How Marketers can ‘Do Well While Doing Good’: The Institutional Theory Framework

Author(s):  
Jay M. Handelman
2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohita Gangwar Sharma

PurposeMany commodity supply chains suffer from an unfair value distribution across the supply chain like “Coffee Paradox.” This study explores the coffee supply chain to determine how the country of origin–geographical indicator can be used as a method of fair distribution of value and provenance across the supply chain effectuated by the blockchain technology. By looking at an exemplar case study for India, this study provides insights into diverse research streams and practice.Design/methodology/approachBased on the case method, analyzing the implementation of blockchain in the coffee industry by a leading Indian software implementation of the logic, dynamics and forces for a provenance model has been devised. It further adopts a stakeholder cum institutional theory framework to understand the logical implementation of a blockchain project embedded in a territorial logic for a commodity supply chain.FindingsThis study specifically looks at coffee which is representative of a commodity supply chain. It also explores how the malaise of unfair value distribution gets addressed by bringing farmers and the consumers on a common platform facilitated by blockchain technology. This study contributes to the literature on blockchain, territory, commodity and supply chain. Using stakeholder cum institutional theory, this study helps to explore how the implementation is successful by different actors in the supply chain through collaboration.Research limitations/implicationsThis study provides a new stream of multi-disciplinary study at the interface of supply chain, technology, international trade and geography.Practical implicationsBlockchains are embedded in the supply chain, and supply chains are embedded in territories. This linkage is paramount and the ability to make these blockchain projects successful requires the deep study of the interaction of territory, technology and actors from the provenance angle. De-commodification of coffee can be actualized through blockchain.Social implicationsThe coffee paradox and skewed value distribution is also a social problem wherein the farmers do not get the right price of their produce and are exploited. This case also highlights how this social malaise can be addressed and rightful and equitable distribution of value happens across the value chain.Originality/valueThis linkage between territory, blockchain, commodity supply chain and institutions has not been discussed in the literature. Adopting the territorial design approach, this study is an attempt to stimulate inter-disciplinary conversations and thereby create a provenance framework for commodity and research questions for scholars from different disciplines and divergent disciplinary perspectives.


Author(s):  
Wendy Lipworth

Using an institutional theory framework, this chapter discusses the place of the pharmaceutical industry within the health care organizational field, and the wide-ranging effects the industry has on the other organizations in the field. It then provides a snapshot of the discourse that has emerged about the pharmaceutical industry, and about commercialization and marketization of the health care more generally. This paints a picture of deep ambivalence toward the pharmaceutical industry, both within and between stakeholder groups. The chapter ends with an effort to explain this ambivalence as the effect of competing institutional logics. This, in turn, points to some suggestions as to how the pharmaceutical industry might be better accommodated within the health care organizational field, without losing sight of the need for ongoing critique of industry behavior.


2020 ◽  
pp. 074391562097541
Author(s):  
Eva Kipnis ◽  
Catherine Demangeot ◽  
Chris Pullig ◽  
Samantha N.N. Cross ◽  
Charles C. Cui ◽  
...  

Within an institutional theory framework, this paper identifies three interconnected fields of the marketing institution – research, education, and practice – that contribute to advancing the diversity and inclusion discourse in promoting multicultural marketplace wellbeing. Conducting three studies, one in each field and across contexts in three continents, we identify barriers that inhibit effective implementation of diversity and inclusion initiatives in today’s multicultural marketplaces. These barriers exist within and across fields and pertain to cultural-cognitive (shared meanings), normative (normative factors), and regulatory (rules and systems) pillars supporting the existence or transformation of institutions. From our research findings, we provide specific guidance for institutional work within marketing’s fields and policy developments needed to advance diversity and inclusion engaged marketing (DIEM) for enhancing multicultural marketplace wellbeing.


2013 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-165
Author(s):  
Fiona A.E. McQuarrie ◽  
Alex Kondra ◽  
Kai Lamertz

Governments regulate and control organizations, yet their role in determining organizational legitimacy is largely unexamined. In the changing Canadian post-secondary landscape, legitimacy is an increasingly important issue for post-secondary institutions as they compete amongst themselves for access to ever-shrinking resources. Using an institutional theory framework, we analyze two examples of government policy and legislation relating to the organizational legitimacy of Canadian post-secondary institutions. Based on this analysis, we suggest a more nuanced understanding of the effects of government’s coercive power on organizational legitimacy.  


2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corina Joseph

This study examined why Malaysian district councils did not report sustainability information on their websites. It is a case study approach using semi-structured interviews. Results indicated that internal and external organizational factors influenced the non-reporting of sustainability information on councils' websites. In institutional theory, the lack of commitment shown by the top management in implementing sustainable development program appears to discourage the promotion of normative isomorphic pressure for disclosing sustainability information on websites. There is evidence of coerciveisomorphism relating to website bureaucratic procedures, but, not relating to disclosure of sustainability information. The overall findings may assist in formulating policiesto encourage district councils to report sustainability information to stakeholders.


2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Pohlmann ◽  
Kristina Bitsch ◽  
Julian Klinkhammer

Corrupt practices in organizations are commonly explained via the rational choice of individual employees, with the benefits of deviant actors at the heart of the theoretical approach. This Article challenges the rational choice perspective with reference to cases of corruption in which the organizational benefits are crucial and personal gains negligible. The authors propose to embed the concept of “useful illegality” (Luhmann) into an institutional theory framework and develop a set of indicators for the systematic comparison of individual case studies. Exemplary analyses of two landmark cases of corporate bribery on behalf of German corporations' subsidiaries abroad (Siemens ArgentinaandMagyar Telekom) show that active corruption was neither simply a function of individual deviance, nor of personal gain. In contrast, institutional theory allows the modeling of organizational deviance as a function of unwritten rules that lend legitimacy to the deviant behavior of bribe payers. Despite plentiful opportunities in the periphery of these two multinational corporations, the few instances of personal gain were either in line with the organizational incentive structures (as inTelekom) or attributable to the loss of membership (as inSiemens). Mostly high-ranking employees, loyal to their organization, committed those crimes at high personal risks. The discussion of factors that explain why these “company men” nonetheless complied with the unwritten rules, in support of organizational benefits, leads the authors to conclude with likely consequences for effective regulation. They argue that it is the usefulness of the illegal behavior for the organization, its entrenchment in organizational cultures, and amplified adaptation problems with regard to changing institutional environments that explain what makes corrupt practices so hard to control and to regulate in a formal legal organization.


2005 ◽  
pp. 63-81
Author(s):  
Ya. Kouzminov ◽  
K. Bendoukidze ◽  
M. Yudkevich

The article examines the main concepts of modern institutional theory and the ways its tools and concepts could be applied in the real policy-making. In particular, the authors focus on behavioral assumptions of the theory that allow them to explain the imperfection of economic agents’ behavior as a reason for rules and institutions to emerge. Problems of institutional design are also discussed.


2005 ◽  
pp. 4-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Sonin

In unequal societies, the rich may benefit from shaping economic institutions in their favor. This paper analyzes the dynamics of institutional subversion by focusing on public protection of property rights. If this institution functions imperfectly, agents have incentives to invest in private protection of property rights. The ability to maintain private protection systems makes the rich natural opponents of public protection of property rights and precludes grass-roots demand to drive the development of the market-friendly institution. The economy becomes stuck in a bad equilibrium with low growth rates, high inequality of income, and wide-spread rent-seeking. The Russian oligarchs of the 1990s, who controlled large stakes of newly privatized property, provide motivation for this paper.


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