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臺大管理論叢
第
26
卷第
3
期
281
“organizational field” inspired by Bourdieu) would definitely need to achieve isomorphism
because they must collectively conform or submit to the institution; no variances would be
allowed and must be institutionalized. That is why so many organizational forms in a context
look alike. Furthermore, such notions as technological regime, dominant innovation, and
standard design argue that all firms must follow the rules of the game set by the regime;
otherwise, they will be eliminated by the market. Last but not least, Chaos Theory is
included in the domain of determinism because it describes a peculiar phenomenon in which
a small event unexpectedly becomes extraordinarily big; in other words, voluntarism creates
its own determinism, eventually shaping the actors’ futures.
Other than voluntarism and determinism, scholars have recently endorsed an
interactionist perspective, indicating the reciprocal relationship between structure and social
agent. That is to say, structure is not only constraining but also enabling the social agent.
Social agents initially comply with the institution, and then they utilize social skills such as
strategic framing to challenge it (i.e., deinstitutionalization) and to construct a new landscape
(i.e., institutionalization). Under such a framework, the structure and agent indeed interact in
a reciprocal and dynamic manner. For example, institutional entrepreneurship has been
widely used in many empirical studies of technological change, emerging markets, and
organizational change. Besides, strategy-as-practice (SAP) or strategizing emphasize the
deinstitutionalization that results from the micro-behaviors of managers (i.e., practice).
As a meta-analysis, we review articles - mainly empirical studies - drawn from eight
leading management journals in Taiwan:
Chiao Da Management Review, Sun Yat-Sen
Management Review, Journal of Technology Management, Management Review, Journal of
Management & Systems, Journal of Management, NTU Management Review
, and
Organization and Management
, because their scopes are more based on general
management. The quality of their peer-to-peer review processes is high enough for them to
merit inclusion in the Taiwan Social Science Citation Index (TSSCI). The data collection
process is tripartite. First, all published articles from 2000 through 2014 were collected;
these amounted to 2,440 articles. Second, we chose articles that were directly relevant to the
domain of the AOM’s TIM Division or ENT Division; in this case, we repeatedly checked
the titles/subtitles, keywords, and the affiliate(s) of author(s). Third, articles unlikely to be
submitted to the AOM’s TIM Division and ENT Division were excluded even though their
research targets are in the context of TIM. This left us with a total of 275 articles in our
dataset. Then, we classified them into three groups - voluntarist, determinist, and
interactionist, according to their theoretical roots, main arguments, findings, and conclusions.