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Boosting board representation of women redresses structural unfairness and improves corporate governance and performance. The Change Our Game initiative, running over 3 years statewide in Victoria, Australia, mandated 40% representation of women on state sport boards. At the start, only 44% of state sport boards had 40% women representation; by the mandate deadline, this had increased to 93%. Using an institutional theory lens, the authors qualitatively analyzed four stakeholder groups: mandators, policy champions, operationalists, and mandate targets. Stakeholder sentiments were analyzed pre- and postmandate deadline over 3 years. Sentiments ranged from positive to equivocation to denigration. The mandate's coercive pressure, supported by institutional legitimacy and work to accelerate changes, led to institutional change and achieved a significant increase in women board members. Change was grounded in strong ethical and cognitive support from mandate champions. Microsocial expressions of denigration and change resistance did not prevent successful change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how policies that reduce barriers to entrepreneurship impact underrepresented groups differently depending on local norms and cultural beliefs. While prior studies suggest that underrepresented groups should benefit more than other groups do from policies lowering entry barriers, the empirical evidence is mixed. We argue that the absence of normative and cognitive support can undermine the effectiveness of these policies for underrepresented groups. To explore this, we leveraged the staggered rollout of a policy that reduced entry barriers to entrepreneurship in Mexico. The results show that while the policy increased the number of businesses founded by men, it had a small and statistically insignificant impact for women, thus exacerbating the gender gap in entrepreneurship. Further analyses suggest that while women were not more likely to become involved in entrepreneurship as founders, they did become engaged in alternative roles within new ventures, often leaving other forms of employment to enter unpaid work in businesses founded by men in their household. The effects of the policy on the gender gap in entrepreneurship and unpaid work were more pronounced in areas with a strong patriarchy logic and among married individuals. This research highlights the need to consider context in the design of policies intended to encourage entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate layoffs are a globally prolific organisational activity, but little is known about how industry‐level employment loss or gain impacts firm‐level layoff implementation. Grounded in institutional theory, this study posits that firms in industries experiencing employment decline align with a cost‐containment approach, while firms in industries experiencing employment growth focus on social exchange theory when executing employee layoffs. Analysis of 573 mass layoffs from March 2013 to May 2019 compared downsizing scope (layoff severity and frequency), explanations, alternatives, advance notice, and firm characteristics (unionisation and firm size) in employment gain versus loss industries. The findings indicate that meaningful differences exist. Firms operating in employment loss industries implement layoffs focused on cost‐containment, including less severe layoffs, less extensive but more demand‐decline focused explanations, and use more cost‐reduction layoff alternatives, when compared to layoffs in employment gaining industries. Firms operating in industries experiencing growth execute layoffs in a manner that maintains the social exchange expectations between employee‐employer. In addition, firms in declining industries are more likely to be unionised and larger than firms in growing industries. This research helps reconcile divergent layoff perspectives by considering how variations in external factors impact corporate layoffs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability action at universities is complex and requires engaging multiple competences that reside on different levels outside and inside the organisation. In addition to individual competences, social communities also possess collective resources and characteristics that do not translate into a sum of individual abilities. Based on a qualitative small‐n comparative study of four universities in Spain, Portugal, Finland and Romania, this paper explores the concept of collective sustainability competences as enablers and constraints of sustainability action at universities. Drawing from institutional theory and nestedness in organisations, the article poses the following research question: How can the collective sustainability competences of universities be conceptualised? The article develops a conceptual understanding of regulative, normative and cultural‐cognitive elements of collective sustainability competences as a nested institutional space. In so doing, the article contributes to the discussion on the capacity of universities to act as key organisations in sustainability transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the strategic responses of Chinese female business owners to perceived operational barriers, integrating insights from the Resource-Based View, Signaling Theory, Institutional Theory, and Social Role Theory. Data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey (conducted in China in 2012; the sample comprises 2,700 firms from diverse China's industries) was analyzed with advanced path modeling techniques. All statistical analyses were conducted using R (version 4.0.2) and SPSS 29. The R packages lavaan and semTools were utilized for implementing Structural Equation Model (SEM) techniques. How female ownership influences diversification strategies was investigated with the mediation effect of business environment barriers and the moderation effect of international certifications. It is revealed that female entrepreneurs are more likely to pursue international diversification due to heightened perceptions of business environment