V D – tion (Westphal & Zajac, 1994, 1998; Zajac & West- phal, 1995yf V W R F N U H S X U F K D V L Q J : H V W S K D O = D M D F , 2001yf D Q G I X Q G D O O R F D W L R Q E H W Z H H Q V X E V L G L D U L H s (Tilcsik, 2010yf . Importantly, a major assumption of decoupling studies is that all organization members adhere to the same logic and are willing to protect it. A re- lated assumption is that organizations are able to avoid the scrutiny of external referents, who are not aware of the misalignment between organizational policies and practices. These assumptions are likely to be challenged in contexts where institu- tional logics compete over long periods of time. In such environments, organizational coalitions rep- resenting the competing logics are likely to emerge (Pache & Santos, 2010yf W K X V P D N L Q J L W K D U G W R E X L O d a consensus regarding which institutionalized practices should be protected. In addition, organi- zations may find it difficult to avoid the scrutiny of institutional referents over a long period of time. This suggests that decoupling may be hard to sus- tain in contexts where institutional logics conflict over extended periods of time. Compromising Research has also pointed to compromise as a viable strategy for organizations facing competing logics (Kraatz & Block, 2008; Oliver, 1991yf D Q d attempting to reconcile the associated competing demands. A less documented strategy than decou- pling, compromise involves the attempt by organi- This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 2013 Pache and Santos 975 zations to enact institutional prescriptions in a slightly altered form, crafting an acceptable balance between the conflicting expectations of external constituents (Oliver, 1991yf 7 K L V P D K D S S H n through conforming to the minimum standards of what is expected, through crafting a new behavior that brings together elements of the conflicting de- mands, or through bargaining with institutional ref- erents so that they alter their demands. Compro- mising strategies may allow hybrid organizations to partially attend to the conflicting demands exerted by institutional referents, thus avoiding the risk of losing the endorsement of actors whose prescrip- tions would be otherwise ignored. For example, Scott (1983yf V K R Z H G W K D W K H D O W h care organizations exposed to contradictions be- tween the medical care logic and the economic efficiency logic imposed by government authorities conformed to the minimum standards of both med- ical care and fiscal controls to secure both profes- sional and political support. Other compelling ex- amples of compromise strategies can be found in the context of microfinance. Caught between the banking logic demand to set interest rates at a level that maximizes profit and the development logic demand to reduce interest rates to relieve financial pressure on poor clients, microfinance organiza- tions often choose to compromise between the two demands by setting interest rates at an intermediate level, lower than what market constituents might expect, but higher than what development stake- holders may demand. This pricing strategy demon- strates good faith to both constituents by displaying partial compliance to their demands (Meyer & Rowan, 1977yf 7 K R V H R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q V W K D W G H F L G H d not to do so, for example by enacting mainly a banking logic, not only lost the endorsement of respected individuals in the development field but also had their legitimacy seriously questioned (Car- rick-Cagna & Santos, 2009yf . An important limitation of compromise as a strat- egy for hybrids is that it may not allow organiza- tions to fully secure support from important insti- tutional referents, particularly over the long term. The compromise struck between competing expec- tations may ultimately not satisfy the referents’ en- during expectations. It may also lead to internal dissent from groups demanding strict adherence to their espoused logic. Further, compromise may not always be an available strategy for organizations embedded in competing institutional logics, as it may be difficult to reach when the logics promote competing goals (Pache & Santos, 2010yf R U Z K H n the practices promoted by the logics are fully in- compatible or difficult to modify. Combining Competing Logics Focusing more specifically on responses to com- peting logics, a recent stream of research recognizes that the availability of multiple institutional mod- els of action creates opportunities for hybrid organ- izations to draw from the broader repertoire of be- haviors prescribed by competing logics (Battilana & Dorado, 2010; Binder, 2007; Greenwood, Diaz, Li, & Lorente, 2010; Greenwood et al., 2011; Lounsbury, 2007a; Reay & Hinings, 2009yf 7 K H V H V W X G L H V V X J – gest that hybrid organizations may reconcile com- peting logics by enacting a combination of activi- ties drawn from each logic in an attempt to secure endorsement from a wide range of field-level actors (Greenwood et al., 2011yf 7 U D F H H W D O f, for example, showed how two social entrepreneurs created Aspire, a hybrid organization that com- bined the logics of charity and commercial retail, to more effectively address the societal problem of homelessness. Battilana and Dorado’s (2010yf V W X G y on commercial microfinance organizations in Bo- livia highlight how these organizations combined development and banking logics to fight poverty. Yet these examples also illustrate the internal challenges associated with the combination of com- peting logics. Despite its early success, Aspire (Tracey et al., 2011yf F R O O D S V H G D I H Z H D U V D I W H U L t scaled its operations nationally. Accounts of this failure suggest that the entrepreneurs did not man- age to simultaneously satisfy the competing de- mands from important external constituents, such as clients and homeless beneficiaries. The chosen combination of charitable and commercial logics did not allow the organization to secure the re- quired external support to survive. Likewise, Batti- lana and Dorado (2010yf K L J K O L J K W H G W K D W R Q H R I W K e two microfinance organizations that they studied was unable to grow because of internal rifts created by an adherence to competing norms and values. Interestingly, their study also reveals that the other organization was able to downplay these rifts by hiring personnel free from attachments to either logic, by fostering members’ commitment to oper- ational excellence, and by developing a strong identity that reduced the perceived competition between logics. Overall, these studies emphasize the challenges associated with logic combination, but also identify some of the factors that may allow hybrid organi- This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 976 Academy of Management Journal August zations to address the continued and competing pressures from institutional referents. However, they reveal little about the way in which the com- bination of logics is actually achieved at the intraor- ganizational level (Greenwood et al., 2011yf 8 Q G H U – standing this process in detail is important for unpacking the internal functioning of hybrids and for understanding how they may survive and thrive in the midst of pluralistic environments. Unpacking the Internal Functioning of Hybrids Overall, the existing body of research on organi- zational responses to competing institutional logics leaves unanswered questions when it comes to ex- plaining the functioning of hybrids (McPherson & Sauder, 2013yf , Q S D U W L F X O D U L W T X H V W L R Q V W K H X V H – fulness of decoupling and compromising as viable hybridization strategies. It further fails to explain how logic combination can be achieved at the intraor- ganizational level. To understand more clearly how hybrid organizations deal with persistently com- peting logics, it is important to understand which elements of the logics they enact, because these are the key linkages between institutional logics and intraorganizational processes (Smets, Morris, & Greenwood, 2012; Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012byf 2 X U S X U S R V H L Q W K L V V W X G Z D V W R H [ S O R U e these issues empirically by addressing the follow- ing research question: Research Question 1. How do hybrid organiza- tions that incorporate competing institutional logics deal with these logics at the intraorganizational level? This question is followed by another related to the determinants of the hybridization patterns de- ployed by organizations. Previous research in insti- tutional theory has emphasized the important role played by various organizational factors in shaping organizational responses to institutional processes. The structural position of an organization – whether it is at the center or periphery of a field – has been shown to influence the way it is impacted by competing institutional logics and, in turn, how likely it is to manage the associated conflicting demands (Greenwood et al., 2011; Leblebici, Salan- cik, Copay, & King, 1991yf 7 K H S U R I L O H R I R U J D Q L ] D – tion members and the degree to which they repre- sent the competing logics in which their organization is embedded has been further shown to potentially impact the way the organization col- lectively experiences, interprets, and deals with competing logics (Almandoz, 2012; Powell & Sand- holtz, 2012; Souitaris, Zerbinati, & Liu, 2012yf 7 K e presence of internal coalitions promoting a given logic, or more broadly, the internal balance of power between internal coalitions, has also been shown to shape how organizations have incorpo- rated competing logics (Glynn, 2000yf < H W E H F D X V e these factors have been identified in contexts of transitory competition between logics, it is unclear whether and how they matter in the context of hybrid organizations embedded in enduring com- peting logics. We therefore asked a second research question: Research Question 2. What determines the strategies through which hybrid organizations incorporate competing institutional logics? METHODS To explore these research questions, we devel- oped an inductive multiple case study in the set- ting of work integration social enterprises (WISEsyf in France. The first author, who was professionally involved with the social sector in France for five years before the beginning of her academic career, had experienced extensive prior interac- tions in this field and expected WISEs to be persis- tently embedded in competing social welfare and commercial logics. This setting was thus perceived as pertinent to our research questions. In the next section, we briefly present the field of WISEs and its history and explain how data were collected and analyzed. Research Setting: The Field of Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEsyf L Q ) U D Q F e WISEs are private organizations that aim to pro- vide long-unemployed people with job opportuni- ties by training or retraining them in the practices and behaviors of working as an employee. WISEs achieve their goal by hiring, for a set period of two years, jobless people to produce products and services (in sectors such as construction, catering, gardening, recycling, or temp workyf W K D W W K H W K H n sell to the market. With close mentoring and adapted training programs, as well as individual social counseling, WISEs help these people read- just to the world of work and regain individual pride and confidence. WISEs receive the authorization to operate from a commission chaired by a local representative of the This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 2013 Pache and Santos 977 French state. The commission is composed of local stakeholders (regional and local elected officials, trade and employer unionists, and work integration expertsyf 7 K L V D F F U H G L W D W L R Q H Q W L W O H V : , 6 ( V W R U H – ceive state subsidies intended to compensate for the lower productivity of the people that they em- ploy, under the condition that they demonstrate a clear focus on their social mission. This focus is monitored through the obligation that they hire their beneficiaries from a pool of long-unemployed people listed by the Pole Emploi (National Agency for Employmentyf D V G H V H U Y L Q J Z R U N L Q W H J U D W L R Q ” The idea behind this requirement is to ensure that WISEs do not receive public subsidies for hiring individuals who are already normally productive. Subsidies amount, on average, to 20 percent of the WISEs’ revenues. The remaining 80 percent comes from sales. In 2007, 1,098a WISEs operated across France, employing 25,000 formerly jobless persons and generating close to one billion euros in yearly revenues. WISEs developed in the late 1970s under the leadership of a few social workers who saw them as a way to address the needs of long-unemployed people who could not be helped through tradi- tional administrative, health, or housing counsel- ing sessions. These WISEs were progressively rec- ognized by various laws (in 1979, 1985, 1991, 1998, and 2006yf J U D Q W L Q J W K H P W K H U L J K W D Q G G X W W R R S – erate as economic entities, as well as entitlement to public financial support, under the condition that they would focus primarily on their social mission. The field became structured around the creation of a national WISE federation in 1988. With the eco- nomic crisis of the 1990s, WISEs consolidated their positions as economic actors providing an impor- tant social service. The state nevertheless kept an important role as gatekeeper in the field, granting new WISEs the right to operate and access subsi- dies through a formal accreditation process, closely monitoring WISEs’ social performance through the rate of “positive graduation,”2 and expelling from the field WISEs shown by annual audits to have deviated from their social mission. The brief history of the field that we present in the Appendix shows that, despite changes in the 1 Source: Ministry of Work 2007 data (http://travail- emploi.gouv.fr/etudes-recherches-statistiques-de.76/yf . Assessed by the percentage of beneficiaries complet- ing their terms in a given year who found regular jobs (with contracts lasting longer than six monthsyf . relative strengths of social and commercial influ- ences over time, WISEs are persistently and intrin- sically embedded in two distinct institutional spheres. On the one hand, they need to display appropriateness toward a web of referents embed- ded in a belief system that we qualify here as the social welfare logic . They interact with public so- cial services (state representatives, local employ- ment agencies, cities, and regional governmentsyf W o receive the right to operate, recruit beneficiaries, and mobilize additional financial resources to fund their social mission. They rely on local nonprofit partners to provide their employees with health, housing, and administrative support. They also de- pend upon a web of individuals (local leaders, vol- unteers, and board membersyf Z K R J L Y H W L P H D G Y L F H , and sometimes donations, because of their adhesion to the social mission of these organizations. On the other hand, given their reliance on sales for 80 percent of their revenues on average, WISEs need to display appropriateness with clients, as well as industrial partners, who are embedded in a commercial logic . Importantly, these clients and partners, although sometimes sympathetic with the WISEs* mission, first turn to WISEs for their ability to provide quality goods and services (Hugues & Gasse, 2004yf 7 K H H Q G R U V H P H Q W R I F O L H Q W V Z K R F D n easily choose other service providers if dissatisfied with their experience, is important to secure finan- cial sustainability. Industrial and commercial part- ners that provide WISEs with key resources (such as access to valuable raw materials, production or distribution facilities, or commercial networksyf D U e also essential constituencies to satisfy. Despite the important role played by the state in controlling field access, the WISE field remains fragmented and only moderately centralized (Pache & Santos, 2010yf E H F D X V H D Z L G H U D Q J H R I F R Q V W L W X – ents adhering to competing social welfare and com- mercial logics impose conflicting demands on the organizations. WISEs’ long-term dependence on these two webs of support for access to important resources makes these demands particularly salient and hard to defy. This in turn makes this field a rich setting for exploring organizational responses to persistently competing logics. Research Design and Sampling The study used a comparative case study design (Eisenhardt, 1989yf D O O R Z L Q J I R U D U H S O L F D W L R Q O R J L c (Yin, 2003yf L Q Z K L F K F D V H V D U H W U H D W H G D V D V H U L H V R f independent experiments that confirm emerging This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 978 Academy of Management Journal August theoretical insights. It was part of a broader re- search project for which data were collected on eight WISEs. For this study, we decided to focus on the four WISEs that had reached national scale. The scaling-up process, through which an organization expands its activities from an initial site to addi- tional distant sites, requires making strategic deci- sions at a time when securing social and material support is critical. In particular, organizations need to make decisions related to design, control, and coordination of new sites that are shaped by insti- tutional logics. While making these decisions, or- ganizations need to secure critical support from institutional referents in the form of social support (acceptance of settling in a new territory, endorse- ments, partnerships, etc.yf D V Z H O O D V P D W H U L D O V X S – port (sales, subsidies, space, etc.yf % I R U F L Q J R U J D Q – izations to make strategic decisions at a time when they cannot afford to alienate institutional refer- ents, scaling-up intensifies the experience of com- peting institutional logics as well as the risks in- curred when defying them. It therefore provides an ideal context for an exploration of organizational responses to competing logics. In terms of sampling strategy, we selected four WISEs from two separate industries to generate a richer and more generalizable theory. Organiza- tions were further selected on the basis of their origin (founded by a social organization vs. founded by a commercial organizationyf W R H [ S O R U e the degree to which institutional influences at founding shape organizational behavior. The four cases thus constituted two matched pairs. One pair operated in the recycling industry (SOCYCLE and BUSITECHyf D Q G W K H R W K H U R S H U D W H G L Q W K H W H P p work industry (TEMPORG and WORK&COyf , n each pair, one organization (SOCYCLE and TEMPORG respectivelyyf K D G E H H Q I R X Q G H G E a prominent social sector organization, and the other (BUSITECH and WORK&CO respectivelyyf H P D – nated from a large multinational corporation. The sampling strategy thus involves (1yf F R Q W U D V W Z L W K L n matched pairs that vary on a dimension of theoret- ical interest (founding originsyf D Q G f replication across pairs from different industries to improve the generalizability of the inducted theory. Table 1 describes the four cases, highlighting their domains of activity, scale of operations, and revenues. Data Collection We conducted three distinct data collection phases. During an exploratory stage (2005yf Z H L Q – terviewed organization members at SOCYCLE and BUSITECH to understand how WISEs functioned, whether and how they experienced conflict related to their social and economic activities, and what explained their social and economic performance. We conducted a total of ten interviews with mem- bers of the two WISEs. The interviews lasted be- tween 30 minutes and three hours and were all taped and transcribed. These data allowed us to confirm that the WISEs were embedded in an en- vironment imposing conflicting institutional demands. During a second stage (2006-07yf Z H F R O O H F W H G a combination of archival and interview data to get a deep understanding of the field, as well as the TABLE 1 Description of Cases Cases SOCYCLE TEMPORG BUSITECH WORK&CO Number of interviews 17 12 12 7 Industry Recycling Temp work Recycling Temp work Activity Recycle used appliances Offer temp work services to Recycle used Offer temp work services to private companies computers private companies Number of sites® 48 23 5 5 Founding year 1985 1991 1995 1994 Scaling-up year 1988 1993 1995 1994 Founding origins Social sector Social sector Business sector Business sector Total staff (FTEyf E 0 Number of beneficiaries 800 700 30 170 Total revenues 28 M € 21 M € 1,6 M € 5M€ Sales/total revenues 70yb b 80yb b a 2007 data for number of sites, total staff, and revenues. b Although in 2007 the WISEs with social sector origins were much larger than those with business sector origins, their size was much more similar at the analysis point of this study, which is the scaling-up year. This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 2013 Pache and Santos 979 logics in which it was embedded. We started by gathering available archival data about the field of work integration in France, its history as well as its legal environment. Data collected during this phase included books (2yf U H V H D U F K D U W L F O H V f, magazine and journal articles (30yf O D Z W H [ W V f, and profes- sional documents (10yf S U R G X F H G E W K H Q D W L R Q D l federation of WISEs. We also conducted 14 inter- views with field experts to understand their views on the evolution of the field and the competing institutional logics that permeate it. We partici- pated in numerous field-level events, including conferences (fouryf D Q G R S H Q K R X V H V I L Y H f, which allowed us to gain a better understanding of the culture and debates in the field. Once this data collection phase was conducted, we proceeded with a round of data analysis, to identify and de- scribe the two logics competing at the field level. During a third stage (2007-08yf E X L O G L Q J X S R n the initial analyses described above, we collected additional data on the two organizations whose members we already interviewed (SOCYLE and BUSITECHyf Z K L F K E H F D P H R X U I L U V W P D W F K H G S D L U , as well as data on an additional pair (TEMPWORK and WORK&COyf ) R U H D F K R I W K H I R X U F D V H V Z e gathered and read available annual reports and press articles. For some cases, we accessed more specific material, such as a book published for the WISE’s anniversary or an evaluation report pro- duced for a partner. We also conducted semistruc- tured interviews with internal and external infor- mants in each organization (7-17 interviews, depending on the size of the organizationyf , Q W H U Q D l informants included board members, executive di- rectors, technical supervisors, and social workers. We also interviewed external informants such as funders, partners, and clients. We met with the informants in their respective organizations, in each of which we spent between two and five days. This physical presence allowed us to get a sense of the culture and norms in each organization. During this third stage, we conducted 38 addi- tional semistructured interviews, lasting between 30 minutes and three hours each. All interviews were taped and transcribed. Informants were asked to explain how their organization was founded, how it grew and how it was organized, how it operated in 2007, and why it was organized and operated in such a way. We used an interview guide organized around the following broad areas: founding and growth, organizational structure and governance, human resources, commercial strat- egy, financial strategy, performance, environment, and stakeholders. The goal of these interviews was to get a rich understanding of the day-to-day func- tioning of WISEs. In 2009 we collected additional data through phone conversations and e-mails, to confirm or complement some of our findings. To summarize, for this study we collected more than 2,000 pages of archival data and conducted a total of 48 case interviews plus 14 field expert inter- views. This wealth of data allowed us to gain in- depth understanding of both our cases and the field of work integration in France. Data Analysis Stage 1: Identification of the field-level com- peting logics . During the first stage of analysis, we attempted to validate the assumption that the WISE field was embedded in persistently competing log- ics. We further attempted to characterize these log- ics. As a first step in identifying the main discus- sion themes, we read and coded selected archival material (the two books and the magazines pro- duced by the federation of WISEsyf H [ S H U W L Q W H U – views, and a conference program. As we clustered these themes, we observed a recurrence of discus- sions about the duality of the world in which WISE actors operate and its associated tensions (see, e.g., Hugues & Gasse, 2004yf , Q D V H F R Q G V W H S R I D Q D O V L V , we coded each mention of this duality to identify the opposing views at the source of the debate. Four main themes emerged: What is the appropriate goal for an organization? What is the appropriate organ- izational form to achieve that goal? How is control legitimately exerted in an organization? What are the sources of professional legitimacy in an organ- ization? To confirm that the four identified themes were accurately characterizing the logics, we triangu- lated this analysis with research material describ- ing the institutional contexts of the social sector (Austin, Stevenson, & Wei-Skillern, 2006; DiMag- gio & Anheier, 1990; Frumkin, 2002; Hansmann, 1980yf D Q G W K H P D U N H W V H F W R U ‘ $ X Q Q R 6 X F F L & Alexander, 2000; Fligstein, 1996; Friedland & Al- ford, 1991yf ) L Q D O O W R F U R V V Y D O L G D W H W K L V D Q D O V L V , we asked two field experts to confirm the descrip- tion of the logics that we identified. Table 2 sum- marizes the belief systems that characterize these two competing logics and how they play out in the field of WISEs. The social welfare logic is structured around a predominant goal: making products and services available to address local social needs. Economic This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 980 Academy of Management Journal August resources, including surplus, are a means for these organizations to achieve their goal. These social needs are perceived to be best addressed in the context of an association , which is France’s pre- vailing nonprofit form. The nonredistribution con- straint, which is imposed by law on all associa- tions , is viewed as the best approach to guarantee a focus on the social mission. Although it is not only accepted but even recommended for an association to generate a surplus, profit is viewed as a means to achieve the organization’s end goal and is thus to be reinvested in the organization’s social mission. The social welfare logic further prescribes demo- cratic control as the appropriate way to monitor strategy and operations. Importantly, associations are built, under French law, around democratic principles: members who demonstrate their com- mitment to the mission democratically elect, among themselves, a volunteer board of directors that is in charge of the association’s leadership. The democratic governance structure is per- ceived as the best way to allow for representation and participation of local stakeholders in the proj- ect. Social needs are localized. They concern peo- ple and depend upon a variety of local factors, including, among others, the composition of the population, the state of the local economy and local job market, and the offer of local social support services. Under the social welfare logic, responses to social needs are thus perceived to be best con- ceived at a local level, where they can take into account the demands of local constituencies and strengths and weaknesses of the local context (Di Maggio & Anheier, 1990yf 7 K H V H U H V S R Q V H V D U H E H V t conceived and implemented by people who are committed to the mission, including both profes- sional social workers and volunteers. Professional legitimacy is thus driven by contribution to the social mission. Embedded in a larger societal market logic (Friedland & Alford, 1991yf W K H F R P P H U F L D O O R J L F L s structured around a clear goal: selling products and services on the market to produce an economic surplus that can ultimately be legitimately appro- priated by owners. While it is widely recognized that commercial organizations also serve social needs, the provision of these services is conceived as a means to achieve the profit appropriation goal. The commercial logic rewards efficiency and con- trol (D’Aunno et al., 2000yf Z K L F K L V E H V W D F K L H Y H d through for-profit entities that grant shareholders control over the organizational goals and opera- tions, and channel human resources and capital to areas of high economic return. Pressures for efficiency presuppose that there are optimal ways to get organized to rationalize costs and maximize profits. Hierarchical control is rec- ognized as an appropriate governance mechanism because of the legitimacy of the proprietary claims of stakeholders. It is further viewed as a legitimate means to sustain consistency, as well as an efficient allocation of resources (Fligstein, 1996yf : L W K F R P – petition as a salient feature of the commercial logic (DiMaggio & Anheier, 1990; Hansmann, 1980yf W K e survival of players in the market depends on their ability to differentiate themselves from competitors and to sustain some sort of competitive advantage. Predictability in the quality of a service or product is a key determinant of purchase: consistency and uniformity in production are a source of sustain- TABLE 2 Competing Belief Systems of the Social Welfare