Institutional Theory In International Business

Part of "Advances in International Management" series, this title presents contemporary research by leading and emerging scholars working on institutional theory. It also presents theoretical frameworks of institutions and proposes interesting ideas that provide the foundation for doctoral dissertations and research projects.

Institutions are fundamental aspects for driving tourism and hospitality globally. They are the socio-economic "rules of the game" that serve to shape and constrain human and organisational interactions. This book is the first of its kind to provide a comprehensive overview of institutional theory in a tourism and hospitality context. The complexity and multiple scaled nature of the institutional environment plays a crucial role in the development and formation of tourism destinations, attractions, organisations, and businesses, as well as influencing the activities of individuals. Institutional theory therefore provides a means to understand the complexity and processes of change at different scales of analysis and provides insights into the organisational and political basis of tourism policy development and implementation. Chapters introduce and expand on institutional analysis in tourism and hospitality, institutional theory in the social sciences, methodological issues, and future directions in institutional analysis in tourism and hospitality, making use of case studies throughout. This book will appeal to students of tourism, hospitality, leisure, and events, as well as other social science disciplines. Providing a comprehensive overview of and guide to the application of institutional theory, this book will serve as a complete reference to institutional theory in a tourism and hospitality setting for years to come.

Part of "Advances in International Management" series, this title presents contemporary research by leading and emerging scholars working on institutional theory. It also presents theoretical frameworks of institutions and proposes interesting ideas that provide the foundation for doctoral dissertations and research projects.

'The latest generation of research in comparative institutional analysis of business is impressively captured in this volume; readers find depth in theory development, breadth in application to practice and policy, and insight on the big research issues ahead. Both generalist and specialist readers will find much of value here.' – Bruce Evan Kaufman, Georgia State University, US This inspiring Handbook brings together alternative perspectives from a range of disciplines to shed light on the nature of institutions and their relationship to firm-level practices and outcomes across a wide range of national settings. Expertly written by leading scholars from a range of different starting points, this compendium presents a synthesis of recent work relating to institutionally-informed accounts from transitional and emerging markets, as well as from mature economies. It specifically focuses on the linkage between institutions and what goes on inside firms, and the relationship between setting, strategic choice and systemic outcomes. The Handbook is explicitly multi-disciplinary, encompassing perspectives from a range of the functional areas of management studies. It will prove invaluable for postgraduate students and faculty in international business, and the wider research community in the areas of international business, corporate governance, socio-economics, and comparative HRM.

In this exciting volume, a diverse and accomplished group of scholars work to integrate theories of institutions with strategic management. The research they present examines a wide range of industrial contexts, ranging from American retailing at the end of the nineteenth century, to German tax law at the beginning of the twenty-first.

The Institutional Theory of the Firm examines recent and previous organization theory literature to advocate what Evans (1995) refers to as the "embedded autonomy" of the firm, as well as its role in being simultaneously anchored in, for example, corporate legislation and regulatory practices on the national, regional (i.e., within the European Union) and transnational levels, while at the same time being granted the right to operate with significant degrees of freedom within this legal-regulatory model. Seen in this view, the embedded autonomy of the corporation represents a theoretical view of the corporation that complements the market-based image of the corporation in economic theory. When advocating the institutional theory model, three forms of embedded autonomy are examined. First, the corporation is enacted as a legal entity sui juris—as a freestanding "legal person" in corporate law and within the regulatory framework that serves to enforce legislation in everyday life settings. Second, the corporation is embedded within what social theorists refer to as moral economies, the norms and values that regulate what are the socially acceptable and legitimate means for conducting business. Third and finally, the corporation is embedded in governance, a relatively complex economic concept that denotes legal and regulatory control on the societal and economic system levels, and on the level of the individual corporation. By combining the three forms of embeddedness, sanctioned by law, norms, and governance, the embedded autonomy of the firm is secured on the basis of a variety of social practices and resources. This book brings together a diverse literature including management studies, economic sociology, legal theory, finance theory, and mainstream economic theory to advance the argument that the corporation is best understood as what is embedded in a social and economic context, yet best serving its defined and stipulated ends by assuming considerable degrees of freedom to operate in isolation from various stakeholders. It will be of relevance for a variety of readers, including graduate students, management scholars, policy-makers, and management consultants interested in organization theory and management studies.

For nearly two decades, emerging markets have been a primary source of growth in the world economy. They have become more international and compete more extensively with companies in developed countries. For these reasons, an understanding of managing businesses in emerging markets is a fundamental skill for competing in the twenty-first century. The Oxford Handbook of Management in Emerging Markets identifies key elements of the business systems and competition in emerging markets around the world, and then looks at competitive strategies of companies going into and coming out of these countries. While business is business, the handbook's focus is on how management differs depending on the different environmental characteristics in emerging markets, such as the role of the government, the potential weakness of infrastructure, and the skill and innovation bases available locally in emerging markets, among other elements. The volume is organized into five sections. The first section establishes conceptual perspectives for exploring the current business environment in emerging markets. The second section focuses on questions surrounding governance and markets. The third explores multinational enterprises (MNEs) in emerging economies, while the fourth section looks at local firms and emerging market MNEs. The fifth and final section looks at management in emerging markets within specific countries and regions around the world. This handbook is a vital resource for scholars, students, and managers looking to expand into emerging economies by providing comprehensive analyses of functional areas from human resources to finance to marketing, and on issues such as family businesses, state-owned enterprises, and the bottom of the pyramid.

Long a fruitful area of scrutiny for students of organizations, the study of institutions is undergoing a renaissance in contemporary social science. This volume offers, for the first time, both often-cited foundation works and the latest writings of scholars associated with the "institutional" approach to organization analysis. In their introduction, the editors discuss points of convergence and disagreement with institutionally oriented research in economics and political science, and locate the "institutional" approach in relation to major developments in contemporary sociological theory. Several chapters consolidate the theoretical advances of the past decade, identify and clarify the paradigm's key ambiguities, and push the theoretical agenda in novel ways by developing sophisticated arguments about the linkage between institutional patterns and forms of social structure. The empirical studies that follow—involving such diverse topics as mental health clinics, art museums, large corporations, civil-service systems, and national polities—illustrate the explanatory power of institutional theory in the analysis of organizational change. Required reading for anyone interested in the sociology of organizations, the volume should appeal to scholars concerned with culture, political institutions, and social change.