Abstract
Organizations often adopt formal policies ceremonially, that is, neither substantively nor in alignment with actual practice. Prior research on practice adoption suggested that opacity stabi-lizes ceremonial adoption and impedes substantive adoption. This paper offers a dynamic view of adoption and re-examines the role of opacity in promoting substantive and widespread adoption. Using a Markov chain model, we demonstrate that if opacity is transitory and succeeded by transparency, opacity can actually promote substantive adoption within an industry. We substantiate the validity of our arguments by drawing on the prominent management practice of corporate responsibility. Our paper contributes to the development of a general theory of decoupling and institutionalization by examining the boundary conditions under which organizations adopt ceremonially or implement substantively a policy. We discuss the implications of our findings for institutional theory and research on corporate responsibility.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Proceedings of the Seventy-fifth Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management |
Editors | John Humphreys |
Number of pages | 5 |
Place of Publication | Briar Cliff Manor, NY |
Publisher | Academy of Management |
Publication date | 2015 |
Pages | 201-205 |
Article number | 11508 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2015 |
Event | The Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2015: Opening Governance - Vancouver, Canada Duration: 7 Aug 2015 → 11 Aug 2015 Conference number: 75 http://aom.org/annualmeeting/ |
Conference
Conference | The Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2015 |
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Number | 75 |
Country/Territory | Canada |
City | Vancouver |
Period | 07/08/2015 → 11/08/2015 |
Internet address |
Series | Academy of Management Proceedings |
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ISSN | 2151-6561 |
Keywords
- Adoption
- Corporate responsibility
- Formal modeling