barriers. Perceived regulatory barriers are positively related to product diversification, while perceived business environment barriers are positively related to international diversification. Female business owners perceive operational barriers, particularly business environment challenges, as more significant than their male counterparts, mediating the relationship between female ownership and international diversification. Furthermore, international certifications, while associated with international diversification, attenuate the positive effect of female ownership on international diversification. These insights inform policies aimed at reducing domestic barriers and enhancing access to international markets for female entrepreneurs. Support mechanisms, such as accessible international certifications, can mitigate gender gaps in domestic markets and facilitate global opportunities for female business owners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how expatriates deal with host country informal business practices that differ from their home country institutional frameworks. We note that expatriate business people working in emerging markets of Africa often contend with corrupt business practices rooted in local informal institutions and the lack of strong formal institutions regulating business practices. We also observe that while local people take informal institutions such as magendo, as a way of life and adjust to them, expatriates being 'outsiders' respond in different ways. The study employed a qualitative phenomenological design that involved in-depth interview of a small sample of expatriates operating in Uganda. For data analysis, NVivo 11 was used to search for and retrieve chunks of labelled data. The key findings indicate that expatriates from countries with strong formal institutions experience the most frustrations and often reject informal business practices. On the other hand, expatriates from countries with weak institutions are more pragmatic and easily adapt to existing practices in the new environments. Multinationals however, often reject informal business practices due to their market power and strict codes of conduct. The study recommends that small-medium category expatriates targeting Africa need to align with influential local people so as to navigate business informalities that characterise informal business environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changing relationships between government and the higher education system have created a wide range of new tasks within universities. Many have been adopted by an emerging workforce known alternately as professional, non-academic, or support staff. Its rapid growth has sparked a debate about 'administrative bloat'. We aim to move beyond this negative, dismissive framing by reviewing the literature to explore whether and how professional staff influence academic knowledge development. While this specific question has received little scholarly attention, we found relevant research in 54 documents from a diffuse group of journals and authors. Our review makes two specific contributions. First, we examine the competencies and relationships of professional staff and their influence on conditions and processes in universities. We find that professional staff increasingly have a private sector background, but that the implications of such a background for competencies remain opaque. Furthermore, their relationships with university leadership and academics as well as actors beyond the home organization place them in strategic positions in their networks. We claim that their involvement in strategy development and implementation, daily management, and academic practices demonstrate a potential to influence knowledge development. Second, we propose a research agenda to understand this influence. The agenda is built around the institutional logics of professional staff, the institutional work that they engage in to promote these logics, and the resulting influence on knowledge development. We hypothesize that professional staff stimulate convergence in knowledge production and strengthen the higher education system's external legitimacy as a producer of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Question/Issue: This is a study of the relationship between business group ownership and constituent firms' adoption of Anglo‐American shareholder value governance in African firms at the undertaking of an initial public offering (IPO). Research Findings/Insights: We find business group ownership to be associated with lower Anglo‐American corporate governance adoption by constituent firms. However, this association is reversed in the institutional context of higher tribalism, while correspondingly being exacerbated in the context of lower tribalism. Theoretical/Academic Implications: We theorize that the influence of business group ownership on firms' adoption of Anglo‐American corporate governance is better understood when considering the institutional context. We highlight how informal cultural institutions are heterogeneous and thus shape the indigenous political economy and impact business groups. Specifically, we argue institutional contexts with higher tribalism are associated with more in‐group favoritism and nepotism. This association makes it critical for business group constituent firms to escape the constraints of the political economy of tribalism when attracting outside funding, leading to a higher inclination to adopt Anglo‐American governance. Contrastingly, in lower tribalism contexts, there is more universal trust across societies and an increased availability of domestic funding. Practitioner/Policy Implications: Given the proliferation of business group ownership within economies worldwide, the study provides a useful framework with which to gauge the influence of business group ownership on a constituent firm's adoption of Anglo‐American governance best practice. In particular, the study emphasizes that the interdependence of formal institutional architecture and tribalism—both fundamentally associated with the demographic shape and with the incentive structures