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W. R. Scott (1987) declared the institutional paradigm to be in a contemplative phase of consolidation & careful reassessment. Urging more deliberative development of the paradigm's empirical applications, institutionalism's applicability to the imposition, authorization, inducement, acquisition, & incorporation of standardized financial reporting practices at 150 of the 1969 Fortune 200 companies 1962-1977 -- particularly in relation to financial statements & investment tax credits -- is demonstrated. How the results might be used to illuminate the relationship between institutionalist theory & two other theories that have made the same or similar predictions -- resource dependence theory & rational choice theory -- is also discussed. 6 Tables. M. Maguire

This study of the emergence of the film industry in the U.S. between 1893 and 1920 contributes to the growing literature linking legal environments and population dynamics. This was an era characterized by a shift to active anti-trust policy, which manifested itself in legal action to disband a trust that had dominated the industry, the Motion Pictures Patents Corporation (MPPC). We use archival data to show that mortality was reduced by trust membership and increased with the market share of the trust members. The effects of litigation are varied, with litigation filed by trust members enhancing mortality and litigation filed against trust members decreasing mortality. Analysis of coded headlines from media reports on the emerging industry shows that a shift in the view of the trust in the normative environment toward a more negative view was also associated with decreased mortality. Results also show that learning and the compensatory fitness enjoyed before anti-trust law was enforced prevented the MPPC members from recognizing changes in the marketplace; as a result, they were less likely to move from making short films to making increasingly popular feature-length films.

This analysis starts with models of the diffusion of due process protections in organizations that emphasize the role of the state, especially those from the institutional perspective. The case of equal pay for work of comparable value is used to develop propositions concerning important additions to current models of the expansion of due process protections in the workplace. First, we suggest that models of the nation-state should include an explicit recognition that the progressiveness of public policy varies over time. Second, we suggest that models of the nation-state should include explicit recognition of the fact that state authority is fragmented by the separation of powers and the partition of federal and local authority. Implications for future theory and empirical study that follow from these additions to current models are discussed.

Past research has established that large bureaucratic firms are less innovative than other firms. This reduced innovativeness is likely to be exacerbated when large firms engage in market control. In cultural industries, the effects can be especially pernicious, resulting in the failure to provide audiences with artistic quality or product diversity. We investigate the population dynamics of one cultural industry: the early American feature film industry. Specifically, we examine the hypothesis that concentration among large generalist firms will be associated with higher rates of foundings of specialist producers and specialist distributors. We also investigate the question of whether these specialists are more innovative. Specifically, we examine the hypothesis that specialists were more active than were generalists in the creation of new film genres in the early years of the American film industry. We find that increased concentration among generalists had a positive effect on foundings of specialist producers and specialist distributors, and that the specialists were more active in the creation of new film genres. Implications of these findings for future research, both on cultural industries and on the population dynamics of the founding of specialist firms, are discussed.

This article addresses theoretical and research frontiers for learning research, a second theme of Professor Argyris essay—the lead article in the "Crossroads" section. We outline three key theoretical questions for further work. We call for more systematic empirical learning research, suggesting that the paucity of such research may have resulted less from defensiveness than from the demanding requirements of doing crisp, systematic learning research. The need for scholarly empirical work is enhanced, we believe, by the growing popularity of organizational learning models among practitioners. Concurring with Professor Argyris' broad concern with enhancing research fruitfulness, we suggest ways to supplement traditional organizational research methods. In particular, we argue that it makes sense to cast wider nets for models of learning and adaptation, to sustain qualitative investigation, to use simulation techniques, and to maintain stronger—and perhaps even experimental—linkages between applied and theoretical research.

A critical challenge facing organizations is the dilemma of maintaining the capabilities of both efficiency and flexibility. Recent evolutionary perspectives have suggested that patterns of organizational stability and change can be characterized as punctuated equilibria (Tushman and Romanelli 1985). This paper argues that a learning model of organizational change can account for a pattern of punctuated equilibria and uses a learning framework to model the tension between organizational stability and change. A simulation methodology is used to create a population of organizations whose activities are governed by a process of experiential learning. A set of propositions is examined that predict how patterns of organizational change are affected by environmental conditions, levels of ambiguity, organizational size, search rules, and organizational performance. Implications of this learning model of convergence and reorientation for theory and research are discussed.