Innovations as Catalysts for Organizational Change: Shifts in Organizational Cognition and Search
利用广播电台格式变化的数据，研究创新如何引发非模仿性组织变革，发现创新对变革率有催化作用，且受创新者与组织的社会和竞争关系调节。
This paper uses data on radio format changes to test hypotheses on innovations as catalysts for nonmimetic change in organizations. Innovations are difficult to interpret using existing schemata, causing organizations to search for information on the opportunities and threats implicit in observed innovations. Such search may lead to mimetic adoption of the innovation or, more likely, to more varied nonmimetic change. Results show an effect of innovations on the rate of nonmimetic change in radio markets, with innovations in large or nearby markets having greater effect and innovations by large organizations having less effect. The social and competitive relations of the innovator to a given organization are thus modifiers of the catalytic effect. These findings have implications for theories of innovation, competition, and organizational isomorphism.