Conformist innovation: an institutional logics perspective on how HR executives construct business school reputations
本文基于制度逻辑理论，通过混合方法研究分析人力资源高管选择商学院提供高管培训的理由，发现其决策仍呈现“顺从式创新”特征，对HR职业声誉、雇主及商学院有启示。
In this paper, we explore whether Legge’s classic 1970s criticism of human resource (HR) executives as ‘conformist innovators’ is still relevant. Drawing on institutional logics, we analyse HR managers’ rationales for choosing particular university business schools to provide senior executive development. Our mixed-methods study demonstrates that senior HR managers socially construct and enact business school reputations by drawing on strategic rationales. These rationales are embedded in societal, field and organizational logics, especially the extant reputational rankings of international business schools and an ‘ideal’ template of elite business schools. We find that these rationales, and the decisions they evince, tend to confirm the traditional picture of conformist innovation among HR executives. We discuss the implications for the reputation of HR as a profession, their employers and business schools.