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Article
Publication date: 2 December 2020

Zeeshan Mahmood and Shahzad Uddin

This paper aims to deepen the understanding of logics and practice variation in sustainability reporting in an emerging field.

2646

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to deepen the understanding of logics and practice variation in sustainability reporting in an emerging field.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper adopts the institutional logics perspective and its conceptualization of society as an inter-institutional system as a theoretical lens to understand reasons for the presence of and variation in sustainability reporting. The empirical findings are based on analysis of 28 semi-structured interviews with significant social actors, and extensive documentary evidence focusing on eight companies pioneering sustainability reporting in Pakistan.

Findings

This paper confirms the presence of multiple co-existing logics in sustainability practices and lack of a dominant logic. Sustainability reporting practices are underpinned by a combination of market and corporate (business logics), state (regulatory logics), professional (transparency logics) and community (responsibility logics) institutional orders. It is argued that institutional heterogeneity (variations in logics) drives the diversity of motivations for and variations in sustainability reporting practices.

Research limitations/implications

The paper offers a deeper theoretical explanation of how various logics dominate sustainability reporting in a field where the institutionalization of practice is in its infancy.

Practical implications

Understanding the conditions that influence the logics of corporate decision-makers will provide new insights into what motivates firms to engage in sustainability reporting. A broader understanding of sustainability reporting in emerging fields will foster its intended use to increase transparency, accountability and sustainability performance.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to relatively scarce but growing empirical research on emerging fields. Its major contribution lies in its focus on how multiple and conflicting institutional logics are instantiated at the organizational level, leading to wide practice variations, especially in an emerging field. In doing so, it advances the institutional logics debate on practice variations within the accounting literature.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 34 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 9 December 2021

Björn Ekström

Information practices become highly complex in biodiversity citizen science projects due to the projects’ large scale, distributed setting and vast inclusion of participants. This…

1256

Abstract

Purpose

Information practices become highly complex in biodiversity citizen science projects due to the projects’ large scale, distributed setting and vast inclusion of participants. This study aims to contribute to knowledge concerning what variations of information practices can be found in biodiversity citizen science and what these practices may mean for the overall collaborative biodiversity data production in such projects.

Design/methodology/approach

Fifteen semi-structured interviews were carried out with participants engaged with the Swedish biodiversity citizen science information system Artportalen. The empirical data were analysed through a practice-theoretical lens investigating information practices in general and variations of practices in particular.

Findings

The analysis shows that the nexus of biodiversity citizen science information practices consists of observing, identifying, reporting, collecting, curating and validating species as well as decision-making. Information practices vary depending on participants’ technical know-how; knowledge production and learning; and preservation motivations. The study also found that reporting tools and field guides are significant for the formation of information practices. Competition was found to provide data quantity and knowledge growth but may inflict data bias. Finally, a discrepancy between practices of validating and decision-making have been noted, which could be mitigated by involving intermediary participants for mutual understandings of data.

Originality/value

The study places an empirically grounded information practice-theoretical perspective on citizen science participation, extending previous research seeking to model participant activities. Furthermore, the study nuances previous practice-oriented perspectives on citizen science by emphasising variations of practices.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 78 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 March 2022

Svitlana Firsova, Tetiana Bilorus, Lesya Olikh and Olha Salimon

Institutional theory assumes practice adoption and subsequent decoupling. However, there is a range of alternative organizational theories that challenge this view and offer…

Abstract

Purpose

Institutional theory assumes practice adoption and subsequent decoupling. However, there is a range of alternative organizational theories that challenge this view and offer instead their reinterpretation, extension and modification of institutional predictions with regard to the adoption and possible range of various responses and processes that follow the decision to adopt. This paper aims to review this spectrum of theories and suggest how they clarify, supplement, correct, restrict and/or abandon some institutional explanations and predictions.

Design/methodology/approach

Extensions and alternatives to institutional theory are mainly motivated by the need to have a theory of practice adoption and variation, and a plethora of alternative practice adoption theories currently exists in the literature. The authors review these theories and compare them against institutional theory and against each other.

Findings

The analysis revealed shortcomings and advantages of alternative theories compared to institutional theory and against each other. It is suggested which theory is most useful in each domain of application. The authors review and compare institutional theory, Scandinavian institutionalism, management fashion theory, virus theory and institutional inertia theory and analyze how and whether they are able to reproduce the success of institutional theory and successfully address and resolve its shortcomings and gaps. The authors conclude by discussing whether regular emergences of new theories that account for the idea-handling stage of diffusion signals institutional theory’s limit of validity in this domain.

Originality/value

The problem of idea emergence/diffusion/disappearance and adoption/variation/use are fundamentally different, but both of them motivated researchers to go beyond institutional theory. Despite being the dominant theory of organizations internally consistent and explaining a wide range of empirical observations, it is evident that institutional theory is not a complete theory. This paper contributes to this problem by exploring and comparing existing candidates for practice variation theory.

