Isomorphism, diffusion, and decoupling: concept evolution and theoretical challenges –
Boxenbaum and Jonsson
Pages 9-12
Meyer and Rowan: argue that formal organizational structures are often decoupled from
actual production activities
Institutional decoupling carries with it a risk of detection where it would no longer confer
legitimacy, but probably shame, on the organization so when do organizations decouple?
Organizations decouple if they experience strong coercive pressure to implement a
new practice, and more so if they distrust the actor that asserts pressure on them
Decoupling is more frequent among organizations that do not fully believe in the
efficacy of the practice in question
An accepted practice may be unintentionally decoupled when the accompanying
discourse is well established, increasing the likelihood that the practice will go
unnoticed
Internal power dynamics can mediate the desire to decouple decoupling occurred
more frequently when top executives had power over boards to resist external
pressure for change; financial executives were less likely to decouple the company’s
ethics code from strategic decisions when they experienced strong pressure from
market stakeholders; companies are reluctant to decouple if they have a close
relationship with the government and if that relationship implies that decoupling
behaviors may be monitored; firms are less likely to decouple standards for good
corporate governance if they depend on constituents that value highly these
governance practices
Networks and coalitions can mediate decoupling response top executives who
had prior experience with decoupling or who had social ties to organizations that did,
were more likely to engage in decoupling; decoupling was least likely in companies
that were powerful and committed actors cared strongly about implementation and
could influence the organizational response
Organizations require external trust (logic of good faith) to decouple when an
organization decouples action from structure, it can blur this by decoupling by talk:
saying one thing while doing another (organizational hypocrisy)
Meyer and Rowan argued that decoupling was a response to 2 problems:
Contradictions between institutionalized pressures with internal organizational
efficiency
Contradictions among multiple institutionalized pressures
When faced with simultaneous contradictory pressures, organizations decouple to survive
Sometimes institutions are decoupled to be able to implement others, recognizing there are
several ways to obtain legitimacy in a heterogenous field decoupling can be an attempt
to deal with conflicting demands in a way that minimizes risk
Pretence: by formalizing a structure, an organization pretends to do something that it does
not actually do but it is not always possible for an organization to sustain such a purely
,ceremonial adoption; what starts out as decoupling can over time turn into coupling
between structure and action decoupling may lead to full implementation because most
individuals refuse to see themselves as only ceremonial props
Institutional pressures can manifest as demands for symbolic schemes that are supposed to
shape organizational practice symbolic schemes such as ratings, rankings, and
certifications of different sorts that suggest a scheme for valuing different aspects of
organizational work as being important something that is initially mainly talk can become
embedded in the organization; although something was initially understood as acceptable to
decouple, the internal acceptance of decoupling can become less acceptable as the idea of
that thing becomes internalized so that organizational members begin to self-police the
implementation of the thing decoupled structure and action can become coupled over
time
Organizations that decouple can set an internal precedence that may be harmful to its other
operations decoupling can enable corporate wrongdoings and internal tolerance for
breaking norms and rules
The structure-action decoupling (Meyer and Rowan) needs to be supplemented by a means-
end decoupling: an organization can set up a structure and implement it fully, yet leave the
essentials of its operations untouched by decoupling the means and the ends of the action
means-end decoupling is likely to occur in highly obscure fields (particularly when actors
engage in substantial compliance) because the rigid rules associated with substantial
compliance with the means block the flexibility that is required to achieve the intended
outcomes in highly obscure fields
Imprinting: toward a multilevel theory – Marquis and Tilcsik
Pages 2-28
Stinchcombe: imprinting describes how organizations take on elements of their founding
environment and how these elements persist well beyond the founding phase he
emphasized the importance of external environmental forces in shaping firms’ initial
structures and the persistence of these patterns over time the organizational inventions
that can be made at a particular time in history depend on the social technology available at
that time (because these organizations can function effectively with those organizational
forms and because the forms tend to become institutionalized, the basic structure of the
organization tends to remain relatively stable) he showed that organizations are imprinted
by the conditions existing in the industry to which they belong at the time the industry is
‘born’ (organizations formed at one time typically have a different social structure from
those formed at another time) he suggests that environmental conditions at any point in
time specify the needs for particular goods and services, and determine many of the
characteristics of the organizations created to provide them
Imprinting (Marquis and Tilcsik): emphasizes brief sensitive periods of transition (an entity
can experience multiple sensitive periods over time; there is an interplay between different
generations of imprints) during which the focal entity exhibits high susceptibility to external
,influences, a process whereby the focus entity comes to reflect elements of its environment
during a sensitive period, and the persistence of imprints despite subsequent environmental
changes (some imprints will fade while others persist or become even more influential over
time) it can be applied on 4 levels (from macro to micro level): organizational collectives,
single organizations, organizational building blocks, and individuals
2 general characteristics of imprinting:
1. The existence of a sensitive period: this implies that imprinting occurs during a
limited period, when an organism exhibits heightened susceptibility to environmental
influences
2. The subsequent stability of the result of experience gained during that sensitive
period: this implies that, despite the brevity of the sensitive period, imprinted
experiences exert a persistent influence on behavior, such that the influence of early
experience resists extinction to a high degree
Imprinting at meso level: organizational building blocks (elements from which organizations
are constructed, such as units and departments, routines and capabilities, and jobs,
occupations, and professions) continue to reflect the circumstances of their creation;
imprinting at micro level: early-career experiences exert a lasting influence on people’s
careers and individuals carry these imprints with them as they move across organizational
boundaries
Imprinting has 3 essential features (Marquis and Tilcsik):
1. The existence of a temporally restricted sensitive period characterized by high
susceptibility to environmental influence
2. The powerful impact of the environment during the sensitive period such that the
focal entity comes to reflect elements of the environment at that time
3. The persistence of the characteristics developed during the sensitive period even in
the face of subsequent environmental changes
Sensitive period: an imprint is stamped onto the focal entity in limited time intervals during
which the entity exhibits intensified receptivity to external influence during these periods,
the focal entity is significantly more malleable by environmental conditions than in normal
times the window of imprintability is only open during restricted periods of time, and
when it’s shut, the environment is less likely to have a lasting impact transitions are
marked by anxiety that individuals want to reduce as they extend themselves into new roles,
new identities; such uncertain times amplify the potential for imprinting Marquis and
Tilcsik: sensitive periods can occur at later stages as well (not only during an early life stage);
while each sensitive period is relatively short, an entity might experience multiple sensitive
periods over time sensitive periods should be conceptualized as periods of transition: the
founding period remains the key sensitive period for organizations, as it marks the transition
from nonexistence to existence
Stamp of the environment: core features of the environment exert a significant influence on
the focal entity during sensitive periods environmental conditions might include features
of the economic, technological, or institutional context as well as the logics of organizing that
founders rely on when creating the new enterprise entrepreneurs and organizational
, managers during the founding period play an important role in selecting the historically
specific contextual features that then become a lasting part of the organization, and the
selection of these features often reflects attempts at achieving isomorphism or fit with the
environment to address uncertainty and legitimacy pressures the kinds of organizations
that emerge reflect the social structure of the founding period organizational practices
and structures that have been developed and are legitimate at a given time are relatively
distinctive; organizations are initially structured to fit the existing environment and then,
because of subsequent inertia and institutionalization, continue to exhibit traces of the
founding context given the anxiety and cognitive unfreezing experienced during sensitive
periods, individuals become open to environmental stimuli; means of reducing such anxiety
can provide powerful cues as to how to behave individuals are particularly likely to adopt
new behaviors, cognitive models, and norms at these times, causing their subsequent
behaviors to bear the stamp of the environment they experienced during a sensitive period
Persistence of imprints: imprints persist even if significant change takes place in the
environment inertia (persistent organizational resistance to changing architecture)
maintains the initial structural features of an organization and implies that changing a core
feature exposes an organization to great risk of mortality persistence also results from
institutionalization: emergence of stable, orderly social arrangements that are chronically
reproduced because of relatively self-activating social processes institutionalization
perspective: organizations create explicit goals and rules, coordination mechanisms, and
communication channels which persist because they become taken for granted and infused
with value beyond the technical requirements of the task a defining feature of individual-
level imprinting is the long-term persistence of imprints beyond the sensitive period even
when individuals leave behind the early, apprenticeship stage of their careers, they continue
to carry with them the beliefs, behaviors, and orientations adopted during this formative
period and because people tend to experience less uncertainty when not going through a
role transition, they tend to be less receptive to learning and environmental influences
outside sensitive period, so imprints persist
Stinchcombe suggested a few reasons for persistence of structures:
They may still be the most efficient form of organization for a given purpose
Traditionalizing forces, the vesting of interests, and the working out of ideologies
may tend to preserve the structure
The organization may not be in a competitive structure in which it has to be better
than alternative forms of organization to survive
Path dependence: historical small events can become magnified by positive feedback
causing the economy, under conditions of increasing returns, to dynamically lock itself in
because of chance decisions that is neither guaranteed to be efficient, nor easily altered, nor
predictable in advance
Imprinting is different from path dependence because:
Imprinting involves prominent environmental conditions rather than historical
accidents imprinting includes the very strong influence of environmental
conditions during the sensitive period, while path dependence focuses on the causal
role of unpredictable, non-purposive, and somewhat random events and attributes
