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1 – 10 of over 71000Martin Benninghoff, Raphaël Ramuz, Adriana Gorga and Dietmar Braun
This article analyses in what way Swiss academic institutions have had a favourable or unfavourable influence on changing research practices by following developments in four…
Abstract
This article analyses in what way Swiss academic institutions have had a favourable or unfavourable influence on changing research practices by following developments in four scientific areas – Bose-Einstein Condensates, Evolutionary Developmental Biology, Large-Scale Assessments in education research and Computerised Corpus Linguistics. Based on empirical evidence, we argue that overall a number of institutional conditions have had a positive influence on the decisions of scientists to dare a switch to a new scientific field. One finds, however, also differences in the working of these institutional conditions leading to quicker or slower developments of the four selected scientific areas.
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Massimo Contrafatto, Ericka Costa and Caterina Pesci
The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretically informed analysis of social and environmental reporting (SER) evolution, i.e. how and why the SER evolved over time in a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretically informed analysis of social and environmental reporting (SER) evolution, i.e. how and why the SER evolved over time in a cooperative bank in Italy.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a qualitative fieldwork case study conducted from 2011 to 2015. Information and data were collected through several methods including: interviews with managers involved in the SER’s process; analysis of the SER-related documents; analysis of the website; and observations in the field. The analysis of the empirical evidence draws on the institutional logic (IL) perspective, which provides theoretical insights to interpret the role of the contrasting institutional forces in the evolution of SER.
Findings
The empirical analysis unveils three different stages in the evolution of SER: the “birth” whereby a new form of social reporting was initiated; the “development” through which SER was implemented to become a formal component of the organizational management; and the “de-structuring” when the SER was gradually de-composed. This gradual de-structuring, as well as the initiation and implementation processes, was influenced by different institutionally infused rationalities and logics. These institutionally infused rationalities and logics, along with the specific organizational and contextual events, provided the resources, and created the space and opportunity, for the SER-related changes to occur.
Originality/value
The analysis offers theoretical insights to understand “how” (i.e. processes) and “why” (i.e. the conditions under which) SER gradually evolved, i.e. emerged, was constructed and developed during the phases of implementation and post-implementation. Furthermore, it is shown that SER is multifunctional in nature and unveils how and why these multiple functions change over time. Finally, the analysis provides a theoretical contribution by illuminating the role that different and contrasting ILs play in driving the adoption of organizational practices.
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Ehren Jarrett, Teresa Wasonga and John Murphy
The purpose of this paper is to examine teacher perceptions of the practice of co‐creating leadership and its potential impacts on student achievement.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine teacher perceptions of the practice of co‐creating leadership and its potential impacts on student achievement.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a quantitative approach, the study compared the levels of the practice of co‐creating leadership dispositional values and institutional conditions that facilitate the practice of co‐creating leadership between high‐ and low‐performing high schools. Data was collected using a survey. The respondents were teachers from high‐ and low‐performing high schools. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t‐tests, correlations, and regression.
Findings
Teachers in high‐performing schools scored significantly higher on perceptions of the practice of co‐creating leadership dispositional values and the presence of institutional conditions that facilitate the practice. Correlation analyses found positive significant relations between dispositional values and institutional conditions facilitating co‐creating leadership. High‐performing schools had high correlations. Regression analyses indicated that active listening, deep democracy, and evolving power significantly predicted teachers' perceptions of the impact of dispositional values and organizational conditions on student achievement.
Originality/value
The paper offers insights into how co‐creating leadership may have potential impact on student achievement.
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The purpose of this paper is to review extant accounting research combining institutional and critical theories to examine whether the paradigmatic tensions associated with such…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review extant accounting research combining institutional and critical theories to examine whether the paradigmatic tensions associated with such research can be alleviated whilst engendering politically engaged scholarship aimed at facilitating processes of emancipation in organisational fields.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper provides a review of relevant accounting research and offers recommendations for how to combine institutional and critical research approaches in a paradigmatically consistent way.
Findings
Extant accounting research combining institutional and critical theories has not dealt effectively with the partly inter-related problems of ontological drift (i.e. misalignment of ontological assumptions and epistemological commitments) and the conflation of notions of agency and structure. If such problems remain unaddressed institutional research aimed at generating politically engaged scholarship and human emancipation is unlikely to progress in a paradigmatically consistent direction. Recommendations for how to address these issues, grounded in recent advances in critical realism, are elaborated upon. This results in a contingent view of the ontological possibilities of emancipation in organisational fields as well as the epistemological premises that need to be filled to engender processes of emancipation.
