Organizational Susceptibility to Institutional Complexity: Critical Events Driving the Adoption and Implementation of the Ethics and Compliance Officer Position
研究1990-2008年间企业如何因应社会压力，通过采纳和落实道德与合规官职位来应对制度环境中的关键事件，发现广泛事件影响采纳时机，而企业特定事件决定实施中的资源投入。
The institutional environment is complex. This complexity is characterized by forces that ebb and flow in wavelike patterns as societal expectations evolve, with attention coalescing around specific events and then dissipating. Some of these critical events are broad and affect many firms, whereas others are narrow and affect individual firms. In either case, when they occur, these events elevate organizational susceptibility to societal demands but encourage different kinds of behavior in response. This study seeks to model this complexity in an area of growing interest for organization scholars—business ethics. In particular, I examine how firms respond to shifting societal pressures for greater ethical behavior by adopting and implementing the Ethics and Compliance Officer position, from 1990 to 2008. Results demonstrate that although firms decide when to adopt in response to broad fieldwide critical events, it is narrower firm-specific critical events that determine resource commitments in implementation.