ABSTRACT
Governments are not the only factors affecting organizational form and behavior, but they are important, malleable, and ill-understood elements. Governments are important because organizations look different and function differently. Moreover, their effects on their participants all are affected by differences in these institutions. Governments matter in organizing: They make the rules by which organizations operate and hold the monopoly of legitimate coercive power. Yet, management scholars have largely treated them anecdotally, one governmental policy at a time. In this effort to provide a broader perspective, it is necessary to develop a framework of governmental effects. This framework is based on the idea that governments vary in their facilitation of independent organization.
