Personal Versus Market Logics of Control: A Historically Contingent Theory of the Risk of Acquisition

Organization Science

Volumn 12, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 294-311

  Thornton, Patricia H ^a  

^a DUKE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Historical contingency; Institutional change; Institutional logics; Market capitalism; Market determinants of acquisition; Organization determinants of acquisition; Personal capitalism; Risk of acquisition

Indexed keywords

EID: 0035635132     PISSN: 10477039     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1287/orsc.12.3.294.10100     Document Type: Article

References (114)

1. Abrahamson, E., C. J. Fombrun. 1994. Macrocultures: determinants and consequences. Acad. Management Rev. 19(4) 728-55.
2. Altbach, P. G. 1975. Publishing and the intellectual system. Ann. Amer. Acad. Political Soc. Sci. 421 1-13.
3. Amburgey, T. L., A. S. Miner. 1992. Strategic momentum: The effects of repetitive, positional, and contextual momentum on merger activity. Strategic Management J. 13 335-348.
4. Arrow, K. 1983. Innovation in large and small firms. J. Ronen, ed. Entrepreneurship: Price Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies. Lexington, Lexington, MA. 15-27.
5. Asser, P. N. 1989. Consolidation, internationalization, and the future of publishing: a scenario. Book Res. Quart. 5(Fall) 51-59.
6. Baker, D. C., J. Hileman. 1987. Used books and the college textbook industry. Book Res. Quart. 3(Fall) 8-17.
7. Barley, S. R., G. Kunda. 1992. Design and devotion: Surges of rational and normative ideologies of control in managerial discourse. Admin. Sci. Quart. 37(3) 363-399.
8. Barron, D. N., E. West, M. T. Hannan. 1994. A time to grow and a time to die: Growth and mortality of credit unions in New York City. 1914-1990. Amer. J. Sociology 100(2) 381-421.
9. Beckenstein, A. R. 1979. Merger activity and merger theories: An empirical investigation. Antitrust Bull. 24(Spring) 105-128.
10. Becketti, S. 1986. Corporate mergers and the business cycle. Econom. Rev. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City 13-26.
11. Bernstein Research. 1994. The School Publishing Industry. R. R. Bowker, New York.
12. Bowker, R. R. The Bowker Annual of Library and Book Trade Inform. Council of National Library Associations. New York. 1958-1975.
13. BP Reports on Book Publishing. SIMBA Communication Trends. Wilton, CT.
14. Brint, S., J. Karabel. 1991. Institutional origins and transformation: The case of american community colleges. Walter W. Powell and Paul J. DiMaggio, eds. The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. 337-360.
15. Burt, R. 1980. Autonomy in social topology. Amer. J. Sociology 85(4) 892-925.
16. Burton, R. M., B. Obel. 1998. Strategic Organizational Diagnosis and Design, 2nd ed. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston/Dordrecht/ London.
17. Carroll, G. R., M. T. Hannan. 2000. The demography of corporations and industries. Princeton university Press, Princeton, N.J.
18. Chandler, A. D. 1962. Strategy and Structure. Doubleday, New York.
19. _. 1977. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
20. _. 1990. Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
21. Chatterjee, S. 1986. Types of synergy and economic value: The impact of acquisitions on merging and rival firms. Strategic Management J. 7 119-139.
22. Chesbrough, H. W., D. J. Teese. 1996. When is virtual virtuosous?: Organizing for innovation. Harvard Bus. Rev. (Jan./Feb.) 65-73.
23. Compaine, B. M. 1978. The Book Industry in Transition: An Economic Study of Book Distribution and Marketing. Knowledge Industry Publications, White Plains, NY.
24. Coser, L. A. 1975. Publishers as Gatekeepers of Ideas. Ann. Amer. Acad. Political Soc. Sci.: Perspectives on Publishing. 421(Sept.) 14-22.
25. _, C. Kadushin, W. W. Powell. 1982. Books: The Culture and Commerce of Publishing. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