and Commercial Logics Characteristics Social Welfare Logic Commercial Logic Goal Make products and/or services available to address local Sell goods and/or services on the market to generate social needs. economic surplus that can be legitimately appropriated by owners. Organizational The nonprofit form ( association yf L V O H J L W L P D W H E H F D X V H R I 7 K H I R U S U R I L W I R U P L V O H J L W L P D W H E H F D X V H L W V R Z Q H U V K L p form its ownership structure giving power to people who structure allows it to channel human resources and adhere to a social mission. The nonredistribution capital to areas of higher economic return, constraint ensures a real focus on the social goal. Governance Democratic control, which is, by law, constitutive of the Hierarchical control is the appropriate way to monitor mechanism association status, is the appropriate way to monitor strategy and operations in a way that ensures strategy and operations, allowing organizations to take consistency of products and services and efficient into account local social needs. allocation of resources. Professional Professional legitimacy is driven by contribution to the Professional legitimacy is driven by technical and legitimacy social mission. managerial expertise. This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 2013 Pache and Santos 981 able revenues. Such quality is best achieved by competent organizational members. According to the commercial logic, professional legitimacy is driven by managerial and technical expertise. On the basis of previous research, one would have expected that, over the years, one of the two competing logics would gain dominance over the other and progressively replace it (Rao, Monin, & Durand, 2003; Thornton, 2002; Thornton, Jones, & Kury, 2005yf R U W K D W D Q H Z O R J L F Z R X O G H P H U J H D V a synthesis of the two (Chen & O’Mahony, 2006; Glynn & Lounsbury, 2005; Thornton et al., 2005yf ultimately providing field actors with undisputed institutional prescriptions. However, by highlight- ing the persistence of conflicting belief systems 30 years after the field’s creation, our field-level data emphasize the persistence of competing logics at the field level. This enduring logics competition is illustrated by the recurrence of field-level gover- nance crises (the major ones occurred in 1991 and in 2006yf Z K H Q F R D O L W L R Q V R I : , 6 ( V O H D G H U V F K D P – pioning the business approach fought against champions of the social approach to lead the na- tional federation of WISEs. It is further illustrated by the field-level balance of legal statuses, wherein 44 percent of WISEs operate under nonprofit status and 56 percent operate under for-profit status.3 These observations reflect a persisting dual influence of so- cial welfare and commercial prescriptions. What explains the persistence of these tensions is that WISEs are highly dependent on both social welfare and commercial institutional spheres for operation and survival. This dependence makes the demands of each sphere not only pressing but in- escapable, exposing WISEs to competing logics for a lengthy period of time. A review of the explor- atory case interviews allowed us to identify a prev- alence of the four identified themes characterizing the logics in the informants’ discussions of what was considered appropriate behavior. This analysis allowed us to confirm that the social welfare and commercial logics were influential and meaningful for our research subjects. Stage 2: Identification of the demands pre- scribed by the logics . Building upon the prior anal- ysis, we proceeded to identify the specific demands prescribed by each logic. To do so, we relied on our extensive case data. We built a case report for each case, describing in detail the history of the organi- 3 Source: National WISE federation 2007 data (http://www.cnei.orgyf . zation, as well as its design and functioning, fol- lowing the areas outlined in the interview guide. We used the four themes identified during the pre- vious phase (goal, organizational form, control, professional legitimacyyf D V O H Q V H V W K U R X J K Z K L F K W o analyze our case data. As we built our case reports, we paid specific attention to mentions in the inter- views of organizational tensions and conflicts, in order to identify conflicting institutional prescrip- tions imposed upon the organizations. We also looked for instances of informants mentioning a given choice in a context of alternative expecta- tions. We reported the justification of these choices, as shared by the informants, to identify the degree to which institutional demands influenced these decisions. We then conducted a cross-case analysis (Eisenhardt, 1989yf W R L G H Q W L I G L I I H U H Q F H V , similarities, and common patterns. This data analysis phase revealed two important insights: the existence of a very strong field-level consensus about the appropriate goal of WISEs, and the existence of clear conflicting prescriptions about how they should organize to achieve this goal at a national scale. In terms of goal, all of our informants, including WISEs’ members and field experts, stated that the appropriate goal of WISEs was to serve a clear social need: reintegrating long- unemployed people into the job market. We real- ized that the conflict relating to what goal WISEs should pursue was resolved at the field level by the state, through its gate-keeping role. By granting WISEs the right to operate, by monitoring the ac- complishment of their social mission, and by ex- pelling contravening organizations from the field, the state sends a clear signal about the appropriate goal for WISEs and punishes deviant behavior. Fur- ther, the constraint of recruiting beneficiaries from a pool of people with low skills and low produc- tivity (“deserving work integration” according to the National Employment Agencyyf P D N H V W K H S U R V – pect of profit generation unlikely for WISEs, poten- tially deterring motivations for WISEs to endorse a profit-making goal. However, while the state closely monitors WISEs to ensure that they sustain their social goal, it is agnostic about the way they set up their operations to achieve this goal. The state is indifferent to whether WISEs operate as nonprofit or for-profit entities, whether they rely on democratic or hierar- chical control to govern their operations, and to the profile of the human resources that they mobilize. Overall, this analysis confirms that the WISE field is fragmented and only moderately centralized. In This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 982 Academy of Management Journal August the absence of clear organizing prescriptions im- posed by the state, WISEs are caught between con- flicting demands of how best to organize opera- tions, imposed by institutional referents adhering to competing social welfare and commercial logics. Notably, the data validate that these conflicting demands were particularly salient when it came to setting up operations at the national scale. As the WISEs in our sample expanded their activities from an initial site to additional distant sites, they made decisions related to structure, governance, and co- ordination of new sites. As we analyzed and com- pared the scaling-up strategies that they developed, we observed that the informants recurrently re- ferred to ten discrete elements, including a combi- nation of structural choices and recurrent practices: what legal status to adopt, what ownership struc- ture to set up, what profit destination to favor, what form to choose, what governance to set up, what procedures to localize or standardize, what brand to develop, what monitoring to implement at the central level, what professional affiliation to opt for, and whether or not mobilization of volunteers is appropriate. Our analysis further revealed that WISE leaders decided what to do regarding each of these ten elements on the basis of a few competing alterna- tives, as illustrated by the following quote from the chair of one of WORK&CO sites: We thought about incorporating this site as a non- profit, but it became obvious that we should incor- porate as a for-profit. Why? Because our clients are for-profits. We made that choice because we wanted to have the same status as our clients. We really wanted our economic activity to make sense. So we thought, if we incorporate as a nonprofit, the eco- nomic aspect of our company will be less present. As we identified these ten organizational ele- ments, we mapped them back to the four character- istics of the logics, as defined by the field-level data, to validate the presumed relationship be- tween the two constructs. Finally, we went back to the literature on logics to corroborate our findings. We indeed found confirmation that logics exert important influences on what structures (Green- wood & Suddaby, 2006; Rao, Morrill, & Zald, 2000; Tracey et al., 2011yf D Q G S U D F W L F H V 7 K R U Q W R Q 2 F D – sio, & Lounsbury, 2012ayf R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q V V K R X O d adopt. Figure 1 presents this overall data structure. Finally, we performed a systematic analysis of the explanations and justifications of the WISE leaders pertaining to the ten elements composing their scale-up strategy. This allowed us to identify the conflicting demands imposed by the social wel- fare and commercial logics on these ten strategic elements. The data revealed that, regarding the le- gal status of new sites, WISE leaders felt compelled to choose between the nonprofit form, as pre- scribed by the social welfare logic, and for-profit forms, as prescribed by the commercial logic. They were required to make decisions related to owner- ship of sites, in the context of two competing de- mands: a view of ownership based on adhesion to social mission, as promoted by the social welfare logic, and a view of ownership tied to the posses- sion of capital, as promoted by the commercial logic. Any use of profits generated by site activities was further constrained by competing conceptions, with the social welfare logic requesting reinvest- ment in the mission and the commercial logic fa- voring its appropriation by private interests. Our informants’ accounts further highlighted conflicting conceptions regarding control of sites. Their accounts suggested that the social welfare logic demanded from them the development of sites as autonomous entities, allowing local mem- bers to take ownership of the sites. This contrasts with the commercial logic conception of sites being incorporated as branches or wholly owned entities, allowing for control and oversight from owners. In a similar spirit, the governance of sites was, accord- ing to the social welfare logic, conceived as requir- ing the mobilization of local actors as experts of local needs and owners of the mission. That mobi- lization of local actors was perceived as less impor- tant in the commercial logic, which favored a more centralized approach. WISE leaders further debated the best approach to setting up operational procedures at the local level. When it came to designing site-level policies regarding production, marketing, or human re- sources, WISE leaders had two potential options: locally adapted procedures that were closely con- nected to local needs, as promoted by the social welfare logic, or standard operating procedures, al- lowing for consistency and efficiency gains, as pro- moted by the commercial logic. Decisions pertain- ing to the name and identity of the sites, reflecting the site brand, were also taken in a context of com- peting conceptions, with the social welfare logic promoting a strong local identity and a localized brand, in contrast to the commercial logic’s pre- scription of a unified brand, projecting consistency in identity and quality across sites. This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 2013 Pache and Santos 983 FIGUREI Data Structure The two logics further prescribed competing views related to the legitimate level of site moni- toring. While the social welfare logic promoted control of sites by local actors and thus resisted centralization of monitoring, the commercial logic promoted centralized monitoring, allowing for the validation of centrally designed standard operating procedures. Our informants’ accounts also reflect an embed- dedness in competing conceptions of professional legitimacy, with the social welfare logic promoting affiliation with professional organizations focusing on work integration and the commercial logic pro- moting affiliation with industry federations. Fi- nally, we identified competing demands related to the legitimacy attributed to volunteers. According to the social welfare logic, volunteers are not only a cheap resource, but also a highly legitimate one: they embody the values of selfless commitment to a social mission. For the commercial logic, volun- teers are not commonly used resources and are perceived as amateurs, in contrast to professional, paid staff. We summarize in Table 3 the ten elements on which logics impose conflicting demands, detail- ing their content, describing how we measured them, and providing supportive quotes. Stage 3: Identification of the response patterns. To address our research questions, we conducted a subsequent round of analysis to learn how each organization responded to the conflicting demands identified in stage 2. Specifically, we identified the behaviors enacted at two distinct points: at the time when the organizations engaged in the scaling-up process (when they were one to four years oldyf D Q d in 2007 (the last year of our data collectionyf ) R r each organization and each element, we analyzed the behavior enacted and compared it with the demand prescribed by each logic. This analysis allowed us to find out whether a given organiza- tion, for a given element, fully complied with a demand and, if so, which one, or whether it altered the prescribed behaviors. We further assessed whether and how demands were enacted differently between the early scal- ing-up years and 2007. Given the very limited vari- Organizational Elements on Which Logics Prescribe Logic Characteristics Conflicting Demands i ; i « ! GOAL i . 1 yf O H Y H O E W K H V W D W H f ample room for conflicts on means. j ^ ļ What is the appropriate . 1 ! goal for an organization endorsement of a j ‘* ! i to pursue? social mission on all ¡ ! ! ORGANIZATIONAL I O™*** I I SOCIAL WELFARE – ^ i organizational form to ; ļ AND i achieve that goal? Site Form j COMMERCIAL – > i ! , LOGICS ! j legitimately exerted in -ú ^ j an organization? ^ ¡ i • Monitoring ! – ^ ļ PROFESSIONAL ! ‘ ļ LEGITIMACY i ļ , ! jatu r 4 – ! ! jatu What are the sources of r ‘ ! > j professional legitimacy ¡ i j in an organization? ^ ! i i This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 984 Academy of Management Journal August TABLE 3 Conflicting Demands Imposed by the Social Welfare and Commercial Logics Elements Source of Conflict Demands from Social Welfare Logic Demands from Commercial Logic Measure Legal status What is the Nonprofit form For-profit form legitimate legal Sites should be formed as nonprofits Sites should be formed as for-profits status of operating because that legal status is the best because that status is more sites? safeguard against mission drift. effective for producing goods and ” The nonprofit status obliges us to services. keep our focus on work integration. “We chose a for-profit status If we would change statuses, even because we operate in a with our current board, some competitive space and we needed T A , i» n i /v. ,,, . j.rf x r Incorporation T status A , would i» say n let s go make i profits. /v. ,,, an image . different x from r a non- ^ (SOCYCLE site board memberyf S U R I L W $ Q R Q S U R I L W F D Q E H U H D O O y professional but in people’s minds, a nonprofit is not for profit, it is not professional, it is not strong financially. So we wanted to enter this competitive space with a business image.” (BUSITECH founderyf Ownership Who are the Mission guardians Capital holders legitimate owners The legitimate owners of sites are The legitimate owners of sites are of the sites? those who adhere to and are those who have invested capital in willing to protect the organization’s the sites. social mission. “At the end, it always comes down b Q U Q Q D Q t “Ultimately, it is important that those to what shareholders want. They , . – . who make the key decisions for the are the owners .” ( BUSITECH owners íp o si es organization are those who care founderyf about the mission, not those who might care about their dividends .” ( TEMPORG executive directoryf Profit What is the Reinvestment in social mission Appropriation by private interests destination legitimate use of The legitimate use of profits is its The legitimate use of profits is the profits? reinvestment in the mission of the distribution of dividends to organization. shareholders in proportion to the “What we want is to generate surplus capital invested. to create jobs or to train those who “MULTIWORK (WORK&CO mother c , distribution . , .A/ r- , . « , . j Surplus c , distribution . work , with us. .. . If r- we generate , organizationyf m L V Q R Z P D Q D J H G M . surplus, which we do, we create from Zurich and Chicago and new jobs, we create a new company these guys know nothing about or hire – as we did recently – a work integration in France. So at social worker or training expert .” some point, they will ask for a (SOCYCLE site manageryf U H W X U Q R Q L Q Y H V W P H Q W ” (WORK&CO national coordinatoryf Site form What is the Autonomous entities Branches or wholly owned entities legitimate form of Sites should be structured as Sites should be structured as entities sites? autonomous entities that allow for that allow for control and local members to take ownership of oversight from the owners, the site. “What was atypical for “We could have chosen to develop as MULTIWORK was to create aļ structure of a group with subsidiaries, but we autonomous legal entities, because wouldn’t have had access to at MULTIWORK, they create volunteers in local boards who clones or secondary have close ties with local funders establishments.” ( WORK&CO and were able to mobilize local national coordinatoryf support.” (SOCYCLE national board memberyf Continued This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 2013 Pache and Santos 985 TABLE 3 (Continuedyf Elements Source of Conflict Demands from Social Welfare Logic Demands from Commercial Logic Measure Site What is the Mobilization of local actors in site No mobilization of local actors governance legitimate level of governance required for site governance involvement of Local actors, as legitimate experts of Experts, mobilized at the national local actors in site local needs, should be involved in level, are legitimate to address or- governance? the leadership of local sites. ganizational and strategic ” There is one thing that I really challenges. shouldn’t do: recreate the “It is a great comfort to know that „ multinational company that I everything ° is controlled in . , , r i , A r nn „ ,i , j ° T at i ^ involvement . , , of r worked i , at A for r 30 nn years. So „ the ,i headquarters. , j T We at have i experts ^ on , , . * . _ » . . p . » . , . . , , . local , , actors in site idea . * is . that _ » . if . p there . » are local . , various . issues, . such , as legal , . entrepreneurs willing to launch a affairs, accounting, management governance BUSITECH site, we are willing to and social work. If we are in help them, to share our know-how trouble, we know exactly whom to and to have them join our contact.” ( TEMPORG site network. We are ready to help, but manageryf the locals have to take the lead.” (BUSITECH founderyf Procedures What is the Locally adapted procedures Standard operating procedures localization legitimate level of Procedures should be adapted at the Procedures should be standardized localization of local level to adapt to the specific because this is a source of operating needs and resources of the local consistency and efficiency gains, procedures? environment. ” One of the issues with our site Existence and “Locally, there is a nonprofit which managers is that they are not enforcement of is in charge, responsible and systematic and regular with sales SOP: in HR, which is close to the field and initiatives. So we hired a national accounting, IT, thus knows what can be done and sales director who will define a training, sales, what cannot be done. It is not an real planned national sales pricing entity in Paris that should tell this strategy, and who should do site , ‘this is what you should do what.” ( TEMPORG executive [SOCYCLE national board directoryf memberyf Brand (name, What is the Localized Unified identityyf O H J L W L P D W H V F R S H 7 K H E U D Q G V K R X O G E H G H I L Q H G D W W K H 7 K H E U D Q G V K R X O G E H X Q L I L H G D F U R V s for brand identity? local level, as a way for local all sites to project consistency in actors to express their knowledge identity and quality. R , . and identity. “When I talk about our network .f . “What our partners buy is our deep made of different brands to large i i j xxl X • xl i i X common name, knowledge i i j of xxl the community, X our companies, • xl they look i i at X me, . , ? ixi t«l • • » ? , j , . , … common visual . , local ? ixi networks. This t«l • is • what » puzzled, , j asking, , . , what … is that . , . matters most to them. The brand, thing?'” [WORK&CO deputy i en i y the looks and all that does not coordinatoryf matter to them that much.” ( Field expertyf Monitoring What is the Local monitoring of sites Central monitoring of sites legitimate level of No central resources are needed to Centrally designed standard site monitoring? monitor sites because practices procedures should be monitored designed at the local level should centrally, thus requiring the also be controlled at the local mobilization of resources at the „ , . . , , leVeL central level. sUes’Io Cd “We would rather use a participative “If you want quality, there is no way centraļ approach where we share ideas, out of monitoring sites and . where we don’t force things. Mark helping them to learn from each . . and myself, we are social, so we other.” ( TEMPORG executive organiza ion decided we would not impose directoryf things. There is a whole ideology behind that posture.” ( WORK&CO deputy coordinatoryf Continued This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 986 Academy of Management Journal August TABLE 3 (Continuedyf Elements Source of Conflict Demands from Social Welfare Logic Demands from Commercial Logic Measure Professional What is the Work integration federation Industry federation affiliation legitimate The work integration federation is The recycling or temp work industry affiliation with the place where the interests of federations are the places where professional work integration professionals are the interests of recycling and temp organizations? best represented and promoted. work are best represented and Systematic site “It is important that there is a promoted membership with structure that helps us as work ” The affiliation with PRISME (temp professional integration enterprises, that work professional associationyf L V R U J D Q L ] D W L R n represents us, that does lobbying indispensable in terms of image. It when necessary. So I chose to means that we are serious .” remain affiliated with them.” ( WORK&CO site manageryf [BUSITECH founderyf Mobilization of What is the Mobilization of volunteers No mobilization of volunteers volunteers legitimate use of (including those in operational Volunteers are not used as resources volunteers as a positionsyf D Q G R I W H Q F R Q V L G H U H G D V D P D W H X U s human resource? Volunteers are not only valuable but in the commercial sector, where desired resources because they paid professionals are the only Existence of embody a selfless commitment to legitimate human resources. volunteers in the social mission. ” One cannot create a real company operational “Why is a nonprofit better? Because with members who are totally positions other … it allows for the mobilization volunteers. That is good for than board of volunteers. What I like about it charitable organizations, for the is that there is no self interest. So Red Cross or other places like people’s sole motivation is what that.” ( BUSITECH founderyf we do.” (Field informantyf ations in responses over the two periods, we de- cided to report, in tables 5 and 6, the behaviors enacted in 2007. In these tables we report the re- sponse that the organizations enacted for each ele- ment, and categorize this response as the enactment of a demand imposed by one of the two competing logics, or as the enactment of an alternative behavior. In particular, we identified and tracked two types of alternative behaviors: decoupling or compromise, as described in the theory section. In a final step of analysis, we attempted to un- cover the determinants of the observed response patterns. To do so, we compared the response tables and identified differences and similarities across response patterns. The data revealed that SOCYCLE and TEMPORG exhibited a similar re- sponse pattern, different from the one mobilized by BUSITECH and WORK&CO. In particular we found that industry differences (temp work versus recy- clingyf G L G Q R W V K D S H W K H U H V S R Q V H S D W W H U Q V E X W W K D t organizational origins did have meaningful impli- cations for the phenomenon under study. Finally, we shifted our focus to a dialogue between theory and data (Ragin & Zaret, 1983yf W R P D N H V H Q V H R f these findings. This process led to the insights pre- sented next. FINDINGS Organizational Responses: Selective Coupling rather than Decoupling or Compromising Previous research suggests that, under conditions of competing institutional demands, organizations are likely to resort to decoupling as a response strategy (Elsbach & Sutton, 1992; Fiss & Zajac, 2006; Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Westphal & Zajac, 2001yf R U D W W H P S W W R F R P S U R P L V H 2 O L Y H U ; Rowan, 1982yf < H W R X U G D W D V X J J H V W W K D W R U J D Q L ] D – tions rarely decoupled their formal structure from their operational structure. Furthermore, they rarely engaged in compromise by only partially satisfying the demands from their institutional ref- erents. In contrast, we find evidence of an alterna- tive strategy that involved the selective coupling of intact demands drawn from each logic. SOCYCLE provides a compelling illustration of this pattern. Only two demands were enacted in an This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 2013 Pache and Santos 987 incomplete way to at least partially satisfy both logics, including one altered through decoupling and one altered through compromise. Specifically, in terms of legal status of sites, SOCYCLE enacted a combination of for-profit and nonprofit forms for its new sites, sending the signal of adhesion to both logics. In terms of standardization, SOCYCLE ad- opted a decoupling approach: it officially adopted rigorous standard operating procedures across sites but, looking more closely, it was clear that these procedures were not implemented by the local sites, which exhibited a high degree of local auton- omy and variance in their procedures. Yet SOCYCLE’s response strategy was very dif- ferent for the other scale-up elements. SOCYCLE respected the substance of social prescriptions re- garding how to structure the network of sites: on five structure-related elements it enacted the de- mands from the social welfare logic “by the book.” It developed its sites as autonomous entities, all of which were owned by strong advocates of the mis- sion of the organization. All for-profit sites, in par- ticular, were owned by a local SOCYCLE nonprofit to “ensure that control be exercised by people who are not directly involved as shareholders or man- agers” (SOCYCLE executive directoryf 7 K L V R Z Q H U – ship structure implied adherence to the profit des- tination model prescribed by the social welfare logic: profits generated in the for-profit sites were distributed to the nonprofit owner, which, just as with nonprofit sites, used these resources to further the organization’s mission. The governance model designed by SOCYCLE was based on local embed- dedness, as promoted by the social welfare logic. Control over sites was exercised by local volunteer boards of directors, who mobilized key local actors (local public officials, social partners, business partners and expertsyf $ 6 2 & < & / ( H [ H F X W L Y H H [ – plained: “Local sites were built on strong local roots, with strong political support. SOCYCLE suc- ceeded because the social project was strong and because the individuals promoting it were strong too.” Finally, SOCYCLE required all sites to affili- ate with the local work integration professional union as a way to demonstrate their connection with the social sector. Despite the close adhesion to these five social welfare demands, SOCYCLE also enacted four in- tact commercial demands. It invested in a strong national brand, a practice promoted by the com- mercial logic. Not only did all sites bear the same name (with the name of the city next to ityf E X W D O V o they all shared a similar visual identity and a na- tional website. In addition, to ensure standardiza- tion of operations at the national level, SOCYCLE developed a national organization very early on, which was in charge of development, monitoring, and control. A cofounder explained, “SOCYCLE started out as a very tight and controlled group. This tight structure was very important early on, because it allowed us to develop the model and to make sure it would not be perverted.” Moreover, important resources were mobilized and allocated to ensure monitoring and control at the national level. Fourteen staff members were mobilized