We draw on the early history of the management consulting field to build theory about how institutional entrepreneurs legitimate new kinds of organizations in emerging fields. We study the professional form of management consulting organization, which came to dominate other alternatives. Pioneers of this organizational form seized opportunities arising from broad institutional change to discred...

BACKGROUND The effective and timely integration of the best available research evidence into healthcare practice has considerable potential to improve the quality of provided care. Knowledge translation (KT) approaches aim to develop, implement, and evaluate strategies to address the research-practice gap. However, most KT research has been directed toward implementation strategies that apply c...

BACKGROUND The current paper is based on two different approaches. One is the relational model of authority (Tyler & Lind, 1992), which addresses the effects of justice perceptions on the legitimacy of authorities and behavioural compliance. The other is Emler and Reicher's theory (1995, 2005), which explains the involvement of adolescents in delinquency through their relationship with the inst...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to use theories of institutional logics and institutional entrepreneurship to examine how and why macro-, meso-, and micro-level influences inter-relate in the implementation of integrated transitional care out of hospital in the English National Health Service. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted an ethnographic case study of a hospital and su...

Robert Merton's (1957) theories of anomie and strain are among the most widely examined theories of criminality. Messner and Rosenfeld's (1994) theory of institutional anomie built on Merton's conception of anomie, delineating how specific institutions lead to conditions of anomie and criminality. Cloward and Ohlin's (1961) theory of differential opportunity built upon Merton's strain theory, u...

Although much contemporary thought considers advanced information technologies as either determinants or enablers of radical organizational change, empirical studies have revealed inconsistent findings to support the deterministic logic implicit in such arguments. This paper reviews the contradictory empirical findings both across studies and within studies, and proposes the use of theories emp...

Boyer coined the term "scholarship of teaching", but the term has become ambiguous. In this paper, I nominate my own three categorizations of university computing educators: amateurs, students, and researchers. Amateurs may be excellent with students, but they do not routinely engage in dialog with other teachers about teaching. Students embrace the general theories of education, and write pape...

One of the most common early forecasts for commerce in the information age was the removal of wholesalers, distributors, and other intermediaries in a firm’s value chain. This "disintermediation” offered the prospect of greater efficiency in supply and marketing channels. More recent evidence suggests that such forecasts were shortsighted, and today new “cybermediaries” have lodged themselves i...

Non-profit organizations represent an important institutional avenue for delivering social services in contemporary Australia. Moreover, a voluminous theoretical literature exists on the voluntary sector in advanced countries. However, relatively little effort has thus far been expended on the empirical assessment of the main models of non-profit organizational behaviour. Using 2003 survey data...

When physicians' conflicts of interest arise from ties with drug firms, we should shift our focus to the pharmaceutical industry and improper dependencies that cause institutional corruption. This article analyzes eight forms of improper dependencies on pharma and proposes reforms.