practice erodes or discontinues. In identifying the various factors that contribute to
this process, and thus to change, she distinguishes intra-organizational determinants
from external environmental forces:
Intra-organizational determinants. ‘Pressures may arise within the organization as
new members are recruited, performance declines, power alignments shift, goals
are more clearly deWned or the organizational structure is transformed owing to
diversiWcation or mergers. These rather common events can conceivably threaten,
or at least call into question, institutionalised patterns of organization and
behaviour and stimulate change’ (JaVee 2001 : 235 based on Oliver 1992 : 579 ).
External environmental forces. ‘These might include increasing competition or
environmental turbulence, changes in government regulations, shifts in public
opinion, dramatic events or crises and changes in task environment relationships’
(JaVee 2001 : 235 based on Oliver 1992 : 579 ). In principle, these forces will cause
change in the same direction for all organizations involved in the same organiza-
tionalWeld. However, due to human agency and strategic choice, organizations can
and will diVer in their response to these kinds of forces.
In a similar way to Oliver, Colomy ( 1998 ) draws attention to the role of human
agency in transforming the normative, cognitive, and regulative aspects of institu-
tions (see also JaVee 2001 : 236 ). Moreover, Dacin et al. ( 2002 ) summarize a range of
studies (for example Kraatz and Moore 2002 ; Sherer and Lee 2002 ; Townley 2002 ;
Zilber 2002 ) that explicitly pay attention to the role of power, interests, and agency
in determining how organizations interpret and respond to institutions: actors are
not passive, they make choices as they interpret their environments (Dacin et al.
2002 : 47 ). In summary, then, a range of authors have worked on building a new
institutionalist approach which recognizes both forces for sameness and forces
which stimulate idiosyncratic change.
9.6 HRM and Strategic Balancing
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
In the previous section, we outlined how institutional theory can help us account
for the societal embeddedness of HR practices. New institutionalism enables us to
identify the underlying reasons why organizations in the same sector or industry
become increasingly alike, while still allowing for change on the basis of human
agency and strategic choice. Environmental determinism is thus avoided. However,
we have only dealt with one side of the coin of social embeddedness. Organizations
Wnd themselves amidsttwoforces in the environment. On the one hand, there are
competitive forces, based on economic rationality, which lead to decisions to
hrm and societal embeddedness 177