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This paper focuses on the motivational and structural dynamics of the online communications of political interest organizations. Instead of describing political interest organizations as fully rational and strategic players, we develop a theoretical framework that establishes an alternative view of political interest organizations by characterizing them as actors that are also dependent on their institutional environment. The basic assumption of this framework is that there is no unidirectional relationship between motives and structures and the online communication activities. Instead, there is a dynamic interplay of motives, structures, environmental conditions, and online communication. Against this theoretical background, we discuss findings from an interview study of the online communications of political interest organizations in the healthcare and environment policy fields. The aim of this study was not to resolve the debate on whether political organizations communicate "strategically" or not. Instead, we examined the "black box" of organizations in order to understand the motivational and structural dynamics that constitute the organizations' online communications efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "market efficiency" models of finance cannot fully explain stock prices. A robust violation of market efficiency is stock prices' underreaction to earnings news. One argument for such violation is that information experts such as (sell-side) analysts, whose revealed knowledge structure (such as earnings forecasts) investors significantly rely on to evaluate stocks, fail to process earnings news. To understand such analysts' failure and consequent market inefficiency, we take a new institutionalism approach and examine the context-bound attention of the analysts. Specifically, we examine the attention-limiting role of competing tasks and distracting events in influencing analysts' earnings forecasts for firms. Using a sample of 5,136 North American public firms and 10,798 analysts over 2000-2012, we find that competing tasks worsen analysts' earnings forecast accuracy. Also, stock prices' underreaction to earnings news is significantly positively associated with analysts' competing tasks. Hence, stock price is better understood by an approach that integrates sociological new institutionalism and efficient market models. Also, we illustrate how micro-attentional constraints of a few individuals (experts) can sum up to a robust macroevidence of market inefficiency or erroneous macro-cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how companies respond to conflicting institutional demands. While companies need to gain profit, shareholder activists tackle ecological and social misbehavior within companies and question the purpose and the role of companies within society. According to institutional theory, shareholder activism is seen as a legitimation contest for corporations which demands (behavioral or discursive) strategic responses of targeted organizations. In order to analyze these strategic responses I conducted twenty interviews with mainly German speaking shareholder activists and investor relations departments of German companies. The research illustrates the influence of institutional settings on corporate responses to conflicting demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do educators respond at the local level to institutional processes of change and what are the implications for such responses? This article offers a case study examining how educators within one Ontario school board understand and implement Progressive Discipline policy, the official approach to student discipline. The objective of this research is to describe various responses policy implementation, specifically the transition from tightly coupled to loosely coupled school discipline policies, and the consequences for such responses for students and teachers. In doing so, this article contributes to organizational scholarship by examining how the combination of micro-level processes and macro-level environmental constraints shape inequality in outcomes. Findings reveal that schooling efforts to shift from tightly coupled to loosely coupled policy has created unequal student disciplinary outcomes based on the influence of: educator interpretations and preconceptions of policy, and the institutional context of policy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Healthcare reform in China has resulted in unprecedented policy contradictions in hospitals there. Hospital practitioners invented a hybrid approach to address the conflicting political and market requirements with unsatisfactory outcomes. The emerging social work profession has provided them a promising direction to manage the contradictory institutional environment with some initial success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to develop a comprehensive institutional analysis framework in studying bureaucratic behaviour in government agencies. Although the purpose is to outline a general framework for research, the focus will be on taking into account the specifics of the agencification process in states from Central and Eastern Europe. The paper is divided into three sections. In the first section I compare various neoinstitutionalist approaches in terms of analysing the processes and transformations in the institutional environment concerning government agencies as semi-autonomous bodies in state organization. I argue that the approach which has a greater potential in explaining the processes and transformations in the institutional environment in government agencies is rational choice institutionalism. The second section of this paper is focused on presenting several traditional bureaucratic models in studying bureaucratic behaviour, from the traditional approach to public choice ones, in order to determine their possible contribution in analysing officials behaviour in semiautonomous agencies. Using these and the institutional analysis framework sugested in the first section of this paper I will focus on developing a model for studying bureaucratic behaviour in government agencies. The final section of the paper will be focused on the possibility of using the institutional analysis framework for studying bureaucratic behaviour in government agencies in Central and Eastern Europe and the challenges presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like all regulatory agencies and self-regulators, press councils are organizations. Their characteristics affect regulatory outcomes and understanding these regulatory organizations adds to our knowledge about the way media regulation works. Yet the structures and procedures of press councils as