26. Davis, G. F., S. K. Stout. 1992. Organization theory and the market for corporate control: A dynamic analysis of the characteristics of large takeover targets, 1980-1990. Admin. Sci. Quart. 37(4) 605-633.
27. _, A. Diekmann, C. H. Tinsley. 1994. The decline and fall of the conglomerate firm in the 1980s: Deinstitutionalization of an organizational form. Amer. Sociological Rev. 59(4) 547-570.
28. Delaney, K. J. 2000. A storied hotel in Paris plays "Inn-cubator". The Wall Street Journal. August 17, B14.
29. DiMaggio, P. 1994. Culture and economy. Neil J. Smelser, Richard Swedberg, eds. Handbook of Economic Sociology. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. 25-57.
30. _. 1997. Culture and Cognition. Annual Rev. Sociology 23 263-287.
31. Dobbin, F., T. J. Dowd. 2000. The market that antitrust built: Public policy, private coercion, and railroad acquisitions. Amer. Sociological Rev. 65(3) 631-657.
32. Doty, D. H., W. H. Glick. 1994. Typologies as a unique form of theory building: Toward improved understanding and modeling. Acad. Management Rev. 19(2) 230-251.
33. Dougherty, P. 1998. A random walk down third avenue. Paper presented at Annual meeting of American Sociological Association, San Francisco, CA. In panel. "The Crisis in University Press Publishing: Is It Real and How Will It Affect the Discipline?."
34. Educational Marketeer. SIMBA Communication Trends, Wilton, CT.
35. Epstein, J. 1998. Can the Bertelsmann deal take publishing back to its roots? The New Yorker.
36. Fisk, S. T., P. W. Linville. 1980. What does the schema concept buy us? Personality Soc. Psych. Bull. 6(4) 543-557.
37. Fligstein, N. 1985. The spread of the multidivisional form among large firms, 1919-1979. Amer. Sociological Rev. 50(3) 377-391.
38. _. 1987. The interorganizational power struggle: The rise of finance personnel to top leadership in large corporations. Amer. Sociological Rev. 52(February) 44-58.
39. _. 1990. The Transformation of Corporate Control. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
40. _. 1996. Market as politics: A political-cultural approach to market institutions. Amer. Sociological Rev. 61(4) 656-673.
41. _, P. Brantley. 1992. Bank control, owner control, or organizational dynamics: Who controls the large modern corporation? Amer. J. Sociology 98(2) 280-307.
42. _, L. Markowitz. 1993. Financial reorganization of American corporations in the 1980s. William Julius Wilson, ed. Sociology and the Public Agenda. Sage, Newbury Park, CA 185-206.
43. Friedland, R., R. R. Alford. 1991. Bringing society back in: Symbols, practices, and institutional contradictions. Walter W. Powell, Paul J. DiMaggio, eds. The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL 232-266.
44. Fulcrum Information Services, Inc. 1998. Doing the right thing at the right time. 2nd Annual Book Publishing Industry Mergers and Acquisitions Institute. December 7-8, New York.
45. Golbe, D. L., Lawrence J. White. 1988. A time-series analysis of mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. economy. A. Auerback, ed. Corporate Takeovers: Causes and Consequences. University of Chicago press, Chicago, IL 265-303.
46. Gort, M. 1969. An economic disturbance theory of mergers. Quart. J. Econom. 83(4) 624-642.
47. Graham, G. 1994. As I was Saying: Essays on the International Book Industry. Hans Zell Publishers, London, U.K.
48. Greco, A. 1989. Mergers and acquisitions in publishing, 1984-1988. Some public policy issues. Book Res. Quart. (4) 25-43.
49. _. 1996. Shaping the future: Mergers, acquisitions, and the U.S. publishing, communications, and mass media industries, 1990-1995. Book Res. Quart. (4) 5-15.
50. _. 1997. The Book Publishing Industry. Allyn and Bacon, Boston, MA.
51. Guerard, J. B. 1985. Mergers, stock prices, and industrial production: An empirical test of the Nelson hypothesis. O. D. Anderson, ed. Time Series Analysis: Theory and Practice. Elsevier, Amsterdam, Holland. 239-247.
52. Gulati, R. 1995. Does familiarity breed trust? The implications of repeated ties for contractual choice in alliances. Acad. Management J. 38(1) 85-112.
