Institution Theory: Explaining Organizational Similarity

Reviews the book, Institutional Patterns and Organizations: Culture and Environment edited by Lynne G. Zucker (see record 1988-97280-000). Zucker’s theoretical overview focuses on how organizations respond to sources of entropy and endogenous change with policies and structures that promote stability, order, and coherence. She argues that these structures serve to resolve conflicts of individual and group interests by maximizing joint outcomes in a manner that is widely accepted as legitimate. Thus, Zucker conceptualizes institutionalization as a process that effectively and fairly resolves the conflicts of individual and group interest that are the main focus of DiMaggio’s analysis. The juxtaposition of these two viewpoints serves as an informative, albeit complex, prelude to the formative, empirical papers that follow. As a whole, this volume meets its objectives well. The theory is clarified, differences among institutional researchers are explored, and change (a previously understudied topic) is empirically examined understudied and effectively encompassed within the theory. Of course, no one volume can do everything that needs to be done. This volume does not fully resolve two issues that are central to the adequacy and uniqueness of an institutional explanation.