Question 1:
Create your own Force Field analysis:
Apply a Force field analysis to a change that you are considering making in either your work or personal life (Such as exercising, new course of study etc.):

· Illustrate your force field analysis.
· What does the exercise tell you?
· How could that affect your decision and approach to the change?

Question 2:
Imagine if all food outlets on campus were going to increase the price of their products by 10%. Create a stakeholder analysis of this situation by:

· Identifying all stakeholders and describe their level of power and interest with respect to the change
· List and describe what each stakeholder can expect to lose or gain from this change
· Consider what steps you might take to encourage everyone (mainly those in opposition) to accept the change
question 3
DiMaggio, P.J., and Powell, W.W. 1983, The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review 48:174-60.

· Read the article and then describe how all three types of isomorphism discussed cause post-secondary educational institutions to resemble each other. (If it helps, you can limit your discussion to Canadian post-secondary institutions.)
· In one page or less (single spaced), explain how this article is relevant to pressures for change.
Case study to answer question No 3
In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber warned that the ra­
tionalist spirit ushered in by asceticism had achieved a momentum of its own and
that, under capitalism, the rationalist order had be­ come an iron cage in which humanity was,
save for the possibility of prophetic revival, impris­ oned “perhaps until the last ton of
fossilized coal is burnt” (Weber, 1952:181-82). In his essay on bureaucracy, Weber
returned to this theme, contending that bureaucracy, the ra­ tional spirit’s organizational
manifestation, was so efficient and powerful a means of controlling men and women that, once
established, the momentum of bureaucratization was irreversi­ ble (Weber, 1968).
The imagery of the iron cage has haunted students of society as the tempo of bureau­
cratization has quickened. But while bureau­ cracy has spread continuously in the eighty
years since Weber wrote, we suggest that the engine of organizational rationalization
has shifted. For Weber, bureaucratization resulted from three related causes: competition among

*Direct all correspondence to: Paul J. DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell, School of
Organization and Management, Yale University, Box IA, New Haven, CT 06520.
A preliminary version of this paper was presented by Powell at the American Sociological
Association meetings in Toronto, August 1981. We have bene­ fited considerably from
careful readings of earlier drafts by Dan Chambliss, Randall Collins, Lewis Coser,
Rebecca Friedkin, Connie Gersick, Albert Hunter, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Charles E.
Lindblom, John Meyer, David Morgan, Susan Olzak, Charles Perrow, Richard A. Peterson,
Arthur Stinchcombe, Blair Wheaton, and two anonymous ASR reviewers. The authors’ names
are listed in alphabetical order for convenience. This was a fully collaborative effort.
capitalist firms in the marketplace; COfi\petition among states, increasing rulers’ need to control
their staff and citizenry; and bourgeois de­ mands for equal protection under the law.
Of these three, the most important was the com­ petitive marketplace. “Today,” Weber
(1968:974) wrote:
it is primarily the capitalist market economy which demands that the official business of
administration be discharged precisely, un­ ambiguously, continuously, and with as much
speed as possible. Normally, the very large, modern capitalist enterprises are themselves
unequalled models of strict bu­ reaucratic organization.
We argue that the causes of bureaucratiza­ tion and rationalization have changed. The bu­
reaucratization of the corporation and the state have been achieved. Organizations are still be­
coming more homogeneous, and bureaucracy remains the common organizational form. Today,
however, structural change in organi­ zations seems less and less driven by competi­ tion or
by the need for efficiency. Instead, we will contend, bureaucratization and other forms
of organizational change occur as the result of processes that make organizations more
similar without necessarily making them more efficient. Bureaucratization and other forms
of homogenization emerge, we argue, out of the structuration (Giddens, 1979) of or­
ganizational fields. This process, in turn, is effected largely by the state and the
profes­ sions, which have become the great ration­ alizers of the second half of the
twentieth cen­ tury. For reasons that we will explain, highly structured organizational
fields provide a con­ text in which individual efforts to deal ration­ ally with uncertainty
and constraint often lead, inthe aggregate, to homogeneity in structure, culture, and output.
ch of modern organizational theory posits a diverse and differentiated world of organi­
zations and seeks to explain variation among organizations in structure and behavior
(e.g., Woodward, 1965; Child and Kieser, 1981). Hannan and Freeman begin a major
theoretical paper (1977) with the question, “Why are there so many kinds of organizations?” Even
our in­ vestigatory technologies (for example, those based on least-squares techniques) are
geared towards explaining variation rather than its ab­ sence.
We ask, instead, wpy there is such startling homogeneity of organizational forms and prac­ tices;
and we seek to explain homogeneity, not variation. In the initial stages of their life cycle,
organizational fields display considerable di­ versity in approach and form. Once a field be­
comes well established, however, there is an inexorable push towards homogenization.
Coser, Kadushin, and Powell (1982) describe the evolution of American college textbook
publishing from a period of initial diversity to the current hegemony of o_nly two models, the
large bureaucratic generalist and the small spe­ cialist. Rothman (1980) describes the winnow­ ing
of several competing models of legal edu­ cation into two dominant approaches. Starr (1980)
provides evidence of mimicry in the de­ velopment of the hospital field; Tyack (1974) and
Katz (1975) show a similar process in pub­ lic schools; Barnouw (1966-68) describes the
developm,ent of dominant forms in the radio industry; and DiMaggio (1981) depicts
the emergence of dominant organizational models for the provision of high culture in the
late nineteenth century.
What we see in each of these cases is the emergence and structuration of an organi­
zational field as a result of the activities of a diverse set of organizations; and, second,
the homogenization of these organizations, and of

AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
prehends the importance of both connected­ ness (see Laumann et al., 1978) and structural
equivalence (White et al., 1976).1
The structure of an organizational field can­ not be determined a priori but must be defined on
the basis of empirical investigation. Fields only exist to the extent that they are
institu­ tionally defined. The process of institutional definition, or “structuration,”
consists of four parts: an increase in the extent of interaction amtmg organizations in the
field; the emergence of sharply defined interorgani­ zational structures of domination
and patterns of coalition; an increase in the information load with which organizations in a
field must con­ tend; and the development of a mutual aware­ ness among participants in a set
of organi­ zations that they are involved in a common enterprise (DiMaggio, 1982).
Once disparate organizations in the same line of business are structured into an actual
field (as we shall argue, by competition, the state, or the professions), powerful
forces emerge that lead them to become more similar to one another. Organizations may
change their goals or develop new practices, and new organizations enter the field. But, in the
long run, organizational actors making rational de­ cisions construct around themselves an
envi­ ronment that constrains their ability to change further in later years. Early adopters of
organi­ zational innovations are commonly driven by a desire to improve performance. But new prac­
tices can become, in Selznick’s words (1957: 17), “infused with value beyond the tech­
nical requirements of the task at hand.” As an innovation spreads, a threshold is reached be­
yond which adoption provides legitimacy rather than improves performance (Meyer and Rowan,
1977). Strategies that are rational for individual organizations may not be rational if
adopted by large numbers. Yet the very fact that they are normatively sanctioned increases
the likelihood of their adoption. Thus organi­ zations may try to change constantly; but, after
new entrants as well, once the field is estab­lished.
By organizational field,_we mean those orga­ nizations that, in the aggregate, constitute a
recognized area of institutional life: key suppliers, resource and product consumers,
regulatory agencies, .and other organizations that produce similar services or products. The
virtue of this unit of analysis is that it directs our attention not simply to competing firms,
as does the population approach of Hannan and Freeman (1977), or to networks of
organi­ zations that actually interact, as does the inter­ organizational network approach of
Laumann et al. (1978), but to the totality of relevant actors. In doing this, the
field idea com-
1 By connectedness we mean the existence of transactions tying organizations to one
another: such transactions might include formal contractual re­ lationships, participation
of personnel in common enterprises such as professional associations, labor unions, or
boards of directors, or informal organizational-leve.I ties like personnel flows. A set of
organizations that are strongly connected to one another and only weakly connected to other
organi­ zations constitutes a clique. By structural equiva­ lence we refer to similarity of
position in a network structure: for example, two organizations are structurally
equivalent if they have ties of the same kind to the same set of other organizations, even if they
themselves are not connected: here the key structure is the role or block.

a certain point in the structuration of an orga­ nizational field, the aggregate effect of
individ­ ual change is to lessen the extent of diversity within the field.2 Organizations in a
structured field, to paraphrase Schelling (1978:14), re­ spond to an environment that
consists of other organizations responding to their environment, which consists of organizations
responding to an environment of organizations’ responses.
Zucker and Tolbert’s (1981) work on the adoption of civil-service reform in the United
States illustrates this process. Early adoption of civil-service reforms was related to
internal governmental needs, and strongly predicted by such city characteristics as the size
of immi­ grant population, political reform movements, socioeconomic composition, and
city size. Later adoption, however, is not predicted by city characteristics, but is
related to institu­ tional definitions of the legitimate structural form for municipal
administ ration.3 Marshall Meyer’s (1981) study of the bureaucratization of urban fiscal
agencies has yielded similar findings: strong relationships between city
characteristics and organizational attributes at the turn of the century, null relationships
in recent years. Carroll and Delacroix’s (1982) findings on the birth and death rates of
news­ papers support the view that selection acts with great force only in the early
years of an industry’s existence.4 Freeman (1982:14) sug-

2 By m:ganizational change, we refer to change in formal structure, organizational culture,
and goals, program, or mission. Organizational change varies in its responsiveness to technical
conditions. In this paper we are most interested in processes that affect organizations in a
given field: in most cases these organizations employ similar technical bases; thus we
do not attempt to partial out the relative im­ portance of technically functional versus
other forms of organizational change. While we shall cite many examples of organizational
change as we go along, our purpose here is to identify a widespread class of organizational
processes relevant to a broad range of substantive problems, rather than to identify deter­
ministically the causes of specific organizational ar­ rangements.
3 Knoke (1982), in a careful event-history analysis
of the spread of municipal reform, refutes the con­ ventional explanations of culture clash
or hierarchal diffusion and finds but modest support for modern­ ization theory. His major
finding is that regional dif­ ferences in municipal reform adoption arise not from social
compositional differences, “but from some type of imitation or contagion effects as
represented by the level of neighboring regional cities previously adopting reform government”
(p. 1337).
4 A wide range of factors-interorganizational
commitments, elite sponsorship, and government support in form of open-ended contracts,
subsidy, tariff barriers and import quotas, or favorable tax laws-reduce selection
pressures even in competi-

gests that older, larger organizations reach a point where they can dominate their
envi­ ronments rather than adjust to them.
The concept that best captures the process of homogenization is isomorphism. In Haw­ ley’s
(1968) description, isomorphism is a con­ straining process that forces one unit in a
population to resemble other units that face the same set of environmental conditions. At the
population level, such an approach suggests that organizational characteristics are modified
in the direction of increasing compatability with environmental characteristics; the
number of organizations in a population is a function of environmental carrying
capacity; and the diversity of organizational forms is isomorphic to environmental
diversity. Han­ nan and Freeman (1977) have significantly ex­ tended Hawley’s ideas. They
argue that isomorphism can result because nonoptimal forms are selected out of a
population of orga­ nizations or because organizational decision makers learn appropriate
responses and adjust their behavior accordingly. Hannan and Freeman’s focus is almost
solely on the first process: selection.5
Following Meyer (1979) and Fennell (1980), we maintain that there are two types of
isomorphism: competitive and institutional. Hannan and Freeman’s classic paper (1977),
and much of their recent work, deals with competitive isomorphism, assuming a system

