Konkurrens är en viktig och vitt spridd styrform i dagens samhälle. Tillhandahållandet av allt från dagligvaror och bilar till sjukvård, skola och tv-program styrs i allt högre grad genom att utförare får konkurrera med varandra. Konkurrens har blivit en så vanlig styrform att den ofta ses som ett ”naturligt tillstånd”, som om det inte finns några alternativ.
Huvudbudskapet i denna bok är att konkurrens inte är ett naturligt tillstånd. Konkurrens behöver oftast beslutas och organiseras fram, vilket innebär att saker och ting ofta behöver ändras för att det ska kunna bli konkurrens. Författarna beskriver hur konkurrens faktiskt fungerar, varför konkurrens införs, hur konkurrens skiljer sig från andra mer välkända styrformer och vilka resultat man kan vänta sig vid införandet av konkurrens som styrform. Till exempel förklaras varför konkurrens ofta leder till mer av samma i stället för ökad variation, och hur professioner som läkare och lärare påverkas av att konkurrera.
Exemplen i boken kommer framför allt från offentlig sektor, men principerna fungerar lika väl för andra sektorer. Författarna menar att detta är värdefull kunskap för alla som är chefer, medarbetare eller kunder i organisationer som har konkurrensutsatts – vilket inbegriper de flesta i vårt samhälle.
Recent empirical and theoretical developments related to the microprocesses of institutional logics have helped to cultivate a powerful theory of agency. We build on these developments to show how the institutional logics perspective can shed light on important questions related to frame construction and how institutions matter. In particular, we show how the emergence of an economic democracy frame in post-war Sweden generated different efforts to define that frame with concrete ideas and practices linked to different logics – socialism and neoliberalism. We show how socialists tried to define economic democracy as requiring a radical transformation in the nature of ownership and control embedded in the innovative financial practice of wage earner’s funds. In contradistinction, conservatives drew on neoliberal ideas and extant mutual fund practices to construct alternative meanings and practices related to economic democracy that enrolled citizens in Capitalism without challenging extant Capitalist ownership structures. While mutual funds and wage earner’s funds initially existed in a state of parabiosis – existing side by side without much interrelationship – struggles over the meaning of economic democracy led these practices to become competing solutions in a framing contest. Implications for the study of institutional logics, frames and the social organization of society are discussed.
Diffusion and institutionalization are of prime sociological importance, as both processes unfold at the intersections of relations and structures, as well as persistence and change. Yet they are often confounded, leading to theoretical and methodological biases that hinder the development of generalizable arguments. We look at diffusionand institutionalization distinctively, each as both a process and an outcome in terms of three dimensions: the objects that flow or stick; the subjects who adopt or influence; and the social settings through which an innovation travels. We offer examples to flesh out these dimensions, and formulate testable propositions from our analytic framework that could lead to further theoretical refinement and progress.
This paper is inspired by real-world phenomena that rms lose customers based on impreciseinformation and take a long time to recover. If consumers are playing an ordinary repeated gamewith xed partners, there is no clear reason why recovery slowly happens. However, if consumers areplaying an endogenously repeated game, a class of simple efficient equilibria exhibits the asymmetryof fast loss of customers after a bad signal and slow recovery. Exit is systematic but formation of anew partnership is random. We also give empirical evidence of our equilibria at an individual-firm level.
Why do some practices not spread? Although this is an important question for both diffusion theorists and those interested in institutional change, we know surprisingly little about the limitations on diffusion because most diffusion studies sample on successful diffusion. I address the question of why some practices fail to spread by introducing the concept of a "deviance discount." A deviance discount is a systematic downgrading of the observed adoption performance of controversial practices, which limits the contagion of such practices. I test and find qualitative and quantitative support for my thesis in the product introduction behavior of Swedish mutual fund firms. My findings hold implications for diffusion theory and theories of endogenous institutional change.
Our paper examines how field structures moderate the effect of the business press on organizational outcomes. Prior research suggests that the business press shapes organizational outcomes, but the question of how these effects depend on organizations' positions in a field has attracted limited attention. We address this theoretical limitation in an analysis of how mutual funds in Sweden were affected by periods when the business press increased its negative coverage of mutual fund fees. First, we expect that negative coverage influences the way customers evaluate mutual funds. Second, banks have long occupied a dominant position in this market, and we thus expect banks to be less affected by the negative coverage of fees than other mutual fund managers. We find support for our argument in a longitudinal quantitative analysis of financial net flows into mutual funds. The findings indicate the value of contextualizing media effects and considering how field positions moderate the effects of cultural processes.
This paper theorizes about why discoveries of corporate deviance that damage the legitimacy of the responsible organization may also have consequences for other organizations. We propose that audiences generalize from deviance by one organization to others that are similar. The result is a withdrawal from transactions even from non-culpable organizations as audiences seek to avoid organizations that they associate with a deviant act. We show that two scandals involving Skandia AB, a Swedish insurance firm that had a subsidiary offering mutual funds, affected mutual fund providers owned by other insurance firms in 2000--2004, as well as mutual fund subsidiaries of other firms with similar characteristics. The effect was greatest for firms more similar to Skandia and firms owning real estate, which was the context for one of the scandals. Thus audience members' categorization rules lead to spread of legitimacy loss in response to an isolated act of organizational deviance.
Imperfectly imitable resources are central in contemporary analysis of sustainable competitive advantage. While prior work has focused on limitations on the ability to imitate, we argue that it is only a third step in an imitation procedure that also involves the identification of what to imitate and the willingness to imitate. In this study we focus on this last step of unwillingness to imitate due to institutionalized professional norms on product appropriateness. Drawing on institutional theory, we test hypotheses and discuss the complex relationship between institutionalized norms, core competences, and systematic differences in the willingness to imitate.
How does an organization change its identity, yet maintain distinctiveness? This question is especially interesting when we consider the fact that identityrepositioning often takes place among several organizations at the same time-giving rise to interrelated identity change and distinctiveness concerns. We investigate this question in the setting of British political parties, during a period when questions of identity change and distinctiveness were heightened, following a decline of political ideologies. Parties, we argue, sought to handle this situation through two broad strategies that we call identity affirmation and reformation. Identity distinctiveness was affirmed by identity claims that sought to counter and neutralize competing claims on aspects that were thought central to the identity of the party. To alter the identity, parties also sought to reform it by expanding identity claims to elements that were considered to be popular. Reformation efforts are however not unchecked expansion, but tempered by concerns of identity consistency and distance from other parties. We discuss contributions to theories of organizational identities and competitive rivalry.
The relationship between media and the organizations they cover has changed dramatically in the last few decades, which have witnessed a huge expansion of news coverage focusing on different types of organizations and their activities. In parallel, organizations have dramatically increased their investment in Public Relations and other media-oriented forms of communication. Like other societal developments – globalization, marketization, individualization, scientification – mediatization has become an institutional force.
This book analyses the mediatization of contemporary organizations and how individual organizations, industry or markets are scrutinised. It examines its key influence on the actions of organizations, thereby shaping the entire landscape in which the organizations operate. What such a perspective provides is the accentuation of the interplay between organizations and different parts of the society as embedded in the media and its logic.
This will be essential reading for professionals, academics and advanced students in Organizational Studies, Public Relations and Media Studies.