Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T01:59:17.617Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Broken Rules and Constrained Confusion: Toward a Theory of Meso-Institutions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2015

Scott Droege  and
Nancy Brown Johnson
Scott Droege
Affiliation:
Western Kentucky University, USA
Nancy Brown Johnson
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Meso-institutions are weak, intermediate forms of institutions that bridge the gap between institutional disintegration and the development of new, more firmly established institutions. Meso-institutions lack the stronger behaviour-guiding signs and symbols of more established institutions, but instead contain fragments of former institutions mixed with emerging, but fragile, components of developing institutions. Institutional disintegration leads to a disorienting period characterized by the dissolution of fundamental, widely held ideologies. This offers an opportunity for actions rather than institutions to guide actions. Because meso-institutions are weak, only after actions are repeated will they solidify into specific patterns that may be retrospectively granted legitimacy. Using archival data supplemented by interviews, we identified three meso-institutional occurrences with the phenomenologically based manifestations of fractured ideology, actions as rules and retrospective legitimization.

Keywords

Chinainstitutional theorytransformation制度理论中国转型
Type
Articles
Information
Management and Organization Review , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 2007 , pp. 81 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © International Association for Chinese Management Research 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ash, R. F. 1988. The evolution of agricultural policy. China Quarterly, 116: 529–556.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broom, L., & Selznick, P. 1955. Sociology, 2nd edn. Row, Peterson, Evanston, Ill.Google Scholar
Campbell, J. L. 1997. Mechanisms of evolutionary change in economic governance. In Magnusson, L. & Ottsson, J. (Eds.), Evolutionary Economics and Path Dependence: 10–32. Edvard Elgar, Cheltenham.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, J. L. 2004. Institutional Change and Globalization. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.Google Scholar
Chang, C., & Wang, Y. 1994. The nature of the township-village enterprise. Journal of Comparative Economics, 19: 434–452.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dacin, M. T., Goodstein, J., & Scott, W. R. 2002. Institutional theory and institutional change: introduction to the special research forum. Academy of Management Review, 45: 45–57.Google Scholar
Dewey, J. 1927. The Public and its Problems. Swallow Press, Athens, Ohio.Google Scholar
DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. 1991. Introduction. In DiMaggio, P. J. & Powell, W. W. (Eds.), The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis: 1–38. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill.Google Scholar
Edelman, L. B. 1992. Legal ambiguity and symbolic structure: organizational mediation of civil rights law. American Journal of Sociology, 97: 1531–1576.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eleventh Party Congress Central Committee. 1978. Third Plenum. Annual Meeting of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, December 1978.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. 1981. Power, Property, and the State. Macmillan, London.Google Scholar
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Aldine de Gruyter, Hawthorne, New York.Google Scholar
Goldman, M., & MacFarquhar, R. 1999. Dynamic economy, declining party-state. In Goldman, M. & MacFarquhar, R. (Eds.), The Paradox of China's Post-Mao Reforms: 3–29. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Goldstein, S. M. 1996. China in transition: the political foundations of incremental reform. In Walder, A. G. (Ed.), China’s Transitional Economy: 143–169. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Greenwood, R., Suddaby, R., & Hinings, C. R. 2002. Theorizing change: the role of professional associations in the transformation of institutionalized fields. Academy of Management Journal, 45: 58–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holm, P. 1995. The dynamics of institutionalization: transformation process in Norwegian fisheries. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40: 398–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kraus, W. 1991. Private Business in China: Revival between Ideology and Pragmatism. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, Hawaii.Google Scholar
Ladurie, E. L. 1998. The Ancien Regime: a History of France, 1610-1774. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.Google Scholar
Li, P. P. 2005. The puzzle of China's township-village enterprises: the paradox of local corporatism in a dual-track economic transition. Management and Organization Review, 1(2): 197–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lin, N., & Chen, C.J. 1999. Local elites as officials and owners: shareholding and property rights in Daquizhuang. In Oi, J. C. & Walder, A. G. (Eds.), Property Rights and Economic Reform in China: 145–170. Stanford University Press, Stanford, Calif.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, X. 2000. In One's Own Shadow: an Ethnographic Account of the Condition of Post-Reform China. University of California Press, Berkeley, Calif.Google Scholar