tive organizational fields. An expanding or a stable, protected market can also mitigate the
forces of selection.
5 In contrast to Hannan and Freeman, we empha­
size adaptation, but we are not suggesting that man­ agers’ actions are necessarily strategic
in a long­ range sense. Indeed, two of the three forms of isomorphism described
below-mimetic and normative-involve managerial behaviors at the level of
taken-for-granted assumptions rather than consciously strategic choices. In general, we
ques­ tion the utility of arguments about the motivations of actors that suggest a polarity
between the rational and the nonrational. Goal-oriented behavior may be reflexive or
prerational in the sense that it reflects deeply embedded predispositions, scripts,
schema, or classifications; and behavior oriented to a goal may be reinforced without
contributing to the ac­ complishment of that goal. While isomorphic change may often be mediated
by the desires of managers to increase the effectiveness of their organizations, we are more
concerned with the menu of possible op­ tions that managers consider than with their motives
for choosing particular alternatives. In other words, we freely concede that actors’
understandings of their own behaviors are interpretable in rational terms. The theory of
isomorphism addresses not the psychological states of actors but the structural de­ terminants
of the range of choices that actors per­ ceive as rational or prudent.
rationality that emphasizes market competi­ tion, niche change, and fitness measures. Such a
view, we suggest, is most relevant for those fields in which free and open
competition exists. It explains parts of the process of bu­ reaucratization that Weber
observed, and may apply to early adoption of innovation, but it does not present a fully
adequate picture of the modern world of organizations. For this pur­ pose it must be
supplemented by an institu­ tional view of isomorphism of the sort intro­ duced by
Kanter (1972:152-54) in her discus­ sion of the forces pressing communes toward accommodation
with the outside world. As Al­ drich (1979:265) has argued, “the major factors that organizations
must take into account are other organizations.” Organizations compete not just for
resources and customers, but for political power and institutional legitimacy, for social as
well as economic fitness. 6 The con­ cept of institutional isomorphism is a useful tool
for understanding the politics and cere­ mony that pervade much modern organi­
zational life.

Three Mechanisms of Institutional Isomorphic Change
We identify three mechanisms through which institutional isomorphic change occurs, each
with its own antecedents: 1) coercive isomorphism that stems from political influ­
ence and the problem of legitimacy; 2) mimetic isomorphism resulting from standard re­
sponses to uncertainty; and 3) normative isomorphism, associated with professionaliza­
tion. This typology is an analytic one: the types are not always empirically distinct. For exam­
ple, external actors may induce an organization to conform to its peers by requiring it to per­
form a particular task and specifying the pro­ fession responsible for its performance.
Or mimetic change may reflect environmentally constructed uncertainties.7 Yet, while
the three types intermingle in empirical setting, they tend to derive from different
conditions and may lead to different outcomes.
Coercive isomorphism. Coercive iso­ morphism results from both formal and in­ formal
pressures exerted on organizations by other organizations upon which they are de­ pendent
and by cultural expectations in the society within which organizations function. Such
pressures may be felt as force, as persua-

6 Carroll and Delacroix (1982) clearly recognize this and include political and
institutional legitimacy as a major resource. Aldrich (1979) has argued that the population
perspective must attend to historical trends and changes in legal and political institutions.
7 This point was suggested by John Meyer.

sion, or as invitations to join in collusion. In some circumstances, organizational change
is a direct response to government mandate: man­ ufacturers adopt new pollution control
technologies to conform to environmental reg­ ulations; nonprofits maintain accoul)ts,
and hire accountants, in order to meet tax law re­ quirements; and organizations employ
affirmative-action officers to fend off allega­ tions of discrimination. Schools
mainstream special students and hire special education teachers, cultivate PI’As and
administrators who get along with them, and promulgate cur­ ricula that conform with state
standards (Meyer et al., 1981). The fact that these changes may be largely
ceremonial does not mean that they are inconsequential. As Ritti and Goldner (1979) have
argued, staff become involved in advocacy for their functions that can alter power
relations within organizations over the long run.
The existence of a common legal environ­ ment affects many aspects of an organization’s
behavior and structure. Weber pointed out the profound impact of a complex, rationalized
system of contract law that requires the neces­ sary organizational controls to honor
legal commitments. Other legal and technical re­ quirements of the state-the vicissitudes of
the budget cycle, the ubiquity of certain fiscal years, annual reports, and financial
reporting requirements that ensure eligibility for the re­ ceipt of federal contracts or
funds-also shape organizations in similar ways. Pfeffer and Salancik (1978:188-224)
have discussed how organizations faced with unmanageable inter­ dependence seek to use the
greater power of the larger social system and its government to eliminate difficulties or
provide for needs. They observe that politically constructed envi­ ronments have two
characteristic features: political decisionmakers often do not experi­ ence directly the
consequences of their ac­ tions; and political decisions are applied across the board to
entire classes of organizations, thus making such decisions less adaptive and less
flexible.
Meyer and Rowan (1977) have argued per­ suasively that as rationalized states and other
large rational organizations expand their domi­ nance over more arenas of social life, organi­
zational structures increasingly come to reflect rules institutionalized and legitimated by
and within the state (also see Meyer and Hannan, 1979). As a result, organizations are
increas­ ingly homogeneous within given domains and increasingly organized around rituals
of con­ formity to wider institutions. At the same time, organizations are decreasingly
structurally determined by the constraints posed by techni­ cal activities, and decreasingly
held together by output controls. Under such circumstances, organizations employ ritualized controls of
credentials and group solidarity.
Direct imposition of standard operating pro­ cedures and legitimated rules and structures
also occurs outside the governmental arena. Michael Sedlak (1981) has documented the
ways that United Charities in the 1930s altered and homogenized the structures, methods, and
philosophies of the social service agencies that depended upon them for support. As conglom­ erate
corporations increase in size and scope, standard performance criteria are not neces­
sarily imposed on subsidiaries, but it is com­ mon for subsidiaries to be subject to
stan­ dardized reporting mechanisms (Coser et al., 1982). Subsidiaries must adopt
accounting practices, performance evaluations, and bud­ getary plans that are
compatible with the policies of the parent corporation. A variety of service infrastructures,
often provided by monopolistic firms-for example, telecom­ munications and
transportation—exert com­ mon pressures over the organizations that use them. Thus, the
expansion of the central state, the centralization of capital, and the coordina­ tion of
philanthropy all support the homogeni­ zation of organizational models through direct authority
relationships.
We have so far referred only to the direct and explicit imposition of organizational mod­
els on dependent organizations. Coercive isomorphism, however, may be more subtle and
less explicit than these examples suggest. Milofsky (1981) has described the ways in
which neighborhood organizatioins in urban communities, many of which are committed to
participatory democracy, are driven to devel­ oping organizational hierarchies in order to
gain support from more hierarchically orga­ nized donor organizations. Similarly, Swirlier
(1979) describes the tensions created in the free schools she studied by the need to have
a ‘”principal” to negotiate with the district sup­ erintendent and to represent the school to
out­ side agencies. In general, the need to lodge responsibility and managerial authority at
least ceremonially in a formally defined role in order to interact with hierarchical
organizations is a constant obstacle to the maintenance of egalitarian or collectivist
organizational forms (Kanter, 1972; Rothschild-Whitt, 1979).
Mimetic processes. Not all institutional isomorphism, however, derives from coercive
authority. Uncertainty is also a powerful force that encourages imitation. When organi­
zational technologies are poorly understood (March and Olsen, 1976), when goals are am­
biguous, or when the environment creates symbolic uncertainty, organizations may
model themselves on other organizations. The