53. _, H. Singh. 1998. The architecture of cooperation: Managing coordination costs and appropriation concerns in stategic alliances. Admin. Sci. Quart. 43 781-814.
54. Hannan, M. T., J. Freeman. 1984. Structural inertia and organizational change. Amer. Sociology Rev. 49(April) 149-164.
55. Haunschild, P. R. 1993. Interorganizational imitations: The impact of interlocks on corporate acquisition activity. Admin. Sci. Quart. 38(4) 564-592.
56. Haveman, H. A., H. Rao. 1997. A structural theory of moral sentiments. Amer. J. Sociology 102(6) 1606-1651.
57. _, _. (forthcoming). Hybrid forms and institutional change in the early California thrift industry. Walter W. Powell, Daniel Jones, eds., How Institutions Change. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
58. Hirsch, P. M. 1972. Processing fads and fashions: An organization-set analysis of cultural industry systems. Amer. J. Sociology 77(4) 639-659.
59. _. 1986. From ambushes to golden parachutes: Corporate takeovers as an instance of cultural framing and institutional integration. Amer. J. Sociology 91(4) 800-837.
60. Hitt, M. A., R. E. Hoskisson, R. A. Johnson, D. D. Moesel. 1996. The market for corporate control and firm innovation. Acad. Management J. 39(5) 1084-1119.
61. Jensen, M. C., Richard S. Ruback. 1983. The market for corporate control: The scientific evidence. J. Financial Econom. 11(5) 50.
62. Lane, M. L. 1975. Shapers of culture: The editor in book publishing. Ann. Amer. Acad. Political Soc. Sci. 421(Sept.) 34-42.
63. _, J. Booth. 1970. Books and Publishers: Commerce Against Culture in Postwar Britain. D. C. Heath, Lexington, MA.
64. Lant, T. K., J. A. C. Baum. 1995. Cognitive sources of socially constructed competitive groups: Examples from the Manhatten hotel industry. W. Richard Scott, Soren Christensen, eds. The Institutional Construction of Organizations: International and Longitudinal Studies. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.
65. Lazonick, W. 1992. Controlling the market for corporate control: The historical significance of managerial capitalism. Indust. Corporate Change 1(3) 445-488.
66. Levin, M. P. 1996. The positive role of large corporations in U.S. book publishing. Logos 7(1) 127-137.
67. Lewin, A. Y., C. P. Long, T. N. Carroll. 1999. The coevolution of new organizational forms. Organ. Sci. 5(5) 535-550.
68. Literary Marketplace. R. R. Bowker, New York 1940-1995.
69. Manne, H. G. 1965. Mergers and the market for corporate control. J. Political Economy. 73 110-120.
70. March, J. G., J. P. Olsen. 1976. Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations. Universitetsforlage, Bergen, Germany.
71. _, _. 1989. Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics. Free Press, New York.
72. Marris, R. 1964. The Economic Theory of Managerial Capitalism. The Free Press, New York.
73. _, D. C. Mueller. 1980. The corporate, competition, and the invisible hand. J. Econom. Literature 118 32-63.
74. Mccormick, T. 1998. Bigger is confusinger. Publishers Weekly. May 4, 25.
75. Melicher, R. W., J. Ledolter, L. J. D'Antonio. 1983. A time series analysis of aggregate merger activity. Rev. Econom. Statist. 65 423-30.
76. Milliot, J. 2000. Reed buys Harcourt, will sell parts to Thomson. Publishers Weekly Oct. 30.
77. Morck, R., A. Shleifer, R. W. Vishny. 1989. Alternative mechanisms for corporate control. Amer. Econom. Rev. 79(4) 842-852.
78. Ocasio, W. 1997. Towards an attention-based view of the firm. Strategic Management J. 18 187-206.
79. Palmer, D., B. M. Barber. 2001. Challengers, elites, and owning families: A social class theory of corporate acquisitions in the 1960s. Admin. Sci. Quart. 46(1) 87-120.
80. _, _, X. Zhou, Y. Soysal. 1995. The acquisition of large U.S. corporations in the 1960s. Amer. Sociological Rev. 60(4) 469-499.
81. Pfeffer, J. 1972. Mergers as a response to organizational interdependence. Admin. Sci. Quart. 17(3) 382-394.
82. _, G. Salancik. 1978. The External Control of Organizations. Harper and Row, New York.
83. Powell, W. 1980. Competition versus concentration in the book trade. J. Comm. 30(2) 89-97.
