| Tournament Rituals in Macroculture Formation: The Grammy Awards 1974-1993 |
| | Anand, Narasimhan | London Business School | nanand@lbs.ac.uk | 44+ (171) 262-5050 |
| | Watson, Mary R. | Vanderbilt U. | mary.r.watson@vanderbilt.edu | (615) 343-3742 |
| | In this paper, we define award ceremonies as tournament rituals that shape the macroculture (Abrahamson and Fombrun, 1994) of an industry.
Based on a case study of the Grammy awards in the commercial music industry, we offer an interpretation of the manner in which tournament
rituals help define organization field-wide macrocultures. Our account adds a socialized and cultural overlay to Abrahamson and Fombrun's
(1994) model of macrocultural production. We blend a case analysis with qualitative and quantitative methods to provide a longitudinal,
multi-dimensional look at the tournament ritual called the Grammy awards.
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| | Keywords: rituals; macroculture; tournaments |
| The Career of a Popular Construct: A Pluralistic Journey of Understandings of Empowerment |
| | Bartunek, Jean M. | Boston College | bartunek@bc.edu | 617-552-0455 |
| | Spreitzer, Gretchen M. | U. of Southern California | gspreitzer@sba.usc.edu | 213-740-9419 |
| | Popular constructs are constructs that are used in multiple academic disciplines and by the public. Thus, their development over time differs from the development of constructs used primarily by academics in one discipline. Using an approach inspired by the Oxford English Dictionary, we trace the career of one popular construct, "empowerment," from 1966 - 1994 in six disciplinary databases that incorporate both academic and practitioner references: management, religion, psychology, sociology, education, and social work. Our analysis of how the empowerment construct has been defined in these different databases indicates that its meanings have evolved and expanded over time, rather than coming to center around one specified meaning. The ways it has expanded in meaning have been related to the knowledge and interests of those in the discipines in which it has been used. In addition, its meanings have become less radical over time and have come to focus on individuals and small groups more than on the larger social groupings that were its initial focus. Based on our analysis, we derive several propositions about the development of popular constructs more generally. |
| | Keywords: empowerment; construct; validation |
| Ready to Wear ? The Tailoring of Legitimating Accounts |
| | Creed, W. E. Douglas | Boston College | creedw@bc.edu | (617) 552-0492 |
| | Scully, Maureen | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | scully@mit.edu | (617) 253-5070 |
| | Austin, John | U. of Washington, Bothell | austinj@u.washington.edu | 425-352-5413 |
| | Institutional theory has emphasized the importance for understanding institutional processes of globally available theoretical models imported into local situations to justify the diffusion of social arrangements. According to Scott (1991), "for the most part, we get our worlds ready to wear." The institutional environment offers, however, many often contradictory competing logics -- some legitimate the status quo, some legitimate change, and all come ready to wear to some degree. Emphasizing the role of compelling logics over the self-interested actions of purposeful actors leaves the problem of understanding the role of agents in reconciling the tension between differentially compelling and potentially contradictory logics. We study employees who have mobilized around issues related to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered identities at work. Employing frame analysis, we investigate the ways in which employees both evoke the language and legitimating claims available in the broader social movement discourse and adapt and refine this language to make their case increasingly persuasive in their local workplace culture. We discuss how this sharpens our understanding of the relationship between organizational and cultural discourses and enhances the concept of legitimating accounts within the institutionalist paradigm. |
| | Keywords: institutional theory; legitimating accounts; frame analysis |
| The relationship between industry macroculture and executive perceptions of strategic issues |
| | O'Neill, John W. | Johnson and Wales U. | joneill@jwu.edu | (401) 598-4623 |
| | Beauvais, Laura L. | U. of Rhode Island | beauvais@uriacc.uri.edu | (401) 874-4341 |
| | This paper presents an empirical study of lodging industry executives' beliefs regarding strategic issues that they currently believe to be most important. It is theorized that fundamental factors exist indicating certain commonalities regarding executives' mental models about strategic issues. The possible influence of an industry macroculture is investigated as a source of similarity of mental models among executives competing in the lodging industry, and five hypotheses are developed and tested regarding the sources of macroculture. The results of a factor analysis indicate that among 20 potential strategic issues rated by executives in the study, three fundamental strategic directions exist among today's lodging organization leaders. Further, the results of the study indicate that professional journals, associations, and conferences may be sources of macroculture, while homogeneity of customers and employment may not. |
| | Keywords: macroculture |