151
advantages of mimetic behavior in the econ­ omy of human action are considerable; when
an organization faces a problem with ambigu­ ous causes or unclear solutions, problemistic
search may yield a viable solution with little expense (Cyert and March, 1963).
Modeling, as we ,use the term, is a response to uncertainty. The modeled organization may be
unaware of the modeling or may have no desire to be copied; it merely serves as a con­
venient source of practices that the borrowing organization may use. Models may be diffused
unintentionally, indirectly through employee transfer or turnover, or explicitly by
organi­ zations such as consulting firms or industry trade associations. Even innovation can
be ac­ counted for by organizational modeling. As Alchian (1950) has observed:
While there certainly are those who con­ sciously innovate, there are those who, in
their imperfect attempts to imitate others, unconsciously innovate by unwittingly ac­
quiring some unexpected or unsought unique attributes which under the prevailing cir­
cumstances prove partly responsible for the success. Others, in tum, will attempt to copy the
uniqueness, and the innovation-imitation process continues.
One of the most dramatic instances of mod­ eling was the effort of Japan’s modernizers in the
late nineteenth century to model new gov­ ernmental initiatives on apparently successful western
·prototypes. Thus, the imperial gov­ ernment sent its officers to study the courts, Army,
and police in France, the Navy and postal system in Great Britain, and banking and
art education in the United States (see Westney, forthcoming). American corpo­ rations
are now returning the compliment by implementing (their perceptions of) Japanese models to
cope with thorny productivity and personnel problems in their own firms. The rapid
proliferation of quality circles and quality–0f-work-life issues in American firms is,
at least in part, an attempt to model Japanese and European successes. These de­
velopments also have a ritual aspect; com­ panies adopt these “innovations” to enhance
their legitimacy, to demonstrate they are at least trying to improve working
conditions. More generally, the wider the population of personnel employed by, or
customers served by, an organization, the stronger the pressure felt by the organization to
provide the pro­ grams and services offered by other organi­ zations. Thus, either a
skilled labor force or a broad customer base may encourage mimetic isomorphism.
Much homogeneity in organizational structures stems from the fact that despite considerable search for diversity there is relatively little variation to be selected from. New
orga­ nizations are modeled upon old ones through­ out the economy, and managers actively seek
models upon which to build (Kimberly, 1980). Thus, in the arts one can find textbooks on how to
organize a community arts council or how to start a symphony women’s guild. Large orga­
nizations choose from a relatively small set of major consulting firms, which, like
Johnny Appleseeds, spread a few organizational mod­ els throughout the land. Such models are pow­
erful because structural changes are observa­ ble, whereas changes in policy and strategy are
less easily noticed. With the advice of a major consulting firm, a large metropolitan
public television station switched from a functional design to a multidivisional structure.
The sta­ tions’ executives were skeptical that the new structure was more efficient; in
fact, some ser­ vices were now duplicated across divisions. But they were convinced that
the new design would carry a powerful message to the for­ profit firms with whom the
station regularly dealt. These firms, whether in the role of cor­ porate underwriters or as
potential partners in joint ventures, would view the reorganization as a sign that “the
sleepy nonprofit station was becoming more business-minded” (Powell, forthcoming). The
history of management re­ form in American government agencies, which are noted for
their goal ambiguity, is almost a textbook case of isomorphic model­ ing, from the PPPB of
the McNamara era to the zero-based budgeting of the Carter administra­ tion.
Organizations tend to model themselves after similar organizations in their field
that they perceive to be more legitimate or suc­ cessful. The ubiquity of certain
kinds of structural arrangements can more likely be credited to the universality
of mimetic pro­ cesses than to any concrete evidence that the adopted models enhance
efficiency. John Meyer (1981) contends that it is easy to predict the organization of a newly
emerging nation’s administration without knowing anything about the nation itself, since
“peripheral na­ tions are far more isomorphic-in administra­ tive form and economic
pattern-than any theory of the world system of economic di­ vision of labor would lead
one to expect.”
Normative pressures. A third source of isomorphic organizational change is normative and
stems primarily from professionalization. Following Larson (1977) and Collins (1979), we
interpret professionalization as the collective struggle of members of an occupation to define
the conditions and methods of their work, to control “the production of producers” (Lar­
son, 1977:49-52), and to establish a cognitive base and legitimation for their occupational autonomy. As Larson points out, the profes­
sional project is rarely achieved with complete success. Professionals must compromise with
nonprofessional clients, bosses, or regulators. The major recent growth in the professions has
been among organizational professionals, par­ ticularly managers and specialized staff oflarge
organizations. The increased professionaliza­ tion of workers whose futures are inextricably
bound up with the fortunes of the organizations that employ them has rendered obsolescent (if not
obsolete) the dichotomy between organi­ zational commitment and professional alle­
giance that characterized traditional profes­ sionals in earlier organizations (Hall,
1968). Professions are subject to the same coercive and mimetic pressures as are
organizations. Moreover, while various kinds of professionals within an organization may differ
from one an­ other, they exhibit much similarity to their professional counterparts in
other organi­ zations. In addition, in many cases, profes­ sional power is as much
assigned by the state as it is created by the activities of the profes­ sions.
Two aspects of professionalization are im­ portant sources of isomorphism. One is the
resting of formal education and of legitimation in a cognitive base produced by university spe­
cialists; the second is the growth and elabora­ tion of professional networks that span organi­
zations and across which new models diffuse rapidly. Universities and professional
training institutions are important centers for the de­ velopment of organizational
norms among professional managers and their staff. Profes­ sional and trace associations
are another vehi­ cle for the definition and promulgation of nor­ mative rules about
organizational and profes­ sional behavior. Such mechanisms create a pool of almost
interchangeable individuals who occupy similar positions across a range of or­ ganizations and
possess a similarity of orienta­ tion and disposition that may override varia­ tions in
tradition and control that might other­ wise shape organizational behavior (Perrow, 1974).
One important mechanism for encouraging normative isomorphism is the filtering of per­
sonnel. Within many organizational fields fil­ tering occurs through the hiring of
individuals from firms within the same industry; through the recruitment of fast-track
staff from a nar­ row range of training institutions; through common promotion
practices, such as always hiring top executives from financial or legal departments; and
from skill-level requirements for particular jobs. Many professional career tracks are so
closely guarded, both at the entry level and throughout the career path that individuals who make it to the top are virtually indistinguishable. March and
March (1977) found that individuals who attained the position of school superintendent in
Wisconsin were so alike in background and orientation as to make further career advancement
random and unpredictable. Hirsch and Whisler (1982) find a similar absence of variation among
For­ tune 500 board members. In addition, individu­ als in an organizational field undergo
antici­ patory so(!ialization to common expectations about their personal behavior,
appropriate style of dress, organizational vocabularies (Cicourel, 1970; Williamson,
1975) and stan­ dard methods of speaking, joking, or address­ ing others (Ouchi, 1980).
Particularly in indus­ tries with a service or financial orientation (Collins, 1979,
argues that the importance of credentials is strongest in these areas), the fil­ tering of
personnel approaches what Kanter (1977) refers to as the “homosexual reproduc­ tion of
management.” To the extent managers and key staff are drawn from the same univer­ sities and
filtered on a common set of attri­ butes, they will tend to view problems in a simi­ lar
fashion, see the same policies, procedures and structures as normatively sanctioned and
legitimated, and approach decisions in much the same way.
Entrants to professional career tracks who somehow escape the filtering process-for
example, Jewish naval officers, woman stockbrokers, or Black insurance
executives-are likely to be subjected to per­ vasive on-the-job socialization. To the extent
that organizations in a field differ and primary socialization occurs on the job,
socialization could reinforce, not erode, differences among organizations. But when
organizations in a field are similar and occupational socialization is carried out in trade
association workshops, in-service educational programs, consultant ar­ rangements,
employer-professional school networks, and in the pages of trade magazines, socialization acts
as an isomorphic force.
The professionalization of management tends to proceed in tandem with the structura­ tion
of organizational fields. The exchange of information among professionals helps con­
tribute to a commonly recognized hierarchy of status, of center and periphery, that becomes a
matrix for information flows and personnel movement across organizations. This status
ordering occurs through both formal and in­ formal means. The designation of a few large
firms in an industry as key bargaining agents in union-management negotiations may make these
central firms pivotal in other respects as well. Government recognition of key firms or
organizations through the grant or contract process may give these organizations
legiti-

