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ISO 9000 and Formalization — How Organizational Contingencies Affect Organizational Responses to Institutional Forces

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Abstract

We investigate the adoption of ISO 9000 standards by the German mechanical engineering industry and analyze how organizational contingencies affect susceptibility to institutional forces. Our study’;s findings show that differences in organizational size, proportion of administrative staff, and type of production technology lead to variations in the probability of adopting ISO 9000 standards. Moreover, our findings show that despite the modern anti-bureaucratic management ideology, there has been a remarkable increase in the degree of formalization.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Erfurt, Nordhäuser Straße 63, 99089, Erfurt, Germany

    Nikolaus Beck &  Peter Walgenbach

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  1. Nikolaus Beck
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  2. Peter Walgenbach
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We are indebted to Prof. Ulrich Widmaier and the Sonderforschungsbereich 187 at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum for providing the data used in this study. We are also indebted to Frank Ettrich, Heather A. Haveman, Alfred Kieser, John W. Meyer, Walter W. Powell, Anne Tempel, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

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Beck, N., Walgenbach, P. ISO 9000 and Formalization — How Organizational Contingencies Affect Organizational Responses to Institutional Forces. Schmalenbach Bus Rev 55, 294–320 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03396680

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