embedded within the underlying national political economy—calls for careful considerations when making national corporate governance recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green innovation is pivotal to events. However, little is known about how exhibitors manage the challenge of adopting green innovation in the fast-paced and short-oriented events. Drawing upon institutional theory and organisational learning perspective, this study investigates how institutional pressures are linked to exhibitors' willingness to adopt (WTA) eco-exhibiting via two temporal variables: future orientation (mediator) and past experience (moderator). PLS-SEM is applied to analyse a survey from 685 event exhibitors. Results show that coercive and normative pressures are significantly associated with exhibitors' future orientation, which then predicts WTA. Besides, past experience moderates the relationship between institutional pressures and WTA. Specifically, experienced exhibitors learn by doing and their WTA is more associated with normative pressure, while novice exhibitors learn vicariously and their WTA links stronger to mimetic pressures. This paper integrates macro-level institutional pressures and organisational-level learning heterogeneity, offering a multi-level explanation of green innovation adoption. This research also contributes to the green events and sustainable tourism literature with novel insights from the time perspective, verifying events as pro-environmental learning spaces for exhibitors. We highlight time perspective and environmental education for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community schools extend traditional school responsibilities by providing additional resources to support students, families, and communities, and ultimately attempt to change the school institution. Integral to the institutionalization of community schools are community school managers (CSMs) and their institutional work. Drawing from institutional theory, this study uses interview data to explore the deliberate actions taken by CSMs to create institutions, focusing on their efforts to develop their institutional identities and change normative associations. Institutional identities of CSMs were defined by their implementational responsibilities and organizational positioning. While CSMs skillfully identified, provided, and allocated resources within their implementational identity, the organizational identity remained ambiguous, lacking clarity on their organizational position or consistency in the teams on which they served. CSMs struggled to create normative associations that linked the resources they provided to the community school strategy. Moreover, the local leadership structure and principal support significantly and differentially impacted CSMs' institutional work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerned with European Union (EU) governance of teachers since the mid-2000s, this paper makes an empirical as well as theoretical contribution to education policy studies in the context of EU governance. Drawing on neo-institutional field theory and an empirical material of policy documents and interviews, the paper analyses the consolidation and evolution of a field at the EU level that is focused on the governance of the teaching profession. We argue that this field constitutes a bridging issue field, spanning several policy domains, including education, employment and economy, and characterised by non-linear and relatively slow change. We demonstrate how the field since the mid-2000s has become elaborated via the strategic framing of teacher skills and careers as policy issues, the mobilisation of actors and networks, and an expanding institutional infrastructure of mechanisms and policy instruments. Theoretically, the paper advances the debate on EU governance by highlighting the epistemic gains of neo-institutional field theory in making sense of soft governance contexts and their trajectories as an outcome of the interplay between issue framings, different types of actors, and institutional infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explain howandwhy people become motivated to participate in institutional processes. Responding to recent efforts to address the micro and meso in institutional analysis, we introduce two interrelated constructs—a person’s embodied world of concern and a community’s shared world of concern—which shape how people experience, evaluate, and participate in institutional arrangements. The world of concern, which is the product of people’s sedimented experiences of thriving and suffering, becomes the basis for their commitments and antagonisms toward certain social arrangements. The world of concern, as a lens, sheds light on the complex ways the macro-, meso-, and microlevels are coimplicated in constructing commitments and attachments that animate action in institutional arenas by providing a new metaphor, one that links the realism of participant concerns to the microdynamics that underpin institutions.We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these ideas for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With an emphasis on combining individual and environmental factors in entrepreneurship, this study aims to explore the relationship between the perception of the institutional environment, risk-taking propensity, and start-up readiness by drawing on the institutional theory and human capital theory. This study collected data online and finally got 580 respondents aged 18 to 40. Through SmartPLS software, results reveal that perceived regulatory and cognitive environments influence risk-taking propensity, and risk-taking propensity influences start-up readiness. Moreover, prior entrepreneurial experience positively moderates the relationship between risk-taking propensity and start-up readiness. However, we do not find the direct and moderating effects of entrepreneurship education. This study theoretically contributes to institutional theory, human capital theory, and entrepreneurial behavior with a self-developed construct -"start-up readiness." This study also provides practical