Details

International Journal of Organizational Analysis, vol. 31 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1934-8835

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 January 2022

Herman Aksom

Institutional theory had been developed for the purpose of explaining widespread diffusion, mimetic adoption and institutionalization of organizational practices. However, further…

Abstract

Purpose

Institutional theory had been developed for the purpose of explaining widespread diffusion, mimetic adoption and institutionalization of organizational practices. However, further extensions of institutional theory are needed to explain a range of different institutional trajectories and organizational responses since institutionalized standards constitute a minority of all diffusing practices. The study presents a theoretical framework which offers guidelines for explaining and predicting various adoption, variation and post-adoption scenarios.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is primarily conceptual in nature, and the arguments are developed based on previous institutional theory and organizational change literature.

Findings

The notion of institutional inertia is proposed in order to provide a more detailed explanation of when and why organizations ignore, adopt, modify, maintain and abandon practices and the way intra-organizational institutional pressures shape, direct and constrain these processes. It is specified whether institutional inertia will be temporarily eclipsed or whether it will actively manifest itself during adoption, adaptation and maintaining attempts. The study distinguishes between four institutional profiles of organizational practices – institutionalized, institutionally friendly, neutral and contested practices – which can vary along three dimensions: accuracy, extensiveness and meaning. The variation and post-adoption outcomes for each of them can be completely characterized and predicted by only three parameters: the rate of institutional inertia, institutional profile of these practices and whether they are interpretatively flexible. In turn, an extent of intraorganizational institutional resistance to new practices is determined by their institutional profile and flexibility.

Practical implications

It is expected that proposed theoretical explanations in this paper can offer insights into these empirical puzzles and supply a broader view of organizational and management changes. The study’s theoretical propositions help to understand what happens to organizational practices after they are handled by organizations, thus moving beyond the adoption/rejection dichotomy.

Originality/value

The paper explores and clarifies the nature of institutional inertia and offers an explanation of its manifestation in organizations over time and how it shapes organizational practices in the short and long run. It challenges a popular assumption in organizational literature that fast and revolutionary transition is a prerequisite for successful change. More broadly, the typology offered in this paper helps to explain whether and how organizations can successfully handle and complete their change and how far they can depart from institutional norms.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 35 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 July 2018

Brahm Norwich

The purpose of this paper is to examine variations within lesson study (LS) practices and their connections with related traditions: teacher research/enquiry approaches…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine variations within lesson study (LS) practices and their connections with related traditions: teacher research/enquiry approaches, professional development models, professional learning communities and group problem-solving approaches. Questions are addressed about the relationships between different professional learning approaches in terms of definitions and frameworks.

Design/methodology/approach

Academic databases and website sources were searched in a purposive way to identify 20 practices associated with these traditions for comparative analysis.

Findings

A conceptual framework consisting of eight dimensions was constructed to account for the variations within and between these professional learning traditions: for instance, about the settings in which the practices take place, the purposes of the practices and the specific procedures involved. By illustrating how specific practices fitted within this framework it is concluded that the variations within the LS tradition are wide enough to make it difficult to identify a set of necessary and sufficient features of LS to distinguish LS practices from the other non-LS professional learning practices. Reasons are also given for considering whether a polythetic type of definition of professional learning/development practices might be constructed.

Research limitations/implications

The possibility for a more systematic review of professional learning approaches for the construction of a conceptual framework is discussed.

Practical implications

Ways in which this kind of conceptualisation can be useful in promoting clarity about professional learning practices and in developing these practices are discussed.

Originality/value

The originality of this paper lies in the construction of a conceptual framework to analyse similarities and differences within and between various professional learning traditions.

Details

International Journal for Lesson and Learning Studies, vol. 7 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2046-8253

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 January 2009

Inês Cruz, Maria Major and Robert W. Scapens

The paper aims to look at a joint venture (JV) set up by a Portuguese company and a global corporation (GC) in the hospitality sector. The paper seeks to examine how, and why the…

6983

Abstract

Purpose

The paper aims to look at a joint venture (JV) set up by a Portuguese company and a global corporation (GC) in the hospitality sector. The paper seeks to examine how, and why the JV's managers introduced variations in the management control (MC) rules and procedures in institutionalizing the global MC system imposed by the GC.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper relies on qualitative data collected through a case study of the JV over a period of two years. Insights from recent neo‐institutional work in accounting, complemented by the notion of multiple logics and the Orton and Weick perspective on loose coupling, are drawn on to interpret the case findings. The MC literature in GCs is also reviewed to explore whether and how practice variation can occur in these complex institutional settings.

Findings

Although institutional and technical criteria were not in dialectical tension, the global MC system was adapted by the JV's managers. They developed loosely coupled MC rules and procedures to satisfy the multiple logics informing it.

Research limitations/implications

More qualitative studies on the adoption of externally imposed practices in other global/local settings are needed to refine the understanding of this phenomenon.

