Rethinking Individualization and the Global Diffusion of Organizational Models: Gazing Through the Lens of De-coupling.

This paper applies a decoupling research lens, emergent from within the neo-institutional approach, to reexamine and problematize the link between individualization in late-modern societies and the cross-national adoption of organizational models. Based on a content analysis of journal items dealing with one individualistic organizational model, that of Human Relations (HR), in an as yet un-individualized society, that of Israel in the 1950s-1960s, the paper highlights the decoupling of meaning from practice. It shows that, as against most accounts of the neo-institutional approach, individualization of society does not constitute a precondition for the cross-national diffusion of organizational models. In its travel from the liberal-individualistic US to collectivistic Israel, the individualistic meaning and interpretation ascribed to the model in its context of origin, has been decoupled and replaced by an interpretation highlighting the contribution of the model to the collective good. Focusing on the decoupling of meaning from practice and on the interpretation ascribed to similar practices in different institutional settings allows for the problematization of the assumption of diffusion and global homogenization characterizing most institutional studies of cross-national diffusion of organizational models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]