Organizational response to environmental regulation: punctuated change or autogenesis?
研究发现，面对新的水污染法规，管理者通过建立技术和人员缓冲来维持现状，但这些缓冲反而引发了渐进式变革，最终改善了环保和效率，甚至催生了新产品和战略。
Theory predicts that when faced with threatening new conditions, managers often attempt to preserve the status quo by creating a buffer between the organization and the outside world. This paper presents evidence that in response to new water pollution regulation, managers indeed created buffers of technology and personnel, but in some organizations this very equipment and personnel initiated a process of incremental change that led to better environmental protection, more efficient production, and in a few cases, entirely new product and production strategies. For public policy, this research suggests that environmental regulators should allow companies time and flexibility to learn and experiment. For organizational theory, this research suggests a link between punctuated-equilibrium models of organizational dynamics (Tushman and Romanelli, 1985) and theories of self-organizing systems (Drazin and Sandelands, 1992). That is, management may respond to external changes by attempting to preserve the status quo, but in so doing influence internal deep structures that then cause organizations to gradually evolve to different behaviours and shapes. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment