Non-University Mass Student Public Associations: Institutional Isomorphism as a Factor of Stability

The relevance of this research is about the need to search for factors that increase the stability of youth associations, including student ones. Only stable youth associations can effectively socialize young people and form them as active actors in civil society. The project is a desk study and has a quality design.Object: non-university mass student public associations. They were created in Russia in the 60s of the twentieth century: student building brigades (SSO) and student nature protective brigades (DOP). Subject: institutional isomorphism of non-university student public associations. Purpose: to assess the impact of character and the degree of isomorphism of student public associations on their stability.Research results. It is shown that the main factor in the stability of student public associations is the level of their compliance with institutional requirements. It leads to forced isomorphism. The cause of this isomorphism is the monopoly of sources of support for the activities of these associations. In Russia, the state has such a monopoly. Student associations must take into account the institutional factors, in particular the requirements of higher-level systems and institutions. It gives them the necessary resources to continue their activities. Intra-organizational factors (level of social significance, charisma of leaders, mass character, and others) are less important for ensuring their sustainability.

Investigating the Role of Alliance Knowledge Learning and Institutional Isomorphism in Strategic Alliance Performance of Green Supply Chain

As the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic disordered the majority of all global supply chains, alliance knowledge learning played a fundamental function during the crisis. This paper aims to identify the relationships of both alliance green knowledge learning and institutional processes with the alliance performance of the green supply chain. It also specifies the mechanism by which Institutional isomorphism affects green innovation performance, through alliance institutional processes and further to increase their competitive advantage in the global market. Data were collected with questionnaires distributed to Taiwanese companies that are listed on the stock market which produced 242 usable responses for the analysis, both multiple regression analyses and SEM were used to test the hypotheses. Our results showed that the majority of our hypotheses were supported, which is similar to the existing literature. The outcomes imply that institutionalization processes and alliance green knowledge sharing play salient functions in firm alliance performance while implemented in the context of green supply chain management. Furthermore, the results indicate that the concept of institutionalization and isomorphism are relevant and Mimetic pressures were found to be the most significant in both internal and external green SCM practices, while also providing instructive managerial implications through empirical evidence.

Institutional isomorphism in collaborative, cross-cultural, project-based development work: an inquiry into the knowledge sharing behaviour of volunteers

Purpose Using an institutionalist lens, this study aims to identify factors that influence the knowledge sharing behaviour of volunteers engaged in collaborative, cross-cultural and project-focussed development work. Design/methodology/approach Following an inductive research design, the authors conducted a thematic analysis of interviews with volunteers to explore the practicalities of knowledge sharing in the context of development aid projects and to examine contributing factors, such as personality, motivations, experience and variations in team members’ understanding of the nature and objective of projects. Findings Through exploring the experiences of volunteers working on cross-cultural development aid programmes, the authors identify and discuss the ways in which the preparation of volunteers and the structuring of project work is shaped by managerialist modes of thinking, with an emphasis on the creation of an environment that is conducive to sustainable knowledge sharing practices for all stakeholders involved. Originality/value The examination of volunteer development work tendency towards institutional isomorphism is a novel contribution intersecting the areas of knowledge sharing in the project, volunteer-led and culturally diverse environments.

Back to the Iron Cage? Institutional Isomorphism of the AIIB

During its first five years of operation, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is becoming more and more similar to traditional Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) in terms of operational goals, business area, and environmental and social standards. Why has the AIIB, the newest type of multilateral development bank (MDB) initiated by an emerging economy, undergone institutional isomorphism? Based on the socialization theory, this paper argues that the institutional environment in which the AIIB is operating has a strong influence on AIIB’s institution-building, mainly through the coercive, mimetic, and normative institutional isomorphic processes. On coercion, the pressures from European donors, international credit rating agencies, and global civil society have resulted in the AIIB’s institutional isomorphism. On mimicking, the social uncertainty of the relationship between the AIIB and the Belt and Road Initiative and the technical uncertainty of infrastructure projects have triggered the AIIB’s institutional isomorphism. On normativeness, the similar educational backgrounds and working experience of the AIIB’s staff and active interactions among the MDB family members have caused the AIIB’s institutional isomorphism. The paper concludes that the international institutional environment might hamper emerging economies’ capabilities of institutional innovation.