macy and visibility and lead competing firms to copy aspects of their structure or operating
procedures in hope of obtaining similar re­ wards. Professional and trade
associations provide other arenas in which center organiza­ tions are recognized and their
personnel given positions of substantive or ceremonial influ­ ence. Managers in highly visible
organizations may in turn have their stature reinforced by representation on the boards
of other organi­ zations, participation in industry-wide or inter-industry councils,
and consultation by agencies of government (Useem, 1979). In the nonprofit sector, where
legal barriers to collu­ sion do not exist, structuration may proceed even more rapidly.
Thus executive producers or artistic directors of leading theatres head trade or
professional association committees, sit on government and foundation grant-award panels, or
consult as government- or foundation-financed management advisors to smaller theatres,
or sit on smaller organi­ zations’ boards, even as their stature is rein­ forced and
enlarged by the grants their theatres receive from government, corporate, and foundation
funding sources (DiMaggio, 1982). Such central organizations ,serve as both active and
passive models; their policies and structures will be copied throughout their fields.
Their centrality is reinforced as up­ wardly mobile managers and staff seek to se­
cure positions in these central organizations in order to further their own careers.
Aspiring managers may undergo anticipatory socializa­ tion into the norms and mores of the
organi­ zations they hope to join. Career paths may also involve movement from entry
positions in the center organizations to middle­ management positions in peripheral
organi­ zations. Personnel flows within an orgar,i­ zational field are further
encouraged by structural homogenization, for example the existence of common career
titles and paths (such as assistant, associate, and full profes­ sor) with meanings that
are commonly under­
stood.
It is important to note that each of the in­ stitutional isomorphic processes can be
ex­ pected to proceed in the absence of evidence that they increase internal organizational
effi­ ciency. To the extent that organizational effec­ tiveness is enhanced, the reason will
often be that organizations are rewarded for being similar to other organizations in
their fields. This similarity can make it easier for organi­ zations to transact with
other organizations, to attract career-minded staff, to be acknowl­ edged as legitimate
and reputable, and to fit into administrative categories that define eligi­ bility for public
and private grants and con­ tracts. None of this, however, insures that

