A Micro-institutional Inquiry into Resistance to Environmental Pressures
通过实验室实验，研究了组织认同如何通过增强决策者确定性和转移环境注意力两个机制，导致对环境压力的抵抗增强，尤其当组织身份是规范型时效果更显著。
This article contributes to the emerging stream of micro-institutional research, which zooms in on the internal organizational processes that are responsible for organizations’ differential responses to the external environment. Specifically, the investigation offers new knowledge of how organizational identity processes can shape whether decision-makers will resist versus give in to environmental pressures. Building on the notion that organizational identity acts as a filter through which decision-makers relate to the external environment, I develop the theoretical argument that strong organizational identification increases resistance to environmental pressures due to two mechanisms: (1) it bolsters the decision-maker’s certainty and (2) it deflects the decision-maker’s attention from the environment. A series of laboratory experiments not only test the mediated relationship between organizational identification and resistance to environmental pressures but also contrast different types of organizational identity. The empirical results support the hypothesized positive link between organizational identification and resistance, which becomes particularly strong when the organizational identity is normative (vs. utilitarian). The findings reported here enrich institutional theory by adding microfoundations to organizational practice adoption decisions and shedding new light on relevant enabling conditions for agency and within-field heterogeneity.