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This research aims to understand the role of isomorphic pressures in adopting criteria for revenue recognition performed by accounting firms. Empirical evidence was collected through interviews with eight plural agents who permeate the firms' reality and are interested in the revenue recognition process. The content analysis of the interviews created analysis categories that allowed testing the research propositions. In conclusion, normative and coercive isomorphic pressures play a leading role in the criteria adopted by accounting firms for the recognition of revenue in the customers' accounts. The scope of the organizational legitimacy of the firms, concerning revenue recognition, is obtained as far as they meet the expectations of different external agents, especially those of fiscal nature, even if these expectations differ from those criteria provided for in CPC 47. Furthermore, the present research also discusses theoretical and empirical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to analyze whether Institutional Development Plans (IDP) are strategic documents or simply a response to seeking legitimacy in the face of regulatory pressures. This is a qualitative study based on information from 20 IDPs of Brazilian universities, categorized as private, public, community, or confessional. To analyze the IDPs, the content analysis methodology was used. As a result, it was found that most IDPs are much more descriptive documents, with operational goals and plans, than documents with strategic characteristics. On the other hand, in most of the documents analyzed, there was evidence of the importance and relevance of constructing an IDP as a benefit for the management and the university organization as a whole. It was concluded that IDPs tend to be documents that seek to provide universities with legitimacy in relation to the actors involved. In other words, they converge towards institutional isomorphism. Thus, they are not prepared, and used only due to institutional demands, but mainly due to legal impositions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates whether the field of sociology of religion is occupied by parochial concerns. We characterize institutional parochialism as the degree to which people in an academic field tend to study their own societies. This study employs a content analysis of articles published in The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion and Sociology of Religion from 2001 to 2008, with particular attention paid to the incidences in which Muslim and non-Western groups were studied before and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. There was no change in the rate that “Muslim” communities were studied following the 9/11 attacks, but it appears journal content did change to reflect ongoing debates in the West and in response to mimetic pressures being placed on the field. Overall, if the sociology of religion can be characterized as parochial, we contend that the broader field of American sociology is likely far more so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]