well as their relationship to environments mark a largely unexplored subject. Based on new institutionalism in organization theory, this paper examines the way press councils respond to their institutional environments. For this paper I compared four European press councils by performing a qualitative analysis of internal documents and qualitative interviews. Results indicate that press councils are not determined by their institutional environments but are able to strategically respond to them and thus to manage their legitimacy. While press councils conform to the cultural-cognitive pillar of institutions, they respond with a broad range of strategies to regulative pressures and normative expectations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s, sociological research on organizations has paid particular attention to the relationship between organizations and the broader fields in which they exist. However, the attention to context has frequently led to an impoverished notion of creative and strategic agency in organizational life. This paper illustrates the importance of considering agency through an analysis of natural and organic foods co-operative retailers, known as co-ops, in a changing natural products marketplace. The paper begins by outlining the new institutionalist and organizational ecology approaches to organizations research. I also examine recent criticisms about the dearth of agency in these models and offer a way to think about actors' strategies that draws on research in cultural sociology. Next, I explain the relevance of co-ops for this research and describe my data and research methods. The remainder of the paper analyzes three dimensions of strategy in co-ops. I consider changes in work, management, and collective organization and argue that co-ops' responses to dilemmas in these areas illustrate the role of strategy in mediating between environmental conditions and organizational behavior. These examples also show that organizational histories, cultures, and goals condition strategic responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes all stories aired on NBC Nightly News and Fox News Channel's Special Report with Brit Hume during 2005 about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and compares that coverage with real world indicators to address several policy and theoretical questions: (1) Did the news media over-report the bad news from these conflicts, as claimed repeatedly by senior members of the Bush administration and as one might expect given prior research into the negativity bias of the press? (2) Do "new institutionalist" theories about news homogeneity explain coverage of these conflicts? (3) Does coverage of these wars fit an indexing and/or a cascade activation model of news? The study finds that while a fair amount of coverage on both channels focused on insurgent/terrorist attacks, a smaller proportion mentioned U.S. or civilian casualties, and overall the news actually underplayed the bad news from both countries. Comparisons are also drawn between the two channels, with data showing that FNC was much more sympathetic to the administration than NBC. In particular, although the administration, Republican members of Congress, and military officials dominated coverage, the tone of elite quotations was much more reflective of the deteriorating situation in both wars on NBC than it was on FNC. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We extend the neoinstitutional theory of organizations to examine how China's foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) manage their labor relations by adopting four specific formal structures. Two of these structures have indigenous origins, while the other two are imports from Western capitalist economies. Empirical evidence is drawn on original data collected in a national survey of Chinese FIEs. Our analysis shows that a significant proportion of FIEs have localized their labor practices by adopting Chinese-style structures and that these indeginous structures prove more effective than imported structures in reducing the tension and conflict between labor and management. The extent of FIE adaptation is shaped by both institutional processes and strategic considerations. These findings support our view that FIEs as transnational organizations are capable of significant adaptation to distinct institutional environments across national boundaries, and that organizational interests interact with institutional forces to shape their structures and practices. This study also sheds light on the emerging institutional order in transitional economies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mapping the human genome is said to have led to more questions than answers in 21st century genetics. As organizational sociologists and science/technology studies scholars would predict, many of the complexities that ariseâ?”including ethical onesâ?”are rapidly rationalized and enclosed in "black boxes." Yet previous work is lacking in scientists' informal reactions to rationalized ethics policies, and how these reactions vary by political context. This paper finds patterns of variation in the funding rationales and responses to the rationalization of ethics in comparing the UK, EU and US. Observing variation in the routinization process informs discussion about how different kinds of "normal deviance" may occur in response to the perceived paradigm shift in genetics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I introduce a social psychological dimension to the paradigm of new institutionalism in economic sociology. In particular, I demonstrate how the source of an actor's motivation impacts interpersonal relationships within institutional environments. The main question I address is why efforts to provide monetary rewards and sanctions to developing countries have been so unsuccessful. I contend that when motivated to engage in local exchanges solely through external rewards and sanctions (such as those based on aid money), aid recipients tend to engage in interpersonal exchanges with less commitment than they would if they perceived their actions were more self-willed. As a consequence of this lower commitment, interactions among aid recipients generate low degrees of trust, leading to exchanges that have a low overall level of commitment and are prone to degeneration. This account highlights the importance of motivational sources in institutional contexts. New institutionalism in economic sociology focuses on the importance of incentives, but it does not address the psychological impact of incentives that are extrinsic versus intrinsic. By elaborating on this distinction, this paper seeks to add an important dimension missing from the current literature in new institutionalism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If organizations did not use simulation, we would have no right to expect that a bridge could carry us across a river, or that a library search catalog would reliably retrieve the accurate location of a book. This suggests the central role of simulation within organizational settings. This essay seeks to address the general neglect of this robust concept within organizational sociology. First, I focus on four ways that simulations tend to be used by organizations: 1) a technique for preparing members for future events; 2) for surveillance and social control; 3) in the service of technology development; and 4) to create liminal organizational forms. Next, I show how the concept of simulation helps specify some of the causal mechanisms at play in the new institutionalist approach to the diffusion of institutional protocols, cultural scripts, and cognitive schemata. