Faking it or muddling through? Understanding decoupling in response to stakeholder pressures

Academy of Management Journal

Volumn 55, Issue 6, 2012, Pages 1429-1448

  Crilly, Donal ^a   Zollo, Maurizio ^b,c   Hansen, Morten T ^d,e  

^a LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL   (United Kingdom)

^b BOCCONI UNIVERSITY   (Italy)

^c Center for Research in Organization and Management (CROMA)   (Italy)

^d UC Berkeley School of Information   (United States)

^e INSEAD   (France)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84879771690     PISSN: 00014273     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5465/amj.2010.0697     Document Type: Article

References (77)

1. Aguilera, R. V., Rupp, D. E., Williams, C. A., & Ganapathi, J. 2007. Putting the S back in corporate social responsibility: A multilevel theory of social change in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 32: 836-863.
2. Akerlof, G. 1970. The market for "lemons": Quality uncertainty and the market mechanism. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 84: 488-500.
3. Allport, G. W. 1958. The nature of prejudice. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
4. Argote, L., & Greve, H. R. 2007. A behavioral theory of the firm - 40 years and counting: Introduction and impact. Organization Science, 18: 337-349.
5. Axelrod, R. 1984. The evolution of cooperation. New York: Basic Books.
6. Bansal, P., & Clelland, I. 2004. Talking trash: Legitimacy, impression management, and unsystematic risk in the context of the natural environment. Academy of Management Journal, 47: 93-103.
7. Bansal, P., & Roth, K. 2000. Why companies go green: A model of ecological responsiveness. Academy of Management Journal, 43: 717-736.
8. Basu, K., & Palazzo, G. 2008. Corporate social responsibility: A process model of sensemaking. Academy of Management Review, 33: 122-136.
9. Battilana, J., & Dorado, S. 2010. Building sustainable hybrid organizations: The case of commercial microfinance organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 53: 1419-1440.
10. Christian Aid. Behind the mask: The real face of corporate social responsibility. London: Christian Aid.
11. Christmann, P., & Taylor, G. 2001. Globalization and the environment: Determinants of firm self-regulation in China. Journal of International Business Studies, 32: 439-458.
12. Cress, D. M., & Snow, D. A. 1996. Mobilization at the margins: Resources, benefactors, and the viability of homeless social movement organizations. American Sociological Review, 61: 1089-1109.
13. Crilly, D., Schneider, S. C., & Zollo, M. 2008. The psychological antecedents to socially responsible behavior. European Management Review, 5: 175-190.
14. Crilly, D., & Sloan, P. 2012. Corporate attention to stakeholders: Enterprise logic and an inside-out explanation. Strategic Management Journal, 33: 1174-1193.
15. Cyert, R. M., & March, J. G. 1963. A behavioral theory of the firm. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
16. David, P., Bloom, M., & Hillman, A. J. 2007. Investor activism, managerial responsiveness, and corporate social performance. Strategic Management Journal, 28: 91-100.
17. Davis, K. 1973. The case for and against business assumption of social responsibilities. Academy of Management Journal, 16: 312-323.
18. Delmas, M., & Toffel, M. 2008. Organizational responses to environmental demands: Opening the black box. Strategic Management Journal, 29: 1027-1055.
19. Den Hond, F., & de Bakker, F. G. A. 2007. Ideologically motivated activism: How activist groups influence corporate social change activities. Academy of Management Review, 32: 901-924.
20. Fedderson, T., & Gilligan, T. 2001. Saints and markets: Activists and the supply of credence goods. Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, 10: 149-171.
21. Fiss, P. C. 2011. Building better causal theories: A fuzzy set approach to typologies in organization research. Academy of Management Journal, 54: 393-420.
22. Fiss, P. C., & Zajac, E. J. 2004. The diffusion of ideas over contested terrain: The (non)adoption of a shareholder value orientation among German firms. Administrative Science Quarterly, 49: 501-534.
23. Fiss, P. S., & Zajac, E. J. 2006. The symbolic management of strategic change: Sensegiving via framing and decoupling. Academy of Management Journal, 49: 1173-1193.
24. Freeman, R. E. 1984. Strategic management: A stakeholder approach. Boston: Pitman.