implications for educators and policymakers based on the findings. This study was limited to one personality trait and future research could examine other traits. In addition, more future studies can adopt this measurement scale to measure the entrepreneurial behavior of people in different regions and other human capital factors are worth studying in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Ibero-Americana de Estratégia (RIAE) is the property of Revista Ibero-Americana de Estrategia/UNINOVE and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the recent body of research exploring strategic positioning, and the processes and factors which influence the development and content of university strategies and plans, with lessons then applied to open questions of institutional diversity and its determinants. Following a sector level analysis of the contents of university positioning documents, an in-depth case study is developed of a large Australian university, where the interaction of intra-institutional 'meso' layers is explored to show a confluence of factors contributing to positioning. The case demonstrates that institutional positioning involves the selective crafting of narratives for multiple purposes, including the seeking and portrayal of internal cohesion, identity enhancement, and resource seeking. Importantly, while cross-institutional comparison of positioning narratives portrays an undifferentiated and somewhat homogenous sector, positioning is found within the case institution to obscure what is significant internal diversity and complexity. The implications of these findings for research exploring institutional diversity, and policies seeking to stimulate it, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses how higher education organizations strategize in complex and coherent fields. Unlike previous studies which looked at either exogenous (field) or endogenous causes in strategizing, this article integrates them to explain organizational responses. We devise a conceptual framework under the premises of new institutional theory in order to connect macro-transformation in the institutional field to the micro-processes of organizational strategizing. The framework highlights that every combination of the analytical dimensions (field and organization) presents more possible strategizing practices. Then we test it on the responses to the same change in the field (introduction of research mandate) of three universities of applied sciences located in two countries (Portugal and the Netherlands) with dichotomous field conditions by analyzing organizational members' practices. Findings support that both field and organizations warrant investigation in strategizing research since it is not possible to determine the strategizing outcomes just from the combination of theoretical dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The key objectives of this study were to investigate the factors that empower women entrepreneurs in the Kingdom of Bahrain and to measure the impacts of such factors on their business development and growth. The four main factors covered in this study were gender equality, quality education, sociocultural, and policies. The quantitative method was adopted to obtain the results of a structured survey distributed among 449 women entrepreneurs in the Kingdom of Bahrain registered in the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. A simple random sampling approach was used. This study examined the empowerment perspectives of Bahraini women as entrepreneurs. Hypotheses were developed and tested using statistical tests to significantly identify the impacts of the factors on women entrepreneurs' participation in the country's business activities. The quantitative results of the study showed the importance of empowering women entrepreneurs in business activities in the Kingdom of Bahrain, which leads to their development and the country's economic growth. The findings confirmed the existence and significant impact of three factors, which are quality education, sociocultural, and policies, that empower and support women to start businesses in the Kingdom of Bahrain. No significant effect of the gender equality factor was distinguished. Empowerment and institutional theories were found to be relevant to the context of empowering women as entrepreneurs. The research provided recommendations, such as reinforcing policies that empower entrepreneurs, to enhance the empowerment of women entrepreneurship in the Kingdom of Bahrain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While past technology acceptance studies focus on organization readiness, little is known about the acceptance behavior under sudden institutional coercive pressure. Against COVID-19 and distance teaching, this study explores the relationship between digital transformation readiness, adoption intention, digital transformation success, and sudden institutional coercive pressure based on the readiness research model and institutional theory. Surveying 233 college teachers who participated in distance teaching under COVID-19 in Taiwan for model and hypothesis validation using the partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach. This result shows that (1) Teacher, social/public, and content readiness are crucial to distance teaching. Individuals, organizational resources, and external stakeholders influence distance teaching success and adoption; and (2) Sudden institutional coercive pressure has a negative moderated effect on teachers' readiness and adoption intention. When teachers are unprepared to implement distance teaching, this unanticipated epidemic and sudden institutional coercive pressure will accelerate and enhance their intention. The study provides government, educational policymakers, and teachers with a better understanding of distance teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A specific form of corporate social responsibility--corporate philanthropy--has received little attention in sport scholarship despite the increased formalization of this business function in practice. Specifically, few studies have explored