Originality/value
The paper reviews an emerging body of research seeking to radicalise institutional accounting research and enhance its contributions to democratic debate in organisations and society. It also outlines how some pertinent paradigmatic tensions associated with such research may be addressed.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore the location decision of multinationals across major cities in Latin America. Based on agglomeration economics and institutional theory…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the location decision of multinationals across major cities in Latin America. Based on agglomeration economics and institutional theory, the paper explores whether institutional quality of a city can temper the attraction of agglomeration factors.
Design/method/approach
The paper analyzes the geographic dispersion of three global fast-food franchise networks in 45 Latin American cities. The explanatory variables are horizontal aggregation of other multinationals and the institutional quality of a city. The direct and indirect impacts of horizontal agglomeration are explored through negative binomial regression with controls for city population and economic power [gross domestic product (GDP)].
Findings
The key finding is that location choice of fast-food networks is driven principally by market conditions and to a lesser extent by horizontal agglomeration. The institutional quality of a city has a positive influence on the agglomeration of fast-food networks. A city with strong institutional quality makes this relation stronger.
Research limitations
Other multinational and national fast-food franchises are not included in the paper. Future studies should include a greater number of global and local fast-food franchisers.
Practical implications
The positive reinforcements of agglomeration and strong institution are important for the investment location decision of fast-food multinationals. The institutional quality of the city should be an important consideration in the location decision as it expands regionally and within a country. Smaller cities may not offer the agglomeration advantages of the large metropolitan areas, but their good institutional quality may reduce the business costs for multinationals.
Social implications
Large cities in Latin America tend to reap the benefits of agglomeration. As a result, smaller secondary cities struggle to be relevant in generating economic activity and attracting private investments. One strategy to achieve relevance is to build strong and transparent institutions and a solid business environment.
Originality/value
The inclusion of institutional quality at the city level as moderation of the agglomeration factors influencing the location decision of a multinational is original. This paper contributes to our understanding of the importance of regional cities in attracting the investment of multinational firms.
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Bernard Cova, Per Skålén and Stefano Pace
Project marketing is the specific activity of companies selling projects-to-order. Interpersonal practice is known to be important in this type of marketing. While this…
Abstract
Purpose
Project marketing is the specific activity of companies selling projects-to-order. Interpersonal practice is known to be important in this type of marketing. While this interpersonal practice has been little studied, some previous research suggests that changes in the institutional macro environment have affected it. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to study today’s interpersonal practice in project business and how the institutional environment conditions it.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with marketing managers at project-based firms in different business sectors in France and Sweden. Data collection and analysis was informed by grounded theory.
Findings
The paper identifies three types of interpersonal practice in project marketing, referred to as the transactional, the work-based and the socializing. Changes in these are explained in relation to the three institutional logics identified in the data: the market institutional logic of business ethics, the corporate institutional logic of rationalization and the family institutional logic of gender equality.
Research limitations/implications
Future studies can continue and broaden this work as it regards how the institutional conditioning of interpersonal practice varies with context.
Practical implications
By clearly categorizing the three types of interpersonal practice and their relative role today, companies can orient the activities of salespeople, business developers and other project marketers.
Social implications
The paper highlights how business ethics and gender equality have changed interpersonal practices in project marketing.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the current debate on project marketing by identifying three types of interpersonal practice and by illustrating how institutional logics condition and change these. The paper shows that extra-business activities are needed less than previous research has argued with regard to maintaining customer relationships in-between projects.
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The identification of country-specific advantages for business activities is one of the most crucial issues of strategic management and international business literatures. We…
Abstract
The identification of country-specific advantages for business activities is one of the most crucial issues of strategic management and international business literatures. We address this issue by examining location-specific conditions for a successful generic medicines industry within 24 European countries. The findings of our fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis show that there are no necessary conditions for the high performance or absence of the high-performance industry. By revealing the causal complexity related to the issue, however, we show that the high performance or lack of it results from a configuration of conditions. Specifically, we identify two sufficient causal configurations to both outcomes. These findings provide clear implications for generic medicines industry firms who are planning location choices of their operations. In addition, this study provides a methodological advancement to explain and understand which country elements matter more, for what outcomes, and under what conditions.
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Chengmeng Chen, Yongchun Huang and Shangshuo Wu
The purpose of this paper is to examine the gender differences in entrepreneurship driven by configurations of institutional environment and entrepreneurial cognition, and provide…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the gender differences in entrepreneurship driven by configurations of institutional environment and entrepreneurial cognition, and provide theoretical guidance and practical reference for promoting female and male entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a configuration perspective, six antecedents of institutional environment and entrepreneurial cognition are integrated to explore multiple concurrent factors and causally complex relationships affecting female and male entrepreneurship.
Findings
This study indicates that the configurations of institutional environment and entrepreneurial cognition can achieve high female and male entrepreneurship. There are similarities and differences between female and male entrepreneurship from a configuration perspective. Perceived opportunity plays an important role in entrepreneurship for both women and men, and the absence of fear of failure is also important for male entrepreneurship. There is a complementary effect among entrepreneurial cognitions in the absence of institutional environment. In the configurations of institutional environment and entrepreneurial cognition, female entrepreneurship benefits more from informal institutions, whereas regulative and cognitive institutions play a greater role in male entrepreneurship.
Practical implications
Policymakers and individuals should take a holistic and complex view of the impact of institutional environment and entrepreneurial cognition, and differentiated measures should be taken for female and male entrepreneurship.
Originality/value
This research responds to the call for multilevel transnational entrepreneurship research, enriches research on institutional environment and entrepreneurial cognition, deepens the application of fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to the field of entrepreneurship and strengthens the understanding of the similarities, differences and complexities of female and male entrepreneurship.
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Rong Zhu, Sunny Li Sun and Ying Huang
Initiated by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) over half a century ago, fair trade has successfully evolved from a regional business discourse to a global social movement…
Abstract
Purpose
Initiated by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) over half a century ago, fair trade has successfully evolved from a regional business discourse to a global social movement within international trade. In the matter of fair trade coffee, this global social movement has transformed the traditional coffee trade structure of inequality and unfairness into a conglomerate of international institutions that embrace equity and inclusivity – a metamorphosis that can be attributed to NGOs’ institutional entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach
In this exploratory study, the authors examine the fair trade coffee industry and trace the actions of NGOs along with other stakeholders at the organizational field level, in moving toward an inclusive model of globalization.
Findings
Departing from exploitative globalization, fair trade practices advocate inclusive growth through the promotion and establishment of greater equity for all as well as higher environmental standards in global value chains.
Research limitations/implications
This study contributes to nascent research on inclusive growth by analyzing how fair trade promotes inclusive growth and trade in GVCs. This study also contributes to research on institutional entrepreneurship by examining two enabling conditions – the shift in institutional logics and the peripheral social position of NGOs – that enabled NGOs to serve as institutional entrepreneurs in the initiation phase of institutional entrepreneurship.
Practical implications
Policymakers may encourage collaboration between profit organizations and nonprofit organizations to provide entrepreneurial opportunities for trials, errors, and revisions. The evolution of fair trade coffee provides such an example.
Social implications
The coevolution of NGOs and MNEs has made the globalization of fair trade practices possible. The collaboration between NGOs as institutional entrepreneurs (operating on the community logic) and MNEs as institutional followers (operating on the financial logic) support inclusive globalization and sustain fair trade practices.
Originality/value
Drawing on the process model of institutional entrepreneurship, the authors seek to understand the role of NGOs as institutional entrepreneurs in the dynamics of initiating, diffusing and sustaining fair trade coffee practices.
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Maria Major, Ana Conceição and Stewart Clegg
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the role of power relations in initiating and blocking accounting change that involves increased “responsibilisation” and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the role of power relations in initiating and blocking accounting change that involves increased “responsibilisation” and “incentivisation”, and to understand how institutional entrepreneurship is steered by power strategies.
Design/methodology/approach
An in-depth case study was carried out between 2010 and 2015 in a cardiothoracic surgery service (CSS) where a responsibility centre was introduced.
Findings
Introducing a responsibility centre within a CSS led to a change process, despite pressures for stability. The institutionalisation of change was conditioned by entrepreneurship that flowed through three circuits of power. Strategies were adapted according to changes in exogenous environmental contingencies and alterations in the actors’ relationships.
Originality/value
The contributions of the paper are several: first, it demonstrates that the existing literature discussing the implementation of responsibility centres cannot be isolated from power issues; second, it expands understanding of the power dynamics and processes of institutional entrepreneurship when implementing accounting change; third, it shows how change introduced by exogenous political economic events structured organisational circuits of power and blocked the introduction of the change initiative.
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