Mannheim, K. 1936. trans. Ideology and Utopia: an Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, translated by Wirth, L and Shils, E. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Marx, K., & Engels, F. 1932. trans. The German Ideology: Critique of Modern German Philosophy According to Its Representatives Feuerbach, B. Bauer and Stirner, and of German Socialism According to Its Various Prophets. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK.Google Scholar
Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. 1977. Institutionalized organization: formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83: 340–363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, M. W., Lu, Y., Lan, H., & Lu, X. 2002. Decentralized enterprise reform: notes on the transformation of state-owned enterprises. In Tsui, A. S. & Lau, C. M. (Eds.), The Management of Enterprises in the People's Republic of China: 241–273. Kluwer Plenum Academic Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mintzberg, H. 1990. The design school: reconsidering the basic premises of strategic management. Strategic Management Journal, 11: 171–196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Naughton, B. 1999. China's transition in economic perspective. In Goldman, M., & MacFarquhar, R. (Eds.), The Paradox of China's Post-Mao Reforms: 30–46. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.Google Scholar
North, D. C. 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oi, J. 1999. Rural China Takes Off: Institutional Foundations of Economic Reform. University of California Press, Berkeley, Calif.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oliver, C. 1992. The antecedents of deinstitutionalization. Organization Studies, 13: 563–588.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parris, K. 1999. The rise of private business interests. In Goldman, M. & MacFarquhar, R. (Eds.), The Paradox of China's Post-Mao Reforms: 262–282. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.Google Scholar
People's Daily Online. 2001. Ten Strong Private Enterprises Come to Forefront in 2001. August 28: np.Google Scholar
Plamenatz, J. 1963. Man and Society. Longmans, Green and Co., London.Google Scholar
Raby, G. 2001. The ‘neither this nor that economy’. In Garnaut, R. & Huang, Y. (Eds.), Growth Without Miracles: Readings on the Chinese Economy in the Era of Reform: 19–35. Oxford University Press, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, W. R. 1995. Institutions and Organizations. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, Calif.Google Scholar
Scott, W. R. 2002. Institutions and Organizations, 2nd edn. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, Calif.Google Scholar
Selznick, P. 1949. TVA and the Grass Roots. University of California Press, Berkeley, Calif.Google Scholar
Selznick, P. 1957. Leadership in Administration. Harper and Row, New York.Google Scholar
Selznick, P. 1992. The Moral Commonwealth: Social Theory and the Promise of Community. University of California Press, Berkeley, Calif.Google Scholar
Seo, M., & Creed, W. E. D. 2002. Institutional contradictions, praxis, and institutional change: a dialectical perspective. Academy of Management Review, 27: 222–247.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sewell, W. H. Jr. 1992. A theory of structure: duality, agency, and transformation. American Journal of Sociology, 98: 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solinger, D. 1984. Chinese Business under Socialism: the Politics of Domestic Commerce, 1949-1980. University of California Press, Berkeley, Calif.Google Scholar
Solinger, D. 1999. Contesting Citizenship in Urban China: Peasant Migrants, the State, and the Logic of the Market. University of California Press, Berkeley, Calif.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stark, D. 1996. Recombinant property in East European Capitalism. American Journal of Sociology, 101(4): 993–1027.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strauss, A. L., & Corbin, J. 1990. Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. Sage Publications, Newbury Park, Calif.Google Scholar
Tismaneanu, V. 2001. Civil society, pluralism, and the future of east and central Europe. Social Research, 68: 977–992.Google Scholar
Wallace, A. F. C. 1956. Revitalization movements. American Anthropologist, 58(2): 264–281.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, W. 2002. Fowl business of foul capitalism. China Daily, Business Weekly Supplement September 10, pp. 15-16.Google Scholar
Weber, M. 1958. trans. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.Google Scholar
Weick, K. E. 1969. The Social Psychology of Organizing. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass.Google Scholar
Whyte, M. K. 1999. The changing role of workers. In Goldman, M. & MacFarquhar, R. (Eds.), The Paradox of China's Post-Mao Reforms: 173–196. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.Google Scholar
Zhang, L. 2001. Contesting crime, order, and migrant space in Beijing. In Chen, N. N., Clark, C. D., Gottschang, S. Z. & Jeffery, L. (Eds.), China Urban: Ethnographies of Contemporary Culture: 201–222. Duke University Press, Durham, N.C.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhou, Z. 1987. Advance along the Road of Socialism with Chinese Manifestations. Report to the Thirteenth Party Congress of the Communist Party of China, October 25, 1987. Beijing Review, 30: 23–49.Google Scholar
Zweig, D. 1997. Rural people, the politicians, and power. China Journal, 38: 153–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar