Article Abstracts

Articles

Global Competition, Institutions, and the Diffusion of Organizational Practices: The International Spread of ISO 9000 Quality Certificates
Isin Guler - University of Pennsylvania
Mauro F. Guillén - University of Pennsylvania
John Muir Macpherson - University of Texas at Austin

We use panel data on ISO 9000 quality certification in 85 countries between 1993 and 1998 to better understand the cross-national diffusion of an organizational practice. Following neoinstitutional theory, we focus on the coercive, normative, and mimetic effects that result from the exposure of firms in a given country to a powerful source of critical resources, a common pool of relevant technical knowledge, and the experiences of firms located in other countries. We use social network theory to develop a systematic conceptual understanding of how firms located in different countries influence each other's rates of adoption as a result of cohesive and equivalent network relationships. Regression results provide support for our predictions that states and foreign multinationals are the key actors responsible for coercive isomorphism, cohesive trade relationships between countries generate coercive and normative effects, and role-equivalent trade relationships result in learning-based and competitive imitation.

The Evolution of Organizational Niches: U.S. Automobile Manufacturers, 1885-1981
Stanislav D. Dobrev - University of Chicago
Tai-Young Kim - Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Glenn R. Carroll - Stanford University

Although the niche figures prominently in contemporary theories of organization, analysts often fail to tie micro processes within the niche to long-term changes in the broader environment. In this paper, we advance arguments about the relationship between an organization's niche and evolution in the structure of its organizational population over time. We focus on the technological niche and processes of positioning and crowding among firms in the niche space, relating them to the level of concentration among all firms in the market. Building on previous empirical studies in organizational ecology, we study the evolution of concentration in the American automobile industry from 1885 to 1981 and estimate models of the hazard of exit of individual producers from the market. The findings show that niche and concentration interact in complex ways, yielding a more unified depiction of organizational evolution than typically described or reported.

To better understand the factors that support or inhibit internally focused change, we conducted an inductive study of one firm's attempt to improve two of its core business processes. Our data suggest that the critical determinants of success in efforts to learn and improve are the interactions between managers' attributions about the cause of poor organizational performance and the physical structure of the workplace, particularly delays between investing in improvement and recognizing the rewards. Building on this observation, we propose a dynamic model capturing the mutual evolution of those attributions, managers' and workers' actions, and the production technology. We use the model to show how managers' beliefs about those who work for them, workers' beliefs about those who manage them, and the physical structure of the environment can coevolve to yield an organization characterized by conflict, mistrust, and control structures that prevent useful change of any type.

Capitalizing on Diversity: Interpersonal Congruence in Small Work Groups
Jeffrey T. Polzer - Harvard University
Laurie P. Milton - University of Calgary
William B. Swann, Jr. - University of Texas at Austin

We examine interpersonal congruence, the degree to which group members see others in the group as others see themselves, as a moderator of the relationship between diversity and group effectiveness. A longitudinal study of 83 work groups revealed that diversity tended to improve creative task performance in groups with high interpersonal congruence, whereas diversity undermined the performance of groups with low interpersonal congruence. This interaction effect also emerged on measures of social integration, group identification, and relationship conflict. By eliciting self-verifying appraisals, members of some groups achieved enough interpersonal congruence during their first ten minutes of interaction to benefit their group outcomes four months later. In contrast to theories of social categorization, the interpersonal congruence approach suggests that group members can achieve harmonious and effective work processes by expressing rather than suppressing the characteristics that make them unique.

Strategy as Vector and the Inertia of Coevolutionary Lock-in
Robert A. Burgelman - Stanford University

To examine the consequences of a period of extraordinary success for the long-term adaptive capability of a firm's strategy-making process, this comparative longitudinal study of Andy Grove's tenure as Intel Corporation's chief executive officer (CEO) documents how he moved Intel's strategy-making process from an internal-ecology model to the classical rational-actor model during 1987-1998. His creation of a highly successful strategy vector pursued through an extremely focused induced-strategy process led to coevolutionary-lock-in with the personal computer market segment, in which Intel's strategy making became increasingly tied to its existing product market. Intracompany analysis of four new business development cases highlights the inertial consequences of coevolutionary lock-in. The paper examines implications of coevolutionary lock-in in terms of its effect on balancing induced and autonomous strategy processes and exploitation and exploration in organizational learning.