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in the ethnic composition - and related identity politics - have also impacted on one of the most widely studied federal organizations in the United States, the National Endowment for the Arts. Similar developments have been taking place in Europe as well, albeit less dramatic and more recent. Using content analysis, this study addresses the cross-national differences in the extent and ways in which ethnicity has been part of American, Dutch and German national literary policy organizations from 1965 until 2005. It shows that the National Endowment for the Art's legitimacy has been challenged more severely than that of its European counterparts. As a result ethnic discourse and the ethnic composition of the literature panels have been used to regain legitimacy in periods of extreme crisis. However, ethnic boundaries have not all disappeared, considering the relatively low number of ethnic minorities that have received literature grants. Although the ethnic minority population in the Netherlands and Germany is of comparable size, the principal German literary policy organization has not dealt with the increasing ethnic diversity whatsoever. The main Dutch literary policy organization has made some small steps towards incorporating ethnic diversity, primarily by initiating an intercultural literary policy. Nevertheless, ethnic boundaries - especially with regard to ethnic representation in the literary panels - are somewhat stronger in the Netherlands than in the United States, albeit not nearly as strong as in Germany, where hardly any ethnic minorities have been part of federal literary policy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the new institutional theory of organizations, this paper advocates an institutional approach to the analysis of workplace conflicts. I argue that institutional processes exert significant influences on the workers' perceptions of the employer and the employment relationship. More specifically, workers' expectations of fair treatments and their perceived likelihood of success with open confrontation are shaped by salient organizational characteristics and also vary with broader institutional context. Consistent with this view, empirical analysis of panel data from a national sample of multinational companies in China during the mid-1990s finds that large and capital-intensive firms and firms located in more developed and industrialized cities were more likely to experience labor disputes. These findings underscore the social construction of grievances and political choices in labor relations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The institutional environment in which schools operate is in flux. A new logic of childrearing encourages parents to invest energy in cognitively stimulating their children. This logic comprises one of many sources of environmental turbulence schools face. I analyze the emergence of popular 'parenting' magazines in Canada, America, Australia and the United Kingdom from 1959 to 2003. Secondly, I perform a content analysis of over 500 parenting articles in popular Canadian magazines. Results suggest that a staggering array of parenting magazines have emerged across the four nations studied. Over time, Canadian parenting articles increasingly emphasize children's cognitive needs and schooling, encouraging parents to build and strengthen their children's academic skills. I conclude by arguing that schools must respond to these changes in their environment, by treating students as unique individuals within a bureaucratic school setting, or risk losing legitimacy and being seen as out of sync with their institutional environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on neo-institutionalist theories of organizations and political-cultural theories of markets, I suggest here that economic sociologists need to identify and analyze meso-level institutions of routine cultural production for economic action, and that the previously neglected population of American business associations should be understood as just such an institution. Analyzing evidence from the public discourse of twenty six representative business associations (non-profit organizations of profit-oriented economic actors) I argue that their meaning-making includes (1) the cultural production of "industries" (2) the articulation of collective identities beyond the aggregation of individual members' interests (3) the articulation of cognitive categories and strategies of action within which members can locate their economic action (4) the production of "industry" norms and status orders (5) the production of networking opportunities (6) the production of camaraderie and (7) the constitution of a rich field of relations (both imaginary and active) with regulatory and standards bodies, similar international groups, upstream suppliers and downstream customers, academic research units, commercial industry services, and related business associations. The theory of American business associations as cultural produces challenges but encompasses previous assumptions that they may be simply understood as political interest groups, or as groups reducing industry transaction costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the intermediary organization that is topical both in terms of what can be revealed about organizations in general and in terms of the light that can be shed on the increasing prevalence of decentralized organizations with flat hierarchies. It has been noted by many scholars of nonprofit's or development that the increasing role of what has been referred to variously as intermediary organizations, support organizations, or meta-organizations. These organizations provide a number of functions including disseminating information, advocacy, technical support, and sector-bridging.