154
conformist organizations do what they do more efficiently than do their more deviant peers.
Pressures for competitive efficiency are also mitigated in many fields because the number of
organizations is limited and there are strong fiscal and legal barriers to entry and exit.
Lee (1971:51) maintains this is why hospital ad­ ministrators are less concerned with
the effi­ cient use of resources and more concerned with status competition and parity in
prestige. Fennell (1980) notes that hospitals are a poor market system because patients
lack the needed know ledge of potential exchange partners and prices. She argues that
physicians and hospital administrators are the actual con­ sumers. Competition among hospitals is
based on “attracting physicians, who, in turn, bring their patients to the hospital.” Fennell
(p. 505) concludes that:
Hospitals operate according to a norm of social legitimation that frequently conflicts
with market considerations of efficiency and system rationality. Apparently, hospitals can increase
their range of services not because there is an actual need for a particular service or facility
within the patient population, but because they will be defined as fit only if they can
offer everything other hospitals in the area offer.
These results suggest a more general pattern. Organizational fields that include a large pro­
fessionally trained labor force will be driven primarily by status competition.
Organi­ zational prestige and resources are key ele­ ments in attracting professionals. This
process encourages homogenization as organizations seek to ensure that they can provide the
same benefits and services as their competitors.

PREDICTORS OF ISOMORPHIC CHANGE
It follows from our discussion of the mech­ anism by which isomorphic change occurs that we
should be able to predict empirically which organizational fields will be most homogeneous in
structure, process, and behavior. While an empirical test of such predictions is beyond the
scope of this paper, the ultimate value of our perspective will lie in its predictive
utility. The hypotheses discussed below are not meant to exhaust the universe of predictors,
but merely to suggest several hypotheses that may be pur­ sued using data on the characteristics
of orga­ nizations in a field, either cross-sectionally or, preferably, over time. The hypotheses
are im­ plicitly governed by ceteris paribus assump­ tions, particularly with regard to size,
technol­ ogy, and centralization of external. resources.
A. Organizational-level predictors. There is a variability in the extent to and rate at which organizations in a field change to become
more like their peers. Some organizations respond to external pressures quickly; others change
only after a long period of resistance. The first two hypotheses derive from our discussion of
coer­ cive isomorphism and constraint.
Hypothesis A-1: The greater the dependence of an organization on another organization, the
more similar it will become to that organi­ zation in structure, climate, and behavioral
focus. Following Thompson (1957) and Pfeffer and Salancik (1978), this proposition recog­
nizes the greater ability of organizations to re­ sist the demands of organizations on whom
they are not dependent. A position of depen­ dence leads to isomorphic change. Coercive
pressures are built into exchange relationships. As Williamson (1979) has shown, exchanges are
characterized by transaction-specific in­ vestments in both knowledge and equipment. Once
an organization chooses a specific supplier or distributor for particular parts or
services, the supplier or distributor develops expertise in the performance of the task as
well as idiosyncratic knowledge about the exchange relationship. The organization comes to rely on
the supplier or distributor and such transaction-specific investments give the
supplier or distributor considerable advantages in any subsequent competition with other
suppliers or distributors.
Hypothesis A-2: The greater the centraliza­ tion of organization A’s resource supply, the
greater the extent to which organization A will change isomorphically to resemble the organi­
zations on which it depends for resources. As Thompson (1967) notes, organizations that de­
pend on the same sources for funding, person­ nel, and legitimacy will be more subject to the
whims of resource suppliers than will organi­ zations that can play one source of support off
against another. In cases where alternative sources are either not readily available
or re­ quire effort to locate, the stronger party to the transaction can coerce the weaker
party to adopt its practices in order to accommodate the stronger party’s needs (see Powell,
1983).
The third and fourth hypotheses derive from our discussion of mimetic isomorphism, mod­ eling,
and uncertainty.
Hypothesis A-3: The more uncertain the re­ lationship between means and ends the greater the
extent to which an organization will model itself after organizations it perceives to be suc­
cessful. The mimetic thought process involved in the search for models is characteristic of
change in organizations in which key technologies are only poorly understood
(March and Cohen, 1974). Here our prediction diverges somewhat from Meyer and Rowan
(1977) who argue, as we do, that organizations which lack well-defined technologies will im­
port institutionalized rules and practices. Meyer and Rowan posit a loose coupling
be­ tween legitimated external practices and inter­ nal organizational behavior. From an
ecologist’s point of view, loosely coupled or­ ganizations are more likely to vary
internally. In contrast, we expect substantive internal changes in tandem with more
ceremonial prac­ tices, thus greater homogeneity and less varia­ tion and change. Internal
consistency of this sort is an important means of interorgani­ zational coordination.
It also increases organi­ zational stability.
Hypothesis A-4: The more ambiguous the goals of an organization, the greater the extent to
which the organization will model itself after organizations that it perceives to be
suc­ cessful. There are two reasons for this. First, organizations with ambiguous or
disputed goals are likely to be highly dependent upon appearances for legitimacy. Such
organizations may find it to their advantage to meet the ex­ pectations of important
constituencies about how they should be designed and run. In con­ trast to our view,
ecologists would argue that organizations that copy other organizations usually have no
competitive advantage. We contend that, in most situations, reliance on established,
legitimated procedures enhances organizational legitimacy and survival charac­ teristics. A
second reason for modeling be­ havior is found in situations where conflict over
organizational goals is repressed in the interest of harmony; thus participants find it
easier to mimic other organizations than to make decisions on the basis of
systematic analyses of goals since such analyses would prove painful or disruptive.
The fifth and sixth hypotheses are based on our discussion of normative processes found in
professional organizations.
Hypothesis A-5: The greater the reliance on academic credentials in choosing managerial and
staff personnel, the greater the extent to which an organization will become like other
organizations in its field. Applicants with aca­ demic credentials have already undergone
a socialization process in university programs, and are thus more likely than others to
have internalized reigning norms and dominant or­ ganizational models.
Hypothesis A-5: The greater the participa­ tion of organizational managers in trade and
professional associations, the more likely the organization will be, or will become,
like other organizations in its.field. This hypothesis is parallel to the institutional view
that the more elaborate the relational networks among organizations and their members, the greater the collective organization of the environment (Meyer and Rowan, 1977).
B. Field-level predictors. The following six hypotheses describe the expected effects of
several characteristics of organizational fields on the extent of isomorphism in a
particular field. Since the effect of institutional isomorphism is homogenization, the
best indi­ cator of isomorphic change is a decrease in variation and diversity, which
could be mea­ sured by lower standard deviations of the values of selected indicators
in a set of organi­ zations. The key indicators would vary with the nature of the field and
the interests of the investigator. In all cases, however, field-level measures are expected to
affect organizations in a field regardless of each organization’s scores on related
organizational-level mea­ sures.
Hypothesis B-1: The greater the extent to which an organizational field is dependent
upon a single ( or several similar) source of support for vital resources, the higher the
level of isomorphism. The centralization of re­ sources within a field both
directly causes homogenization by placing organizations under similar pressures from resource
suppliers, and interacts with uncertainty and goal ambiguity to increase their impact.
This hypothesis is congruent with the ecologists’ argument that the number of
organizational forms is deter­ mined by the distribution of resources in the environment
and the terms on which resources are available.
Hypothesis B-2: The greater the extent to which the organizations in afield transact with
agencies of the state, the greater the extent of isomorphism in the field as a whole. This
fol­ lows not just from the previous hypothesis, but from two elements of
state/private-sector transactions: their rule-boundedness and for­ mal rationality, and the
emphasis of govern­ ment actors on institutional rules. Moreover, the federal government
routinely designates industry standards for an entire field which require adoption by all
competing firms. John Meyer (1979) argues convincingly that the as­ pects of an organization
which are affected by state transactions differ to the extent that state participation is unitary
or fragmented among several public agencies.
The third and fourth hypotheses follow from our discussion of isomorphic change resulting from
uncertainty and modeling.
Hypothesis B-3: The fewer the number of visible alternative organizational models in a
field, the faster the rate of isomorphism in that field. The predictions of this hypothesis
are less specific than those of others and require further refinement; but our argument is
that for any relevant dimension of organizational strategies or structures in an organizational field there will be a threshold level, or a
tipping point, beyond which adoption of the domi­ nant form will proceed with
increasing speed (Granovetter, 1978; Boorman and Leavitt, 1979).
Hypothesis B-4: The greater the extent to which technologies are uncertain or goals are
ambiguous within a field, the greater the rate of isomorphic change. Somewhat counterin­
tuitively, abrupt increases in uncertainty and ambiguity should, after brief periods
of ideologically motivated experimentation, lead to rapid isomorphic change. As in the case of
A-4, ambiguity and uncertainty may be a func­ tion of environmental definition, and, in any
case, interact both with centralization of re­ sources (A-1, A-2, B-1, B-2) and with
profes­ sionalization and structuration (A-5, A-6, B-5, B-6). Moreover, in fields
characterized by a high degree of uncertainty, new entrants, which could serve as
sources of innovation and variation, will seek to overcome the liability of newness by
imitating established practices within the field.
The two final hypotheses in this section fol­ low from our discussion of professional filter­
ing, socialization, and structuration.
Hypothesis B-5: The greater the extent of professionalization in a field, the greater
the amount of institutional isomorphic change. Professionalization may be measured by
the universality of credential requirements, the robustness of graduate training
programs, or the vitality of professional and trade associ­ ations.
Hypothesis B-6: The greater the extent of structuration of a field, the greater the degree of
isomorphics. Fields that have stable and broadly acknowledged centers, peripheries,
and status orders will be more homogeneous both because the diffusion structure for new
models and norms is more routine and because the level of interaction among organizations in the
field is higher. While structuration may not lend itself to easy measurement, it might be
tapped crudely with the use of such familiar measures as concentration ratios,
reputational interview studies, or data on network charac­ teristics.
This rather schematic exposition of a dozen hypotheses relating the extent of isomorphism to
selected attributes of organizations and of organizational fields does not constitute
a complete agenda for empirical assessment of our perspective. We have not discussed the
expected nonlinearities and ceiling effects in the relationships that we have posited.
Nor have we addressed the issue of the indicators that one must use to measure
homogeneity. Organizations in a field may be highly diverse