the institutional mechanisms that influence the corporate philanthropy of professional sport teams. Given that teams receive simultaneous institutional pressures from their league and from the community in which they operate, this study examined how the presence of multiple peers from different fields affected teams in terms of determining the appropriate level of philanthropic activity. The hypotheses were tested through a longitudinal analysis of philanthropic data from team foundations in four professional leagues in the United States from 2005 to 2017. The authors found that teams were more likely to be affected by the philanthropic giving levels of league peers than local peers. Overall, this study provides a better understanding of simultaneous institutional pressures shaping the philanthropic activities of professional sport teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) has repeatedly underlined the importance of higher education, research and innovation as drivers in the further development of Europe—economically, socially and culturally. One of the latest policy initiatives by the European Commission (EC) intended to promote this agenda is the European Universities Initiative (EUI) where alliances between universities across national borders are to identify new approaches for boosting European scientific cooperation. It might be argued that this development represents an attempt to find an organizational solution to the European policy ambitions in higher education, research and innovation. This article presents a framework for analysing European university alliances. Based on interviews with persons occupying key leadership and management roles in ten alliances, the article analyses the potential gains and perils alliances might face along four dimensions: their internal coordination, their ways of resolving conflicts, the commitment of member universities and the cultural characteristics of the alliances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the root causes of student unrest in South African universities and evaluates the institutional responses to these protests, otherwise regarded as social unrest. The study is lensed through social movement theory and institutional theory. The study adopted transformative paradigm under qualitative approach and participatory research design to analyze the experiences of universities in South Africa that have experienced significant social unrest in recent years. Focus group discussion was conducted with university management staff, student activists, and security officers of the selected universities. The findings showed that lack of access, socio-economic inequalities, ineffective communication, and open engagement are the primary causes of social unrest. In contrast, providing equitable access, economic liberation, effective communication, and open engagement is the possible institutional response that alleviates social unrest on university campuses. Hence, promoting equitable access and economic liberation coupled with effective communication and open engagement among stakeholders was recommended. Plain Language Summary: Causes and Institutional Responses of Social Unrest. This paper investigates why South African university students protest and how the institutions respond. Using social movement and institutional theories, the study talks to university managers, student activists, and security officers in universities with recent protests. The key issues identified are limited access, economic inequalities, poor communication, and exclusion from decision-making. The suggested solution is to focus on fair access, reducing economic disparities, improving communication, and involving everyone in decisions. The researcher recommends promoting equitable access and economic fairness, alongside better communication and inclusive decision-making, as a way to address and prevent social unrest on university campuses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to examine whether the cross-country and gender variations of entrepreneurship can be explained within the institutional framework. The study addresses normative forces to which entrepreneurs are expected to adapt within European welfare states. The normative forces are focused on norm-based factors of governmental quality and value-based factors of governmental generosity, which are both hypothesized to be associated with entrepreneurship at the level of society and furthermore from the gender perspective. To verify our hypotheses, the research was conducted among 28 European countries in the years 2012 to 2018. We adopted the macro-level of analysis and undertook panel data analysis (PDA). We estimated the econometric models with entrepreneurship rates as dependent variables and those with norm-based and value-based factors as independent variables. The results confirm that norm-based factors are associated with entrepreneurship and there are significant differences in the responses of female and male entrepreneurial activities to the quality of government. However, we did not find supporting evidence for the statistically significant impact of governmental generosity on entrepreneurship. The novelty of our research is in implementing institutional theory into the discussion on entrepreneurship from the welfare state perspective, by introducing the concept of norm-based and value-based factors which reflect the quality and generosity of the government. We also distinguish between the impact of governmental quality and generosity on entrepreneurship from the gender perspective to contribute to the discussion on the gender gap in entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides a systematic review of the literature on internal auditing (IA) research in 17 Arab countries. It focuses on four key aspects, namely the quality and effectiveness of IA, the objectivity and independence of IA, the consequences of IA, and the challenges facing IA in Arab countries in order to provide insights and avenues for future research in this field. Ninety-one (91) articles collected from the Scopus database between 1996 and April 2022 were analyzed in this study. The results show that there has been an increase in the number of studies that discussed IA, especially in the last 6 years. Most of these studies have focused on the quality of IA and its functions. It also shows that Jordan and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia dominate the literature published so far in terms of the number of studies. Also, most of the studies were based on agency and institutional theory evaluating the various aspect of IA. This study highlights the lack of in-depth qualitative research that allows researchers to challenge the theories developed in the auditing field, add nuances to the existing theoretical framework, and unpack new theoretical directions. Furthermore, the results also show that the IA literature did not contribute significantly to the knowledge of internal audit functions (IAFs) as specified by the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA). This study contributes to the body of knowledge by determining future research directions and surveys by interested researchers and regulators, including IIA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study is to examine the drivers of change in the management accounting system in a large manufacturing Libyan-Italian joint-venture public company (LIJV). To achieve this objective, a qualitative case study research is adopted. The research data were gathered by conducting 17 semi-structured interviews with the managers and senior staff of the case company. The data collected from the interviews were supported by documentary reviews and observations. The findings of this study indicate that changes in management accounting systems in the company are attributable to institutional factors, competitive pressures, and market forces. Specifically, isomorphic institutional pressures i.e., coercive, mimetic, and normative isomorphism forces) appeared to be the main drivers of management accounting system change. These findings are consistent with Zoubi's (2011) findings. Additionally, our findings reveal that the primary sources of the barriers to management accounting change include: 1) the nation's regulations and laws, 2) management misconduct and corruption in management and financial activities, and 3) company managers' resistance. Drawing on the new institutional sociology (NIS) theory, our case findings provide a comprehensive understanding of the change process in management accounting systems by focusing on the role of market pressures, institutional pressures, and intra-organizational power. The contribution of this research is the improved utilization of NIS in explaining the change in management accounting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Przegląd Europejski is the property of University of Warsaw and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal Public Administration & Social Management / Administração Pública e Gestão Social is the property of Administracao Publica e Gestao Social and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This seems an opportune time to reflect on our paper, The Iron Cage Revisited, some 40 years after its original publication. In this essay, we recall the influences on us at the time, speculate on factors that shaped its subsequent reception, and assess selective strands of work that it may have influenced. By today's standards, it was a relatively short paper, only 14 pages, yet it has had a long life and a generous audience (68,624 citations according to Google Scholar on Oct. 15, 2023). We divide the essay into four parts: (a) our experiences at Yale in the early 1980s and the influences on us; (b) thoughts on the reception of the paper shortly after it was published; (c) reactions to the attention it subsequently received; and (d) brief reflections on subsequent institutional lines of work that we have followed. We conclude with thoughts on theorizing in organization studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of Social Sciences (IJSS) / Uluslararasi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi is the property of International Journal of Social Science and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Research Question/Issue: This study analyzes the diffusion of internationally recognized governance standards in public corporate governance codes. Local, state, and federal governments issue very different codes for their state‐owned enterprises, which reflect governments' understanding of corporate governance. Research Findings/Insights: Developing and applying a comprehensive measurement framework with 150 criteria to 60 public corporate governance codes in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, the study shows that the diffusion varies considerably between codes and regulatory fields (e.g., directors, auditing). Governments react very differently to similar governance challenges and show varying degrees of willingness to regulate the corporate governance of their state‐owned enterprises. Theoretical/Academic Implications: This study enhances the understanding of the diffusion of governance standards in the under‐researched context of government ownership. The findings imply the need for comprehensive measurement approaches to gain a nuanced theoretical understanding on the diffusion and underlying mechanisms. Future research could use the measurement framework or single regulatory fields to generate data to investigate different theoretical questions regarding many areas of corporate governance. Derived from the findings and neo‐institutional theory, the study develops propositions about potential drivers of diffusion differences, offering avenues for advancing future theory‐building. Practitioner/Policy Implications: This study develops a comprehensive measurement framework to quantify the diffusion of governance standards in public corporate governance codes in international comparisons. Governments, standard‐setters, and other actors (e.g., directors, auditors) could use it for condensed overviews, implementing or revising codes, and reflecting on governance practices. Overall, data show a severe need to improve the quality of public corporate