at the national level. Sixty percent of their costs were covered by the local sites, which contributed 3 per- cent of their turnover to the national organization. Finally, SOCYCLE required all of its sites to affili- ate with a waste management professional organi- zation. Overall, SOCYCLE managed its embedded- ness in competing logics not so much by decoupling competing demands or altering them, but rather by selectively combining intact demands drawn from both logics. We observed very similar patterns in the other three cases. TEMPORG, for instance, did not de- couple in any area and altered only two demands through compromise: it developed a hybrid owner- ship structure, combining mission holders (not-for- profit shareholders, for 59 percentyf D Q G F D S L W D l holders (private for-profit investors, for 41 percentyf ; in terms of procedures, TEMPORG standardized a wide range (HR, accounting, IT, and trainingyf H t gave its sites full autonomy over pricing and sales. In contrast, TEMPORG enacted intact demands in the other eight elements. Complying with the com- mercial logic, it chose a for-profit legal status, de- veloped its sites as branches of a national organi- zation, developed a common brand identity, mobilized substantial resources to monitor and control operations at the national level, required all sites to affiliate with the temp work professional organization, and ignored volunteers as a potential resource. In compliance with the social welfare logic, it chose not to redistribute any dividends to shareholders, developed local ownership by mobi- lizing local advisory boards composed of local stakeholders, and required all of its sites to also affiliate with the work integration professional or- ganization. Table 4 details these response configurations. Similar patterns applied to BUSITECH and WORK&CO. Both organizations decoupled only one demand and altered two through compromise strategies. They enacted intact demands drawn This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 988 Academy of Management Journal August from either logic in the other seven elements. Ta- ble 5 details these response configurations. Table 6 summarizes the response pattern for all four organizations. It is clear that, in contrast to what is suggested in the literature, the organiza- tions in our sample did not predominantly balance conflicting expectations through decoupling or compromise strategies at the practice level. Most of the behaviors enacted involved the adoption of in- tact demands from either logic. Notably, these configurations appear to be very stable over time: across the four organizations, 86 percent of the demands enacted in the early scale-up years were still enacted in 2007. This sug- gests that the pattern identified is neither tempo- rary nor unstable. Rather, the configurations en- acted appear as lasting commitments to a way of doing things. Data also suggest that such configu- rations are hard to change. In 2007, the leaders of two organizations expressed the desire to change some elements of their organization’s structure. SOCYCLE’s executive director, for instance, ex- plained that when the leadership team introduced the idea to change the ownership of their WISE by inviting private investors as shareholders of the for-profit sites, internal reactions were intense: This idea generated an internal revolution that was not easy to deal with. There was real resistance to change. The old timers, the early activists in our network, thought that we were deviating from our social mission, from our work integration mission, that we embraced a business goal, whereas for us, it was just a means to achieve our social goal. Similarly, the national coordinator of WORK&CO explained the difficulties in convincing managers of the local sites to adopt a unified brand to reflect their affiliation with their multinational mother or- ganization: “The work integration enterprise is [the site managers’] toy; they don’t want their mother organization to appropriate it.” Overall, this analysis indicates that organiza- tional leaders do, on a lasting basis, attempt to balance the conflicting expectations of institutional referents, yet they do so predominantly at the or- ganization level rather than at the practice level. And while we found instances of decoupling at the practice level, as suggested by the wealth of decou- pling studies in institutional theory, these were atypical rather than common choices. Signifi- cantly, the data suggest that the response patterns crafted by these four organizations allowed them to avoid major legitimacy threats and to sustain their activities over the long run: the four organizations not only survived for more than 11 years after founding (and up to 22 years for SOCYCLEyf E X W D O l of them achieved performance levels (in terms of turnover, number of social employees hired, as well as annual growth rates in the last three yearsyf superior to the average in the field (see Table 1 for detailed numbersyf . The cross-case analysis reveals that, although all organizations in the sample adopted a similar strat- egy of selective coupling, they enacted different combination patterns. This led us to investigate the factors that determine these different patterns. Organizational Origins as a Determinant of Selective Coupling Patterns Organizational behavior is often guided by the norms and values embedded in specific activities. Occupational groups and professions, in particular, have been identified as powerful carriers of insti- tutional logics (Hirsch, 1986; Thornton et al., 2005yf . Building upon this view, one would expect that professionals socialized into a given institutional logic would carry this logic over to other fields. In the context of our study, one would expect organ- izations originating from the commercial sphere to enact primarily commercial demands, given the embeddedness of their professional members in the commercial logic, and organizations emanating from the social sector to adopt primarily social welfare behaviors, under the influence of social sector professionals. Surprisingly, our data suggest a different dy- namic. A striking pattern in our sample is that organizations that come from the commercial sec- tor (i.e., organizations that were founded by or in close partnership with a business companyyf H Q – acted predominantly social welfare demands, more so than organizations coming from the social sector (i.e., organizations that were founded by or in close partnership with a social sector organizationyf , n contrast, organizations originating from the social sector enacted a balanced combination of intact social welfare and commercial demands, but still adopted more commercial behaviors than organiza- tions originating from the commercial sector. The TEMPORG/WORK&CO pair illustrates this dynamic. TEMPORG was rooted in the social sec- tor. Founded by two social workers who were pio- neers in the work integration sector, it was launched in the early 1990s as a subsidiary of France’s most prominent work integration group. This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 2013 Pache and Santos 989 TABLE 4 SOCYCLE’s and TEMPORG’s Responses to Conflicting Social Welfare and Commercial Demands in 2007 SOCYCLE TEMPORG Enactment of a Enactment of an Enactment of a Enactment of a Enactment of an Enactment of a Demand Alternative Demand Demand Alternative Demand Prescribed by the Behavior Prescribed by Prescribed by the Behavior Prescribed by Social Welfare (Decoupling/ the Commercial Social Welfare (Decoupling/ the Commercial Elements Logic Compromiseyf / R J L F / R J L F & R P S U R P L V H f Logic Legal status A combination All sites of nonprofit operated and for-profit under for- sites profit status Ownership All sites Combination of (including for- capitalist and profit onesyf D U H Q R Q S U R I L t owned by a shareholders local nonprofit (with a slight majority to nonprofit shareholdersyf Profit No profit No profit destination appropriation appropriation (moral agreement between shareholdersyf Site form Sites are Sites are autonomous branches of a legal entities national organization Site Governance by Mobilization of governance local boards local advisory composed of boards with local actors local actors for all local sites Procedures Decoupled Common localization standardization procedures on (formal some activities procedures and autonomy written yet on others not always appliedyf Brand Common name Common name + common + common brand identity brand identity + common communication tools Monitoring Sites pay 3 Sites pay 4.5 percent of percent of their turnover their turnover to HQ to HQ Professional All sites affiliate All sites All sites affiliate All sites affiliation with work affiliate with with work affiliate with integration industry integration industry federation federation federation federation Mobilization No volunteers No of in operational volunteers functions other than board members This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 990 Academy of Management Journal August TABLE 5 BUSITECH’s and WORK&CO’s Responses to Conflicting Social Welfare and Commercial Demands in 2007 BUSITECH WORK&CO Enactment of a Enactment of an Enactment of a Enactment of a Enactment of an Enactment of a Demand Alternative Demand Demand Alternative Demand Prescribed by Behavior Prescribed by the Prescribed by the Behavior Prescribed by the Social (Decoupling/ Commercial Social Welfare (Decoupling/ the Commercial Elements Welfare Logic Compromiseyf / R J L F / R J L F & R P S U R P L V H f Logic Legal status All sites operated All sites under for-profit operated status under for- profit status Ownership Each for-profit Combination of site is owned capitalist and by a nonprofit nonprofit shareholders (with a slight majority to nonprofit organizationyf Profit Occasional Decoupled destination profit redistribution: redistribution Announces no redistribution yet occasionally redistributes Site form Sites are Sites are autonomous autonomous legal entities legal entities Site Governance by Local ownership governance local boards by local composed of shareholders local actors only Procedures No common No standard localization procedures operating procedures Brand Decoupled No common branding: brand: No Common common name name but no + no identity common identity and communication tools Monitoring No resources No resources allocated to allocated to monitoring monitoring Professional Some sites All sites affiliate All sites affiliation affiliate with with work affiliate with industry and integration industry work federation federation integration federations Mobilization of Most site Each site managed volunteers operations run by a volunteer by volunteers manager (5 (20 volunteers volunteers in in totalyf W R W D O f This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms § s cu « « s s O. il H «g CA s I en 3 1 I ‘S. 1 s s N g S o S ° çj S 0 -2 a ž á i ‘i lilii. – i § *ôj i yb * i 3 2 I g S S S S S S g 3 C0 a S ® C0 S 0 «O ^ I «O u ‘S ^ ï I E laï »»1 Ī <° E laï <° 1 ! 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It was created as a wholly owned subsidiary of MULTIWORK (a leading multinational group in the temporary work industryyf E W Z R W U D L Q L Q J P D Q D J H U s who viewed work integration temporary work as a strategic development for their company and as an expression of their own values. Surprisingly, where one would have expected TEMPORG to enact predominantly social welfare demands, it in fact enacted predominantly com- mercial demands (six out of tenyf , W F K R V H D I R U – profit legal status and adopted a branching struc- ture to operate sites, as well as a strong uniform brand. In addition, it allocated resources to monitor and control standard procedures, affiliated with temporary work professional organizations, and de- cided not to mobilize volunteers. Only three out of the ten behaviors adopted by TEMPORG complied with the social welfare logic: the nonprofit appro- priation, the mobilization of local advisory boards, and the affiliation with work integration profes- sional organizations. Similarly, given its roots, WORK&CO could be expected to enact primarily commercial demands. It did exactly the opposite. It enacted six social welfare demands out of ten. Whereas its commer- cial mother organization was set up as a global web of tightly controlled branches with a very strong brand and standardized procedures, WORK&CO chose to operate its sites as autonomous legal enti- ties, with no common brand, no common proce- dures, and no monitoring or control over the sites. Sites were piloted by volunteer managers from the mother organization and were required to affiliate with the work integration professional organiza- tion. Only two out of ten commercial demands were fully respected: the for-profit legal status, as well as the compulsory site affiliation with the temp work professional organization. Overall, TEMPORG, the organization with social origins, behaved more like a commercial organiza- tion than like a social organization and, in any case, more commercially than did WORK&CO. In con- trast, WORK&CO, the organization with commer- cial origins, behaved more like a social organiza- tion than like a business and, in any case, more like a social organization than did TEMPORG. The SOCYCLE/BUSITECH pair exhibits a similar pattern. BUSITECH, which was founded by young retirees of the multinational IT firm COMPUTER under the impulse of its president for France, en- acted only one commercial demand: it chose to operate its sites as for-profit entities. On all other nine elements, BUSITECH chose to enact demands from the social welfare logic. In contrast, SOCYCLE, which was founded with close ties to COMMUNITY, a very prominent international so- cial organization, enacted five social welfare de- mands and four commercial demands. And whereas it combined both social welfare and com- mercial behaviors, it enacted more commercial be- haviors than did BUSITECH. Since the two organizations with social origins were founded five and nine years earlier than the two commercial organizations, one could argue that the patterns that we observe may be explained by differences in the logics imposed on these or- ganizations at the time of founding (Singh & Tucker, 1986; Stinchcombe, 1965yf < H W D O W K R X J h our analysis of the field dynamics indeed suggests that the influence of the social and commercial logics evolved over the years, it actually highlights that the influence of the social logic has been pro- gressively eroded by the influence of the commer- cial logic. Had the responses been shaped by the strength of each logic at the time of founding, the two organizations founded in 1994 and 1995 (i.e., the two organizations with commercial originsyf should have behaved more “commercially” than those founded in 1985 and 1991 (i.e., the organiza- tions with social originsyf < H W Z K D W Z H R E V H U Y H L s exactly the opposite. One could further argue that the patterns we observe can be attributed to organizational size, since the two smaller organizations, in terms of number of sites, staff and resources (WORK&CO and BUSITECHyf D Q G W K H W Z R O D U J H U R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q s (SOCYCLE and TEMPORGyf U H V S H F W L Y H O H [ K L E L W H d similar patterns. However, as mentioned in the methods section, we analyzed the behaviors en- acted by the organizations in our sample when the organizations entered the scaling-up process (in their first through fourth years of existence, de- pending on the organization, when they were still smallyf D V Z H O O D V L Q 7 K H S D W W H U Q V W K D W Z e report for 2007 are very similar to those enacted in the early scale-up years. This suggests that size does not explain the patterns that we uncovered. Organizational size may actually be an outcome of our findings rather than a cause. All organizations were of similarly small size when they started to scale and nevertheless enacted different response patterns that led to different patterns of growth. Our informants’ accounts suggest an alternative explanation for this unexpected behavior. One of our informants with WORK&CO reflected upon the This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 2013 Pache and Santos 993 reactions generated by the decision to enter the work integration field as the subsidiary of MULTIWORK, their multinational mother compa- ny: “[When we started to work on the creation of our first work integration enterprise in 1991], ev- erybody was angry at us, especially the social sec- tor actors. Because we came to eat off their plate. Because [MULTIWORK] was big, people were afraid of us. Why would we do this job? Necessar- ily, to make money. And this bothered them. This was not our playground. Social people did not want to have us on their playground.” BUSITECH leaders shared similar perceptions: “People from the social world did not like us to enter their private preserve. They considered us as business executives with no experience in the so- cial sector. And because there was [COMPUTER, their mother organization] behind us, they said: They want their toy. These days, it is good for companies to get involved in social activities, so they do it too. They come to eat our bread.'” This resistance was further demonstrated by the reaction of the local representatives of the state, who were approached to obtain work integration accreditation. A WORK&CO informant recalled: “[The local representatives of the State] clearly told us: don’t even bother filing your application. It will never get accepted.” BUSITECH also received a first refusal from the accreditation commission for its site in Bordeaux, and had to mobilize the re- gional prefect to get the application accepted. These findings suggest that in a field where the social logic – by way of state imposition of the so- cial goal – remained dominant, organizations with a commercial imprint (BUSITECH and WORK&COyf suffered from an a priori lack of legitimacy that seriously jeopardized their very existence and, in turn, influenced their response strategy. WORK&CO leaders, for instance, initially consid- ered enacting the commercial demand of creating wholly owned work integration subsidiaries. Neg- ative reactions from the regional union of WISEs led them to devise an alternative strategy: “We decided to use a chameleon tactic. They think we are the bad guys? Then we are going to prove them, in practice that we are not. And we are going to learn that job that we don’t know.” WORK&CO leaders subsequently decided to sys- tematically partner with well-respected local social actors and to become minority shareholders in these autonomous organizations. By 1996, ten such organizations had been launched, borrowing heav- ily from the social welfare logic template. BUSITECH also decided to ally with a prominent social partner in its Paris site. The president of BUSITECH’s partner organization explained: “Their image as former COMPUTER executives did not really fit with a social project. The partner- ship that they built with us convinced the accred- itation commission to grant BUSITECH the right to operate as a work integration enterprise.” Alliances were thus used by both BUSITECH and WORK&CO to enhance their social legitimacy (Dacin, Oliver, & Roy, 2007yf < H W L Q D G G L W L R Q W R D O O L D Q F H V W U D W H J L H V , BUSITECH and WORK&CO overwhelmingly en- acted social welfare demands when scaling up their operations, despite these organizations’ commer- cial origins. DISCUSSION: UNDERSTANDING HYBRID ORGANIZATIONS Our study seeks a better understanding of the functioning of hybrids, defined as organizations that incorporate competing institutional logics (Battilana & Dorado, 2010; Greenwood et al., 2011; Haveman & Rao, 2006yf , W I R F X V H V V S H F L I L F D O O R n the intraorganizational processes of hybrids, iden- tifying specific patterns of logic combinations, as well as their determinants, thereby providing clues about how hybrid models of organizing can be sus- tained. A thorough examination of organizations in the field of WISEs in France allowed us to discover that hybrids that are persistently embedded in com- peting institutional logics combined elements of the competing social welfare and commercial log- ics by selectively coupling intact demands imposed by each logic, instead of adopting traditional strat- egies of decoupling or compromising. Further, our data suggest that the origins of these organizations determined the patterns of logics combination in a way that contrasted with traditional institutional arguments, which emphasize founders’ taken-for- granted adherence to particular logics (Hwang & Powell, 2009yf % H O R Z Z H H O D E R U D W H R Q H D F K R I W K H V e findings and discuss our contributions to institu- tional theory and to the emergent literature on hy- brid organizations. Inside the Hybrid Organization Our research suggests that hybrid organizations combine the competing logics in which they are embedded through selective coupling. In contrast to decoupling, which entails the ceremonial es- pousal of a prescribed practice with no actual en- This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 994 Academy of Management Journal August actment, selective coupling refers to the purposeful enactment of selected practices among a pool of competing alternatives. Selective coupling allows hybrids to satisfy symbolic concerns, just as decou- pling does. Accounts from our informants empha- size the symbolic power of some practices – the most visible ones – that were adopted with the pur- pose of projecting appropriateness, as illustrated by this quote by one of SOCYCLE’s site directors, who explains his decision of developing a new entity with a for-profit legal status: “A nonprofit can be really professional, but, in people’s mind, a non- profit is not-for-profit, it is not professional, it is not strong, financially. We wanted to enter this com- petitive space with a business image. … So we chose a for-profit status.” For hybrids, which are embedded in environments where the scrutiny of institutional referents is hard to avoid, selective coupling appears to be a safer and thus more viable strategy than decoupling, because it does not put them at risk of being caught faking compliance – a probable occurrence in instances of enduring insti- tutional conflict. Similarly, selective coupling also appears to be superior to practice-level hybridizing strategies, such as compromising (Oliver, 1991yf E H F D X V H L t keeps organizations from having to engage in mul- tiple negotiations with institutional referents or from having to craft new practices that are a com- promise between the practices promoted by each logic (Battilana & Dorado, 2010yf $ V V X F K V H O H F W L Y e coupling may be a less costly strategy than compro- mising because it does not require organizational members to come up with alternative ways of doing things. It may thus be more accessible to resource- constrained organizations. The pattern of selective coupling that we uncov- ered builds upon the conception of logics as “cul- tural toolkits” (Swidler, 1986; Tracey et al., 2011yf that actors can use in various configurations to solve different kinds of problems. A strength of hybrids is that they have access to a much broader repertoire of institutionalized templates that they can combine in unique ways. This places them at an advantage if they are able to craft a configuration of elements that fits well with the demands of their environment and helps them leverage a wider range of support. Our study thus suggests that hy- brids are characterized by a certain degree of reflex- ivity, spurred by the contradictions in which they are embedded (Seo & Creed, 2002yf : H S U R Y L G e evidence to the fact that, in the face of institutional logics that are competing over the long term, hy- brids do not blindly comply with institutional pre- scriptions (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983yf R U Z L W K W K e cognitive frames into which their members have been socialized (Hwang & Powell, 2009yf , Q W K e field of work integration, hybrids with social ori- gins were not trapped into mimicking social prac- tices, just as hybrids with commercial origins were not cognitively constrained to replicate com- mercial practices. In contrast, our data suggest that hybrids selectively complied with institutional log- ics, echoing the concept of “strategic isomorphism” proposed by Aurini (2006yf . Hybrid Strategies Another important contribution of our work is the identification of specific patterns of selective coupling. BUSITECH and WORK&CO, the two or- ganizations in our sample that were founded by prominent commercial actors, chose to enact a ma- jority of practices from the social welfare logic, despite their initial attachment to the competing commercial logic. We explain this pattern by a need to compensate for their lack of legitimacy, due to their affiliation with a commercial multina- tional, in a field dominated by a social welfare mission. We named this pattern “Trojan horse” be- cause, just as the large wooden horse reassured the inhabitants of Troy (the horse being the symbol of Troyyf D Q G D O O R Z H G 2 G V V H X V D Q G K L V V R O G L H U V W o enter the city under cover, the strategic adoption by illegitimate actors of behaviors prescribed by the dominant logic in a field may enable them to gain acceptance for entering the field. This strategy is both symbolic and substantive, as the enacted be- haviors are then maintained for the long term. The Trojan horse strategy contrasts in important ways with the strategy devised by TEMPORG and SOCYCLE, the two organizations that were founded by prominent social actors. These organi- zations benefited from a priori legitimacy in the field of WISEs, since no external referents feared, ex ante, that they would depart from their work integration mission. As a result, they were able to liberate themselves – at least partially – from insti- tutional influences and enact a combination of so- cial welfare and commercial elements. These find- ings echo Sherer and Lee’s (2002yf V W X G Z K L F h showed that highly legitimate law firms had more freedom to depart from the dominant recruitment model in the field because their high level of legit- imacy protected them from the fear of losing insti- tutional support. Yet our study shows that this This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 2013 Pache and Santos 995 pattern goes beyond the departure from a single prescribed behavior. In fact, legitimate actors in the field of work integration combined a set of behav- iors borrowed from both social welfare and com- mercial logics. Notably, these two organizations exhibited the highest performance level for WISEs in their re- spective industries. TEMPORG was able to recruit 700 full-time equivalent (FTEyf E H Q H I L F L D U L H V L n 2007, whereas the average temporary work com- pany hired 35 FTE. SOCYCLE mobilized 800 ben- eficiaries, whereas the average recycling enterprise mobilized 15 FTE. Although we cannot draw direct performance implications from a comparison with the general population of organizations, these data suggest that the response combinations that TEMPORG and SOCYCLE crafted allowed them to secure a broad range of social and political support, enabling them to scale up operations and maximize social impact by integrating more long-unem- ployed people into the workforce. Their initial le- gitimacy, combined with a minimal level of com- pliance with social welfare templates, was enough to please their social constituencies. As a result, they were able to gain local political support, mo- bilize public funds, secure the sourcing of social employees, and guarantee mentoring by partner so- cial organizations. Their ability to display compli- ance with the commercial logic in addition allowed them to gain credibility with their commercial con- stituencies. They were able to interact on a more equal footing with industrial partners, clients, and investors, and as a result they were able to negotiate more favorable conditions to sustain their commer- cial activity. Their hybrid configuration allowed them to develop an organizational form combining a high level of central control and coordination with a high level of local engagement. This organ- izational form may have enabled them to benefit from the best of both (institutionalyf Z R U O G V . Overall, these findings contribute to a better un- derstanding of hybrids by uncovering two different sides of hybrids’ reflexivity. On the one hand, by crafting various logic combinations, hybrids show their ability to work around institutional con- straints and use them to their advantage, thus dem- onstrating a fair amount of agency. On the other hand, hybrids remain highly constrained by the need for legitimacy. This suggests that the institu- tional freedom that hybrids gain from their expo- sure to institutional contradictions can only be lev- eraged by those whose legitimacy is secure in the first place. Sustaining Hybrid Forms Finally, our findings provide insights into the way hybrid organizations overcome the challenges associated with their multifaceted nature. One such challenge is that hybrids have been shown to be arenas of internal conflict (Battilana & Dorado, 2010; D’Aunno et al., 1991; Pache, 2012; Pache & Santos, 2010; Zilber, 2002yf V L Q F H R U J D Q L ] D W L R n members channel field-level institutional conflicts inside their organizations. Such conflicts can be very harmful for organizations (Glynn, 2000yf E H – cause coalitions of members adhering to a given logic may resist the influence of alternative logics. Our findings suggest that hybrid organizations can lessen these harmful internal conflicts if they are not confronted with (or are able to avoidyf L Q V W L W X – tional conflicts on goals, and if they are able to manage