on some dimensions, yet extremely homoge­ neous on others. While we suspect, in general, that
the rate at which the standard deviations of structural or behavioral indicators approach zero
will vary with the nature of an organi­ zational field’s technology and environment, we
will not develop these ideas here. The point of this section is to suggest that the theoretical
discussion is susceptible to empirical test, and to lay out a few testable propositions that may
guide future analyses.
A comparison of macrosocial theories of func­ tionalist or Marxist orientation with theoretical
and empirical work in the study of organi­ zations yields a paradoxical conclusion.
Societies (or elites), so it seems, are smart, while organizations are dumb. Societies
com­ prise institutions that mesh together comforta­ bly in the interests of efficiency (Clark,
1962), the dominant value system (Parsons, 1951), or, in the Marxist version, capitalists
(Domhoff, 1967; Althusser, 1969). Organizations, by con­ trast, are either anarchies (Cohen et
al., 1972), federations of loosely coupled parts (Weick, 1976), or autonomy-seeking agents
(Gouldner, 1954) laboring under such formidable con­ straints as bounded
rationality (March and Simon, 1958), uncertain or contested goals (Sills, 1957), and
unclear technologies (March and Cohen, 1974).
Despite the findings of organizational re­ search, the image of society as consisting
of tightly and rationally coupled institutions per­ sists throughout much of modern social
theory. Rational administration pushes out non­ bureaucratic forms, schools assume
the structure of the workplace, hospital and uni­ versity administrations come to resemble
the management of for-profit firms, and the mod­ ernization of the world ecor.omy proceeds
un­ abated. Weberians point to the continuing homogenization of organizational structures
as the formal rationality of bureaucracy extends to the limits of contemporary
organizational life. Functionalists describe the rational adap­ tation of the structure of
firms, schools, and states to the values and needs of modern soci­ ety (Chandler, 1977;
Parsons, 1977). Marxists attribute changes in such organizations as welfare agencies
(Pivan and Cloward, 1971) and schools (Bowles and Gintis, 1976) to the logic of the
accumulation process.
We find it difficult to square the extant lit­ erature on organizations with these
macroso­ cial views. How can it be that the confused and contentious bumblers that populate
the pages of organizational case studies and theories combine to construct the
elaborate and well proportioned social edifice that macrotheorists describe’?
The conventional answer to this paradox has been that some version of natural selection oc­ curs in
which selection mechanisms operate to weed out those organizational forms that are less
fit. Such arguments, as we have con­ tended, are difficult to mesh with
organi­ zational realities. Less efficient organizational forms do persist. In some contexts
efficiency or product vity cannot even be measured. In government agencies or in
faltering corpo­ rations selection may occur on political rather than economic grounds. In
other contexts, for example the Metropolitan Opera or the Bohe­ mian Grove, supporters are
far more con­ cerned with noneconomic values like aesthetic quality or social status than
with efficiency per se. Even in the for-profit sector, where com­ petitive arguments would
promise to bear the greatest fruit, Nelson and Winter’s work (Winter, 1964, 1975;
Nelson and Winter, 1982) demonstrates that the invisible hand operates with, at best, a
light touch.
A second approach to the paradox that we have identified comes from Marxists and
theorists who assert that key elites guide and control the social system through their
com­ mand of crucial positions in major organi­ zations (e.g., the financial
institutions that dominate monopoly capitalism). In this view, while organizational actors
ordinarily proceed undisturbed through mazes of standard operating procedures, at
key turning points capitalist elites get their way by intervening in decisions that set the
course of an institution for years to come (Katz, 1975).
While evidence suggests that this is, in fact, sometimes the case-Barnouw’s account of the early
days of broadcasting or Weinstein’s ( 1968) work on the Progressives are good
examples–other historians have been less successful in their search for
class-conscious elites. In such cases as the development of the New Deal programs (Hawley, 1966)
or the ex­ pansion of the Vietnamese conflcit (Halperin, 1974), the capitalist class appears
to have been muddled and disunited.
Moreover, without constant monitoring, in­ dividuals pursuing parochial organizational or
subunit interests can quickly undo the work that even the most prescient elites have
ac­ complished. Perrow ( 1976:21) has noted that despite superior resources and
sanctioning power, organizational elites are often unable to maximize their preferences because
“the com­ plexity of modern organizations makes control difficult.” Moreover, organizations
have in­ creasingly become the vehicle for numerous “gratifications, necessities, and
preferences so that many groups within and without the orga-

