ABSTRACT
Neo-institutional organisation theory is not the result of the work of a single main author but was developed by a number of researchers, primarily from the USA, in the latter half of the 1970s. It is a current within organisation theory that emphasises the centrality of culture and socially constructed norms to the way in which organisations function. As such, it contrasts with a number of other perspectives on organisations, for example, theories that view organisations as rational production units, as functional responses to social needs, or as products of the strategic actions of elites. Prominent neo-institutional theorists include John Meyer (1938–), Richard Scott (1932–) and Paul DiMaggio (1951–). The theory is particularly relevant to the study of organisations providing products and services that are difficult to measure and quantify, such as education, culture or other forms of “soft” (typically public-sector) services. Good introductions are available in: John Meyer and Richard Scott’s classic work Organizational Environments: Ritual and Rationality (1983), Paul DiMaggio and Walter Powell’s important anthology The Neo-institutionalism in Organizational Analysis (1991a), which contains a selection of key articles, and Richard Scott’s updated introduction Institutions and Organizations (2001).