84. _. 1985. Getting into Print: The Decision-Making Process in Scholarly Publishing. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
85. _. 1990. Neither market nor hierarchy: Network forms of organization. Barry M. Straw, L. L. Cummings, eds. Research in Organizational Behavior. JAI Press, Greenwich, CT.
86. _, P. J. DiMaggio. 1991. The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
87. Reid, J. M. 1969. An Adventure in Textbooks 1924-1960. R. R. Bowker, New York.
88. Reuf, M., W. R. Scott. 1998. A multidimensional model of organizational legitimacy: Hospital survival in changing institutional environments. Admin. Sci. Quart. 43(4) 877-903.
89. Roll, R. 1986. The hubris hypothesis of corporate takeovers. J. Bus. 59 197-212.
90. Rousseau, D. M., S. B. Sitkin, R. S. Burt, C. Camerer. 1998. Not so different after all: A cross-discipline view of trust. Acad. Management Rev. 23(3) 393-404.
91. Schiffrin. 2000. The Business of Books: How International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read. Verso, New York.
92. Scott, W. R. 1995. Institutions and Organizations. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.
93. Shatzkin, L. 1982. In Cold Type: Overcoming the Book Crisis. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA.
94. Simon, H. A. 1997. Admin. Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organizations 4th ed., Free Press, New York.
95. Smith, J. 1995. Understanding the Media: A Sociology of Mass Communication. Hampton Press, Cresskill, NJ.
96. Stearns, L., K. Allan. 1996. Economic behavior in an institutional setting: The merger wave of the 1980s. Amer. Sociological Rev. 61(4) 699-718.
97. Steiner, P. O. 1975. Mergers: Motives, Effects, Policies. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI.
98. Stigler, G. J. 1966. The economic effects of the antitrust laws. J. Law Econom. 9 (Oct.) 225-258.
99. _. 1982. The economists and the problem of monopoly. Amer. Econom. Rev. 1-11.
100. Tebbel, J. 1981. A History of Book Publishing in the United States: The Great Change, 1940-1980, Vol. IV. R. R. Bowker, New York.
101. _. 1987. Between Covers: The Rise and Transformation of American Book Publishing. Oxford University Press, New York.
102. _. 1996. Book Trade. Entry in Microsoft Encarta 97 Encylcopedia.
103. Thompson, J. D. 1967. Organizations in Action. McGraw-Hill, New York.
104. Thornton, P. H. 1995. Accounting for acquisition waves: Evidence from the U.S. college publishing industry. W. Richard Scott, Soren Christensen, eds. The Institutional Construction of Organizations: International and Longitudinal Studies Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. 199-225.
105. _. 1999a. Concentrated markets in cultural industries: Are economies of scale an entry barrier to new firms in the higher education publishing industry? Organizations: Regular Session, American Sociological Association.
106. _. 1999b. The sociology of entrepreneurship. Ann. Rev. Sociology 25 19-46.
107. _, W. Ocasio 1999. Institutional logics and the historical contingency of power in organizations: Executive succession in the higher education publishing industry, 1958-1990. Amer. J. Sociology 105(3) 801-843.
108. Tuma, N. B., M. T. Hannan. 1984. Social Dynamics: Models and Methods. Academic Press, Orlando, FL.
109. Tuma, N. B. 1993. RATE software program, version 3.0A.
110. Useem, M. 1996. Investor Capitalism: How Money Managers are Changing the Face of Corporate America. Basic Books, New York.
111. Williamson, O. E. 1991. Comparative economic organization: The analysis of discrete structural alternatives. Admin. Sci. Quart. 36(2) 269-296.
112. Zey, M. 1998. The transformation of corporate control to owners and form to the multisubsidiary: 1981-1993. Res. Organ. Change Development. JAI Press, 11 271-312.
113. _, T. Swenson. 1998. Corporate tax laws, corporate restructuring, and subsidiarization of corporate form, 1981-1995. Sociological Quart. 39(4) 555-582.
114. Zucker, L. G. 1983. Organization as Institutions. Res. Sociology Organ. JAI Press, 2 1-47.