Managing institutional complexity in a state-owned enterprise – the role of explicated values and other management controls

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate efforts to manage institutional complexity in a state-owned enterprise, the roles of explicated values in these efforts and how these values interact with each other and other influential management controls. Design/methodology/approach Exploratory case study in StateEnt, a state-owned enterprise that faces institutional complexity. The analysis is based on interviews, observations and documents and concepts from the management control literature and institutional logics are applied. Findings Findings from this study suggest that a structural differentiation have separated two logics in different departments and two of the explicated values have become symbols of these logics taking on various roles in negotiations. Tension between the departments is heightened because the departments legitimize logic enactment through mobilizing different socio-technical dyads of management control. The division of responsibility between these departments still ensures that they need to collaborate and make compromises. The study also finds that exogenously imposed constraints have a significant influence on organizational activities, which is further strengthened due to internally developed management controls embedded in the same logic. Research limitations/implications The study contributes with deeper understanding of values as control, and how these interact with other control forms to influence organizational activity. Herein, the importance of regulatory controls in state-owned enterprises is also highlighted. A limitation of this study is the limited size of the organization under investigation. Originality/value The explicit emphasis on values as a control in studies on management control issues in institutionally complex environments is underemphasized in the literature.

Coping With Institutional Complexity and Voids: An Organization Design Perspective for Transnational Interorganizational Projects

This study investigates how transnational interorganizational projects (IOPs) cope with institutional complexity and voids. A case study of a cross-border gas pipeline suggests the coexistence of institutional complexity and voids that amplify collaboration hazards in developing transnational IOPs. Institutional complexity harms the feasibility of a unified form of organizing, whereas institutional voids sabotage the ability of involved organizations to collaborate in a market-based approach. A hybrid organization featured by modular structure, complementary advantages, and system integrator, was designed to navigate complex institutional environments. This study contributes to the project–organization–institution linkage by depicting the impacts of institutions on project organizing.

Institutional complexity traps in policy integration processes: a long-term perspective on Swiss flood risk management

Complexity is inherent to the policy processes and to more and more domains such as environment or social policy. Complexity produces unexpected and counterintuitive effects, in particular, the phenomenon of policy regimes falling short of expectations while made by refined policies. This paper addresses this phenomenon by investigating the process of policy integration and its nonlinearities in the long run. We consider that the increase in the number of policies unexpectedly impacts the policy coherence within a policy regime. We argue that, depending on the degree of policy interactions, this impact varies in direction and intensity over time, which explains nonlinearities in integration. The impact turns negative when the regime is made of numerous policies, which favors non-coordinated policy interactions. Finally, the negative impact prevents further integration as stated by the Institutional Complexity Trap hypothesis and explains the contemporary paradoxical phenomenon of ineffective policy regimes made of refined policies. Empirically, we draw on a relational analysis of policies in the Swiss flood risk policy regime from 1848 to 2017. We study the co-evolution of the number of policies and of their de facto interlinkages, i.e., the co-regulations of a common issue. Findings support that the Institutional Complexity Trap is a structural and long-term dynamic punctuated by periods of policy learning and policy selection. We identify three main phases in the evolution of the regime: the start (1848–1874), the development (1874–1991), and the Institutional Complexity Trap (since 1991).

Barriers to environmental sustainability practices of multinational mining companies in Ghana: an institutional complexity perspective

Purpose This paper aims to examine the barriers to the environmental sustainability practices of large-scale mining companies throughout a mine lifecycle, analysed in the context of the plural and competing logics and tensions in the broader institutional environment. Design/methodology/approach The paper used a qualitative methodology based on multiple cases involving multinational mining companies, regulators and other major stakeholder groups, as it offers an opportunity for analytical generalisations where the empirical results are compared to previously established theories. Findings The empirical results indicate that the environmental sustainability barriers are embedded within gaps in Ghana’s natural resources governance framework. The gaps arise out of contradictory interests and values, which hinder the direction and practices of large-scale mining companies. Research limitations/implications The findings may only apply to the context of this study and is inadequate as the basis for assessing the effectiveness or otherwise of specific initiatives of large-scale mining firms in Ghana. Practical implications This paper has implications on how large-scale mining companies and their stakeholders define their values and goals, and engage in a dynamic process to accommodate the multiple and competing logics by implementing effective structures at the organisational and institutional levels. Originality/value This paper contributes to the sustainability and institutional complexity perspective by showing that plural logics are often contradictory, but may also be complementary in situations of complicit commonality, hindering sustainable outcomes. The authors argue that this is one of the few studies that have examined the barriers to environmental sustainability explicated in the context of institutional complexity.

Institutional complexity and family business development: a case study of the Charoen Pokphand group

Purpose With features of both “family” and “business,” family businesses must seek a balance between the emotional aspect of “family” and the economic aspect of “business” in its organizational and decision-making processes to ensure the sustainability of the family’s entrepreneurship. This study aims to focus on how internal institutional complexity combined evolves alongside the growth of the family business. Design/methodology/approach The research looks, from the perspective of institutional logic, into the Charoen Pokphand Group, which is an epitome of overseas Chinese family businesses and proceeds to build a model of family business growth in the context of institutional complexity. Findings The research finds that as a family business grows, institutional complexity inside the organization would change from aligned period to sustaining period and then to dominant period. Then further elucidates the process of proactive response in different stages of the development of a family business. Attaching equal importance to the cultivation of entrepreneurship and to the continuation of family values and culture is the crucial mechanism by which Chinese family businesses seek a balance between family logic and business logic. Originality/value This paper unveils the change of institutional complexity in the evolution of family businesses and the process of action of its agency as an organization, and simultaneously partly reveals the features of entrepreneurship that overseas Chinese family businesses have as they grew, which is of positive significance for exploring and building a path of growth unique to Chinese family businesses.