ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses John Meyer's criticism of rationality and strategy in organizations by focusing on his work on World Society and related notions of rationalization, myth, and actorhood. Meyer's main contribution to social theory is twofold: his ideas about actorhood and soft actors; and his writings on rationalization. Meyer argues that the process of diffusion is to be approached globally and understood as part of globalization. He states in this context five dimensions of globalization: increased political and military interdependence of a set of nation-states; increased economic interdependencies of a set of national or subnational economies such as states and firms; expanded flow of people through socioeconomic migrations. These dimensions also includes travel and political expulsion, interdependence of culture, such as music, that is spreading through intensive global communication; and the expanded flow of instrumental cultural elements – models of social order that are diffused in and imposed on different social settings worldwide.