25. Gamoran, A., & Dreeben, R. 1986. Coupling and control in educational organizations: An explication and illustrative comparative test. Administrative Science Quarterly, 31: 612-632.
26. Garud, R., Jain, S., & Kumaraswamy, A. 2002. Institutional entrepreneurship in the sponsorship of common technological standards: The case of Sun Microsystems and Java. Academy of Management Journal, 45: 196-214.
27. George, E., Chattopadhyay, P., Sitkin, S., & Barden, J. 2006. Cognitive underpinnings of institutional persistence and change: A framing perspective. Academy of Management Review, 31: 347-365.
28. Global Reporting Initiative. 2000. A common framework for sustainability reporting. www.globalreporting.org.
29. Goodrick, E., & Salancik, G. R. 1996. Organizational discretion in responding to institutional practices: Hospitals and Cesarean births. Administrative Science Quarterly, 41: 1-28.
30. Greening, D. W., & Gray, B. 1994. Testing a model of organizational response to social and political issues. Academy of Management Journal, 37: 467-498.
31. Hambrick, D. C., Finkelstein, S., Cho, T. S., & Jackson, E. M. 2005. Isomorphism in reverse: Institutional theory as an explanation for recent increases in intraindustry heterogeneity and managerial discretion. In B. Staw & R. M. Kramer (Eds), Research in organizational behavior, vol. 26: 307-350. Greenwich, CT: JAI.
32. Hannan, M. T., & Freeman, J. H. 1977. The population ecology of organizations. American Journal of Sociology, 82: 929-964.
33. Hardin, C. D., & Higgins, E. T. 1996. Shared reality: How social verification makes the subjective objective. In E. T. Higgins & R. M. Sorrentino (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition: The interpersonal context, vol. 3: 28-84). New York: Guilford.
34. Jensen, M. C., & Meckling, W. H. 1976. Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure. Journal of Financial Economics, 3: 305-360.
35. Jones, T. M. 1995. Instrumental stakeholder theory: A synthesis of ethics and economics. Academy of Management Review, 20: 404-437.
36. Kaplan, S. 2008a. Cognition, capabilities, and incentives: Assessing firm response to the fiber-optic revolution. Academy of Management Journal, 51: 672-695.
37. Kaplan, S. 2008b. Framing contests: Strategy making under uncertainty. Organization Science, 19: 729-752.
38. Kennedy, M. T., & Fiss, P. C. 2009. Institutionalization, framing, and diffusion: The logic of TQM adoption and implementation decisions among U.S. hospitals. Academy of Management Journal, 52: 897-918.
39. King, A. A., Lenox, M. J., & Terlaak, A. 2005. The strategic use of decentralized institutions: Exploring certification with the ISO 14001 management standards. Academy of Management Journal, 48: 1091-1106.
40. Krippendorff, K. 2004. Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
41. Kulkarni, S. P. 2000. Information asymmetry among organizational stakeholders. Journal of Business Ethics, 27: 215-228.
42. Labianca, G., Gray, B., & Brass, D. J. 2000. A grounded model of organizational change during empowerment. Organization Science, 11: 235-257.
43. Lacey, R., & Fiss, P. C. 2009. Comparative organizational analysis across multiple levels: A set-theoretic approach. In B. King, T. Felin, & D. Whetten (Eds.), Research in the sociology of organizations, vol. 26 (Studying differences between organizations: Comparative approaches to organizational research): 91-116. Bingley, U.K.: Emerald
44. Leifer, E. M. 1988. Interaction preludes to role setting: Exploratory local action. American Sociological Review, 53: 865-878.
45. Leland, H. E. 1979. Quacks, lemons, and licensing: A theory of minimum quality standards. Journal of Political Economy, 87: 1328-1346.
46. Li, J. T., & Hambrick, D. C. 2005. Factional groups: A new vantage on demographic faultiness, conflict and disintegration in work teams. Academy of Management Journal, 48: 794-813.
47. March, J. G. 1962. The business firm as a political coalition. Journal of Politics, 24: 662-678.
48. Margolis, J. D., & Walsh, J. P. 2003. Misery loves companies: Rethinking social initiatives by business. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48: 268-305.
49. Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. 1977. Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83: 340-363.
50. Mintzberg, H., & Waters, J. A. 1985. Of strategies, deliberate and emergent. Strategic Management Journal, 6: 257-272.
51. Nayyar, P. R. 1990. Information asymmetries: A source of competitive advantage for diversified service firms. Strategic Management Journal, 11: 513-519.
