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Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 1 May 2019

Yafan Fu and Roine Leiringer

The paper aims to investigate the prevailing institutional logics that underpin the organisational behaviours of Chinese contractors and the institutional complexity they face

Abstract

Purpose

The paper aims to investigate the prevailing institutional logics that underpin the organisational behaviours of Chinese contractors and the institutional complexity they face across several strategic areas when they undertake projects abroad.

Design/Methodology/Approach

The paper draws mainly on industry literature, reports and government websites to develop a typology of two ideal types of institutional logics that prevail among Chinese international contractors. The configurations of institutional complexity in different strategic areas are analysed through pattern-matching.

Findings

Two main logics are identified, namely, construction and investment logics. These logics in turn lead to patterns of volatile complexity in the strategic areas of business, technology, human resources and marketing; patterns of aligned complexity in operational and information technology strategic areas; and patterns of segregated complexity in financial strategic area.

Research Limitations/Implications

The paper presents an ongoing doctoral research. It provides a preliminary understanding of the institutional logics affecting Chinese international contractors and sets out the first step to understand the relationship between complex institutional environments and organisational responses.

Practical Implications

Chinese international contractors commonly face resistance, and at times resentment, from the local industries in the countries they operate. The findings of this paper are a first step towards a better understanding of why this is the case and what can be done to rectify the situation and improve long and short-term project performance.

Originality/Value

This paper provides practical implications for Chinese contractors to understand their internal context of institutional complexity and provides the basis for further understanding of Chinese contractors’ strategic responses.

Details

10th Nordic Conference on Construction Economics and Organization
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-051-1

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 September 2021

Bo Wang, Qiang Liang, Lihong Song and Erming Xu

With features of both “family” and “business,” family businesses must seek a balance between the emotional aspect of “family” and the economic aspect of “business” in its…

Abstract

Purpose

With features of both “family” and “business,” family businesses must seek a balance between the emotional aspect of “family” and the economic aspect of “business” in its organizational and decision-making processes to ensure the sustainability of the family’s entrepreneurship. This study aims to focus on how internal institutional complexity combined evolves alongside the growth of the family business.

Design/methodology/approach

The research looks, from the perspective of institutional logic, into the Charoen Pokphand Group, which is an epitome of overseas Chinese family businesses and proceeds to build a model of family business growth in the context of institutional complexity.

Findings

The research finds that as a family business grows, institutional complexity inside the organization would change from aligned period to sustaining period and then to dominant period. Then further elucidates the process of proactive response in different stages of the development of a family business. Attaching equal importance to the cultivation of entrepreneurship and to the continuation of family values and culture is the crucial mechanism by which Chinese family businesses seek a balance between family logic and business logic.

Originality/value

This paper unveils the change of institutional complexity in the evolution of family businesses and the process of action of its agency as an organization, and simultaneously partly reveals the features of entrepreneurship that overseas Chinese family businesses have as they grew, which is of positive significance for exploring and building a path of growth unique to Chinese family businesses.

Details

Nankai Business Review International, vol. 13 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-8749

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 November 2017

Maysara Sayed, Linda C. Hendry and Marta Zorzini Bell

The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the impact of institutional pressures, institutional logics and institutional complexity on Sustainable Supply Chain…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the impact of institutional pressures, institutional logics and institutional complexity on Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) practices across mixed public and private sector supply chains.

Design/methodology/approach

Multi-case study data were collected from three tiers of food and catering supply chains: the customer/consumer tier; focal public sector UK Universities; and private sector suppliers/contractors.

Findings

The findings indicate that: normative and mimetic pressures are more prevalent in focal Universities, compared to suppliers; there is typically no single dominant logic across these supply chains; and the multiplicity of institutional logics (e.g. sustainability logic versus financial logic) increases institutional complexity. Therefore, in the typical case of homogeneity in terms of institutional pressures and logics, e.g. with a dominant sustainability logic throughout the supply chain, radical change in SSCM practices is facilitated. In contrast, in the more typical case when there is heterogeneity, with competing logics at different supply chain tiers, this limits SSCM to more incremental changes in practices.

Research limitations/implications

This study is limited to three tiers of the food and catering supply chains of UK Universities.

Practical implications

To aid in the successful implementation of SSCM, this study suggests a need for managers to develop an initial understanding of the prevailing institutional logics and pressures at different tiers of the supply chain.

Social implications

A number of the SSCM practices studied address social sustainability.

Originality/value

No previous studies have empirically investigated the impact of institutional complexity in the context of SSCM practices across supply chains, involving both mixed public and private sector organisations.