institutional conflict on means by strategi- cally combining intact elements from either insti- tutional world. When institutional conflict on goal is unavoidable, organizations may be able to thrive by crafting a strong identity that focuses the atten- tion of their members on convergent means, while recruiting members free from any institutional at- tachments at the source of the goal conflict (Batti- lana & Dorado, 2010yf 7 D N H Q W R J H W K H U W K H V H L Q – sights suggest that hybrid organizations may need to mobilize different response strategies to cope with internal conflict, depending on whether they are exposed to conflicting demands related to goals or means (Pache & Santos, 2010yf . Even if hybrids are able to avoid these internal conflicts, they nevertheless face the challenge of securing support and resources from external insti- tutional referents who are championing competing logics. To signal their appropriateness and gain support, they need to comply, at least partially, with the conflicting prescriptions imposed by these institutional referents. We find that the selective coupling of intact elements can enable hybrids to please institutional referents and thus secure wide- spread support. Our findings also suggest that hy- brids may be able to strategically distinguish be- tween important signaling elements that will cue institutional referents to the organizations’ goals and motivations (such as for-profit versus nonprofit statusyf D Q G W K R V H H O H P H Q W V W K D W F D Q E H P R U H I U H H O y adopted and combined with others, as they are less loaded with meaning (such as internal monitoring processesyf 7 D N H Q W R J H W K H U W K H V H L Q V L J K W V X Q F R Y H U a sustainable way in which hybrid organizations can This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 996 Academy of Management Journal August go about internally blending the multiple logics that they incorporate. Limitations and Future Research An important issue in case study research is the degree to which findings are generalizable to a broader population. Our work certainly contributes to a growing stream of practitioner literature on hybrids, more narrowly defined as organizations oriented toward both the market and the common good (Boyd, Henning, Wang, & Welch, 2010; Hoff- man, Gullo, & Haigh, 2012yf + R Z H Y H U Z H E H O L H Y e that our findings have applicability beyond combi- nations of commercial and social welfare logics, which we consider only a subset of the hybrid space. Our sample was selected on the basis of the existence of conflicting demands rather than the content of those demands. Further, our findings are not specific to the social welfare or commercial sector logics and may apply more broadly to any field subject to institutional competition, such as the clash between medical professionalism and business logics in hospitals (Reay & Hinings, 2009yf or the competition between the science and market logic in the biotechnology industry (Powell & Sand- holtz, 2012yf 7 K X V W K H V H O H F W L Y H F R X S O L Q J R I L Q W D F t demands enacted by organizations that possess, or are able to acquire, initial legitimacy may provide a blueprint for the development of sustainable hy- brids in organizational fields that face enduring conflicting institutional demands. In generalizing these results, it may be important to take into account the degree to which organiza- tions embedded in competing logics have sought this exposure to conflict (WISEs that have decided to address a social mission through commercial activities are examplesyf R U D U H I R U F H G W R H [ S H U L H Q F e it (as have organizations that face changes in regu- lationyf 7 K H I R U P H U R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q V P D L Q G H H G E e more willing (because of their motivation to com- bine both logicsyf D Q G P R U H D E O H E H F D X V H R I W K H L r awareness of both logicsyf W R V H O H F W L Y H O F R X S O H L Q – tact elements from both logics, whereas decoupling may prove more popular for organizations forced by regulation to adopt elements that their members do not believe in. Future research may further explore how hybrids configure bundles of elements at the organization level (Powell & Sandholtz, 2012yf % H K D Y L R U V D U H Q R t all equally visible to external audiences, nor do they have the same importance for all audiences. Different audiences may also have varying degrees of influence over hybrid organizations. These fea- tures are in turn likely to influence how organiza- tions choose to adopt, reject, or couple specific elements. Further research will thus need to ex- plore the types and determinants of these configurations. Furthermore, although we have begun to explore when and how hybrid organizations are able to combine competing institutional logics, future re- search needs to clarify the situations in which hy- brids may become a superior organizational form. As Kraatz and Block (2008yf V X J J H V W H G L Q W K H L U U H – view of organizational implications of institutional pluralism, organizations that are able to embody multiple logics in a sustainable way are likely to be ultimately more legitimate and thus likely to more efficiently garner the social and material support that they require to thrive. Such research would require an in-depth study of the survival and per- formance of organizations adopting a hybrid model, in comparison to peer institutions remain- ing faithful to a single logic or attempting to de- couple or compromise. It would also require ex- ploring the role played by organizational leaders in this process, to understand what explains their ability to combine competing institutional logics. Conclusion Institutional pluralism is becoming a permanent fixture of organizational life in an increasing num- ber of societal sectors. The traditional view of how organizational leaders deal with pluralism has been shaped by studies that point to the prevalence of decoupling and compromise strategies to deal with temporary pluralism. Our study brings a new view of sustainable hybrid forms that selectively couple elements drawn from different logics, within the constraint imposed by their need for legitimacy. This finding allows us to move from a view of leaders of hybrid organizations as actors compro- mising on their actions or pretending to adopt prac- tices while decoupling their organizational core, to organizational leaders as bricoleurs (Baker & Nel- son, 2005; Mair & Marti, 2009yf Z K R S H U I R U P L Q V W L – tutional work (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006yf F R P – bining the templates and scripts afforded by a richer institutional environment while learning to navigate the minefields created by enduring insti- tutional conflicts. In doing so, we contribute to the development of the microfoundations of institu- tional theory called for by Powell and Colyvas and shed light on “why institutional practices and This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 2013 Pache and Santos 997 structures take the form that they do” (2008: 295yf . In particular, our study advances understanding of hybrid organizations by showing how they may constitute a viable organizational form that can ex- hibit distinct advantages in contexts of institutional pluralism. While much remains to be explored about the functioning of hybrid organizations, we hope to have provided, with this study, a building block for a much-needed theory. REFERENCES Almandoz, J. 2012. Arriving at the starting line: The impact of community and financial logics on new banking ventures. Academy of Management Jour- nal , 55: 1381-1406. Aurini, J. 2006. 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APPENDIX History of the Field of Work Integration Social Enterprises in France The first work integration social enterprises (WISEsyf were created at the end of the 1970s by social workers who, in the context of the emerging economic crisis, were increasingly frustrated to see at-risk youth and people without professional qualification finding it difficult to enter the job market. Recognizing the limits of the social approaches sponsored by their organizations (targeting primarily health, housing, or poverty issuesyf L Q D G G U H V V – ing job-related issues, they decided to create commercial subsidiaries – initially called “intermediary compa- nies” – that were specifically designed to help unem- ployed people learn the skills of work. These organiza- tions offered their beneficiaries short-term contracts, focusing on activities that were simple enough for people without qualifications, and organized close and indul- gent supervision to help social employees go through the learning process. WISEs rapidly gained the notice of policy makers con- cerned with increasing unemployment rates, and they benefited from the lobbying efforts deployed by the pio- neers of the field. These experiments were progressively legitimized through various laws (in 1979, 1985, 1991, 1998, and 2006yf Z K L F K J U D Q W H G W K H P W K H U L J K W D Q G G X W y to operate as legal economic entities. These laws adapted French labor law to allow WISEs to resort systematically and repeatedly to fixed-term contracts for their benefi- ciaries.4 In turn, they required WISEs to pay beneficiaries at minimum wage and to comply with legal and fiscal requirements. National policy makers rapidly institu- tionalized public financial support, in compensation for the costs incurred by the extra supervision requirements and the below-average productivity of their beneficiaries. This national recognition, together with the support pro- vided by local governments, helped structure and de- velop the field. Over the years, WISEs grew more and more separate from the social institutions that founded them. While this initial affiliation had helped work integration entre- preneurs reach out to social policy makers, it also gener- ated tensions with traditional social actors, who viewed them as “joining forces with the bosses” or as “exploit- ers” (Pauly- Aboubadra, 2004: 9yf 7 K H V F D W W H U H G L Q L W L D W L Y H s that had flourished across France thus felt a growing need to join efforts and collaborate. The first regional union of WISEs, created in 1983, was soon followed by other regional unions. This led to the creation of the national federation of WISEs in 1988 and the formaliza- tion of the first WISE charter. In turn, the growing visi- bility of the field led to tensions with the commercial sector, which started to perceive these new enterprises as unfair competitors, because of the public subsidies that they received. In the 1990s, in the face of the aggravation of the economic crisis, WISEs consolidated their position as both social and economic actors. With unemployment rates growing (up to 14 percent between 1994 and 1998yf 4 Fixed-term contracts are, under the French labor law, officially reserved to specific circumstances (temporary or seasonal increase in activity, replacement of a sick employee, etc.yf . This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 2013 Pache and Santos 1001 and the time required for jobless people to find jobs increasing (in 1995, 40 percent of unemployed people had been looking for work for more than one yearyf , WISEs became an important building block of local and national employment policies. During that period, they developed partnerships with local governments and of- ten obtained access to local public funds in addition to the regulated state subsidy. They developed relation- ships with the public national employment agency, in charge of identifying potential beneficiaries, as well as with social and public actors in charge of social and professional integration issues locally. Under pressure to sustain their economic activities, work integration entre- preneurs progressively adopted “business entrepreneur” practices (Hugues & Gasse, 2004yf ( Q W U H S U H Q H X U V Z L W h social backgrounds invested in management training, and entrepreneurs with new profiles – business school graduates as well as former business executives – started to join the field (Hugues & Gasse, 2004yf 7 K L V W U H Q G F R Q – solidated in 2000 as more and more organizations in the field voiced their identity as “real companies,” joined employers unions, and partnered with capitalist busi- nesses to develop business opportunities. By the middle of 2000, WISEs were thus integrated into both the social and the economic spheres. Anne-Claire Pache ([email protected] L V D V V R F L D W H S U R – fessor of social entrepreneurship at ESSEC Business School and holder of the ESSEC Chair in Philanthropy. She received her doctorate in organizational behavior from INSEAD. Her research lies at the intersection of organizational theory and social entrepreneurship, with a particular emphasis on pluralistic environments, hybrid organizations, and scaling-up processes in organizations. Filipe Santos ([email protected] L V D V V R F L D W H S U R – fessor of entrepreneurship at INSEAD, academic director for social entrepreneurship, and director of the Rudolf and Valeria Maag INSEAD Centre for Entrepreneurship. He received his doctorate in organizations and entrepre- neurship from the Management Science and Engineering Department at Stanford University. His research interests are new ventures, market creation, and social entre- preneurship. This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:38:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
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The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields Author(s): Paul J. DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell Source: American Sociological Review , Apr., 1983 , Vol. 48, No. 2 (Apr., 1983), pp. 147- 160 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2095101 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected] Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Sociological Review This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:21:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms THE IRON CAGE REVISITED: INSTITUTIONAL ISOMORPHISM AND COLLECTIVE RATIONALITY IN ORGANIZATIONAL FIELDS* PAUL J. DIMAGGIO WALTER W. POWELL Yale University 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 a field, 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. In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber warned that the ra- tionalist spirit ushered in by asceticism had achieved a momentum of its own and that, under capitalism, the rationalist order had be- come an iron cage in which humanity was, save for the possibility of prophetic revival, impris- oned “perhaps until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt” (Weber, 1952:181-82yf , Q K L s essay on bureaucracy, Weber returned to this theme, contending that bureaucracy, the ra- tional spirit’s organizational manifestation, was so efficient and powerful a means of controlling men and women that, once established, the momentum of bureaucratization was irreversi- ble (Weber, 1968yf . The imagery of the iron cage has haunted students of society as the tempo of bureau- cratization has quickened. But while bureau- cracy has spread continuously in the eighty years since Weber wrote, we suggest that the engine of organizational rationalization has shifted. For Weber, bureaucratization resulted from three related causes: competition among capitalist firms in the marketplace; competition among states, increasing rulers’ need to control their staff and citizenry; and bourgeois de- mands for equal protection under the law. Of these three, the most important was the com- petitive marketplace. “Today,” Weber (1968:974yf Z U R W H : it is primarily the capitalist market economy which demands that the official business of administration be discharged precisely, un- ambiguously, continuously, and with as much speed as possible. Normally, the very large, modern capitalist enterprises are themselves unequalled models of strict bu- reaucratic organization. We argue that the causes of bureaucratiza- tion and rationalization have changed. The bu- reaucratization of the corporation and the state have been achieved. Organizations are still be- coming more homogeneous, and bureaucracy remains the common organizational form. Today, however, structural change in organi- zations seems less and less driven by competi- tion or by the need for efficiency. Instead, we will contend, bureaucratization and other forms of organizational change occur as the result of processes that make organizations more similar without necessarily making them more efficient. Bureaucratization and other forms of homogenization emerge, we argue, out of the structuration (Giddens, 1979yf R I R U – ganizational fields. This process, in turn, is effected largely by the state and the profes- sions, which have become the great ration- alizers of the second half of the twentieth cen- tury. For reasons that we will explain, highly structured organizational fields provide a con- text in which individual efforts to deal ration- ally with uncertainty and constraint often lead, in-the aggregate, to homogeneity in structure, culture, and output. *Direct all correspondence to: Paul J. DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell, School of Organization and Management, Yale University, Box IA, New Haven, CT 06520. A preliminary version of this paper was presented by Powell at the American Sociological Association meetings in Toronto, August 1981. We have bene- fited considerably from careful readings of earlier drafts by Dan Chambliss, Randall Collins, Lewis Coser, Rebecca Friedkin, Connie Gersick, Albert Hunter, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Charles E. Lindblom, John Meyer, David Morgan, Susan Olzak, Charles Perrow, Richard A. Peterson, Arthur Stinchcombe, Blair Wheaton, and two anonymous ASR reviewers. The authors’ names are listed in alphabetical order for convenience. This was a fully collaborative effort. American Sociological Review 1983, Vol. 48 (April: 147-160yf 7 This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:21:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 148 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW ORGANIZATIONAL THEORY AND ORGANIZATIONAL DIVERSITY Much of modern organizational theory posits a diverse and differentiated world of organi- zations and seeks to explain variation among organizations in structure and behavior (e.g., Woodward, 1965; Child and Kieser, 1981yf . Hannan and Freeman begin a major theoretical paper (1977yf Z L W K W K H T X H V W L R Q : K D U H W K H U e so many kinds of organizations?” Even our in- vestigatory technologies (for example, those based on least-squares techniquesyf D U H J H D U H d towards explaining variation rather than its ab- sence. We ask, instead, why there is such startling homogeneity of organizational forms and prac- tices; and we seek to explain homogeneity, not variation. In the initial stages of their life cycle, organizational fields display considerable di- versity in approach and form. Once a field be- comes well established, however, there is an inexorable push towards homogenization. Coser, Kadushin, and Powell (1982yf G H V F U L E e the evolution of American college textbook publishing from a period of initial diversity to the current hegemony of only two models, the large bureaucratic generalist and the small spe- cialist. Rothman (1980yf G H V F U L E H V W K H Z L Q Q R Z – ing of several competing models of legal edu- cation into two dominant approaches. Starr (1980yf S U R Y L G H V H Y L G H Q F H R I P L P L F U L Q W K H G H – velopment of the hospital field; Tyack (1974yf and Katz (1975yf V K R Z D V L P L O D U S U R F H V V L Q S X E – lic schools; Barnouw (1966-68yf G H V F U L E H V W K e development of dominant forms in the radio industry; and DiMaggio (1981yf G H S L F W V W K e emergence of dominant organizational models for the provision of high culture in the late nineteenth century. What we see in each of these cases is the emergence and structuration of an organi- zational field as a result of the activities of a diverse set of organizations; and, second, the homogenization of these organizations, and of new entrants as well, once the field is estab- lished. By organizational field,-we mean those orga- nizations that, in the aggregate, constitute a recognized area of institutional life: key suppliers, resource and product consumers, regulatory agencies, and other organizations that produce similar services or products. The virtue of this unit of analysis is that it directs our attention not simply to competing firms, as does the population approach of Hannan and Freeman (1977yf R U W R Q H W Z R U N V R I R U J D Q L – zations that actually interact, as does the inter- organizational network approach of Laumann et al. (1978yf E X W W R W K H W R W D O L W R I U H O H Y D Q t actors. In doing this, the field idea com- prehends the importance of both connected- ness (see Laumann et al., 1978yf D Q G V W U X F W X U D l equivalence (White et al., 1976yf 1 The structure of an organizational field can- not be determined a priori but must be defined on the basis of empirical investigation. Fields only exist to the extent that they are institu- tionally defined. The process of institutional definition, or “structuration,” consists of four parts: an increase in the extent of interaction among organizations in the field; the emergence of sharply defined interorgani- zational structures of domination and patterns of coalition; an increase in the information load with which organizations in a field must con- tend; and the development of a mutual aware- ness among participants in a set of organi- zations that they are involved in a common enterprise (DiMaggio, 1982yf . Once disparate organizations in the same line of business are structured into an actual field (as we shall argue, by competition, the state, or the professionsyf S R Z H U I X O I R U F H s emerge that lead them to become more similar to one another. Organizations may change their goals or develop new practices, and new organizations enter the field. But, in the long run, organizational actors making rational de- cisions construct around themselves an envi- ronment that constrains their ability to change further in later years. Early adopters of organi- zational innovations are commonly driven by a desire to improve performance. But new prac- tices can become, in Selznick’s words (1957:17yf L Q I X V H G Z L W K Y D O X H E H R Q G W K H W H F K – nical requirements of the task at hand.” As an innovation spreads, a threshold is reached be- yond which adoption provides legitimacy rather than improves performance (Meyer and Rowan, 1977yf 6 W U D W H J L H V W K D W D U H U D W L R Q D O I R r individual organizations may not be rational if adopted by large numbers. Yet the very fact that they are normatively sanctioned increases the likelihood of their adoption. Thus organi- zations may try to change constantly; but, after I By connectedness we mean the existence of transactions tying organizations to one another: such transactions might include formal contractual re- lationships, participation of personnel in common enterprises such as professional associations, labor unions, or boards of directors, or informal organizational-level ties like personnel flows. A set of organizations that are strongly connected to one another and only weakly connected to other organi- zations constitutes a clique. By structural equiva- lence we refer to similarity of position in a network structure: for example, two organizations are structurally equivalent if they have ties of the same kind to the same set of other organizations, even if they themselves are not connected: here the key structure is the role or block. This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:21:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms INSTITUTIONAL ISOMORPHISM 149 a certain point in the structuration of an orga- nizational field, the aggregate effect of individ- ual change is to lessen the extent of diversity within the field.2 Organizations in a structured field, to paraphrase Schelling (1978:14yf U H – spond to an environment that consists of other organizations responding to their environment, which consists of organizations responding to an environment of organizations’ responses. Zucker and Tolbert’s (1981yf Z R U N R Q W K e adoption of civil-service reform in the United States illustrates this process. Early adoption of civil-service reforms was related to internal governmental needs, and strongly predicted by such city characteristics as the size of immi- grant population, political reform movements, socioeconomic composition, and city size. Later adoption, however, is not predicted by city characteristics, but is related to institu- tional definitions of the legitimate structural form for municipal administration. Marshall Meyer’s (1981yf V W X G R I W K H E X U H D X F U D W L ] D W L R n of urban fiscal agencies has yielded similar findings: strong relationships between city characteristics and organizational attributes at the turn of the century, null relationships in recent years. Carroll and Delacroix’s (1982yf findings on the birth and death rates of news- papers support the view that selection acts with great force only in the early years of an industry’s existence.4 Freeman (1982:14yf V X J – gests that older, larger organizations reach a point where they can dominate their envi- ronments rather than adjust to them. The concept that best captures the process of homogenization is isomorphism. In Haw- ley’s (1968yf G H V F U L S W L R Q L V R P R U S K L V P L V D F R Q – straining process that forces one unit in a population to resemble other units that face the same set of environmental conditions. At the population level, such an approach suggests that organizational characteristics are modified in the direction of increasing comparability with environmental characteristics; the number of organizations in a population is a function of environmental carrying capacity; and the diversity of organizational forms is isomorphic to environmental diversity. Han- nan and Freeman (1977yf K D Y H V L J Q L I L F D Q W O H [ – tended Hawley’s ideas. They argue that isomorphism can result because nonoptimal forms are selected out of a population of orga- nizations or because organizational decision makers learn appropriate responses and adjust their behavior accordingly. Hannan and Freeman’s focus is almost solely on the first process: selection.5 Following Meyer (1979yf D Q G ) H Q Q H O O f, we maintain that there are two types of isomorphism: competitive and institutional. Hannan and Freeman’s classic paper (1977yf , and much of their recent work, deals with competitive isomorphism, assuming a system 2 By organizational change, we refer to change in formal structure, organizational culture, and goals, program, or mission. Organizational change varies in its responsiveness to technical conditions. In this paper we are most interested in processes that affect organizations in a given field: in most cases these organizations employ similar technical bases; thus we do not attempt to partial out the relative im- portance of technically functional versus other forms of organizational change. While we shall cite many examples of organizational change as we go along, our purpose here is to identify a widespread class of organizational processes relevant to a broad range of substantive problems, rather than to identify deter- ministically the. causes of specific organizational ar- rangements. 3 Knoke (1982yf L Q D F D U H I X O H Y H Q W K L V W R U D Q D O V L s of the spread of municipal reform, refutes the con- ventional explanations of culture clash or hierarchal diffusion and finds but modest support for modern- ization theory. His major finding is that regional dif- ferences in municipal reform adoption arise not from social compositional differences, “but from some type of imitation or contagion effects as represented by the level of neighboring regional cities previously adopting reform government” (p. 1337yf . 4 A wide range of factors-interorganizational commitments, elite sponsorship, and government support in form of open-ended contracts, subsidy, tariff barriers and import quotas, or favorable tax laws-reduce selection pressures even in competi- tive organizational fields. An expanding or a stable, protected market can also mitigate the forces of selection. 