nization seek to use it for ends that restrict the return to masters.”
We reject neither the natural-selection nor the elite-control arguments out of hand. Elites
do exercise considerable influence over mod­ ern life and aberrant or inefficient
organi­ zations sometimes do expire. But we contend that neither of these processes is
sufficient to explain the extent to which organizations have become structurally more
similar. We argue that a theory of institutional isomorphism may help explain the
observations that organi­ zations are becoming more homogeneous, and that elites often get
their way, while at the same time enabling us to understand the irra­ tionality, the
frustration of power, and the lack of innovation that are so commonplace in or­ ganizational
life. What is more, our approach is more consonant with the ethnographic and theoretical
literature on how organizations work than are either functionalist or elite
theories of organizational change.
A focus on institutional isomorphism can also add a much needed perspective on the
political struggle for organizational power and survival that is missing from much of
popula­ tion ecology. The institutionalization approach associated with John Meyer and his
students posits the importance of myths and ceremony but does not ask how these models
arise and whose interests they initially serve. Explicit attention to the genesis of
legitimated models and to the definition and elaboration of organi­ zational fields should
answer this question. Examination of the diffusion of similar organi­ zational strategies
and structures should be a productive means for assessing the influence of elite interests. A
consideration of isomorphic processes also leads us to a bifocal view of power and its
application in modern politics. To the extent that organizational change is unplanned
and goes on largely behind the backs of groups that wish to influence it, our
attention should be directed to two forms of power. The first, as March and Simon
(1958) and Simon (1957) pointed out years ago, is the power to set premises, to define the norms
and standards which shape and channel behavior. The second is the point of critical
intervention (Domhoff, 1979) at which elites can define ap­ propriate models of
organizational structure and policy which then go unquestioned for years to come (see
Katz, 1975). Such a view is consonant with some of the best recent work on power (see
Lukes, 1974); research on the structuration of organizational fields and on isomorphic
processes may help give it more empirical flesh.
Finally, a more developed theory of organi­ zational isomorphism may have important im­
plications for social policy in those fields in
which the state works through private organi­ zations. To the extent that pluralism is a guid­ ing
value in public policy deliberations, we need to discover new forms of intersectoral
coordination that will encourage diversification rather than hastening homogenization. An
understanding of the manner in which fields become more homogeneous would prevent
policy makers and analysts from confusing the disappearance of an organizational form with its
substantive failure. Current efforts to en­ courage diversity tend to be conducted in an
organizational vacuum. Policy makers con­ cerned with pluralism should consider the im­
pact of their programs on the structure of orga­ nizational fields as a whole, and not simply on
the programs of individual organizations.
We believe there is much to be gained by attending to similarity as well as to
variation among organizations and, in particular, to change in the degree of homogeneity
or varia­ tion over time. Our approach seeks to study incremental change as well as
selection. We take seriously the observations of organi­ zational theorists about the
role of change, am­ biguity, and constraint and point to the impli­ cations of these
organizational characteristics for the social structure as a whole. The foci and motive forces of
bureaucratization (and, more broadly, homogenization in general) have, as we argued, changed
since Weber’s time. But the importance of understanding the trends to which he called attention
has never been more immediate.