Thirty years ago, new institutional theory challenged the then dominant functionalist explanations of organizational behavior by pointing to the role of meaning in the production and reproduction of organizational practices (Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Meyer & Scott, 1983). But new institutional theory was...

Over the past two decades, neoinstitutional theory has challenged the dominant functionalist explanations of organizations and has become one of the most creative and promising new paradigms in the social sciences

This article addresses the methodological question of how the researcher tackles the problem of only having access to empirical data through social interpretation processes (a second order social constructivism). It is argued that researchers can learn new aspects about an organization by...

Regulating discrimination: the paradox of a weak state -- Washington outlaws discrimination with a broad brush -- The end of Jim Crow: the personnel arsenal put to new purposes -- Washington means business: personnel experts fashion a system of compliance -- Fighting bias with bureaucracy -- The...

Economic sociology is a rapidly expanding field, applying sociology's core insight--that individuals behave according to scripts that are tied to social roles--to economic behavior. It places homo economicus (that tried-and-true fictive actor who is completely rational, acts only out of...