Location within the field and the institutional construction of manager's cognition

Abstract

We demonstrate that differential location in an institutional field leads to a differential impact of institutional pressures on the cognition of actors. We measure the adoption of a set of management techniques called "Manufacturing Best Practices". Our indicators of differential location in the field are whether respondents are public or private, large or small, subsidiaries or independent firms, and technologically sophisticated or unsophisticated. We argue that the first of each pair is more embedded in institutional discourse, as a consequence of differential location in the field, and therefore more likely to acquire institutionalized cognitions. Our indicator of cognition is the exten..