5In contrast to Hannan and Freeman, we empha- size adaptation, but we are not suggesting that man- agers’ actions are necessarily strategic in a long- range sense. Indeed, two of the three forms of isomorphism described below-mimetic and normative-involve managerial behaviors at the level of taken-for-granted assumptions rather than consciously strategic choices. In general, we ques- tion the utility of arguments about the motivations of actors that suggest a polarity between the rational and the nonrational. Goal-oriented behavior may be reflexive or prerational in the sense that it reflects deeply embedded predispositions, scripts, schema, or classifications; and behavior oriented to a goal may be reinforced without contributing to the ac- complishment of that goal. While isomorphic change may often be mediated by the desires of managers to increase the effectiveness of their organizations, we are more concerned with the menu of possible op- tions that managers consider than with their motives for choosing particular alternatives. In other words, we freely concede that actors’ understandings of their own behaviors are interpretable in rational terms. The theory of isomorphism addresses not the psychological states of actors but the structural de- terminants of the range of choices that actors per- ceive as rational or prudent. This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:21:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 150 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW rationality that emphasizes market competi- tion, niche change, and fitness measures. Such a view, we suggest, is most relevant for those fields in which free and open competition exists. It explains parts of the process of bu- reaucratization that Weber observed, and may apply to early adoption of innovation, but it does not present a fully adequate picture of the modern world of organizations. For this pur- pose it must be supplemented by an institu- tional view of isomorphism of the sort intro- duced by Kanter (1972:152-54yf L Q K H U G L V F X V – sion of the forces pressing communes toward accommodation with the outside world. As Al- drich (1979:265yf K D V D U J X H G W K H P D M R U I D F W R U s that organizations must take into account are other organizations.” Organizations compete not just for resources and customers, but for political power and institutional legitimacy, for social as well as economic fitness.6 The con- cept of institutional isomorphism is a useful tool for understanding the politics and cere- mony that pervade much modern organi- zational life. Three Mechanisms of Institutional Isomorphic Change We identify three mechanisms through which institutional isomorphic change occurs, each with its own antecedents: 1yf F R H U F L Y e isomorphism that stems from political influ- ence and the problem of legitimacy; 2yf P L P H W L c isomorphism resulting from standard re- sponses to uncertainty; and 3yf Q R U P D W L Y e isomorphism, associated with professionaliza- tion. This typology is an analytic one: the types are not always empirically distinct. For exam- ple, external actors may induce an organization to conform to its peers by requiring it to per- form a particular task and specifying the pro- fession responsible for its performance. Or mimetic change may reflect environmentally constructed uncertainties.7 Yet, while the three types intermingle in empirical setting, they tend to derive from different conditions and may lead to different outcomes. Coercive isomorphism. Coercive iso- morphism results from both formal and in- formal pressures exerted on organizations by other organizations upon which they are de- pendent and by cultural expectations in the society within which organizations function. Such pressures may be felt as force, as persua- sion, or as invitations to join in collusion. In some circumstances, organizational change is a direct response to government mandate: man- ufacturers adopt new pollution control technologies to conform to environmental reg- ulations; nonprofits maintain accounts, and hire accountants, in order to meet tax law re- quirements; and organizations employ affirmative-action officers to fend off allega- tions of discrimination. Schools mainstream special students and hire special education teachers, cultivate PIAs and administrators who get along with them, and promulgate cur- ricula that conform with state standards (Meyer et al., 1981yf 7 K H I D F W W K D W W K H V e changes may be largely ceremonial does not mean that they are inconsequential. As Ritti and Goldner (1979yf K D Y H D U J X H G V W D I I E H F R P e involved in advocacy for their functions that can alter power relations within organizations over the long run. The existence of a common legal environ- ment affects many aspects of an organization’s behavior and structure. Weber pointed out the profound impact of a complex, rationalized system of contract law that requires the neces- sary organizational controls to honor legal commitments. Other legal and technical re- quirements of the state-the vicissitudes of the budget cycle, the ubiquity of certain fiscal years, annual reports, and financial reporting requirements that ensure eligibility for the re- ceipt of federal contracts or funds-also shape organizations in similar ways. Pfeffer and Salancik (1978:188-224yf K D Y H G L V F X V V H G K R w organizations faced with unmanageable inter- dependence seek to use the greater power of the larger social system and its government to eliminate difficulties or provide for needs. They observe that politically constructed envi- ronments have two characteristic features: political decisionmakers often do not experi- ence directly the consequences of their ac- tions; and political decisions are applied across the board to entire classes of organizations, thus making such decisions less adaptive and less flexible. Meyer and Rowan (1977yf K D Y H D U J X H G S H U – suasively that as rationalized states and other large rational organizations expand their domi- nance over more arenas of social life, organi- zational structures increasingly come to reflect rules institutionalized and legitimated by and within the state (also see Meyer and Hannan, 1979yf $ V D U H V X O W R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q V D U H L Q F U H D V – ingly homogeneous within given domains and increasingly organized around rituals of con- formity to wider institutions. At the same time, organizations are decreasingly structurally determined by the constraints posed by techni- cal activities, and decreasingly held together 6 Carroll and Delacroix (1982yf F O H D U O U H F R J Q L ] e this and include political and institutional legitimacy as a major resource. Aldrich (1979yf K D V D U J X H G W K D t the population perspective must attend to historical trends and changes in legal and political institutions. 7 This point was suggested by John Meyer. This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:21:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms INSTITUTIONAL ISOMORPHISM 151 by output controls. Under such circumstances, organizations employ ritualized controls of credentials and group solidarity. Direct imposition of standard operating pro- cedures and legitimated rules and structures also occurs outside the governmental arena. Michael Sedlak (1981yf K D V G R F X P H Q W H G W K e ways that United Charities in the 1930s altered and homogenized the structures, methods, and philosophies of the social service agencies that depended upon them for support. As conglom- erate corporations increase in size and scope, standard performance criteria are not neces- sarily imposed on subsidiaries, but it is com- mon for subsidiaries to be subject to stan- dardized reporting mechanisms (Coser et al., 1982yf 6 X E V L G L D U L H V P X V W D G R S W D F F R X Q W L Q g practices, performance evaluations, and bud- getary plans that are compatible with the policies of the parent corporation. A variety of service infrastructures, often provided by monopolistic firms-for example, telecom- munications and transportation-exert com- mon pressures over the organizations that use them. Thus, the expansion of the central state, the centralization of capital, and the coordina- tion of philanthropy all support the homogeni- zation of organizational models through direct authority relationships. We have so far referred only to the direct and explicit imposition of organizational mod- els on dependent organizations. Coercive isomorphism, however, may be more subtle and less explicit than these examples suggest. Milofsky (1981yf K D V G H V F U L E H G W K H Z D V L n which neighborhood organizatioins in urban communities, many of which are committed to participatory democracy, are driven to devel- oping organizational hierarchies in order to gain support from more hierarchically orga- nized donor organizations. Similarly, Swidler (1979yf G H V F U L E H V W K H W H Q V L R Q V F U H D W H G L Q W K H I U H e schools she studied by the need to have a “principal” to negotiate with the district sup- erintendent and to represent the school to out- side agencies. In general, the need to lodge responsibility and managerial authority at least ceremonially in a formally defined role in order to interact with hierarchical organizations is a constant obstacle to the maintenance of egalitarian or collectivist organizational forms (Kanter, 1972; Rothschild-Whitt, 1979yf . Mimetic processes. Not all institutional isomorphism, however, derives from coercive authority. Uncertainty is also a powerful force that encourages imitation. When organi- zational technologies are poorly understood (March and Olsen, 1976yf Z K H Q J R D O V D U H D P – biguous, or when the environment creates symbolic uncertainty, organizations may model themselves on other organizations. The advantages of mimetic behavior in the econ- omy of human action are considerable; when an organization faces a problem with ambigu- ous causes or unclear solutions, problemistic search may yield a viable solution with little expense (Cyert and March, 1963yf . Modeling, as we use the term, is a response to uncertainty. The modeled organization may be unaware of the modeling or may have no desire to be copied; it merely serves as a con- venient source of practices that the borrowing organization may use. Models may be diffused unintentionally, indirectly through employee transfer or turnover, or explicitly by organi- zations such as consulting firms or industry trade associations. Even innovation can be ac- counted for by organizational modeling. As Alchian (1950yf K D V R E V H U Y H G : While there certainly are those who con- sciously innovate, there are those who, in their imperfect attempts to imitate others, unconsciously innovate by unwittingly ac- quiring some unexpected or unsought unique attributes which under the prevailing cir- cumstances prove partly responsible for the success. Others, in turn, will attempt to copy the uniqueness, and the innovation-imitation process continues. One of the most dramatic instances of mod- eling was the effort of Japan’s modernizers in the late nineteenth century to model new gov- ernmental initiatives on apparently successful western -prototypes. Thus, the imperial gov- ernment sent its officers to study the courts, Army, and police in France, the Navy and postal system in Great Britain, and banking and art education in the United States (see Westney, forthcomingyf $ P H U L F D Q F R U S R – rations are now returning the compliment by implementing (their perceptions ofyf – D S D Q H V e models to cope with thorny productivity and personnel problems in their own firms. The rapid proliferation of quality circles and quality-of-work-life issues in American firms is, at least in part, an attempt to model Japanese and European successes. These de- velopments also have a ritual aspect; com- panies adopt these “innovations” to enhance their legitimacy, to demonstrate they are at least trying to improve working conditions. More generally, the wider the population of personnel employed by, or customers served by, an organization, the stronger the pressure felt by the organization to provide the pro- grams and services offered by other organi- zations. Thus, either a skilled labor force or a broad customer base may encourage mimetic isomorphism. Much homogeneity in organizational structures stems from the fact that despite con- This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:21:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 152 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW siderable search for diversity there is relatively little variation to be selected from. New orga- nizations are modeled upon old ones through- out the economy, and managers actively seek models upon which to build (Kimberly, 1980yf . Thus, in the arts one can find textbooks on how to organize a community arts council or how to start a symphony women’s guild. Large orga- nizations choose from a relatively small set of major consulting firms, which, like Johnny Appleseeds, spread a few organizational mod- els throughout the land. Such models are pow- erful because structural changes are observa- ble, whereas changes in policy and strategy are less easily noticed. With the advice of a major consulting firm, a large metropolitan public television station switched from a functional design to a multidivisional structure. The sta- tions’ executives were skeptical that the new structure was more efficient; in fact, some ser- vices were now duplicated across divisions. But they were convinced that the new design would carry a powerful message to the for- profit firms with whom the station regularly dealt. These firms, whether in the role of cor- porate underwriters or as potential partners in joint ventures, would view the reorganization as a sign that “the sleepy nonprofit station was becoming more business-minded” (Powell, forthcomingyf 7 K H K L V W R U R I P D Q D J H P H Q W U H – form in American government agencies, which are noted for their goal ambiguity, is almost a textbook case of isomorphic model- ing, from the PPPB of the McNamara era to the zero-based budgeting of the Carter administra- tion. Organizations tend to model themselves after similar organizations in their field that they perceive to be more legitimate or suc- cessful. The ubiquity of certain kinds of structural arrangements can more likely be credited to the universality of mimetic pro- cesses than to any concrete evidence that the adopted models enhance efficiency. John Meyer (1981yf F R Q W H Q G V W K D W L W L V H D V W R S U H G L F t the organization of a newly emerging nation’s administration without knowing anything about the nation itself, since “peripheral na- tions are far more isomorphic-in administra- tive form and economic pattern-than any theory of the world system of economic di- vision of labor would lead one to expect.” Normative pressures. A third source of isomorphic organizational change is normative and stems primarily from professionalization. Following Larson (1977yf D Q G & R O O L Q V f, we interpret professionalization as the collective struggle of members of an occupation to define the conditions and methods of their work, to control “the production of producers” (Lar- son, 1977:49-52yf D Q G W R H V W D E O L V K D F R J Q L W L Y e base and legitimation for their occupational autonomy. As Larson points out, the profes- sional project is rarely achieved with complete success. Professionals must compromise with nonprofessional clients, bosses, or regulators. The major recent growth in the professions has been among organizational professionals, par- ticularly managers and specialized staff of large organizations. The increased professionaliza- tion of workers whose futures are inextricably bound up with the fortunes of the organizations that employ them has rendered obsolescent (if not obsoleteyf W K H G L F K R W R P E H W Z H H Q R U J D Q L – zational commitment and professional alle- giance that characterized traditional profes- sionals in earlier organizations (Hall, 1968yf . Professions are subject to the same coercive and mimetic pressures as are organizations. Moreover, while various kinds of professionals within an organization may differ from one an- other, they exhibit much similarity to their professional counterparts in other organi- zations. In addition, in many cases, profes- sional power is as much assigned by the state as it is created by the activities of the profes- sions. Two aspects of professionalization are im- portant sources of isomorphism. One is the resting of formal education and of legitimation in a cognitive base produced by university spe- cialists; the second is the growth and elabora- tion of professional networks that span organi- zations and across which new models diffuse rapidly. Universities and professional training institutions are important centers for the de- velopment of organizational norms among professional managers and their staff. Profes- sional and trace associations are another vehi- cle for the definition and promulgation of nor- mative rules about organizational and profes- sional behavior. Such mechanisms create a pool of almost interchangeable individuals who occupy similar positions across a range of or- ganizations and possess a similarity of orienta- tion and disposition that may override varia- tions in tradition and control that might other- wise shape organizational behavior (Perrow, 1974yf . One important mechanism for encouraging normative isomorphism is the filtering of per- sonnel. Within many organizational fields fil- tering occurs through the hiring of individuals from firms within the same industry; through the recruitment of fast-track staff from a nar- row range of training institutions; through common promotion practices, such as always hiring top executives from financial or legal departments; and from skill-level requirements for particular jobs. Many professional career tracks are so closely guarded, both at the entry level and throughout the career progression, This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:21:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms INSTITUTIONAL ISOMORPHISM 153 that individuals who make it to the top are virtually indistinguishable. March and March (1977yf I R X Q G W K D W L Q G L Y L G X D O V Z K R D W W D L Q H G W K e position of school superintendent in Wisconsin were so alike in background and orientation as to make further career advancement random and unpredictable. Hirsch and Whisler (1982yf find a similar absence of variation among For- tune 500 board members. In addition, individu- als in an organizational field undergo antici- patory socialization to common expectations about their personal behavior, appropriate style of dress, organizational vocabularies (Cicourel, 1970; Williamson, 1975yf D Q G V W D Q – dard methods of speaking, joking, or address- ing others (Ouchi, 1980yf 3 D U W L F X O D U O L Q L Q G X V – tries with a service or financial orientation (Collins, 1979, argues that the importance of credentials is strongest in these areasyf W K H I L O – tering of personnel approaches what Kanter (1977yf U H I H U V W R D V W K H K R P R V H [ X D O U H S U R G X F – tion of management.” To the extent managers and key staff are drawn from the same univer- sities and filtered on a common set of attri- butes, they will tend to view problems in a simi- lar fashion, see the same policies, procedures and structures as normatively sanctioned and legitimated, and approach decisions in much the same way. Entrants to professional career tracks who somehow escape the filtering process-for example, Jewish naval officers, woman stockbrokers, or Black insurance executives-are likely to be subjected to per- vasive on-the-job socialization. To the extent that organizations in a field differ and primary socialization occurs on the job, socialization could reinforce, not erode, differences among organizations. But when organizations in a field are similar and occupational socialization is carried out in trade association workshops, in-service educational programs, consultant ar- rangements, employer–professional school networks, and in the pages of trade magazines, socialization acts as an isomorphic force. The professionalization of management tends to proceed in tandem with the structura- tion of organizational fields. The exchange of information among professionals helps con- tribute to a commonly recognized hierarchy of status, of center and periphery, that becomes a matrix for information flows and personnel movement across organizations. This status ordering occurs through both formal and in- formal means. The designation of a few large firms in an industry as key bargaining agents in union-management negotiations may make these central firms pivotal in other respects as well. Government recognition of key firms or organizations through the grant or contract process may give these organizations legiti- macy and visibility and lead competing firms to copy aspects of their structure or operating procedures in hope of obtaining similar re- wards. Professional and trade associations provide other arenas in which center organiza- tions are recognized and their personnel given positions of substantive or ceremonial influ- ence. Managers in highly visible organizations may in turn have their stature reinforced by representation on the boards of other organi- zations, participation in industry-wide or inter-industry councils, and consultation by agencies of government (Useem, 1979yf , Q W K e nonprofit sector, where legal barriers to collu- sion do not exist, structuration may proceed even more rapidly. Thus executive producers or artistic directors of leading theatres head trade or professional association committees, sit on government and foundation grant-award panels, or consult as government- or foundation-financed management advisors to smaller theatres, or sit on smaller organi- zations’ boards, even as their stature is rein- forced and enlarged by the grants their theatres receive from government, corporate, and foundation funding sources (DiMaggio, 1982yf . Such central organizations serve as both active and passive models; their policies and structures will be copied throughout their fields. Their centrality is reinforced as up- wardly mobile managers and staff seek to se- cure positions in these central organizations in order to further their own careers. Aspiring managers may undergo anticipatory socializa- tion into the norms and mores of the organi- zations they hope to join. Career paths may also involve movement from entry positions in the center organizations to middle- management positions in peripheral organi- zations. Personnel flows within an orgarni- zational field are further encouraged by structural homogenization, for example the existence of common career titles and paths (such as assistant, associate, and full profes- soryf Z L W K P H D Q L Q J V W K D W D U H F R P P R Q O X Q G H U – stood. It is important to note that each of the in- stitutional isomorphic processes can be ex- pected to proceed in the absence of evidence that they increase internal organizational effi- ciency. To the extent that organizational effec- tiveness is enhanced, the reason will often be that organizations are rewarded for being similar to other organizations in their fields. This similarity can make it easier for organi- zations to transact with other organizations, to attract career-minded staff, to be acknowl- edged as legitimate and reputable, and to fit into administrative categories that define eligi- bility for public and private grants and con- tracts. None of this, however, insures that This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:21:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 154 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW conformist organizations do what they do more efficiently than do their more deviant peers. Pressures for competitive efficiency are also mitigated in many fields because the number of organizations is limited and there are strong fiscal and legal barriers to entry and exit. Lee (1971:51yf P D L Q W D L Q V W K L V L V Z K K R V S L W D O D G – ministrators are less concerned with the effi- cient use of resources and more concerned with status competition and parity in prestige. Fennell (1980yf Q R W H V W K D W K R V S L W D O V D U H D S R R r market system because patients lack the needed knowledge of potential exchange partners and prices. She argues that physicians and hospital administrators are the actual con- sumers. Competition among hospitals is based on “attracting physicians, who, in turn, bring their patients to the hospital.” Fennell (p. 505yf concludes that: Hospitals operate according to a norm of social legitimation that frequently conflicts with market considerations of efficiency and system rationality. Apparently, hospitals can increase their range of services not because there is an actual need for a particular service or facility within the patient population, but because they will be defined as fit only if they can offer everything other hospitals in the area offer. These results suggest a more general pattern. Organizational fields that include a large pro- fessionally trained labor force will be driven primarily by status competition. Organi- zational prestige and resources are key ele- ments in attracting professionals. This process encourages homogenization as organizations seek to ensure that they can provide the same benefits and services as their competitors. PREDICTORS OF ISOMORPHIC CHANGE It follows from our discussion of the mech- anism by which isomorphic change occurs that we should be able to predict empirically which organizational fields will be most homogeneous in structure, process, and behavior. While an empirical test of such predictions is beyond the scope of this paper, the ultimate value of our perspective will lie in its predictive utility. The hypotheses discussed below are not meant to exhaust the universe of predictors, but merely to suggest several hypotheses that may be pur- sued using data on the characteristics of orga- nizations in a field, either cross-sectionally or, preferably, over time. The hypotheses are im- plicitly governed by ceteris paribus assump- tions, particularly with regard to size, technol- ogy, and centralization of external resources. A. Organizational-level predictors. There is variability in the extent to and rate at which organizations in a field change to become more like their peers. Some organizations respond to external pressures quickly; others change only after a long period of resistance. The first two hypotheses derive from our discussion of coer- cive isomorphism and constraint. Hypothesis A-1: The greater the dependence of an organization on another organization, the more similar it will become to that organi- zation in structure, climate, and behavioral focus. Following Thompson (1957yf D Q G 3 I H I I H r and Salancik (1978yf W K L V S U R S R V L W L R Q U H F R J – nizes the greater ability of organizations to re- sist the demands of organizations on whom they are not dependent. A position of depen- dence leads to isomorphic change. Coercive pressures are built into exchange relationships. As Williamson (1979yf K D V V K R Z Q H [ F K D Q J H s are characterized by transaction-specific in- vestments in both knowledge and equipment. Once an organization chooses a specific supplier or distributor for particular parts or services, the supplier or distributor develops expertise in the performance of the task as well as idiosyncratic knowledge about the exchange relationship. The organization comes to rely on the supplier or distributor and such transaction-specific investments give the supplier or distributor considerable advantages in any subsequent competition with other suppliers or distributors. Hypothesis A-2: The greater the centraliza- tion of organization A’s resource supply, the greater the extent to which organization A will change isomorphically to resemble the organi- zations on which it depends for resources. As Thompson (1967yf Q R W H V R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q V W K D W G H – pend on the same sources for funding, person- nel, and legitimacy will be more subject to the whims of resource suppliers than will organi- zations that can play one source of support off against another. In cases where alternative sources are either not readily available or re- quire effort to locate, the stronger party to the transaction can coerce the weaker party to adopt its practices in order to accommodate the stronger party’s needs (see Powell, 1983yf . The third and fourth hypotheses derive from our discussion of mimetic isomorphism, mod- eling, and uncertainty. Hypothesis A-3: The more uncertain the re- lationship between means and ends the greater the extent to which an organization will model itself after organizations it perceives to be suc- cessful. The mimetic thought process involved in the search for models is characteristic of change in organizations in which key technologies are only poorly understood (March and Cohen, 1974yf + H U H R X U S U H G L F W L R n diverges somewhat from Meyer and Rowan This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:21:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms INSTITUTIONAL ISOMORPHISM 155 (1977yf Z K R D U J X H D V Z H G R W K D W R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q s which lack well-defined technologies will im- port institutionalized rules and practices. Meyer and Rowan posit a loose coupling be- tween legitimated external practices and inter- nal organizational behavior. From an ecologist’s point of view, loosely coupled or- ganizations are more likely to vary internally. In contrast, we expect substantive internal changes in tandem with more ceremonial prac- tices, thug greater homogeneity and less varia- tion and change. Internal consistency of this sort is an important means of interorgani- zational coordination. It also increases organi- zational stability. Hypothesis A-4: The more ambiguous the goals of an organization, the greater the extent to which the organization will model itself after organizations that it perceives to be suc- cessful. There are two reasons for this. First, organizations with ambiguous or disputed goals are likely to be highly dependent upon appearances for legitimacy. Such organizations may find it to their advantage to meet the ex- pectations of important constituencies about how they should be designed and run. In con- trast to our view, ecologists would argue that organizations that copy other organizations usually have no competitive advantage. We contend that, in most situations, reliance on established, legitimated procedures enhances organizational legitimacy and survival charac- teristics. A second reason for modeling be- havior is found in situations where conflict over organizational goals is repressed in the interest of harmony; thus participants find it easier to mimic other organizations than to make decisions on the basis of systematic analyses of goals since such analyses would prove painful or disruptive. The fifth and sixth hypotheses are based on our discussion of normative processes found in professional organizations. Hypothesis A-5: The greater