Originality/value

The present study extends the scope of neoinstitutional analysis in accounting by showing and explaining how and why individual organizations, which are dependent on dominant others, can introduce variations in imposed systems and practices. In so doing, the paper also contributes to a fuller understanding of MC practices in GCs.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 22 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 June 2007

Kimberly D. Hassell

The purpose of this study is to examine whether patrol officers believe that police practices vary by precinct assignment and whether the precinct acts as a sub‐organizational…

1420

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine whether patrol officers believe that police practices vary by precinct assignment and whether the precinct acts as a sub‐organizational level of analysis in police organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

The research design is a multi‐method ethnographic case study including observational fieldwork, both structured and unstructured interviews and official departmental documents.

Findings

The study finds that patrol officers overwhelmingly agree that police practices vary at the precinct level of analysis. This variation is perceived to be caused by: individual officer temperament/personality and level of experience,; culture, nature and expectations of the clientele/citizens; nature of calls for service, higher call loads and officer safety concerns; and command and precinct rules/norms. The study also finds that the precinct is a viable and important level of analysis within police organizations.

Research limitations/implications

This study highlights the need to examine variation in police behavior within organizations at the precinct level of analysis.

Practical implications

The findings from this study have considerable practical implications because the findings indicate that to understand police patrol practices, police practitioners must investigate variation in the informal structures/cultures of police organizations at the sub‐organizational level of the precinct.

Originality/value

This paper is valuable because police researchers have investigated police behavior at the individual, situational, neighborhood, organizational and legal levels of analyses but have largely overlooked the intersection of these levels of analyses: the precinct.

Details

Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, vol. 30 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1363-951X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 September 2002

Daniel P. Lorence and Robert Jameson

The growing acceptance of evidence‐based decision support systems in healthcare organizations has resulted in recognition of data quality improvement as a key area of both…

1826

Abstract

The growing acceptance of evidence‐based decision support systems in healthcare organizations has resulted in recognition of data quality improvement as a key area of both strategic and operational management. Information managers are faced with their emerging role in establishing quality management standards for information collection and application in the day‐to‐day delivery of health care. In the USA, rigid data‐based practice and performance standards and regulations related to information management have met with some resistance from providers. In the emerging information‐intensive healthcare environment, managers are beginning to understand the importance of formal, continuous data quality assessment in health services delivery and quality management. Variation in data quality management practice poses quality problems in such an environment, since it precludes comparative assessments across larger markets or areas, a critical component of evidence‐based quality assessments. In this study a national survey of health information managers was employed to provide a benchmark of the degree of such variation, examining how quality management practices vary across area indicators. Findings here suggest that managers continue to employ paper‐based quality assessment audits, despite nationwide mandates to adopt system‐based measures using aggregate data analysis and automated quality intervention. The level of adoption of automated quality management methods in this study varied significantly across practice characteristics and areas, suggesting the existence of data quality barriers to cross‐market comparative assessment. Implications for healthcare service delivery in an evidence‐based environment are further examined and discussed.

Details

International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, vol. 19 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0265-671X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 15 December 2016

Tracy A. Thompson and Jill M. Purdy

Institutional complexity shapes what is perceived as possible by framing cultural debates about practices, but organizations in turn shape how logics interpenetrate fields…

Abstract

Institutional complexity shapes what is perceived as possible by framing cultural debates about practices, but organizations in turn shape how logics interpenetrate fields, suggesting that we must consider both the degree of compatibility between logics and the degree of practice variation in a field. Our exploratory study of three entrepreneurial impact finance organizations considers how they situate their practices between the market and community logics. We offer a recursive view that considers how multiple institutional logics shape practices and how entrepreneurial organizations adapt and invent new practices that, through their continued use, can influence the institutional complexity of a field.

Details

How Institutions Matter!
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-429-7

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 26 July 2013

Michael Clinton and David E. Guest

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the broad debate regarding universalistic and contingency perspectives of human resource management (HRM).

5354

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the broad debate regarding universalistic and contingency perspectives of human resource management (HRM). Design/methodology/approach – Building on recent evidence of HRM differentiation within organisations, the present article studies variation in experienced HR practices across job level and whether the impact of HR practices on commitment, intention to quit and well‐being across job level is best explained by universalistic or contingency claims. Findings – Both studies found that employees in higher job levels report a greater number of HR practices. Findings further indicated that the associations between HR practices and the three outcomes were largely invariant across job level, thus supporting universalistic notions of HRM across job levels. Research limitations/implications – Data from both studies were cross‐sectional and single‐source, thus limiting causal inferences. More generally, there is a need to better understand HR differentiation within organisations and whether it offers an effective HR strategy. Originality/value – Few studies have examined systematic variation in HR practices across employee groups and universalistic/contingency arguments within organisations. The studies presented are among the first to offer an evaluative as well as descriptive analysis of the issues under investigation.

Details

Personnel Review, vol. 42 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0048-3486

Keywords

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