governance codes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine two forms of employment and asset restructuring: downsizing and upsizing. Guided by institutional theory, we focus on two important questions: (a) are the antecedents of restructuring common across downsizing and upsizing? and (b) are the performance consequences of such restructuring related to prior firm performance? To answer these questions, we use primary data from companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange over a 37-year period (1980–2016). Our results suggest that six key antecedents play a prominent role in both downsizing and upsizing, although they differ in magnitude and direction in how they affect each form of restructuring. However, in both instances they reflect efficiency considerations (company performance and managerial foresight), as well as institutional forces (the economy, political uncertainty, industry, and technology), just as neo-institutional theory suggests. In addition, prior performance plays a central role in restructuring decisions, in both the upsizing and downsizing of assets and employees. The evidence suggests that it is not just current-year performance but also the trend in company performance over the prior two years that forecasts subsequent firm performance; thus, our findings extend and refine institutional theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutions are often taken for granted, serving as backgrounded typifications that guide our interactions. Instead of considering this taken-for-grantedness as a natural, self-sustaining feature of institutions, I argue here that it is a fundamental, precarious, and ongoing accomplishment. Drawing on ethnomethodology, I theoretically elaborate the intricate interactional choreography through which taken-for-grantedness is achieved—as institutional typifications are skillfully drawn into, and enacted in, social interactions—and highlight how this choreography can itself generate oddities, or breaks in the typified expectations between interactants. These oddities, if not resolved by interactants' corrective sensemaking, generate substantive breaches in taken-for-grantedness, potentially with significant downstream consequences for institutional maintenance and change. I then expand upon this baseline interactional model by suggesting that local choreographies vary in their characteristics, in ways that affect the incidence of oddities and breaches across settings. I theorize four such characteristics: choreographical fluidity, ordinary accountability, directorial sensegiving, and material scene-setting. I then close by discussing implications for institutional theory and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research was to examine the drivers and barriers of governance convergence in Indian sport. Governance convergence is defined as the adoption of four principles of good governance that are common in Western sport contexts—transparency, accountability, democracy, and social responsibility. To achieve the aim, a theoretical framework consisting of three interconnected levels—(a) the historically grown national institutional framework, (b) organizational field, and (c) organizational actors—was proposed, drawing primarily on institutional theory. A qualitative approach was used to empirically test the framework in the Indian sport context, where governance has been of key concern. The findings show that the framework is an effective tool for understanding the drivers and barriers of convergence with the defined principles of good governance. The development of this framework is important, given the link between the principles and positive organizational outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A response is provided to the 2020 article “Ontology, Levels of Society, and Degrees of Generality: Theorizing Actors as Abstractions in Institutional Theory," by H. Hwang and J.A. Colyvas, which appeared in volume 45. It discusses the theory and ontology of action, social action and actors, or those acting with agency, through framing action as goal-directed behavior. An overview of institutional theory, including the manner through which institutions shape human behavior, is provided.

A response is provided to the article "On the Ontology of Action: Actors Are Not “Abstractions,"" by R. McBride and M.D. Packard, which appears within the issue. It discusses a perspective on actors, or those acting with agency, heavily referencing institutional theory, action theory, social constructionism and organizational sociology.

We live in an "audit society" in which performance accounting and auditing requirements continue to expand, despite widespread criticism by academics and practitioners alike. Macro-institutional theories are good at explaining why organizations adopt practices whose efficacy is dubious by appealing to the power of their legitimizing and symbolic properties. Yet these theories are less able to explain how adoption happens and why practices of accounting and auditing persist and amplify, despite being objects of critique. This article addresses this puzzle by supplementing macro-institutional explanations of the audit society with a micro-foundational analysis grounded in a process model. The model theorizes the humble notion of the audit trail as a process that not only produces auditable accounts but is also a logic that is formative of organizational actors' dispositions to reproduce those accounts. The analysis contributes to debates about organizational micro-processes and micro-foundations by proposing that this logic of the audit trail is strongly performative of the conditions of its own reproduction and expansion. In explaining the persistence and amplification of the audit society, the model also shows how accounting and auditing are not inherently value-subverting and may be value-enhancing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Barriers to entry in regulated markets are frequently conceptualized as static features that must be removed or overcome if new entrants are to successfully enter a market. But government institutions