Institutional Environments And Organizations

The institutional theory of organizations developed by Scott, Meyer and their colleagues over the past two decades has had an enormous impact on organizational theory and research. In this book, the editors review the major theoretical advances of the past decade and the empirical testing they have done on these theories. Their work has highlighted two key themes: the interrelationship between organizational complexity and the institutional environment; and the place of the individual within the organization.

The institutional theory of organizations developed by Scott, Meyer and their colleagues over the past two decades has had an enormous impact on organizational theory and research. In this book, the editors review the major theoretical advances of the past decade and the empirical testing they have done on these theories. Their work has highlighted two key themes: the interrelationship between organizational complexity and the institutional environment; and the place of the individual within the organization.

W. Richard (Dick) Scott (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology with courtesy appointments in the Graduate School of Business, School of Education, and School of Medicine, Stanford University. He has spent his entire professional career at Stanford and served as the founding director of the Stanford Center for Organizations Research. He is the author of many articles and more than a dozen scholarly books, including two widely used texts in the area of organizations: an early book, Formal Organizations (1962), coauthored with Peter M Blau, and the more recent volume, Organizations: Rational, Natural and Open Systems (1981/1987/1992/1998), now in its 4th edition. Scott is a past fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and was the recipient in 1988 of the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Management and Organization Theory Division of the Academy of Management. In 1996, he received the Richard D. Irwin Award for Scholarly Contributions to Management from the Academy of Management.