New Institutional Entrepreneurship and a Celebrity CEO: The Role of Institutional Actors in Japan

ABSTRACT

DiMaggio and Powell [1983. “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields.” American Sociological Review 48 (2): 147–160] suggest that the trend currently seen in Japanese organizations to develop organizational reforms, and notably downsizing, is a kind international ‘mimetic isomorphism’ based on Western blueprints. These concepts of isomorphism and legitimacy go hand in hand with the increase in the use of Western language. However, this paper shows that these concepts have not entered into Japanese culture without debate, resistance and transformation. The paper also looks at the newly developing concept of ‘institutional work’ [Lawrence, T., and R. Suddaby. 2006. “Institutional Work.” In The Sage Handbook of Organization Studies, edited by S. Clegg, T. B. Lawrence and W. R. Nord, 215–254. London: Sage; Lawrence, T. B., R. Suddaby, and B. Leca. 2009. Institutional Work: Actors and Agency in Institutional Studies of Organizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Lawrence, T. B., R. Suddaby, and B. Leca. 2011. “Institutional Work: Refocusing Institutional Studies of Organization.” Journal of Management Inquiry 20 (1): 52–58], and argues that this is a useful concept in order to study how PR activities in the Western style have become institutionalized within organizations. The paper also investigates the roles of institutional actors in Japan, by examining the case of Nissan Motor. This industry leader announced drastic downsizing, almost for the first time in Japan, suggesting its contribution to creating new institutional entrepreneurship more widely within Japanese organizations. This research examines the role of top leaders and mass media, who are one of the main institutional actors but are less often considered by neo-institutional theory.

KEYWORDS:

• Organizational restructuring
• institutional entrepreneurship
• institutional work
• mimetic isomorphism
• Japan
• Nissan Motor

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Chie Yorozu has been an associate professor at the School of Business, Aoyama Gakuin University since April 2017. After graduating from Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester, Chie Yorozu wrote on organizational restructuring especially middle managers in large Japanese organizations.

Notes

1. They generally define institutional work as ‘the purposive action of individuals and organizations aimed at creating, maintaining and disrupting institutions’ (Lawrence and Suddaby 2006, 215).

2. In that Phillips, Lawrence, and Hardy (2004) emphasize that people’s strategy – rhetoric, narrative, and dialogue – are restricted by institution, their work is not very institutional work.

3. Phillips, Lawrence, and Hardy (2004) just mention that texts are distributed through books and magazines.

4. The latest debate on ‘institutional work’ is still based on theoretical level (e.g. Matsushima and Takahashi (2009) ‘Discourse on Institutional Entrepreneurs: Implication to institutional theory’ Kobe university discussion paper series).

5. According to Ghosn (2001) ‘Renaissance’ Diamond; Tokyo.

6. Nissan belonged to Fuyo, one of the Japanese keiretsu groups.

7. According to the website of the Japan Investor Relations Association; https://www.jira.or.jp/activity/bluechip.html (accessed on 26 August 2016).