Organizations and their effectiveness-2016/Mechanisms

Periodic table of processes within organized activities

Choosing Formal Architecture

• Weber — formalization
  • Michels —fluid democratic process become formal oligarchy?
• Simon — decomposing problem
• Coase — choosing market vs firm
  • Williamson — choosing regulation vs auction, choosing U-form vs M-form, ...
  • Hart — allocating control
  • McNollgast — designing contestation procedures
  • Mashaw — delegation
• Holmstrom — incentives
• White — agency vs. control

Other Determinants of Formal Architecture

• Tilly — wars make states
  • Skocopol — state capacity
• Stinchcombe — imprinting
• Freeman & Hannan — inertia
• Meyer & Rowan — symbolic adoption
• DiMaggio & Powell — normative influence (e.g., from professions)
• Tolbert & Zucker — mimetic diffusion
• Kalev — bias and formalization

Managing Informal Architecture

• Kaufman — socialization
• March - coalition building
• Ostrom — building collaboration
• Granovetter — reciprocation + trust
• Schein — leading culture and narrative
• Gibbons & Henderson — managing relational contracting
• Kellogg — negotiating institutional change

Power and Politics

• March, Cyert & March
  • Pfeffer & Salancik
• Blau, Emerson, Cook — exchange, dependence
• Schelling — strategy of conflict
• Merton — accumulative advantage
  • Podolny — status dynamics
• Hirschman — exit, voice, loyalty
• Carpenter — capture

Knowledge and Learning

• Simon, March & Simon
• Padgett & Powell — innovation & invention
• Nelson & Winter — routines
• Cohen & Levinthal — absorptive capacity
• Orlikowski — knowing in practice

• • James Mahoney — colonial legacies and development
• Soule — diffusion through social movements
• Edelman — symbolically structure / comply
• Goffman — managing impressions
• Zuckerman — categorize
• Dobbin — inventing equal opportunity

• Simon — satisficing (by individuals?)

• • Dara Cohen, Jeffrey Checkel — socialization

• • Brian Arthur—evolving technologies
• David — path dependence

More verbs

• Differentiate
• Incentivize
  • Burawoy — game
• March, Cohen, Levinthal — search
• Work (or provide effort)
• Vote

• Hirschman — voice
• Mashaw — delegate
• Kaufman — select individuals
• Carpenter — capture

Periodic table of elements

(Generic dimensions/elements of organizations that we might also find a way to include:)

• Boundaries
• Participation/joining costs/benefits
• Networks
• Incentives
• Relational contracts
• Turnover
• Hierarchy
• resources
• reputation
• constituencies/audiences
• credibility
• goldbricking / shirking
• Coalitions
• Elections
• Identity
• Ideology
• culture