Deinstitutionalization revisited

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to offer a new analysis and understanding of the notion of deinstitutionalization. Deinstitutionalization of taken-for-granted practices as a natural consequence of ever-increasing entropy seems to directly contradict the major institutional thesis, namely, that over time isomorphic forces increase and, as a result, possibilities for deinstitutionalization decrease culminating in the impossibility of abandoning in highly institutionalized fields. Design/methodology/approach This paper is conceptual in nature. Oliver’s 1992 paper on deinstitutionalization is taken as a key text on the subject and as a starting point for building an alternative theory of deinstitutionalization. More broadly, institutional theory and organizational literature on diffusion/adoption are reviewed and synthesized. Findings The authors argue that possibilities for deinstitutionalization have been overestimated in institutional literature and offer a revisited account of deinstitutionalization vs institutional isomorphism and institutionalized vs highly diffusing-but-not-institutionalized practices. A freedom for choice between alternative practices exists during the pre-institutional stage but not when the field is already institutionalized. In contrast, institutionalized, taken-for-granted practices are immutable to any sort of functional and political pressures and they use to persist even when no technical value remains, thus deinstitutionalization on the basis of a functional dissatisfaction seems to be a paradox. Research limitations/implications By revisiting the nature and patterns of deinstitutionalization, the paper offers a better conceptual classification and understanding of how organizations adopt, maintain and abandon organizational ideas and practices. An important task of this paper is to reduce the scope of application of deinstitutionalization theory to make it more focused and self-consistent. There is, however, still not enough volume of studies on institutional factors of practices’ abandonment in institutional literature. The authors, therefore, acknowledge that more studies are needed to further improve both the former deinstitutionalization theory and the framework. Originality/value The authors offer a solution to this theoretical inconsistency by distinguishing between truly institutionalized practices and currently popular practices (highly diffused but non-institutionalized). It is only the latter that are subject to the norms of progress that allow abandoning and replacing existing organizational activities. Deinstitutionalization theory is, thus can be applied to popular practices that are subject to reevaluation, abandonment and replacement with new optimal practices while institutions are immutable to these norms of progress. Institutions are immutable to deinstitutionalization and the deinstitutionalization of optimal practices is subject to the logic of isomorphic convergence in organizational fields. Finally, the authors revisit a traditional two-stage institutional diffusion model to explain the possibility and likelihood of abandonment during different stages of institutionalization.

“An Official Conscience and Warranting Agency”: Institutional Isomorphism and the Rise of Dutch Ethics Review in the 1970s and 1980s

Why did medical research involving human subjects, a practice that is arguably as old as medicine itself, come to be regulated by research ethics committees in the late twentieth century? In this essay, I answer this question for the Netherlands, by querying the rise of ethics review in the 1970s and 1980s through the lens of “institutional isomorphism”. Drawing on the classic work of Paul Dimaggio and Walter Powell, I argue that extra-national changes to funding and publishing requirements in this period were identifiably more important for the emergence of ethics review in the Netherlands than were ethical concerns for research misconduct – a process that was marked by definitive elements of internationally coercive, and perhaps also of mimetic isomorphism. In addition, I detail how, as a consequence of these developments, those involved in Dutch ethics review came to consider “variation and inconsistency” as one of the system’s biggest problems in the late 1980s. To remedy this, numerous normative isomorphic attempts were undertaken in the late twentieth century to make all Dutch research ethics committees act in the same way. This emphasis on institutional homogeneity has been borne out in the Netherlands, even though it has repeatedly been criticized for hampering democratic and ethical decision-making.

Challenges of, and techniques for, materiality determination of non-financial information used by integrated report preparers

Purpose The international integrated reporting framework encourages organisations to disclose material information that affects their ability to create value. This paper aims to investigate the challenges and techniques preparers of integrated reports use to determine the materiality of non-financial information. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses an exploratory interpretive thematic analysis and an archival research approach. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with 55 integrated reporting (IR) preparers in 12 publicly listed companies, supported by the perusal of the companies’ integrated annual reports over a three-year period. Findings IR preparers find materiality determination for non-financial information challenging. This study found that preparers convert challenges into opportunities by using materiality disclosures as image-enhancing marketing tools, which causes concerns regarding weak accountability and a deviation from the International Integrated Reporting Council’s objective of improving information quality. This study found that IR preparers use various techniques in conjunction to determine materiality levels, as well as whether to disclose non-financial information in their integrated reports. The institutional isomorphism lens used in the study highlighted the issues IR preparers faced in their determined efforts of IR materiality levels under mimetic and normative isomorphism pressures. Research limitations/implications The challenges and techniques identified can contribute to the development of a framework for materiality level determination for non-financial information. Practical implications Regulators who are concerned with ensuring sufficient information to improve investor decision-making will be interested in the techniques IR preparers use to determine materiality levels for non-financial information, to improve their regulations and frameworks. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature regarding challenges with materiality level determination in integrated reports and techniques used by IR preparers. The application of an institutional isomorphism lens led to greater insight and understanding of IR preparers’ challenges and techniques in materiality determination. This paper makes a number of significant contributions to the IR literature. First, it identifies the usefulness of material information for decision-making and the influence stakeholders have on the materiality determination of non-financial information, which have not been mentioned in the prior literature. Second, the literature is silent on how organisations relate materiality to value creation for the purposes of determining the materiality content of an integrated report; this research provides empirical evidence of the use of value creation criteria in materiality determination. Third, the study highlights that materiality is a combination of efforts that involves everyone in an organisation. Further, the strategy should be linked to IR and preparers have indicated that integrated thinking is required for materiality determination.

Mimetic Isomorphism in Non-Profit Organisations (NPO): Sports Associations in the Nord Pas-De-Calais Departments

The purpose of our study is to give an account of the process of institutional isomorphism, which, in France, leads non-profit organisations (NPO) to follow the management and professional model used by organisations in the same field because they are larger, better equipped, and have higher-performance tools and better skilled executive managers. In order to investigate this subject, we have built a rigorous methodology. We carried out an investigation by interviewing volunteer leaders running sports NPOs in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais departments (now part of the Hauts-de-France region). In total, we interviewed nearly 80 volunteer members of sports associations employing at least one employee and engaged in a process of professionalization. In the introduction, we highlight the managerial surge that leads associations to move closer to the managerial forms of organizations. To illustrate this phenomenon, we used the concepts of neo-institutional theory and tried to show that institutional isomorphism is collectively accepted by institutional volunteer leaders. In this process of professionalisation that affects sports organisations, our results demonstrate that this isomorphism operates on several levels. At a structural level, our study shows that the organisation imports the management and operating tools from the entrepreneurial model and develops strategies for diversifying its services and innovating its products. At a skills-based level, it appears the skills acquired by volunteers during their professional career are increasingly put to use in work with non-profits. Our study concludes that the isomorphism of sports NPOs is characterised by the need for independent funding, the diversification of activities, the search for innovation and the increased need for skills derived from professional experience. These results have led us to discuss the impact of the mimetic form of this isomorphic process on the non-profit project. The implications of this isomorphism are significant: while this process is very often the result of external pressure on the organisational field, it is also, in certain circumstances, the result of a collective strategy defined by the volunteer leaders running NPOs. Organisations must create the conditions for financial empowerment by increasing their financial resources. This isomorphism in NPOs with the business world is also made possible by hiring volunteers who are better trained and better adapted to new requirements. Finally, we highlight the limitations of our study and the possibilities for future development.