regulating markets often comprise multiple levels that exist in tension with one another due to differing incentives and motivations. We argue that the principal–agent tension between elected officials and agency bureaucrats may render regulatory barriers to entry more malleable, even in the absence of formal policy changes. To test this proposition, we bring the administrative state center stage and examine how regulatory discretion—regulatory agencies' flexibility to interpret and implement public policies created by elected officials—can influence the market entry of new ventures. Using data on regulatory approval of hydroelectric facilities in the United States from 1978 to 2014, we find that increased state agency discretion improves outcomes for new ventures relative to incumbent firms by freeing regulatory agency officials to interpret and implement policies according to a professional motivation of public service and reducing incumbents' political influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from concepts in institutional theory, the purpose of this study was to examine how community measures intersect with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender inclusiveness to predict organizational success. The authors collected publicly available data about National Collegiate Athletic Association departments (N = 65) and their communities. Moderated regression analyses demonstrated significant interactive effects, such that performance was highest when the department followed an inclusive strategy and (a) the lesbian, gay, and bisexual population density was high and (b) the state-level implicit bias toward sexual minorities was low. Importantly, there were no negative effects in following an inclusive strategy, even when institutional logics did not prescribe such an approach. The models explained 60–62% of the variance in performance. The authors discuss theoretical and practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term "actor" is a central yet contested construct in institutional theory. Regardless of one's position, institutional theory requires a scaffolding that acknowledges the novelty and diversity of actor analyses and facilitates the commensurability, application, and reach in scholarly uses of the term. We put forth a view of actor as an abstraction that consists of three core elements: (1) the level(s) of society that claims about actors occupy (e.g., from individual to organizational to societal), (2) the degree of generality that claims about actors reach (i.e., from concrete to abstract), and (3) the essential features that constitute actors (i.e., ontology). Our lens pushes beyond the prolific use of the term by providing a foundation for identifying and positioning actor-based studies. It also delineates reference sets of actor-based scholarship, even absent of the term altogether, so as to identify where conceptual specifications converge, expand, complement, or compete. Our lens also provides a means of relating actor-based analyses to one another in ways that distinguish the quality of the actor specification from its novelty or empirical validity. In so doing, we move the agenda forward on the analyses of actor as both explanandum and explanans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internal migration is an institutionalized process; it is affected not only by economic factors but also by institutional forces. This study thus employs institutional theory to investigate the importance of regional informal institutions and local governance quality on types of migration, as well as their impacts on migrants' earnings. Examining a set of national internal migration data in Vietnam, we find that pure socialist regions (the north) attract in-migration for job-seeking purposes, while pre-capitalist regions (the south) attract in-migration for business opportunity-seeking purposes. More importantly, migration across regions with dissimilar informal institutions yields adverse effects on migrants' earnings. Finally, migration from regions with a lower governance quality to regions with a higher governance quality improves migrants' earnings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defining institutions as taken-for-granted systems of roles and interactions, this paper presents a novel theoretical integration of hereto disparate micro and macro approaches to their social construction. Building on and modifying Berger and Luckmann (1967), I emphasize the social and cultural embeddedness of the phenomenological experience of institutions and their embodiment in organizations and organizing practices. The paper identifies mechanisms by which microinstitutions emerge at the intra-organizational level and how institutionalization is shaped across the multiple levels of organizations, geographic communities, organizational fields, societies, and the world system. It proposes that the locus of sedimentation, and hence institutionalization, occurs at multiple levels, which are culturally embedded within higher-level institutional orders of society and the world system. It further proposes that the generation of a committed network of role practitioners is a critical component of institutionalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the corporate social responsibility (CSR) structures of U.S. listed firms. We find evidence of a general tendency towards CSR specialization with almost three-quarters (73.91%) of these firms focusing on a single CSR dimension. The degree of specialization varies across industries and the single CSR dimension focused on also varies for industries with similar degrees of specialization. We find that firms with higher exposures to CSR concerns, international activities, larger size, and higher financial slack tend to diversify across multiple CSR dimensions. More importantly, we find evidence that diversified CSR structures positively affect a firm's value relative to a control group before and during the 2008 financial crisis. Our findings have important implications for corporate and portfolio managers, investors, and policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]