the reliance on academic credentials in choosing managerial and staff personnel, the greater the extent to which an organization will become like other organizations in its field. Applicants with aca- demic credentials have already undergone a socialization process in university programs, and are thus more likely than others to have internalized reigning norms and dominant or- ganizational models. Hypothesis A-5: The greater the participa- tion of organizational managers in trade and professional associations, the more likely the organization will be, or will become, like other organizations in its field. This hypothesis is parallel to the institutional view that the more elaborate the relational networks among organizations and their members, the greater the collective organization of the environment (Meyer and Rowan, 1977yf . B. Field-level predictors. The following six hypotheses describe the expected effects of several characteristics of organizational fields on the extent of isomorphism in a particular field. Since the effect of institutional isomorphism is homogenization, the best indi- cator of isomorphic change is a decrease in variation and diversity, which could be mea- sured by lower standard deviations of the values of selected indicators in a set of organi- zations. The key indicators would vary with the nature of the field and the interests of the investigator. In all cases, however, field-level measures are expected to affect organizations in a field regardless of each organization’s scores on related organizational-level mea- sures. Hypothesis B-1: The greater the extent to which an organizational field is dependent upon a single (or several similaryf V R X U F H R f support for vital resources, the higher the level of isomorphism. The centralization of re- sources within a field both directly causes homogenization by placing organizations under similar pressures from resource suppliers, and interacts with uncertainty and goal ambiguity to increase their impact. This hypothesis is congruent with the ecologists’ argument that the number of organizational forms is deter- mined by the distribution of resources in the environment and the terms on which resources are available. Hypothesis B-2: The greater the extent to which the organizations in afield transact with agencies of the state, the greater the extent of isomorphism in the field as a whole. This fol- lows not just from the previous hypothesis, but from two elements of state/private-sector transactions: their rule-boundedness and for- mal rationality, and the emphasis of govern- ment actors on institutional rules. Moreover, the federal government routinely designates industry standards for an entire field which require adoption by all competing firms. John Meyer (1979yf D U J X H V F R Q Y L Q F L Q J O W K D W W K H D V – pects of an organization which are affected by state transactions differ to the extent that state participation is unitary or fragmented among several public agencies. The third and fourth hypotheses follow from our discussion of isomorphic change resulting from uncertainty and modeling. Hypothesis B-3: The fewer the number of visible alternative organizational models in a field, the faster the rate of isomorphism in that field. The predictions of this hypothesis are less specific than those of others and require further refinement; but our argument is that for any relevant dimension of organizational strat- This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:21:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 156 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW egies or structures in an organizational field there will be a threshold level, or a tipping point, beyond which adoption of the domi- nant form will proceed with increasing speed (Granovetter, 1978; Boorman and Leavitt, 1979yf . Hypothesis B-4: The greater the extent to which technologies are uncertain or goals are ambiguous within afield, the greater the rate of isomorphic change. Somewhat counterin- tuitively, abrupt increases in uncertainty and ambiguity should, after brief periods of ideologically motivated experimentation, lead to rapid isomorphic change. As in the case of A-4, ambiguity and uncertainty may be a func- tion of environmental definition, and, in any case, interact both with centralization of re- sources (A-i, A-2, B-I, B-2yf D Q G Z L W K S U R I H V – sionalization and structuration (A-5, A-6, B-5, B-6yf 0 R U H R Y H U L Q I L H O G V F K D U D F W H U L ] H G E a high degree of uncertainty, new entrants, which could serve as sources of innovation and variation, will seek to overcome the liability of newness by imitating established practices within the field. The two final hypotheses in this section fol- low from our discussion of professional filter- ing, socialization, and structuration. Hypothesis B-5: The greater the extent of professionalization in a field, the greater the amount of institutional isomorphic change. Professionalization may be measured by the universality of credential requirements, the robustness of graduate training programs, or the vitality of professional and trade associ- ations. Hypothesis B-6: The greater the extent of structuration of a field, the greater the degree of isomorphics. Fields that have stable and broadly acknowledged centers, peripheries, and status orders will be more homogeneous both because the diffusion structure for new models and norms is more routine and because the level of interaction among organizations in the field is higher. While structuration may not lend itself to easy measurement, it might be tapped crudely with the use of such familiar measures as concentration ratios, reputational interview studies, or data on network charac- teristics. This rather schematic exposition of a dozen hypotheses relating the extent of isomorphism to selected attributes of organizations and of organizational fields does not constitute a complete agenda for empirical assessment of our perspective. We have not discussed the expected nonlinearities and ceiling effects in the relationships that we have posited. Nor have we addressed the issue of the indicators that one must use to measure homogeneity. Organizations in a field may be highly diverse on some dimensions, yet extremely homoge- neous on others. While we suspect, in general, that the rate at which the standard deviations of structural or behavioral indicators approach zero will vary with the nature of an organi- zational field’s technology and environment, we will not develop these ideas here. The point of this section is to suggest that the theoretical discussion is susceptible to empirical test, and to lay out a few testable propositions that may guide future analyses. IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIAL THEORY A comparison of macrosocial theories of func- tionalist or Marxist orientation with theoretical and empirical work in the study of organi- zations yields a paradoxical conclusion. Societies (or elitesyf V R L W V H H P V D U H V P D U W , while organizations are dumb. Societies com- prise institutions that mesh together comforta- bly in the interests of efficiency (Clark, 1962yf , the dominant value system (Parsons, 1951yf R U , in the Marxist version, capitalists (Domhoff, 1967; Althusser, 1969yf 2 U J D Q L ] D W L R Q V E F R Q – trast, are either anarchies (Cohen et al., 1972yf , federations of loosely coupled parts (Weick, 1976yf R U D X W R Q R P V H H N L Q J D J H Q W V * R X O G Q H U , 1954yf O D E R U L Q J X Q G H U V X F K I R U P L G D E O H F R Q – straints as bounded rationality (March and Simon, 1958yf X Q F H U W D L Q R U F R Q W H V W H G J R D O s (Sills, 1957yf D Q G X Q F O H D U W H F K Q R O R J L H V 0 D U F h and Cohen, 1974yf . Despite the findings of organizational re- search, the image of society as consisting of tightly and rationally coupled institutions per- sists throughout much of modern social theory. Rational administration pushes out non- bureaucratic forms, schools assume the structure of the workplace, hospital and uni- versity administrations come to resemble the management of for-profit firms, and the mod- ernization of the world economy proceeds un- abated. Weberians point to the continuing homogenization of organizational structures as the formal rationality of bureaucracy extends to the limits of contemporary organizational life. Functionalists describe the rational adap- tation of the structure of firms, schools, and states to the values and needs of modern soci- ety (Chandler, 1977; Parsons, 1977yf 0 D U [ L V W s attribute changes in such organizations as welfare agencies (Pivan and Cloward, 1971yf and schools (Bowles and Gintis, 1976yf W R W K e logic of the accumulation process. We find it difficult to square the extant lit- erature on organizations with these macroso- cial views. How can it be that the confused and contentious bumblers that populate the pages of organizational case studies and theories combine to construct the elaborate and well- This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:21:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms INSTITUTIONAL ISOMORPHISM 157 proportioned social edifice that macrotheorists describe? The conventional answer to this paradox has been that some version of natural selection oc- curs in which selection mechanisms operate to weed out those organizational forms that are less fit. Such arguments, as we have con- tended, are difficult to mesh with organi- zational realities. Less efficient organizational forms do persist. In some contexts efficiency or productivity cannot even be measured. In government agencies or in faltering corpo- rations selection may occur on political rather than economic grounds. In other contexts, for example the Metropolitan Opera or the Bohe- mian Grove, supporters are far more con- cerned with noneconomic values like aesthetic quality or social status than with efficiency per se. Even in the for-profit sector, where com- petitive arguments would promise to bear the greatest fruit, Nelson and Winter’s work (Winter, 1964, 1975; Nelson and Winter, 1982yf demonstrates that the invisible hand operates with, at best, a light touch. A second approach to the paradox that we have identified comes from Marxists and theorists who assert that key elites guide and control the social system through their com- mand of crucial positions in major organi- zations (e.g., the financial institutions that dominate monopoly capitalismyf , Q W K L V Y L H Z , while organizational actors ordinarily proceed undisturbed through mazes of standard operating procedures, at key turning points capitalist elites get their way by intervening in decisions that set the course of an institution for years to come (Katz, 1975yf . While evidence suggests that this is, in fact, sometimes the case-Barnouw’s account of the early days of broadcasting or Weinstein’s (1968yf Z R U N R Q W K H 3 U R J U H V V L Y H V D U H J R R d examples-other historians have been less successful in their search for class-conscious elites. In such cases as the development of the New Deal programs (Hawley, 1966yf R U W K H H [ – pansion of the Vietnamese conflcit (Halperin, 1974yf W K H F D S L W D O L V W F O D V V D S S H D U V W R K D Y H E H H n muddled and disunited. Moreover, without constant monitoring, in- dividuals pursuing parochial organizational or subunit interests can quickly undo the work that even the most prescient elites have ac- complished. Perrow (1976:21yf K D V Q R W H G W K D t despite superior resources and sanctioning power, organizational elites are often unable to maximize their preferences because “the com- plexity of modern organizations makes control difficult.” Moreover, organizations have in- creasingly become the vehicle for numerous “gratifications, necessities, and preferences so that many groups within and without the orga- nization seek to use it for ends that restrict the return to masters.” We reject neither the natural-selection nor the elite-control arguments out of hand. Elites do exercise considerable influence over mod- ern life and aberrant or inefficient organi- zations sometimes do expire. But we contend that neither of these processes is sufficient to explain the extent to which organizations have become structurally more similar. We argue that a theory of institutional isomorphism may help explain the observations that organi- zations are becoming more homogeneous, and that elites often get their way, while at the same time enabling us to understand the irra- tionality, the frustration of power, and the lack of innovation that are so commonplace in or- ganizational life. What is more, our approach is more consonant with the ethnographic and theoretical literature on how organizations work than are either functionalist or elite theories of organizational change. A focus on institutional isomorphism can also add a much needed perspective on the political struggle for organizational power and survival that is missing from much of popula- tion ecology. The institutionalization approach associated with John Meyer and his students posits the importance of myths and ceremony but does not ask how these models arise and whose interests they initially serve. Explicit attention to the genesis of legitimated models and to the definition and elaboration of organi- zational fields should answer this question. Examination of the diffusion of similar organi- zational strategies and structures should be a productive means for assessing the influence of elite interests. A consideration of isomorphic processes also leads us to a bifocal view of power and its application in modern politics. To the extent that organizational change is unplanned and goes on largely behind the backs of groups that wish to influence it, our attention should be directed to two forms of power. The first, as March and Simon (1958yf and Simon (1957yf S R L Q W H G R X W H D U V D J R L V W K e power to set premises, to define the norms and standards which shape and channel behavior. The second is the point of critical intervention (Domhoff, 1979yf D W Z K L F K H O L W H V F D Q G H I L Q H D S – propriate models of organizational structure and policy which then go unquestioned for years to come (see Katz, 1975yf 6 X F K D Y L H Z L s consonant with some of the best recent work on power (see Lukes, 1974yf U H V H D U F K R Q W K e structuration of organizational fields and on isomorphic processes may help give it more empirical flesh. Finally, a more developed theory of organi- zational isomorphism may have important im- plications for social policy in those fields in This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:21:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 158 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW which the state works through private organi- zations. To the extent that pluralism is a guid- ing value in public policy deliberations, we need to discover new forms of intersectoral coordination that will encourage diversification rather than hastening homogenization. An understanding of the manner in which fields become more homogeneous would prevent policy makers and analysts from confusing the disappearance of an organizational form with its substantive failure. Current efforts to en- courage diversity tend to be conducted in an organizational vacuum. Policy makers con- cerned with pluralism should consider the im- pact of their programs on the structure of orga- nizational fields as a whole, and not simply on the programs of individual organizations. We believe there is much to be gained by attending to similarity as well as to variation among organizations and, in particular, to change in the degree of homogeneity or varia- tion over time. Our approach seeks to study incremental change as well as selection. We take seriously the observations of organi- zational theorists about the role of change, am- biguity, and constraint and point to the impli- cations of these organizational characteristics for the social structure as a whole. The foci and motive forces of bureaucratization (and, more broadly, homogenization in generalyf K D Y H D s we argued, changed since Weber’s time. But the importance of understanding the trends to which he called attention has never been more immediate. 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Institutional Logic and Street-Level Discretion: The Case of HIV Test Counseling Author(s): Eve E. Garrow and Oscar Grusky Source: Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory: J-PART , January 2013 , Vol. 23, No. 1 (January 2013), pp. 103-131 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Public Management Research Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23321086 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected] Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms and Oxford University Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory: J-PART This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms J PART 23:103 Institutional Logic and Street-Level Discretion: The Case of HIV Test Counseling Eve E. Carrow*, Oscar Cruskyf *University of Michigan; ‘ University of California-Los Angeles ABSTRACT Research on variation in policy implementation has examined how individual- and organizational-level variables shape discretionary practices at the frontlines of implementa tion but has given less attention to the influence of the organizational field. From an institutional logics perspective, the practices of street-level workers are likely to be more congruent with policy intent when policy is consistent with the core institutional logic that structures the organizational field. Using data from a probability sample of 90 Los Angeles County HIV/AIDS health organizations and 216 frontline practitioners, our findings suggest that the extent to which implementation of HIV test counseling follows guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCyf L V U H O D W H G W R F R Q V L V W H Q F E H W Z H H Q & ‘ C policy and core institutional logic, when accounting for individual-level factors such as client need; practitioners’ professional orientation, knowledge, experience, and training; and organizational constraints such as workload pressures and formalization. It is well established that street-level workers in health and human service organizations, in the provision of services and other activities, often diverge from policy objectives and organizational expectations (e.g., Brodkin 2008; Fixsen et al. 2005; Handler and Hollingsworth 1971; Lipsky 1980; McDonald and Piliavin 1984; Mullen and Bacon 2004; Panzano and Herman 2005yf $ N H L Q V L J K W R I W K H U H V H D U F K R Q S R O L F L P S O H P H Q W D W L R n is that workers may diverge from policy intent because of the discretion afforded to them in street-level bureaucracies (Lipsky 1980yf 7 K H E H F R P H L Q H I I H F W O R Z H U O H Y H O S R O L F P D N H U s since their behaviors constitute policy in practice. Most of the research on street-level bureaucrats has examined how diverse occupa tions such as police officers or case workers use their discretion to respond to shared con ditions of work, such as resource limitations and client demands, in predictable ways (see, e.g., Brodkin 1997; Lin 2000; Lipsky 1980; Maynard-Moody and Musheno 2003yf . Although this microcentered theoretical approach has furthered our understanding, it has neglected to consider how and why street-level workers may differ systematically across organizational and institutional contexts in their discretionary behavior. This article contributes to the research on street-level behavior by demonstrating that frontline workers differ from one another in administering a standard protocol and that the We thank Yeheskel Hasenfeld for his insightful comments. We are also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. Address correspondence to the author at [email protected] doi: 10.1093/jopart/mus009 Advance Access publication April 18, 2012 The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 104 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory differences are related to the underlying institutional logic, or set of organizing principles (Friedland and Alford 1991, 248yf R I W K H R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q D O I L H O G L Q Z K L F K W K H Z R U N L V H P E H d ded. It adds to recent comparative work that has examined the influence of broad contextual factors such as county-level political culture (Fording, Soss, and Schram 2007yf D Q G R U J a nizational ideology and goals (Hasenfeld and Weaver 1996yf R Q V W U H H W O H Y H O G L V F U H W L R Q 7 o our knowledge, ours is the first study on street-level discretion to examine the influence of the organizational field. In a second contribution, our model provides a more nuanced and conditional under standing of worker agency than is found in most research on street-level bureaucracy. We contend that because street-level research has not sufficiently accounted for broader envi ronmental influences on discretion, it has overstated the agency of workers, who are viewed as exploiting the discretion afforded to them to maximize their self-interest. Discretion has been identified with workers’ strategic reinterpretation of policy to accommodate the demands of work, limited resources, and their own beliefs and needs (e.g., Jewell and Glaser 2006; Prottas 1979; Smith and Donovan 2003yf $ Q R W K H U V W U D Q G R I U H V H D U F K D s sesses the influence of potential administrative and managerial controls over worker agency, including program design (Hill 2006yf W K H H [ W H Q W W R Z K L F K D G P L Q L V W U D W L R Q H P S K a sizes policy goals (Ewalt and Jennings 2004; Hill 2006; Riccucci et al. 2004yf D Q G P D n agerial supervision (Brehm and Gates 1997; Brewer 2005; Riccucci 2005yf 2 Y H U D O O W K e research indicates that these potential organizational controls have only modest influences on discretionary practices (Meyers and Vorsanger 2003yf . Our model delimits the agency of workers by applying one of the key insights from institutional theory—that agency is institutionally embedded—to the idea of street-level discretion (Friedland and Alford 1991; Thornton and Ocasio 2008yf 7 K H D Q D O V L V G H S L F W s street-level workers not as agents with objective interests and preferences, but rather as institutionally constructed actors whose values, interests, and practices are partially deter mined by the institutional logics that structure the organizational fields in which they op erate. Thus, although workers may use their discretion to advance their interests in response to their shared conditions of work, their actions, intentions, and interests are themselves institutionally conditioned in systematic ways. To explore this idea, we ask: Is the degree of compliance with policy mandates associated with the core institutional logic that structures the focal organizational field? To examine variation in policy implementation across organizational fields, we inves tigate the behaviors of practitioners who implement publicly funded human immunodefi ciency virus (HIVyf S U H W H V W F R X Q V H O L Q J D F U L W L F D O W R R O L Q + , 9 S U H Y H Q W L R Q S R O L F D Q G S U D F W L F e that is widely promoted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCyf $ V R X t lined in the CDC’s revised guidelines (CDC 2001yf + , 9 S U H W H V W F R X Q V H O L Q J F D Q U H G X F H W K e spread of HIV by conveying information regarding HIV transmission and prevention and the meaning of HIV test results and by providing “client-centered” prevention counseling that ( 1 yf K H O S V F O L H Q W V L G H Q W L I W K H E H K D Y L R U V S X W W L Q J W K H P D W U L V N I R U D F T X L U L Q J R U W U D Q V P L W W L Q g HIV and (2yf K H O S V W K H P F R P P L W W R V W H S V W R U H G X F H W K L V U L V N 3 U H W H V W F R X Q V H O L Q J L Q F O X G H s a personalized risk assessment that: 1 These recommendations were revised again in 2006. We focus on the CDC guidelines for HIV testing and counseling that were released in 2001, which were in place during the data collection period of the study. This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Carrow and Crusky Institutional Logic and Street-Level Discretion 105 … encourages clients to identify, understand, and acknowledge the behaviors and circumstances that put them at increased risk for acquiring HIV. The session explores previous attempts to reduce risk and identifies successes and challenges in these efforts. This in-depth exploration of risk allows the counselor to help the client consider ways to reduce personal risk and commit to a single, explicit step to do so (CDC 2001yf . HIV pretest counseling provides an ideal opportunity for studying the relationship between field-level factors and street-level discretion. First, HIV pretest counseling is con ducted in a variety of organizational fields that vary substantially in terms of the compre hensiveness of counseling as defined by CDC guidelines. For example, in medicine, studies indicate that frontline practitioners in settings such as hospitals and emergency departments are often unlikely to provide HIV testing and counseling in a comprehensive manner (Cohan et al. 2009; Fincher-Mergi et al. 2002yf G H V S L W H W K H L Q F U H D V L Q J U R O H R I H P H U J H Q F y departments as the de facto health care safety net for poor and socially marginalized groups at high risk for HIV (Glauser 2001 ; Gordon et al. 2001 ; Richardson and Hwang 2001 ; Stern, Weissman, and Epstein 1991; Taylor 2001yf 6 H F R Q G D O W K R X J K W K H & ‘ & S U R Y L G H V I L Q D Q F L D l and technical support to organizations that conduct HIV testing and counseling, its enforce ment of CDC guidelines is weak. Thus, by studying the implementation of HIV pretest counseling, we can observe discretionary behavior that is relatively unadulterated by policy-level controls. In the case of HIV testing and counseling, implementation is a crucial public health issue, as between 252,000 and 312,000 individuals are currently unaware of their HIV infection and it is estimated that they account for 54yb R I D O O Q H Z L Q I H F W L R Q V L Q W K e United States (Marks, Crepaz, and Janssen 2006yf . The study is organized as follows. First, we bring together ideas from organiza tional theory to develop expectations on how field-level institutional logics shape pol icy implementation by street-level workers. Our central hypothesis is that street-level workers are more likely to implement policy mandates in a manner that is congruent with policy intent when the aims and assumptions of the policy are consistent with the core institutional logic of the organizational field. Next, using a probability sample of organizations that conduct HIV counseling and testing in Los Angeles County (LACyf , we identify four distinct core institutional logics (medical, public health, social move ment, and multiserviceyf D Q G D V V H V V W K H F R Q V L V W H Q F R I H D F K Z L W K W K H D L P V D Q G D V V X P p tions of HIV test counseling. In support of our expectations, we find that when counseling is consistent with the core field-level institutional logic, it is more likely that implementation will reflect policy intent, even when accounting for selected in dividual and organizational-level factors thought to influence street-level discretion. We conclude by discussing the implications of the findings. INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS AND EMBEDDED AGENCY From an institutional logics perspective, discretionary practices at the frontlines of policy implementation are embedded in a broad meaning system, reflected by the dominant field level logic, that defines the “interests, identities, values, and assumptions of individuals and organizations …” (Thornton and Ocasio 2008, 103yf : R U N H U V D U H H [ S R V H G W R I L H O G O H Y H l institutional logics through their participation in and knowledge of the organizational field and most directly through their membership in organizations in which the logics are em bedded. Hence, decisions, courses of action, and frontline outcomes of practice result from This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 106 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory embedded agency or agency that is constrained and enabled by the institutional logics structuring the organizational field and the organizations that constitute it (Jackall 1988; Friedland and Alford 1991; Thornton and Ocasio 1999yf . Embedded agency implies the interplay of agency and institutional logics and calls into question the assumption of individualistic interests that underlies much of the research on street-level discretion. On the one hand, workers use their discretion to maneuver and optimize their interests. In response to limited resources, conditions of work, organi zational context, and their interests and judgments, workers modify policy though their practice (Lipsky 1980yf ) R U H [ D P S O H W K H P D X V H W K H L U G L V F U H W L R Q W R G L V H Q W L W O H F O L H Q W s (e.g., Maynard-Moody and Musheno 2003; Smith and Donovan 2003yf D F W D V F L W L ] H Q D J H Q W s rather than state agents (Keiser 1999yf R U H Q I R U F H U X O H V D Q G K L H U D U F K 0 D Q D U G 0 R R G D Q d Musheno 2003yf 2 Q W K H R W K H U K D Q G E H F D X V H W K H L U L Q W H U H V W V D Q G D Y D L O D E O H U H S H U W R L U H R f practices are constituted by dominant field-level logics, street-level workers’ behaviors are shaped by institutional structure in predictable ways. How do institutional logics delimit the discretionary practices of street-level workers? As noted by Thornton and Ocasio (2008, 114yf L Q V W L W X W L R Q D O O R J L F V D I I H F W W K H D O O R F D W L R Q R f attention to alternative schémas for perceiving, interpreting, evaluating, and responding to environmental situations … [by providing] a set of values that order the legitimacy, im portance, and relevance of issues and solutions … [and provide] decision makers with an understanding of their interests and identities.” This insight is consistent with research showing that the implementation of human service technology is shaped by values and understandings of local users who share social context (McLaughlin et al. 1999yf 9 D O X e orientations, policy understanding, knowledge, and attitudes shape implementation across a range of policy areas including substance abuse treatment (Knudsen, Ducharme, and Roman 2007yf Z H O I D U H U H I R U P 0 H H U V * O D V H U D Q G ‘ R Q D O G f, jobs programs (e.g., Sandfort 2000, 2010yf 6 R F L D O 6 H F X U L W ‘ L V D E L O L W S U R J U D P V . H L V H U f, and early child hood education (Sandfort 2010yf 6 D Q G I R U W f shows how collective schema held by frontline practitioners inhibited change. In a study of a welfare department, Watkins-Hayes (2009yf V K R Z V K R Z U D F L D O D Q G J H Q G H U L G H Q W L W L H V L Q W H U V H F W Z L W K R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q D O F X O W X U H D Q d rules to shape worker practices. Research by Meyers, Glaser, and Mac Donald (1998yf , Lin (2000yf D Q G . Q X G V H Q ‘ X F K D U P H D Q G 5 R P D Q f demonstrate that workers reject practices that conflict with their understanding of the organization’s core purpose and ac tivities. For example, Meyers, Glaser, and Mac Donald (1998yf V K R Z H G W K D W G H V S L W H W K H L r endorsement of welfare reform, welfare workers failed to implement new changes in wel fare policy that did not correspond with their understanding of the mission of their program. Because policy implementation is rarely examined across organizational fields, however, the role of field-level institutional logics as a determinant of organizational-level meanings and workers’ understandings, values, interests, and practices is understudied. We posit that street-level practitioners are predisposed to accept core institutional log ics that structure the organizational field in which their organization is located and are likely to implement policy goals that accord with these logics. When policy features clash with the core logic, street-level workers are apt to use their discretion to disregard the policy or resist implementation. Our central hypothesis is as follows: the greater the consistency between the aims and assumptions of HIV test counseling and the core logic of the organizational field, the greater the comprehensiveness of counseling. This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Garrow and Crusky Institutional Logic and Street-Level Discretion 107 Components of Field-Level Institutional Logics Viewing discretion as institutionally delimited shifts the focus of inquiry from individual or organizational contexts to the organization’s environment. Institutional logics have been described in a variety of ways and can occur at societal, industry, organizational field, or organizational levels. Field-level institutional logics are important empirical and theoret ical constructs because they provide members of the organizational field—defined as “those organizations that, in the aggregate, constitute a recognized area of institutional life” (DiMaggio and Powell 1991, 65yf Z L W K D V H Q V H R I F R P P R Q S X U S R V H D Q G X Q L W W K D t helps explain their connections and guide their interactions. Organizational fields are thought to coalesce around dominant institutional logics, although multiple logics may co exist (e.g., Scott 2008; Thornton and Ocasio 1999yf . Following Hasenfeld (1983yf D Q G 0 K U D Q G * X H U U D 3 H D U V R Q f, we propose that the field-level institutional logics of health and human service organizations most likely to guide the practices of street-level workers are those that broadly define the purpose of the organizational field. They are delineated along the following dimensions: (ayf W D U J H W S R p ulation served, (byf V R F L D O S U R E O H P V D G G U H V V H G F f diagnoses of problems, (dyf G H V L U H G R X t come of the organizational intervention, and (eyf D S S U R S U L D W H P H D Q V R I D G G U H V V L Q J W K e problems. Organizations share sets of practical understandings derived from assemblages of these elements and claim membership in the field by embedding them in their practices and structures (Baum and Oliver 1992; DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Meyer and Rowan 1977; Scott 2008yf 7 K H F R U H O R J L F F R Q V W L W X W H G E W K H F R P E L Q D W L R Q R I W K H V H H O H P H Q W V U H I O H F W s a theory of social provision (Hasenfeld 2000; Schneider and Ingram 1993yf W K D W K H O S V S U o vide a rationale for the organization’s service delivery. The core field-level logic is ex pressed in the organization’s mission, which is intentionally crafted to signal membership within a particular organizational field. That is, the mission both reflects and defines the field in which the organization is located. INDIVIDUAL- AND ORGANIZATIONAL-LEVEL FACTORS The research on street-level bureaucracy points to several individual-level factors that may explain frontline variation in policy implementation. These factors need to be considered when exploring the influence of field-level institutional logics. Abbot (1992yf S R L Q W V W R S U o fessional orientation as a potential factor in policy implementation. Professions make ju risdictional claims over particular tasks by ( 1 yf G L D J Q R V L Q J F O D V V L I L Q J F O L H Q W V E D V H G R Q W K H L r perceived issuesyf f inferring (reasoning about client issuesyf D Q G f treatment (taking action on these issuesyf 3 U D F W L W L R Q H U V W K X V U H I O H F W G L V W L Q F W L Y H F D S D E L O L W L H V W K D W D G G U H V V F O L H Q t issues, needs, and attributes (Hasenfeld 2010yf D Q G F R O O H F W L Y H L G H Q W L W L H V E D V H G R Q W K H V H F R m petencies (occupations and professionsyf J R Y H U Q W K H L U S H U F H S W L R Q V D Q G D F W L R Q V 2 F D V L o 1995yf ) R U H [ D P S O H P H P E H U V R I W K H P H G L F D O S U R I H V V L R Q V D U H V R P H W L P H V Y L H Z H G D V D F W L Q g in a manner incompatible with the logic of HIV counseling by relating to patients in narrow biomedical terms and emphasizing purely medical, rather than biopsychosocial factors (Friedson 1970yf & R Q V H T X H Q W O Z H H [ S H F W H G W K D W Q R Q P H G L F D O F R X Q V H O R U V Z R X O G E H P R U e likely to provide comprehensive HIV counseling than physicians and nurses. Work experience promotes adherence to established practices because workers be come more entrenched in ways of doing things and more resistant to change (Riccucci et al. 2004yf Z K H U H D V W U D L Q L Q J D Q G N Q R Z O H G J H I D F L O L W D W H D G D S W D W L R Q W R Q H Z S R O L F L H V – H Z H O l This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 108 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory and Glaser 2006; Meyers, Riccucci, and Lurie 2001; Riccucci et al. 2004yf 7 K H U H I R U H Z e expected that greater experience, training, and knowledge in HIV counseling would result in greater comprehensiveness of counseling. Consistent with a citizen agent perspective on street-level discretion, workers some times use their discretion to tailor benefits to the level of client need. Keiser (1999yf G H m onstrated that states with greater shares of disabled people also had the highest disability benefit approval rates. We include two measures of client need. We expected that persons who test HIV positive would receive more comprehensive counseling than those who test HIV negative because the former are more likely to present more risk factors at pretest counseling. In addition, we expected that clients identified by the practitioner as belonging to well-established behavioral risk categories (men who have sex with men, intravenous drug users, and women at sexual risk—that is, women who have recently engaged in risky sexual behavior such as unprotected sex with multiple partners or trading sex for moneyyf would receive counseling that is more comprehensive than those without these risk factors. We also considered organizational-level factors that shape street-level discretion. First, to cope with workload pressures and time constraints, practitioners may prioritize among tasks and scale back services (e.g., Jewell and Glaser 2006; Prottas 1979; Smith and Donovan 2003yf ) R U H [ D P S O H – H Z H O O D Q G * O D V H U f showed how caseworkers in welfare offices managed time constraints and high caseloads by falling back on case processing at the expense of a new mandate to identify and refer appropriate clients to social services. Consequently, we expected that practitioners in organizations with high workloads would be more likely than others to score low on comprehensiveness of pretest counseling. Second, formalization (automation or reliance on formal rulesyf F R Q V W U D L Q V G L V F U H W L R n by reducing the options available to frontline workers (Sandfort 2000yf : H Q J H U D Q d Wilkins (2008yf I R X Q G W K D W Z K H Q F R P S D U H G W R L Q S H U V R Q X Q H P S O R P H Q W F O D L P V W K H L Q W U o duction of automated telephone claims decreased the ability of workers to disentitle clients they deemed undeserving. We posit that automation and reliance on formal rules reduces the opportunity for discretionary practice, thus increasing the likelihood that HIV coun seling is implemented in a comprehensive manner. METHODS Sample and Data Data are from a representative sample of human service organizations in LAC that provide HTV counseling and testing. The sample frame was stratified by organizational type: for-profit (n = 33yf Q R Q S U R I L W Q f, and public (n = 5yf K R V S L W D O V I R U S U R I L W S U L Y D W H S U D F W L F H s (n = 37yf Q R Q S U R I L W Q R Q K R V S L W D O V L Q F O X G L Q J F R P P X Q L W E D V H G V R F L D O V H U Y L F H D J H Q F L H s and primary health clinics (n = 125yf Q R Q K R V S L W D O & R X Q W * R Y H U Q P H Q W Z K L F K L Q F O X G H d public health STD clinics and personal health centers (n = 32yf D Q G S U L Y D W H I R U S U R I L t and County Government organizations with mobile testing sites (« = 14yf I R U D W R W D O R f 294 organizations. Hospital settings were derived from the list of State-licensed hospitals in California (as of 12/31/2002yf D V S U R Y L G H G E W K H & D O L I R U Q L D 2 I I L F H R I 6 W D W H Z L G H + H D O W K 3 O D Q Q L Q J D Q d Development. Hospitals that did not provide HIV testing were excluded from the sample frame. Lists of nonhospital settings were constructed from four publicly available lists: the This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Garrow and Grusky Institutional Logic and Street-Level Discretion 109 Aids Project Los Angeles HIV Testing list, the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services HIV Testing Sites list, the National HIV Testing Resource’s testing sites list for LAC, and the HIV L.A. testing sites list. A list of licensed primary care clinics in LAC that provided HIV testing was assembled using the American Academy of HIV Medicine’s online roster of credentialed HIV specialists and other health care providers committed to HIV/AIDS care. Three key expert informants in the HIV care community reviewed the listing so that omitted practitioners could be added to the sampling frame. Public health testing sites were identified by contacting the three public health departments in LAC (Los Angeles Department of Health Services, Pasadena Public Health Department, and the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Servicesyf . In light of the small number of organizations in some strata, all organizations within each stratum were included, with the exception of the nonprofit nonhospital stratum, which was sampled using the probability-to-estimated size design, where the size for each orga nization was the estimated number of HIV tests conducted in a given year based on most recent data available. Using this method, large HIV testing sites were more likely than small ones to be sampled. Organizations were stratified into three groups: large, medium, and small volume of HIV testing, for a total of 47 nonprofit nonhospital organizations and a sam ple of 216. Weights were used to correct for stratification of the sample. Sixty-five organ izations declined to participate in the survey for a sample of 151 organizations and an acceptable response rate of 70yb V H H W D E O H $ O f. In 2002—2006, 621 practitioners and administrators were randomly selected from these organizations for one-hour computer-assisted face-to-face interviews. Up to six front line practitioners of HIV counseling and testing services, including physicians, nurses, and counselors, along with up to three managers, including executives, clinic managers, and testing supervisors, were randomly selected for recruitment into the study. Organizational level data were collected through interviews with managers. Interviews with 428 frontline practitioners included questions on respondents’ background characteristics, education, training, HIV-testing expertise, and work roles. Frontline service practitioners were asked to describe in detail their most recent HIV-negative and most recent HIV-positive coun seling session conducted during the previous 6 months (other than occupationally related incidents or “needlesticks”yf : H H [ F O X G H G I U R P W K H D Q D O V L V I R U S U R I L W S U L Y D W H S U D F W L F H s and the 40 practitioners among them who had conducted at least one HIV test in the pre vious 6 months.2 We also excluded 133 practitioners who reported they had not conducted an HIV test counseling session during the previous 6 months. The resulting sample con sisted of 255 frontline practitioners in 108 organizations. Listwise deletion of observations with incomplete data on all variables in the analysis further reduced the sample by ~ 15yb W o 216 frontline staff in 90 organizations.3 2 Physicians at for-profit private practices represented a unique case and their inclusion would have created misleading results. Private practices were located in a gay community, and these frontline practitioners generally offered HIV treatment as part of a larger array of medical services. They did not report comprehensive HIV counseling in their previous session with an HIV-negative and/or positive patient, not because the institutional logic of the physician practices was inconsistent with the logic of HIV counseling but because they provided counseling on an ongoing basis with their patients, with whom they generally shared long-term relationships. 3 The probability of missing data on each predictor variable did not depend on the value of the outcome, indicating that listwise deletion did not result in biased regression estimates. Following Allison (2002yf Z H F R Q F O X G H G W K D W W K H U e was no need to model the missing data mechanism as part of the estimation process and chose listwise deletion as the preferred method for handling missing data. This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 110 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory Variables Dependent Variable: Comprehensiveness of HIV Pretest Counseling The 2001 CDC guidelines recommended that HIV pretest counseling impart information on HIV transmission and prevention, the testing process, and the meaning of HIV test results and that practitioners engage clients in risk reduction counseling. Covering each domain during the counseling session is viewed as crucial because together the domains may have a greater likelihood of reducing HIV transmission than separately. For example, knowing how HIV is transmitted is designed to help clients make sense of safe sex methods and other risk reduction behaviors; understanding the benefits of knowing their serostatus may en courage clients to get regular HIV tests; and understanding the testing process and need for a window period can help ensure that clients test properly and understand the results of the test. To ascertain the extent to which respondents covered these domains in a comprehen sive manner, interviewers inquired about the following items and respondents indicated whether or not they had discussed each topic with the client in their most recent HIV pretest counseling session: (1yf P R G H V R I + , 9 W U D Q V P L V V L R Q f safe sex practices, (3yf D Q R Q P R X s versus confidential testing, (4yf Z K D W W K H + , 9 D Q W L E R G P H D V X U H V f explanation of the testing process, (6yf P H D Q L Q J R I W K H W H V W U H V X O W f accuracy of the test result, (8yf F R Q I L G H n tiality of the test result, (9yf W K H Z L Q G R Z S H U L R G R U G D W H R I D Q Q H H G H G I R O O R Z X S W H V W f the benefits of knowing one’s serostatus, and (11yf U L V N U H G X F W L R Q D Q G J R D O V H W W L Q J 5 H V S R Q G H Q W s were permitted to consult their patients’ charts to refresh their memories on the counseling session. The item was scored 1 if the respondent indicated that the topic was covered during the session and 0 otherwise. The items were summed for an aggregate measure ranging from 0 to 11. The more items covered, the greater the comprehensiveness of counseling. Four Core Institutional Logics According to an institutional logics approach, HIV test counseling is likely to be imple mented in accordance with CDC guidelines when the CDC’s policy is consistent with the core institutional logic that structures the organizational field. To determine the degree of congruence, we extract four distinct institutional logics from the data and compare the aims and assumptions of HIV pretest counseling policy with each. Our model is consistent with Möhr and Guerra-Pearson’s (2010, 14yf L Q V L J K W W K D W L W L s the essential duality of categories [of clients] and practices that both defines the institu tional logic … and creates the tension through which the meaningful character of orga nizational activity becomes constituted.” Thus, the application of a service technology to a specific target client group represents a “solution” for a category of people that presup poses specific client attributes and a particular problem, diagnosis, and desired outcome. Differences in target groups (and their assumed attributes, problems, and desired outcomesyf are reflected in the variety of services legitimately applied to them. At the same time, rep ertoires of practice are constituted as appropriate and legitimate when applied to categories of people with particular attributes, problems and desired outcomes. As noted by DiMaggio and Powell (1991, 148yf I L H O G V R Q O H [ L V W W R W K H H [ W H Q W W o which they are institutionally defined,” a condition that depends on “a mutual awareness among participants in a set of organizations that they are involved in a common enterprise. ” Institutional logics derived from the combination of service technology and target client group thus structure organizational fields and differentiate between them. At the same time, organizations claim membership in fields by virtue of the similarity of their combinatory This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Garrow and Grusky Institutional Logic and Street-Level Discretion 111 logics as reflected in their missions. In keeping with this reasoning, we extracted field-level institutional logics from meaningful combinations of target client groups served and serv ices provided and assigned organizations to the same field when they exhibited similarity in their combination of these dimensions. Here, we follow the methodological advancements of scholars who have used organizational-level characteristics to measure the meaning structures of organizational fields or niches to which they belong and, sometimes, to de termine the boundaries of these higher level structures (e.g., DiMaggio and Mullen 2000; Möhr and Duquenne 1997; Möhr and Guerra-Pearson 1998; Tilly 1997yf 4 First, we coded the mission statements of the sample organizations by the services provided and the target client groups served. Mission statements, which are intentionally crafted to make jurisdictional claims upon particular regions of institutional space, often contain the dimensions of the field’s core institutional logic. When mission statements did not provide information on a dimension, this information was extracted from the organ ization’s website. Variables were coded 1 if the organization provided a service or served a particular target client group and 0 otherwise. Second, we used K-means cluster analysis to partition the organizations into nonover lapping groups based on similarity of their service and target client group profiles. Due to the small sample size, we were unable to use an inferential statistical strategy such as latent class analysis. The K-means algorithm creates the best solution for K clusters in the fol lowing way. It assigns observations to clusters using a random method and then calculates the means of each of the clusters. If the mean of an observation in a particular cluster is closer to the mean of another cluster, the observation is reassigned to that cluster. The process is repeated until no observation can be reassigned. Third, we ascertained the latent variable (core institutional logicyf W K D W G H I L Q H G H D F h cluster by examining its service profile and target client groups (see tables A2 and A3yf . We then assessed the congruence of each logic with the aims and assumptions of HIV pretest counseling. As shown in table 1, the results indicated that organizations providing HIV testing and counseling in LAC operate in four organizational fields typified by distinct institutional logics that vary in their congruence with the aims and assumptions of HIV pretest coun seling. First, a medical logic structures the field of medical organizations such as hospitals and emergency departments. This logic involves the provision of medical interventions for the general public. It tends to attribute illness or disease to pathology or biochemistry, con struct health as the desired outcome, and identify medical interventions as the most appro priate solution. The logic constructs service recipients in biomedical terms, puts greater emphasis on medical than social and psychological indices of pathology, and values medical treatment and the restoration to health more than behavioral change leading to the prevention of disease transmission. Frontline practitioners operating in the context of a biomedical logic are therefore expected to be fundamentally oriented, institutionally and professionally, toward goals other than the implementation of preventive and behavioral interventions such as HIV counseling. Second, a public health logic typifies a field consisting mostly of public health clinics. This logic links education, prevention (e.g., screening and immunizationsyf D Q G P H G L F D l For a review of methodological advancements in measuring higher level meaning structures from lower level data, Möhr (1998yf . This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory Table 1 Consistency of HIV Test Counseling with Institutional Logics I T3 § T3 3 ‘S O – -a I § « “2 lS9 >2 Cd u .2 to GO ‘§|«H .£ J ° W £ M o o •H M «J X> Oh —■« : *q w c o s 0yf > o s ‘Sc^ cd Q CO *”2 Qh < G s £ o x 00 Q < > CO G O CO “O CO a o +-» CO G $ s cd J: o ‘5b o ‘o 43 o fc> 5? »rt W Q g U g J £ D “T2 flj > .2 « ^ O _ » U o, O « &, o *-*< co o •2 « £ e “S> a .a, 8 .S ■§ _ _7 ° ts 2 .3 .2 S 5 o — 3 3 .g 3 ^ M O O > T3 05 a CO CO o .s Wyf A . C 2 2 T3 43 .2 J2 *-‘ o 8 -S <2 si« •8 2 5 o. § £ »-H cd CO CO O O cd O cd 43 44 (D 43 s D CQ jd O £ o > a> c o _ “-M a S -a 5 “3 •3 2 w S •Si T3 s ‘S Oh G o h-J CO o oo T3 C n.— B « C vi yb ® < u •o i & ac Cfl ^ S O < W3 ■c (n Q .. 5 M ^ 153 2 b O <2 00 Q < > s a> & .. u m Q g.< s Mh fll ts > c ti H U £ EC S3 CO *1 ^ 2^ s -a ° ■g ‘c -3 ffl ts J2 c o (U 1 ^ Oh H O J2 < ‘co O CO « ^ ‘G & E c2 a 1 « g O £3 eo c 81 § 1 11 C/5 S> CO K* £ s ^ S -a *c « 2 3 2 J £ Oh £ Cd C o G Oh O Oh Xyf O I cd O CO o cd S -o c E o c U ‘a o This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Garrow and Grusky Institutional Logic and Street-Level Discretion 113 services to at-risk low-income groups and the general public. It emphasizes public health through the prevention of HIV and other infectious diseases; links transmission to behavior, awareness, knowledge, and poverty; and identifies educational, preventive, and medical interventions as the appropriate solution. In contrast to the medical logic, the preven tion-oriented logic directs workers to pursue goals such as HIV test counseling because it specifically targets sexually transmitted infectious diseases such as HIV, constructs ser vice recipients in bio-psycho-social terms, centers on social and psychological roots of infectious disease transmission, and puts a premium on prevention rather than treatment— meanings that are more consistent with the aims and assumptions of HIV counseling. Third, a social movement logic typifies a field consisting mostly of small nonprofit HIV and AIDS advocacy organizations. It links advocacy, prevention, education, and psy chosocial services to groups at risk for HIV, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans gendered individuals, people who are homeless, and ethnic minorities. This logic emphasizes prevention of HIV, and programs are designed to further this purpose. Many organizations in this field were founded by HIV-positive individuals who died of AIDS and who served as an inspiration for organizational action aimed at client empowerment and social change. The logic links transmission to individual risk behaviors, level of awareness, and macrosocial conditions such as poverty and unjust policies; identifies advocacy and preventive, educational, and psycho-social strategies as the appropriate solution; and con structs behavior change, lowered HIV transmission rates, social and psychological health, and social justice as desired outcomes. The social movement logic is highly congruent with the goals of HIV pretest counseling. Finally, a multi-service logic structures a field of nonprofit health organizations that provide both social and medical services to low-income and uninsured clients. This logic attributes medical, social, and psychological problems to pathology, biochemistry, and so cial or psychological conditions, identifies medical, psychological, and social interventions as appropriate solutions, and identifies physical, social, and psychological well-being as desired outcomes. Unlike CDC’s policy, the logic does not specifically aim to reduce HIV acquisition and transmission; however, consistent with the aims of HIV pretest coun seling, it attempts to effect behavior change and heightened awareness through counseling that addresses the psychosocial aspects of clients. As shown in table 1, the medical logic is least consistent, the public health and social movement logics are most consistent, and the multi-service logic is moderately consistent with the aims and assumptions of HIV test counseling. Accordingly, we expected that all else equal practitioners operating within the context of the medical logic will provide the least comprehensive counseling, those practicing within the context of public health and social movement logics the most comprehensive counseling, and those operating within the context of the multiservice logic will provide counseling somewhere in between. Table 2 provides key descriptive statistics for organizations in each institutional logic category. Most organizations structured by the medical logic are hospitals. On average, they are larger and older than other organizations. All the public health clinics, representing 61yb R I W K H R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q V L Q W K H F D W H J R U D U H V W U X F W X U H G E W K H S X E O L F K H D O W K O R J L F 7 K e public health logic category also includes a few nonprofit organizations and nonprofit or public hospitals. One hundred percent of organizations structured by the social move ment logic are nonprofit organizations. They are on average the smallest and youngest or ganizations. Ninety-one percent of organizations structured by the multiservice logic are This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory Table 2 Institutional Logic Variable (N = 108 organizationsyf Institutional Logic Medical Public Health Social Movement Multiservice Organization type For-profit hospital (yb f 26 0 0 9 Nonprofit hospital (yb f 61 8 0 0 Public hospital (yb f 2 13 0 0 Public health clinic (yb f 0 61 0 0 Nonprofit/nonhospital (yb f 11 18 100 91 Total (yb f 100 100 100 100 Mean size 1628 673 112 323 (number of full time employeesyf Mean year of founding 1941 1961 1986 1970 N (organizationsyf 46 38 13 11 N (individualsyf 80 96 46 33 nonprofit social service and primary care clinics. Multiservice organizations are on average smaller and younger than medical or public health organizations. Individual- and Organizational-Level Variables To determine professional orientation, respondents were asked, “Are you (ayf D S K V L F L D Q ; (byf O L F H Q V H G W R S U D F W L F H D V D Q X U V H R U F f a nonmedical counselor?” A dummy variable was scored 0 if the practitioner was a medical professional (physician or nurseyf D Q G L I W K e practitioner was a nonmedical counselor. A variable indicating the practitioner’s tenure was used as a measure of experience. Measured in years in the current position, the variable was constructed from responses to the following question: “How many years have you been working in your current position?” To measure training, a dummy variable was scored 1 for practitioners who answered “yes” to the question, “Have you received any training in HIV counseling?” and 0 for practitioners who answered “no” to this question. A