Editorial Board:
Beth Bechky, Randall Collins, Paula England, Mauro Guillén, Douglas Massey, and Marshall Meyer.
Published by the Penn Economic Sociology & Organizational Studies Group (PESOS).
For previous issues, please visit our website: http://pesos.wharton.upenn.edu
WE WELCOME YOUR
SUBMISSION FOR THE NEXT ISSUE!!!
Our editorial policy
appears at the end of the Newsletter.
To add your email
address to the distribution list or to stop delivery:
Go to http://pesos.wharton.upenn.edu/papers.htm
Please feel free to
forward this Newsletter to colleagues and friends.
Lee & Pennings
Mimicry and the Market: Adoption of
a New Organizational Form
Ocasio & Thornton
Markets with Hierarchies: The Effects of
Alternative Strategies and Structures on Organizational Survival
Silverman & Baum
Alliance-Based Competitive Dynamics
Tomaskovic-Devey & Skaggs
Sex Segregation, Labor Process Organization and Gender Earnings Inequality
Mimicry and the Market: Adoption of
a New Organizational Form
Kyungmook Lee
College of Business Administration
Seoul National University
mailto:kmlee@snu.ac.kr
Johannes M.
Pennings
The Wharton School
University of Pennsylvania
mailto:pennings@wharton.upenn.edu
Paper available from:
mailto:pennings@wharton.upenn.edu
Abstract
This
paper investigates institutional changes in the Dutch accounting industry
during the period 1925-1990. While all firms were composed of partners only before
1925, some among them began to partition professional accountants
into partners and associates (PA-form) and the PA-form became a dominant form.
We suggest that the institutional change was the result of an interaction between selection at the
population level and imitative adoption at the firm level. In the empirical
part, we focus on the effect of negative selection on imitation behavior, and
propose that strong market feedback favoring the PA-form enhanced its
legitimacy, which in turn fostered imitative adoptions. We also
hypothesized on the spillovers between firms: that the market feedback differentially affects the
adoption of PA-form on the basis of firm idiosyncratic filters such as network
embeddedness to adopters, percentage of adopters among similar-sized firms and
geographically proximate firms. The analysis produces results that are supportive
of our hypotheses. We conclude with a discussion of innovation diffusion in the
private sector as a legitimization process, where this process unfolds at both
the industry and firm levels of analysis.
Paper forthcoming in the Academy of
Management Journal’s Special Research Forum on Institutional Theory.
Markets with Hierarchies: The Effects of
Alternative Strategies and Structures on Organizational Survival
William Ocasio,
Kellogg Graduate School of Management
mailto:wocasio@nwu.edu
Patricia H. Thornton
Fuqua School of Management
Duke University
mailto:thornton@mail.duke.edu
Paper available from:
mailto:wocasio@nwu.edu
Abstract
We examine an unresolved question on past
research on corporate hierarchies-their effects on business unit survival.
Linking evolutionary perspectives with attention and resource dependence
theories, we studied the comparative survival rates of alternative
organizational strategies and forms for a random sample of 230 firms that competed
in the higher education publishing industry from 1958 to 1990. We posit that
the effects of
corporate hierarchies on business unit
selection are contingent on the specialization of attention at both the
business unit and corporate levels and on the autonomy of business units
relative to the corporate parent. We find that diversification at the
business-unit level increases exit, while corporate level diversification
decreases exit, consistent with our hypotheses. The study also finds that
vertical integration decreases exit relative to contractual relationships, and
that while mergers and acquisitions creates a temporary increase in exit rates,
the effects of acquisition are lower for firms inside the population relative
to outsider.
Alliance-Based Competitive Dynamics
Brian Silverman
Harvard Business School
Harvard University
mailto:bsilverman@hbs.edu
Joel A. C. Baum
Rotman School of Management
University of Toronto
mailto:baum@rotman.utoronto.ca
Paper available from:
mailto:bsilverman@hbs.edu
Abstract
Do rivals’ alliances increase or
decrease the competitive pressure experienced by a firm? Linking ecological and
economic research on organizations, we propose that the effects of rivals’
horizontal, upstream, and downstream alliances are determined by the degree to
which they 1) foreclose a focal firm’s alliance opportunities, and 2) increase
industry carrying capacity. We also hypothesize that firms can co-opt rivals’
alliances by partnering with well-linked rivals. An analysis of Canadian
biotechnology firms supports these predictions.
Sex Segregation, Labor Process Organization and Gender Earnings Inequality
Don Tomaskovic-Devey
Department of Sociology
North Carolina State University
mailto:don_tomaskovic-devey@ncsu.edu
Sheryl Skaggs
Department of Sociology
North Carolina State University
Paper available from:
mailto:don_tomaskovic-devey@ncsu.edu
Abstract
In this paper we revisit Tam’s (1997, 2000) potentially controversial finding that occupational sex composition does not influence wages. We approach this problem in two quite different ways. First, we point out a potential conceptual and methodological weakness in all research which focuses on national occupational, rather than local job and organizational processes. Second, we develop the implications of organizationally relevant social closure and gendered labor process theories for our understanding of wage determination models. The gendered devaluation and specialized human capital theories, which are stressed by Tam (1997, 2000) and his critics (England et al 2000), do not represent the entire story. We re-estimate Tam’s models using variables that are measured at the appropriate job, rather than occupational, level. These models look quite similar to those reported by Tam and also fail to support a simple gendered devaluation hypothesis. Additional models are constructed to examine social closure and gendered labor process explanations of the gender wage gap as non-recursive organizational processes. We find that the sex composition effect on wages exists, but it is indirect and relatively weak, operating largely through lower access to training time. On the other hand, jobs that require long periods of training or have supervisory authority are less likely to be typically female jobs. Jobs with high task complexity but low on-the-job training are more likely to be typically female.
A. Titles &
Abstracts of working papers by social scientists actively engaged in research
will be considered for inclusion in the Newsletter, provided they meet these
criteria:
B. The editors reserve the right not to include papers that fail to meet any of the above criteria.
C. The papers accepted for inclusion in the Working Paper Series are not refereed. Rather, the role of the editors is to make sure that the criteria under point A above are met.
D. Full-length papers should be submitted in Windows Microsoft Word format to: mailto:guillen@wharton.upenn.edu. Abstract submissions without the full-length paper will be returned to authors. Submissions in formats other than Windows Microsoft Word will be returned to authors.
E. Authors of papers accepted for inclusion in the Newsletter are requested to provide:
F. Authors must respond to all requests for papers promptly. Failure to make the full-length paper available will result in exclusion of the paper from the Working Paper Series.