ORGANIZATIONAL FIELDSPAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE (Wooten and Hoffman 2008)Presented by Alejandra Marin

Organizational Theory Seminar

ORGANIZATIONAL FIELDS (OF)

Agenda for the discussion

1. Setting a common language:

1. Definition of organizational field

2. Evolution of the concept organizational fields

2. Questions relating OF and big questions in OT

Examples of OF

Healthcare field: physicians, medical groups, individuals, insurance companies, health plans.

Professional business services: accounting firms, law firms, management consultancy firms, clients, and regulators.

Fine arts museums: artists, galleries, consumers.

Definition of OF

Dimaggio and Powell (1983) define the organizational field as "those organizations that, in the aggregate, constitute a recognized area of institutional life; key suppliers, resource and product consumers, regulatory agencies, and other organizations that produce similar services or products"

P. 130: “the field is ‘a community of organizations that partakes of a common meaning system and whose participants interact more frequently and fatefully with one another than with actors outside the field’” (Scott, 1995)

P. 138 “relational spaces that provide an organization with the opportunity to involve itself with other actors” (Wooten, 2006)

What are the consequences of these definitions? What is the different between OF and industry (five forces model)

EVOLUTIONPast Present Future

Key research questions

• Why OF exist?

• How are OF created? Why do they change?•How different actors are able to interact in an OF?

• In what processes do organizations engage to develop OF? •The development of OF•Mechanisms that enable OF

Characteristics of OF

• Homogeneity• Isomorphic, mimetic, and regulatory forces•Static, unitary

• Change•Variation•Dynamic•Outcomes/effects from the participation of OF

• Outcomes and mediums•Mechanisms •Relational space

Major theoretical frameworks: resource dependency, ecology, institutional theory, social movement

Questions

1. p. 130: “the central construct of neo-institutional theory has been the OF”, WHY?

2. What is the relationship between an organization and an OF?

3. How can the study of OF shed lights on how companies take decisions?

How the study of OF inform these questions?

1. Why organizations survive?

2. Why and how organizations change?

3. Why some organizations are different?