Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-1-2008
Abstract
Using critical realist research, we sought to understand how nonprofit organizations blend deliberate and emergent strategizing to cope with neoinstitutional dilemmas posed by donors’ competing logics. To gain organizational legitimacy and access to resources, international nonprofits must conform to donors’ normative processes and practices which tend to be ineffectual. An international nonprofit operating in the highly complex international development field provided an ideal setting for investigating how routines blend and moderate deliberate and emergent strategies. Consistent with the view that strategic insights come from different organizational levels, we examined key patterns of interactions and routines between middle and top-level managers. Our findings indicate that international nonprofit managers do not just incorporate institutional norms and rules of donors, but also enact, select, and interpret such rules creating polymorphic (rather than isomorphic) routines for more dynamic strategizing.
Keywords
economic assistance, institutions, deliberate and emergent strategizing, organizational routines, polymorphism, isomorphism, managerial agency, top-level managers, middle-level managers
Rights
© The Author(s). Kelvin Smith Library provides access for non-commercial, personal, or research use only. All other use, including but not limited to commercial or scholarly reproductions, redistribution, publication or transmission, whether by electronic means or otherwise, without prior written permission is strictly prohibited.
Department/Center
Design & Innovation
Recommended Citation
Chua, Jaime, "Ostensive and Performative Routines and Strategies for Institutional Adaptation and Innovation" (2008). Student Scholarship. 323.
https://commons.case.edu/studentworks/323