variable measuring knowledge of HIV testing and counseling was constructed from the response to: “How knowledgeable do you consider yourself to be with regard to HIV antibody testing?” Responses were coded on a scale with 0 indicating “not at all,” 1 “somewhat,” 2 “very,” and 3 “extremely.” A dichotomous variable was constructed and scored 0 for those who answered “not at all” or “somewhat” and 1 for those who answered “very” or extremely.” Two measures of client need were constructed. To measure client serostatus, a dummy variable was scored 1 if the HIV test result was seropositive and 0 if seronegative. Respond ents were allowed to consult their charts for this information. To determine whether the client was identified as belonging to a behavioral risk group, respondents were asked, “What behavioral risk group best identifies this client: men who have sex with men, men who have sex with men/women, men who have sex with men and are intravenous drug users, intravenous drug users, women at sexual risk, or other?” The item was dummy coded 1 for clients who did not fall into one of the behavioral risk groups and 0 otherwise. At the organizational level, a workload variable was constructed in response to the following questions: (1yf 2 Q D Y H U D J H K R Z P D Q K R X U V D Z H H N G R R X V S H Q G G R L Q J S D W L H Q t or client care (working with clients?yf D Q G f on average, how many patients or clients do you see in a typical week? We divided the number of clients per week by the number of This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Garrow and Crusky Institutional Logic and Street-Level Discretion 115 hours spent on client or patient care per week for each respondent to create a measure of average number of clients per hour and then created an organizational-level score by av eraging all responses in the organization. Formalization was measured in two ways. As a measure of automation we asked an administrator, “Does the organization use the LAC Department of Health and Human Serv ices, Office of AIDS Program and Policy’s HIV Information Resources System (HIRSyf ” ” HIRS is a widely used standardized form in LAC that partially automates the counseling session by guiding the practitioner to address particular issues during the encounter with clients such as the identification of risk factors. The item was scored 1 if the organization used the form and 0 otherwise. As a measure of the organization’s reliance on formal rules, we used the response to: “This is a formalized, structured organization” (Quinn and Kimberly 1984yf 5 H V S R Q G H Q W V U D W H G W K H R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q R Q D V F D O H I U R P W R V F R U H G 1 when the description did not fit the organization at all to 100 when the description completely fit the organization. Control Variables We included three organizational-level controls in the model. Larger organizations have more slack resources and may provide more opportunities for HIV training (Blau and Schoenherr 1971yf 7 K H P D E H P R U H E X U H D X F U D W L ] H G D Q G V S H F L D O L ] H G D Q G P D U H W D L Q P R U e workers who specialize in HIV counseling. Therefore, organizational size may be posi tively associated with comprehensive counseling. Organizational size was measured as the number of full-time paid employees. Increased age is associated with inertia and re sistance to change (Selznick 1957; Stinchcombe 1965yf 2 U J D Q L ] D W L R Q V I R X Q G H G S U L R U W R W K e 1980s, when AIDS emerged as a significant social problem, may be less likely than newer organizations to implement service technologies designed to stem the spread of AIDS in a comprehensive manner. We included year of founding to control for this factor. Finally, to control for the possible influence of ownership type (D’Aunno, Vaughn, and McElroy 1999yf Z H L Q F O X G H G G X P P Y D U L D E O H V L Q G L F D W L Q J Z K H W K H U W K H R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q Z D V Q R Q S U R I L W , for-profit, or public. Model Specification Hierarchical linear modeling (HLMyf Z D V X V H G W R W H V W W K H K S R W K H V H V Z K L F K L V D S S U R S U L D W e when data are nested (Raudenbush and Bryk 2002yf + / 0 F R U U H F W V I R U L Q W U D F O D V V F R U U H O a tion that arises when observations are not independent due to nesting and it provides a method for modeling variations in level 1 outcomes as a function of level 2 factors. Using the HLM 6.2 statistical package, we employed HLM random intercept models, which model the average within-organization outcomes in the comprehensiveness of counseling as a function of individual, organizational, and field-level factors. 5 Two hundred and sixteen individual respondents are nested in 90 organizations in the sample available for analysis. As discussed by Hox (2002yf W K H S R Z H U R I W K H W H V W I R U W K H V L J Q L I L F D Q F H R I W K H L Q G L Y L G X D O O H Y H O U H J U H V V L R Q F R H I I L F L H Q W s depends on the total sample size of individual respondents. The power of tests of higher level coefficients depends more strongly on the number of groups (here, organizationsyf W K D Q R Q W K H Q X P E H U R I L Q G L Y L G X D O V S H U J U R X S $ Q D O W L F Z R U k suggests a trade-off between sample size at different levels, with a large number of groups (in the literature 90-100 is considered “large”yf D O O R Z L Q J D V P D O O Q X P E H U R I R E V H U Y D W L R Q V L Q H D F K J U R X S V H H H J 5 D X G H Q E X V K D Q G / L X f. This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory Table 3 Individual-Level Descriptive Statistics and Pairwise Correlations (A/ = 255 Practitionersyf Mean (SDyf 3 U R S R U W L R n 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. No. topics covered 7.58 (3.6yf 1.00 2. Proportion of .44 .36 1.00 nonmedical counselors 3. Tenure (in yearsyf 5.5 (6.21yf -.16 -.11 1.00 4. Proportion with any .79 .41 .30 -.01 1.00 training 5. Proportion with .64 .39 .27 .02 .14 1.00 knowledge 6. Proportion with .08 .11 .05 -.17 .02 .10 1.00 seropositive test result 7. Proportion not in .44 -.14 -.17 .21 -.07 -.10 -.20 1.00 behavioral risk group Since the outcome variable is a count of the number of topics covered, it signals the appropriateness of a Poisson distribution. However, because the variance of the outcome variable was greater than its mean (the data were overdispersedyf Z H X V H G D Q H J D W L Y H E i nomial distribution, which is more appropriate in case of overdispersion. At level one, the negative binomial model estimated the number of topics covered in the counseling session as a function of individual-level predictors. All level 1 predictors were group mean cen tered, allowing us to interpret the level 1 regression intercept as an estimate of the average number of topics covered in the counseling session for a particular organization. Separate intercepts were estimated for each organization and the coefficients for the level 1 inter cepts were modeled in the level 2 equation as a function of institutional logics and orga nizational-level covariates. For ease of interpretation, we calculated the incident rate ratios, which are the exponentiated coefficients. The expected increase or decrease in the count for a unit change in the independent variable, holding other variables constant, was then com puted as 100[exp(ßt*8yf @ O . For example, an incident rate ratio of 1.30 indicates that a unit change in the inde pendent variable results in a 30yb L Q F U H D V H L Q W K H H [ S H F W H G P H D Q Q X P E H U R I W R S L F V F R Y H U H G . We used the penalized quasi-likelihood estimation procedure. RESULTS Descriptive statistics and pairwise correlations for all variables are shown in tables 3 and 4. Of note, the pairwise correlation in table 4 shows that, as expected, workload is moderately and negatively related to the number of topics covered in the counseling session. Figures 1 and 2 show the mean number of topics covered in the counseling session at the individual (pooledyf D Q G R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q D O O H Y H O V I R U D O O F D W H J R U L F D O Y D U L D E O H V . Figure 1 shows that professional orientation makes a difference. Consistent with ex pectations, nonmedical counselors cover on average more topics in the counseling session (9.06yf W K D Q S K V L F L D Q V f or nurses (6.75yf & R P S U H K H Q V L Y H Q H V V R I F R X Q V H O L Q J D O V R V H H P s This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Garrow and Grusky Institutional Logic and Street-Level Discretion Table 4 Organizational-Level Descriptive Statistics and Pairwise Correlations (N = 108 Organizationsyf o o o •o o o vo «o m I I © oo r O ^ o (N -H ^ q i VO vo O O O rn rH ^ ^ H I f. I I ^ © t 8 E w G o o f’l . o< x I 00 H s i »G W V £ a ^3 c<3 v I oo -J2 £3 ■§ Oh G G O O ‘€ ‘€ o o D- G, O O Uh i-i 0h Cl, cd 00 o G 1 “3 is £ £ c £ .2 £ N G •2 .a o ts *5 G g g o ft P u 8 § .a 0* Ph 1/3 to &o 8 .9 g “I § S a <2 § V. -p Z o S3 & U S >< <£ —’ On 00 (N 00 a i CM CO ■f o o o M OO 1^1 N. o o sS w’ sc w CO u O 4yf ►5 ^ c • B -ë 2 £ jg w 00 O « I § t . _ ^ u te c p a. -a 3 -9 g ot O c g > Ë ,°s O 3 3 U c ai b 1 ° C 4? (N rn r rn & Sc 3 (U ö t-yf mThis content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 122 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory Individual- and Organizational-Level Factors None of the individual-level variables are significantly associated with comprehensiveness of counseling. As predicted, however, the organizational-level factors are significantly re lated to comprehensiveness of counseling. A one-unit increase in workload (average num ber of clients served per houryf U H V X O W V L Q D b decrease in the number of topics covered during the pretest counseling session, net the effect of all other variables in the model. As predicted, use of the HIRS form apparently constrains counseling practices, resulting in a 17yb L Q F U H D V H L Q W K H Q X P E H U R I W R S L F V F R Y H U H G 8 Q H [ S H F W H G O J U H D W H U I R U P D O L ] D W L R Q V H H P s to suppress counseling. A one-unit increase in formalization (on a scale from 1 to 100yf results in an expected 1yb G H F U H D V H L Q W K H Q X P E H U R I F R X Q V H O L Q J W R S L F V F R Y H U H G 3 X W D Q R W K H r way, a 10-point increase in the formalization score decreases the expected number of topics by a little more than one. Control Variables Organizational size is significantly and negatively associated with comprehensiveness of counseling. This unexpected finding may reflect the correlation between size and core institutional logic as the medical logic, which is significantly and negatively associated with comprehensiveness, is positively associated with size. The social movement logic, which is significantly and positively associated with comprehensiveness, is moderately and negatively correlated with size (table 4yf 7 K H S D U D P H W H U H V W L P D W H I R U R Z Q H U V K L S W S H L s not significant. DISCUSSION A basic insight of the literature on street-level bureaucracy is that workers who implement policy on the frontlines become, in effect, lower level policy makers since their behaviors constitute policy in practice. Most research on street-level bureaucracy has examined how street-level workers use their discretion to respond to shared conditions of work in predict able ways but has largely neglected to consider how and why workers’ discretionary be havior may differ systematically across wider contexts. Drawing on insights from the institutional logics perspective (Friedland and Alford 1991; Thornton and Ocasio 2008yf W K L V D U W L F O H W H V W V W K H L G H D W K D W Z R U N H U V G L I I H U L Q W K H L U G L V F U H W L R Q D U E H K D Y L R U D Q G W K D t the differences are related to the underlying logic of the organizational field in which the work is embedded. By extending the focus of explanation to include the broader institu tional context, our model implies the interplay of agency and institutional logics and calls into question the assumption of individualistic interests that underlies much of the research on street-level discretion. Institutional logics may influence policy implementation by providing cultural and material repertoires that shape workers’ understandings of the means and ends of their interests. Logics allocate the attention of workers by defining the purpose of their organi zation, the nature of the problems they face, appropriate organizational responses to these problems, the relevant attributes of clients, the value of tasks, and their own roles and scope of work. We expected that when policies are consistent with core field-level institutional logics, it is more likely that implementation will be consistent with policy intent, even when This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Garrow and Crusky Institutional Logic and Street-Level Discretion 123 accounting for variations in individual- and organizational-level factors shown to influence street-level discretion. Results provide support for this perspective. First, the organizational field seems to influence frontline practices. When compared to a model with individual factors and controls, a model that included institutional logics, individual-level factors, and controls explained about the same amount of between organization variance in HIV pretest counseling (around 60yb f. Together, individual and organizational-level factors, institutional logics, and controls explained over 70yb of between-organization variance in counseling. Moreover, results demonstrate that institutional logics influence street-level practice by directing practitioners to implement service technologies congruent with core field-level logics. Among the four institutional logics that emerged from the analysis, two provide a stark contrast in fit with HIV pretest counseling policy. The medical logic, which is ori ented more toward medical care than prevention, provides the poorest fit for HIV test coun seling. By contrast, the social movement logic, which stems from HIV/AIDS social movements, provides the best fit with HIV pretest counseling policy. This logic emerged in opposition to prevailing logics as an alternative which identifies with and attempts to empower clients who are at risk for HIV, many of whom have been devalued by society (see, e.g., Epstein 1996yf 2 U J D Q L ] D W L R Q V R S H U D W L Q J X Q G H U W K H V R F L D O P R Y H P H Q W O R J L F P D y therefore make comprehensive HIV pretest counseling, which provides information and counseling to help the client gain insight and voluntarily make better choices, a top priority. As expected, workers in organizations structured by the medical logic implemented HIV test counseling to a significantly lesser degree than workers in organizations structured by social movement logic, even when controlling for individual- and organizational-level correlates. This finding provided strong support for the model. Unexpectedly, the public health logic was not significantly related to comprehensive ness of counseling. We reasoned that the public health logic provides a good fit with HIV pretest counseling because it emphasizes prevention rather than treatment and therefore expected that workers operating under this logic would perceive the value in HIV pretest counseling as a prevention tool and implement it in a comprehensive manner. In retrospect it may be that the public health logic’s degree of fit with the policy intent of HIV pretest counseling was overstated and/or our measures were insufficiently robust. Specifically, the client-centered approach promoted by the CDC’s policy on pretest counseling may conflict with the public health field’s traditional disease control logic. His torically, the public health response to lethal infectious diseases has at times prioritized containment of disease control over private rights, justifying a coercive repertoire of prac tices such as “compulsory examination and screening, breaching the confidentiality of the clinical relationship by reporting to public health registries the names of those with diag noses of “dangerous diseases,” imposing treatment, and in the most extreme cases, con fining persons through the power of quarantine” (Bayer 1991a, 1500yf , W Z D V W K H H I I R U W V R f gay rights advocacy groups during the early years of the AIDS epidemic that pushed na scent policies surrounding HIV testing and counseling toward voluntary, anonymous, and confidential practices that prioritized self-determination over public health concerns (Bayer 1991byf $ V D U H V X O W + , 9 W H V W L Q J D Q G F R X Q V H O L Q J S R O L F K D V E H H Q I U D X J K W Z L W K F R Q W U R Y H U V y and marked by sharp policy debates over issues such as reporting of the names of sero positives, partner notification, and informed voluntary consent to test. Indeed, in 2006, the CDC revised its recommendations for HIV testing to drop its recommendation for risk This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 124 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory assessment and pretest counseling (Branson et al. 2006yf 7 K L V Z D V D W H V W D P H Q W W R W K H G L s puted legitimacy of pretest counseling as a tool of prevention in the public health arena. We expected that the multiservice logic, which provides a moderately good fit with HIV pretest counseling, would fall somewhere in-between the medical logic and the social movement logic in terms of comprehensiveness of counseling. This seemed to be the case, and practitioners operating in a field structured by this logic did not provide counseling significantly more comprehensive than counseling provided in organizations structured by the medical logic. It is often argued that professional orientation, experience, training, and knowledge determine frontline practice (Abbot 1992; Jewell and Glaser 2006; Meyers, Riccucci, and Lurie 2001; Riccucci et al. 2004yf + R Z H Y H U Z K H Q Z H D F F R X Q W H G I R U Y D U L D W L R Q D F U R V V R r ganizations, we found no significant differences between medical practitioners (physicians and nursesyf D Q G Q R Q P H G L F D O F R X Q V H O R U V L Q F R P S U H K H Q V L Y H Q H V V R I F R X Q V H O L Q J R U E H W Z H H n practitioners with varying levels of experience with, training in, or knowledge about HIV testing and counseling. We also failed to detect a relationship between comprehen siveness of counseling and behavioral risk group. Our inability to detect a significant relationship between individual-level factors and comprehensiveness of counseling may result from the mediating effect of institutional con text. For example, when comparing the mean number of topics covered in the counseling session shown in figure 1, it appears that physicians and nurses provide on average sub stantively less comprehensive HIV pretest counseling than nonmedical counselors. How ever, once variation across organizational and institutional settings is taken into account, these differences disappear, suggesting that the zero-order association between profes sional orientation and comprehensiveness may lie in physicians’ and nurses’ greater rep resentation (relative to nonmedical counselorsyf L Q L Q V W L W X W L R Q D O V H W W L Q J V W K D W G H S U L R U L W L ] e counseling. Future research should carefully test this proposition. In keeping with extant research, our findings suggest that increased workload pres sures (average number of clients served per houryf G H F U H D V H W K H F R P S U H K H Q V L Y H Q H V V R I F R X n seling and automation (use of the HIRS formyf L Q F U H D V H V F R P S U H K H Q V L Y H Q H V V 8 Q H [ S H F W H G O , the second measure of formalization, which captured the extent to which respondents per ceived that the organization was formalized and structured, was negatively related to the comprehensiveness of counseling. This finding may result in part from the particular in stitutional context in which HIV testing and counseling is carried out. The social movement logic, for example, which promotes comprehensive counseling, may be populated by small social movement organizations that eschew formal structure. This analysis has several implications for organizational research. First, by comparing policy implementation across organizational fields, the analysis illuminates how workers’ discretionary practices varied systematically by field-level institutional logics, even when taking into account individual and organizational-level factors. Comprehensiveness of counseling was significantly associated with the institutional logics that structured the or ganizational context, suggesting that worker agency, as expressed through discretionary practice, is embedded in an institutional system that shapes how discretion is exercised by providing institutionally defined means, ends, and interests. Second, our analysis suggests how street-level discretion (as well as the variation in organizational practices it enablesyf L V E R X Q G H G E W K H L Q V W L W X W L R Q L Q Z K L F K L W R F F X U V 3 U D F W i tioners who carry out policies are subject to field-level institutional pressures that may This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Garrow and Grusky Institutional Logic and Street-Level Discretion 125 conflict with or complement policy intent. Because the means and ends of their interests are institutionally shaped, workers may use their discretion to implement policies congruent with the core logics that structure the organizational field, while giving less attention to policies that are incongruent with field-level logics. Our approach enriches the literature on street-level discretion by tempering notions of agency with the insight that agency is institutionally embedded. It also diverges from the efforts of some institutional theorists to accommodate agency and interests by arguing that conformity to institutional pressures is a strategic choice driven by organizational interests (Oliver 1991; Scott 1991; Goodstein 1994yf 5 D W K H U R X U I L Q G L Q J V L Q G L F D W H W K D W R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q s and street-level workers engage in discretionary practices but within the context of con straints and opportunities imposed by the institutional orders under which they operate, rather than outside of them (e.g., Friedland and Alford 1991; Goodrick and Salancik 1996; Seo and Creed 2002yf . The results also have implications for policy implementation. In calling attention to the ways in which policies are filtered through the structuring logics of organizational fields, the analysis suggests that policy implementation should, at least in part, focus on the organizational field. The results demonstrate that when organizations operate in the context of field logics that are consistent with the policy intent they are more likely to implement the policy. To encourage effective policy implementation, policy makers could encourage and support fields that uphold the intent of policy or create incentives for fields to adopt the policy’s logic. Although the results provide support for our model, several methodological issues limit the ability to generalize from this study. First, the cross-sectional study design does not allow ruling out the possibility that practitioners self-selected into organizations com patible with their world views, although a number of individual-level factors, such as pro fessional orientation, training, and knowledge, which help shape practitioners’ perspectives were controlled. For example, practitioners who are HIV + or members of high-risk groups targeted by HIV test counseling may be more likely to fully implement the counseling protocol than others and may also be more likely to work in the field structured by the social movement logic (see Watkins-Hayes 2009 for an example of how the interaction between institutional context and attributes of workers such as race and class influences street-level discretionyf : H G R Q R W K D Y H W K H G D W D W R F R Q W U R O I R U W K L V S R V V L E L O L W 6 H F R Q G 4 organizations were dropped from the analysis because none of the interviewed workers had conducted an HIV test in the last 6 months, creating the potential for bias in the observed results.8 We tentatively suggest that the findings can be generalized to organizations that regularly conduct HIV testing and counseling but not to organizations that offer, but have not recently conducted, HIV testing and counseling. Third, we lacked data to control for the effects of resource dependence. It is possible that, in an effort to ensure continued funding, organizations dependent on revenues from HIV testing implement HIV pretest counseling in order to comply with funding requirements (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978yf , Q I D F W U H V R X U F e dependence could explain not only conformity to CDC recommended protocol but also reporting that such guidelines are followed, regardless of actual practices. However, an 8 For example, it is possible that people seeking HIV testing and counseling are less likely to patronize organizations that provide less comprehensive counseling. Nonetheless, we felt that excluding from the analysis organizations in which none of the interviewed workers had conducted an HIV test in the last 6 months was justified because of potential bias caused by faulty recall of the counseling session. This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 126 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory explanation based on resource dependence may not be applicable in this case because most costs of HIV counseling and testing are reimbursed by the CDC, which disburses funds to county health departments who then distribute them to service organizations and their pro viders. Although the CDC does provide financial and technical support for HIV antibody counseling, testing, and referral services and risk-reduction counseling, it does not hold organizations accountable for implementation of best practices. Therefore, exposure to re source-based rewards or sanctions linked to compliance with CDC guidelines for HIV test counseling was probably quite minimal. Fourth, we are not able to control for the com plexity of organizational work. Respondents may be primary care providers, or do intake, or provide more complex services. Although we have controlled for professional orienta tion and workload, we cannot completely capture in our measures the nature of professional responsibilities. Finally, for the sake of simplicity, we identified one dominant institutional logic for each organization. However, the assumption that there is a single predominate institutional logic to which an organization adheres rather than multiple and potentially competing institutional logics is questionable (Kraatz and Block 2008yf , W L V U H D V R Q D E O e to assume that the more complex, highly differentiated, heterogeneous, and distributed the organization the greater the number of institutional logics to which it attempts to con form. CONCLUSION This study provides evidence that, in addition to organizational-level factors, the degree of compliance with policy mandates is associated with characteristics of the organizational field. Specifically, we showed that the core field-level logic can impact critical organiza tional outputs such as the well-being of service recipients and society by influencing how policies are or are not implemented by frontline practitioners. These findings support the perspective that institutional logics have important consequences for health and human services because they supply the moral categories and legitimated practices that play a key role in shaping the quality of services provided to vulnerable client groups. Work on or with people is justified on the basis of adherence to institutionalized moral rules that define target client groups, their relevant attributes, and what can be done to or with them. Future research should examine the influence of core logics on other routine frontline prac tices in the health and human services sector, such as mental health treatment or basic needs assistance, which, like HIV test counseling, are conducted across diverse institutional and organizational contexts. Appendix Table AI Organization Participation by Stratum (A/yf Organizations For-profit Nonprofit, Public, with Mobile Hospitals Private Practices Nonhospitals Nonhospitals Testing Units Total Sample frame 86 37 125 32 14 294 Sample 100yb f 100yb f 38yb f 100yb f 100yb f 74yb f Response rate 63yb f 51yb f 77yb f 88yb f 100yb f 70yb f This content downloaded from 128.6.45.205 on Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:37:48 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Garrow and Grusky Institutional Logic and Street-Level Discretion Table A2 Share of Organizations with Type of Service, by Institutional Logic Category Services Logic Medical Public health Social movement Multiservice All organizations Social Case Mental Advocacy Services Management Counseling Education Prevention Health Medical 0yb b 2.63 2.63 76.92 76.92 18.18 54.55 12.04yb b 2.17yb b 2.63 2.63 76.92 76.92 72.73 72.73 18.52yb b 4.35yb b 15.79 42.11 46.15 30.77 72.73 9.09 20.37yb b 0yb b 5.26 97.37 53.85 15.38 36.36 100 12.04yb b Table A3 Share of Organizations that Serve Target Group, by Institutional Logic Category Target groups Logic Medical Public health Social movement Multiservice All organizations Low Minority Vulnerable, General income Uninsured ethnic group HIV LGBT Homeless other public 0yb b 0yb b 0yb b 0yb b 100 10.53 5.26 7.89 0 2.63 0 65.79 30.77 0 30.77 84.62 23.08 15.38 23.08 0 100 63.64 18.18 0 0 0 18.18 49.07yb b 7.41yb b 2.78yb b 4.63yb FUNDING This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health (RO1 -MH-62709-PI-O.Gruskyyf . 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