Introduction

Introduction

The motivation for this Handbook arose from a conversation with Don Palmer, who raised the question of whether organization theories in general have life cycles. Given the proliferation of theoretical paradigms, do organization theories build into coherent conceptual frameworks supported by diligently conducted empirical work, or do they fragment into proliferated confusion? That conversation never proceeded to a comparative assessment of organization theories. But it did lead to the present volume. It seemed, in late 2004, when the idea of a Handbook was mooted, an appropriate moment to take stock of the institutional perspective on organizations because we were approaching the thirtieth anniversary of seminal papers that not only triggered revitalization of interest in the role of institutions but became known as the new institutionalism.

It is important at the outset to set down certain scope conditions for this volume:

• 1.
  Our interest is in understanding organizations. How and why do organizations behave as they do, and with what consequences? These are the overarching questions of organization theory. ‘Organizational institutionalism’ is the application of the institutional perspective to those questions.
• 2.
  We focus upon ‘organizational institutionalism’. Several variants of institutional analysis have been identified. Hall and Taylor (1996) propose three basic schools of thought: rational choice institutionalism, historical (comparative) institutionalism, and organizational (sociological) institutionalism. The material covered in this Handbook does centre upon organizational institutionalism, but we are less sure of the accuracy of the depictions provided by Hall and Taylor (1996) or Campbell (2004). In fact, we propose to show how institutionalist research applied to organizational behaviour has evolved over time and that much of this work does not fit neatly into the classifications offered by Hall or Campbell. Our stance is not to ask, what is distinctive of ‘organizational institutionalism’? But, instead: ‘What does the institutional perspective tell us about organizational behaviour?’
• 3.
  Our timeframe emphasizes contributions made since 1977. The late 1970s were great years for organization theory. In a very short span of years, at least three of the enduring perspectives within organizational theory were initiated: resource dependence theory, ecology theory, and institutional theory. In 1977, two papers (Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Zucker, 1977) introduced what became known as new institutionalism. We do not deny that institutions and institutional processes had been examined prior to that date (see Hirsch, Chapter 33g this volume). On the contrary, the study of institutions has a long and [Page 2]respected tradition (see DiMaggio & Powell, 1991; Hinings & Tolbert, Chapter 19 this volume; and Barley, Chapter 20 this volume). However, the body of institutional work post-1977 has a focus that warrants our treatment of 1977 as a starting point.