The increasingly complex, internationally fraught ethical issues arising in the biological sciences (e.g., stem cell research) provide impetus for policy makers to compel traditionally "objective" basic scientists to consider the societal context of their research. Both national (U.S. National Institutes of Health) and international (European Commission) science funding agencies set policies in the early 2000s to require investigators to be certified as educated in research ethics. Yet policies for faculty members do not seem to have trickled down to graduate level training. Where course offerings do exist, they tend to be pro forma. Across three industrialized nations with strongly funded science programs—the United States, the United Kingdom and Italy—there seems to be a rather traditional ethos (Merton 1973) toward required ethics training:scientists should give their energy to the "objective" curriculum, and take other requirements only as far as necessary to secure funding. Interviews, however, point to local stories where scientists do take ethical and social issues in the life sciences seriously. These scientists tend to view their activities as the exception to global science norms and their efforts as outside of, rather than in response to, national and international science policy. The paper discusses the implications of this gap between science policy and behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents several conference paper abstracts on social issues in management. "Constructing Corporate Social Responsibility: The Role of Industry Associations," discusses the nature of trade associations and the role they play in society. "Path Dependence in Firm-Stakeholder Relations," focuses on social responsibility by businesses. "Exploring Recent Business Scandals and Entrepreneurial Antecedents: Ethical Leadership Implications," investigates the relationship between scandals and entrepreneurship.

This section presents organization and management theory conference paper abstracts. "Factors That Impact Sales Person's Performance in Virtual Environments" aims to understand the effects of sales persons' location on their sales quota achievement. "Can Progress Be Resistant to Bad Institutions? The Case of ICT" shows that cross-country differences in the use of information and communication technologies are to a considerable extent due to differences in the investment climate. "Chance, Choice, & Inevitability in Strategy," discusses strategic choice.

Two decades ago, DiMaggio and Powell (1983) outlined the various isomorphic pressures faced by institutional organizations. Data presented here suggest that isomorphic pressures do not extend evenly and fully across institutional fields. Instead, they become diluted as they approach the margins of institutional fields. This paper examines small, new secular private schools which appear to be relatively immune to isomorphic pressures. These schools are neither elite nor religious, and comprise a ?third sector? of private schools in Ontario, Canada. This research is based on site visits and 42 interviews with Toronto private school principals. Ontario?s private school sector appears to be segmented and diverse. Among third sector private schools, coercive isomorphism is weak, particularly among elementary schools. Beyond basic health and safety regulations, Ontario private schools can hire who they wish, and teach any curriculum they deem appropriate. Mimetic isomorphism is also diluted: third sector schools appear to be diverse, independent entities. Normative isomorphism is also scant: schools often prefer to hire individuals from a variety of eclectic backgrounds, actively avoiding state-certified teachers. Rather than conforming to established private school models, third sector schools sidestep isomorphic pressures by attempting to appeal to niche markets and student populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In new institutionalism organizations are constituted by the institutions in their environments. In this theory, rationalized management ideas such as Lean Management or Total Quality Management are considered as constituting organizations. However, a research gap exists in how these management ideas influence organizations' cognitive orientation, which is the central mechanism for increasing organizational isomorphism. Therefore, in this paper, we test how management ideas influence the cognitive attention of organizations. The results of the empirical analysis confirm the hypotheses that management ideas are a decisive factor for how organizations perceive their environments. Theoretically, these results stress DiMaggio and Powell (1983)'s assumptions that the cognitive properties of the organizational level increase isomorphism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]