52. Novo Nordisk. 2011. Novo Nordisk annual report 2010. http://annualreport. novonordisk.com/. Accessed January 1.
53. Orlikowski, W. J. 2000. Using technology and constituting structures: A practice lens for studying technology in organizations. Organization Science, 11: 404-428.
54. Post, J. E., Preston, L. E., & Sachs, S. 2002. Managing the extended enterprise: The new stakeholder view. California Management Review, 45(1): 6-28.
55. Pratt, M. G., & Foreman, P. O. 2000. Classifying managerial responses to multiple organizational identities. Academy of Management Review, 25: 18-42.
56. Purdy, J. M., & Gray, B. 2009. Conflicting logics, mechanisms of diffusion, and multilevel dynamics in emerging institutional fields. Academy of Management Journal, 52: 355-380.
57. Quinn, D. P., & Jones, T. M. 1995. An agent morality view of business policy. Academy of Management Review, 20: 22-42.
58. Ragin, C. C. 2008. Redesigning social inquiry: Fuzzy sets and beyond. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
59. Ragin, C. C., Drass, K. A., & Davey, S. 2006. Fuzzy-set/qualitative comparative analysis 2.0. Tucson: Department of Sociology, University of Arizona.
60. Ragin, C. C., & Fiss, P. 2008. Net effects versus configurations: An empirical demonstration. In C. C. Ragin (Ed.), Redesigning social inquiry: Fuzzy sets and beyond: 190-212. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
61. Redding, K., & Viterna, J. S. 1999. Political demands, political opportunities: Explaining the differential success of left-libertarian parties. Social Forces, 78: 491-510.
62. Rihoux, B., & Ragin, C. C. (Eds.). 2008. Configurational comparative methods. Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and related techniques. Thousand Oaks and London: Sage.
63. Schneider, M., Schulze-Bentrop, C., & Paunescu, M. 2010. Mapping the institutional capital of high-tech firms: A fuzzy-set analysis of capitalist variety and export performance. Journal of International Business Studies, 41: 246-266.
64. Scott, W. R., & Meyer, J. W. 1983. The organization of societal sectors. In J. W. Meyer & W. R. Scott (Eds.), Organizational environments: Ritual and rationality: 129-154. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
65. Sherif, M. 1966. In common predicament: Social psychology of intergroup conflict and cooperation. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.
66. Sivaramakrishnan, K. 1994. Information asymmetry, participation, and long-term contracts. Management Science, 40: 1228-1244.
67. Sonenshein, S. 2006. The role of construction, intuition, and justification in responding to ethical issues at work: The sensemaking-intuition model. Academy of Management Review, 32: 1022-1040.
68. Tilcsik, A. 2010. From ritual to reality: Demography, ideology, and decoupling in a post-communist government agency. Academy of Management Journal, 53: 1474-1498.
69. Thornton, P. H., & Ocasio, W. 2008. Institutional logics. In R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, S. K. Andersen, & R. Suddaby (Eds.), Handbook of organizational institutionalism: 99-129. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
70. Uzzi, B., & Gillespie, J. 1999. Corporate social capital and the cost of financial capital: An embeddedness approach. In R. Leenders & S. Gabbay (Eds.), Corporate social capital and liability: 446-459. Boston: Kluwer.
71. Weaver, G. R., Treviño, L. K., & Cochran, P. L. 1999. Integrated and decoupled corporate social performance: Management commitments, external pressures, and corporate ethics practices. Academy of Management Journal, 42: 539-552.
72. Westphal, J. D., & Zajac, E. J. 1994. Substance and symbolism in CEOs' long-term incentive plans. Administrative Science Quarterly, 39: 367-390.
73. Westphal, J. D., & Zajac, E. J. 1998. The symbolic management of stockholders: Corporate governance reforms and shareholder reactions. Administrative Science Quarterly, 43: 127-153.
74. Westphal, J. D., & Zajac, E. J. 2001. Decoupling policy from practice: The case of stock repurchase programs. Administrative Science Quarterly, 46: 202-228.
75. Winter, S. G., & Szulanski, G. 2001. Replication as strategy. Organization Science, 12: 730-743.
76. World Bank. 2003. Strengthening implementation of corporate social responsibility in global supply chains. Washington, DC: World Bank Group.
77. Yoshikawa, T., Tsui-Auch, L. S., & McGuire, J. 2007. Corporate governance reform as institutional innovation: The case of Japan. Organization Science, 18: 885-897.