Making Standards Stick: A Theory of Coupled vs. Decoupled Compliance
研究了同一公司两个部门在实施ISO 9000标准时，因历史背景和内部流程不同，导致一个部门形成玩世不恭文化、工作混乱，另一个部门则自愿遵循标准化工作实践，揭示了标准、指令和规范三种社会调节模式在组织中的互动。
This paper presents an inductive account of how two divisions of the same corporation sought to standardize their engineering work. Although both groups achieved ISO 9000 certification, each was guided by historical antecedents and internal processes that left different legacies: a culture of cynicism and chaotic work practices in one division vis-a-vis a system of standardized work practices that are voluntarily (and often enthusiastically) followed in the other. The contrasting cases shed light on what happens when an external standard is adopted by an organization, converted into a formal directive, and then confronted by the norms and practices of an existing occupational community. More generally, the paper articulates how three common modes of social regulation—standards, directives, and norms—are interconnected in the process of implementing a standard in an organization, and the conditions under which institutional exigencies are either decoupled from or tightly coupled to technical work.