Book part
Publication date: 16 April 2014

Jared L. Peifer

This article explores how social actors negotiate the competing logics they face as a result of their work in organizations subject to institutional complexity. In particular, I…

Abstract

This article explores how social actors negotiate the competing logics they face as a result of their work in organizations subject to institutional complexity. In particular, I theoretically focus on the unique characteristics associated with societal institutional logics, such as religion, family, and the state. Empirically, I analyze religious mutual funds (Catholic, Muslim, and Protestant) in the United States that dwell at the intersection of the competing logics of religion and finance. Through interviews with 31 people who work at religious mutual funds (or fund producers) and content analysis of religious mutual fund material, I focus on the symbolic boundary work that religious fund producers engage in. I find examples of boundary blurring and boundary building and suggest institutional complexity that involves at least one societal logic is especially likely to foster both modes of boundary work. This, I propose, leads to an increased likelihood of enduring institutional complexity.

Article
Publication date: 17 January 2022

Idun Garmo Mo

The purpose of this paper is to investigate efforts to manage institutional complexity in a state-owned enterprise, the roles of explicated values in these efforts and how these…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate efforts to manage institutional complexity in a state-owned enterprise, the roles of explicated values in these efforts and how these values interact with each other and other influential management controls.

Design/methodology/approach

Exploratory case study in StateEnt, a state-owned enterprise that faces institutional complexity. The analysis is based on interviews, observations and documents and concepts from the management control literature and institutional logics are applied.

Findings

Findings from this study suggest that a structural differentiation have separated two logics in different departments and two of the explicated values have become symbols of these logics taking on various roles in negotiations. Tension between the departments is heightened because the departments legitimize logic enactment through mobilizing different socio-technical dyads of management control. The division of responsibility between these departments still ensures that they need to collaborate and make compromises. The study also finds that exogenously imposed constraints have a significant influence on organizational activities, which is further strengthened due to internally developed management controls embedded in the same logic.

Research limitations/implications

The study contributes with deeper understanding of values as control, and how these interact with other control forms to influence organizational activity. Herein, the importance of regulatory controls in state-owned enterprises is also highlighted. A limitation of this study is the limited size of the organization under investigation.

Originality/value

The explicit emphasis on values as a control in studies on management control issues in institutionally complex environments is underemphasized in the literature.

Details

Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, vol. 19 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1176-6093

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 August 2019

Ahmed Abdelnaby Ahmed Diab and Abdelmoneim Bahyeldin Mohamed Metwally

The purpose of this study is to investigate in depth how an organisation is able to achieve its economic objectives in a situation of institutional complexity through being…

1268

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate in depth how an organisation is able to achieve its economic objectives in a situation of institutional complexity through being institutionally dexterous. The study also investigates how this is done through overriding formal controls and concentrating on socio-political and communal-based controls.

Design/methodology/approach

Theoretically, the study draws on the perspectives of institutional complexity and ambidexterity to link higher-order institutions with mundane labour control practices observed at the micro level of the case company. Methodologically, the study adopts an interpretive – case study – approach. Empirical data were solicited in an Egyptian village community, where sugar beet farming and processing constitutes the main economic activity underlying its livelihood. Data were collected through a triangulation of interviews, documents and observations.

Findings

The study concludes that, especially in socio-political contexts such as Egypt, the organisational environment can better be understood and perceived as institutionally complex situation. To manage such complexity and to effectively meet its economic objectives, the organisation needs to be institutionally dextrous. Thereby, this study presents an inclusive view of management control (MC) which is based not only on rational economic practices, but also on social, religious and political aspects that are central to this institutional environment.

Originality/value

The study contributes to MC and logics literature in a number of respects. It extends the institutional logics debate by illustrating that logics get re-institutionalised by the “place” through its cultural, political and communal identities that filter logicscomplexities to different ends. Further, it extends the cultural political economy of MC by illustrating that MC in socio-political settings is also an operational manifestation of the logics prevailing in the context. These logics produced an informal MC system that dominated the formal known MCs.

Details

Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, vol. 16 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1176-6093

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 August 2021

Kwadwo Oti-Sarpong, Erika Anneli Pärn, Gemma Burgess and Mohamed Zaki

Government initiatives to improve construction have increasingly become more focused on introducing a repertoire of technologies to transform the sector. In the literature on…

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Abstract

Purpose

Government initiatives to improve construction have increasingly become more focused on introducing a repertoire of technologies to transform the sector. In the literature on construction industry transformation through policy-backed initiatives, how firms will respond to the demands to adopt and use innovative technologies and approaches is taken for granted, and there is scarcely any attention given to the institutional implications of transformation agenda. The purpose of this paper is to discuss these gaps and offer directions for future research.

Design/methodology/approach

Following a synthesis of literature on the UK’s industry transformation agenda, the authors use the concepts of institutional logics, arrangements, complexity and strategic responses to suggest seven research questions that are at the nexus of policy-backed transformation and institutional theory.

Findings

In this paper, the authors argue that increasing demands for the adoption and use of digital technologies, platforms, manufacturing approaches and other “industry-4.0”-related technologies will reconfigure existing logics and arrangements in the construction industry, creating a problem of institutional complexity for general contracting firms in particular.

Originality/value

The questions are relevant for our understanding of the nature of institutional complexities, change, strategic firm responses, field-level dynamics and implications for the construction industry in relation to the transformation agenda. This paper is positioned to spur future research towards exploring the consequences of industry transformation through the lens of institutional theory.

Article
Publication date: 1 February 2022

Michael Harber and Gizelle D. Willows

This paper aims to extend our understanding of how mid-tier firm auditors legitimise and institutionalise the logic of commercialism within their profession. This paper is…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to extend our understanding of how mid-tier firm auditors legitimise and institutionalise the logic of commercialism within their profession. This paper is responsive to research that shows how Big Four auditors have restructured the market and re-cast the relationality between the two logics to forge an identity that suits them commercially. Such research provides insight into auditor agency and intentionality, illustrating how auditors maintain and indeed grow their status and role within society.

Design/methodology/approach

Semi-structured interviews with audit executives situated in a strategically challenging regulatory context are interpreted through a theoretical framework developed from institutional complexity theory, coupled with the understanding that institutional logics are a socially constructed phenomenon.

Findings

Mid-tier auditors appear to be as commercially orientated as their Big Four counterparts, expressing the logics of professionalism and commercialism as highly complementary. In response to competitive pressures and the difficulty of replicating the multi-disciplinary practice business model of the Big Four, mid-tier auditors present a competitive and contrasting identity as “more devoted experts”, using various legitimation techniques and “heroic” representations. This identity representation is strategic, allowing them to forge a consistent and coherent “collective identity defining story” designed to counter the “versatile expert” identity of the Big Four and establish social legitimacy with their potential client base.

Originality/value

These findings contribute to our understanding of how mid-tier auditors are “catching up” to the Big Four in the construction of their commercial business model. By shedding light on the rhetoric and “identity experimentation” of auditors, the findings can aid legislators and regulators to exercise democratic control over the profession and promulgate regulations that better align auditors’ interests with the public interest. As regulators encourage mid-tier firms to compete with the Big Four and lower supply concentration in the market, this study believes the tensions inherent in the logics, as well as the strategic necessity for firms to represent themselves in a favourable manner, will become more prominent.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 35 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 February 2021

Abdelmoneim Bahyeldin Mohamed Metwally and Ahmed Diab

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of competing logics on the implementation of risk-based management controls (RBMC) by providing evidence of resistance due to…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of competing logics on the implementation of risk-based management controls (RBMC) by providing evidence of resistance due to competing logics. Moreover, the study proposes solutions to logic contestation. These solutions may help the company override logic complexity.

Design/methodology/approach

This study draws upon the theory of institutional logics. It adopts an interpretative qualitative research approach and uses the case study method. Data were collected from one of the biggest private sector insurance companies in Egypt through a triangulation of interviews, observations and documents.

Findings

We found that internalised and institutionalised roles and structures – represented by the incumbent corporate and community-related sets of logics – compete and disrupt the emerging enterprise risk management and RBMCs. The newly imposed RBMCs produced heterogenic practices that changed the means of controls at the case company. However, this change was faced by resistance from local employees, as it represented a challenge to the prevailing cultural symbols and norms in their traditional work environment.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the literature by offering new evidence on resistance to Western risk-based management control projects applied in emerging markets. Moreover, it extends the cultural political economy of management accounting and control by illustrating that management accounting in emerging markets is also an operational manifestation of culture, community and location.

Details

Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change, vol. 17 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1832-5912

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 21 August 2020

Philippe Touron and Peter Daly

The paper analyzes four cases of IAS adoption (Aérospatiale in 1989; Usinor in 1991; Coflexip in 1993; and Péchiney in 1995) to better understand the instructional logics behind…

Abstract

Purpose

The paper analyzes four cases of IAS adoption (Aérospatiale in 1989; Usinor in 1991; Coflexip in 1993; and Péchiney in 1995) to better understand the instructional logics behind the use of alternative or additional standards by French companies in the early 1990s.

Design/methodology/approach

The study employs multiple case studies to explain how and why the heterogeneity of adoption (IAS versus US GAAP) is a response to institutional complexity.

Findings

This research shows that French companies adopted IAS as long as they were not required to use US GAAP by their financial backers. The results highlight how the companies combine logics to respond to the complexification of the field. The authors outline how endorsement of logics by outside carriers (auditors, financial analysts, stock exchange commissions) and framing of logics by managers evolve in time and space within this complexification process.

Research limitations/implications

This study contributes to the institutional complexity literature in that it focuses on distinct organizational responses to multiple institutional logics. More precisely, the choice of standards in primary consolidated accounts are viewed as an organizational response to compatible and conflicting demands from several levels: home countries, transnational areas and host countries with the aim of raising funds in the US.

Originality/value

This research makes a distinct link between institutional complexity and international accounting standards and US GAAP.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 33 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

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