This thesis aims to contribute to research in management accounting and control systems (MACS) in a developing country context: that of Fiji. It seeks to gain a theoretical understanding of how MACS reflect the social and political contexts in which they operate by using a case study of Telecom Fiji Limited (a major supplier of telephone communications in Fiji). The definition of MACS for the purpose of the thesis is broad- a social constructivist perspective is adopted in which systems are used to align employee behaviour with organisational objectives and to assist external relationships (with the State, Commerce Commission, aid agencies and customers). The thesis draws on institutional theory while raising questions as to how to refine and extend institutional theory. This theory has often been associated with institutional embeddedness (stability). The social constructivist approach helps to incorporate agency and cultural issues normally missing in conventional applications of institutional theory to accounting change. Telecom Fiji Limited (TFL) was restructured under the Fiji government's public sector reforms. Such reforms were insisted upon by the international financial agencies of the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Under the reform policy, TFL was transformed from a government department into a corporatised organisation and was subsequently privatised. The MACS changes which eventuated helped to change TFL management and employees' interpretive schemes. However, employees resisted initial changes to commercial business routines and it took some years for TFL actors to assimilate commercial practices. While the literature dealing with MACS changes has mostly portrayed changes as occurring with little resistance, MACS changes at TFL took several years to become institutionalised, partly because of cultural and political factors specific to Fiji. The study has practice implications as it shows that management accountants can act as institutional entrepreneurs in organisations, shaping new accounting technologies in reformed entities, and changing actors' interpretive schemes. The study has implications for policy makers, consultants and other stakeholders in terms of promoting a need for better understanding of the sensitivity to cultural and political circumstances in Less Developed Countries (LDC's) like Fiji in relation to the introduction of MACS changes. The study has implications for other recently corporatized/ privatised and state-sector organisations in Fiji and elsewhere. It also has implications for other researchers as institutional theory can be refined on the basis of new empirical evidence.

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The informal economy represents a large segment of the economic activities in emerging economies but still remains a puzzling phenomenon. In particular, research emphasising the organising processes of firms within the informal economy is scant. Weak formal institutions, conflicting institutional centres and large levels of economic inequality contribute to the development of informal entrepreneurship in emerging economies. Yet, an understanding of the links between institutional incongruence and economic exclusion as facilitating mechanisms of informal entrepreneurship remains limited. Furthermore, it is unknown how hybrid organisations, combining institutional logics, emerge and function within the informal economy. Despite a large number of empirical and theoretical studies, there is a lack of understanding about the interplay between the institutional dynamics and the creation of informal institutions developed by informal entrepreneurs. To enhance the understanding of informal entrepreneurship, this PhD thesis explores how institutional entrepreneurs embedded in the informal economy respond to economic inequality. This grounded theory study, based on interviews and participant observations conducted at La Salada, South America's largest black market, conceptualises how institutional entrepreneurs exploit the illegitimacy of formal labour institutions to generate institutional change. This qualitative study has followed a constructivist grounded theory design based on simultaneous data collection and analysis and making systematic comparisons throughout inquiry. In line with grounded theory guidelines, the researcher identified emerging first-order categories and looked-for relations between them, in order to move to a higher level of theoretical abstraction with the aim of generating new theory. The researcher conducted 75 in-depth interviews and semi-structured interviews, non-participant observation, and made use of archival documents. The thesis is organised as three empirical studies which can be read independently, but together constitute an in-depth study of institutional entrepreneurship in the informal economy. The thesis's theoretical contributions to the field are as follows. The first study reveals the conditions that generated institutional change in the apparel value chain in response to prevailing conditions that were leading to increasing economic inequality. It presents a model that focuses on three social mechanisms which allow institutional entrepreneurs to build new institutions that were inclusive for large segments of society excluded by the formal sector. The second study explores the emergence of new forms of hybrid organisation in the informal economy. Particularly, it focuses on how informal entrepreneurs organisationally respond to institutional complexity by identifying two types of logic - community and market - and a meta-mechanism that facilitates the interaction between the two logics, named normalisation of deviant organisational practices. The study highlights the two key generative mechanisms of the logics at play and suggests that actors embedded in the informal economy are able to dynamically adapt to two types of logic. It also emphasises how informal entrepreneurs exploit institutional arbitrage, which refers to the circumstances where entrepreneurs are provided with opportunities to exploit differences between two dimensions of the institutional environment, formality and informality. The third study explores how various types of actors and organisations such as social movements or hybrid organisations are able to develop alternative institutional arrangements to overcome the liabilities of emerging economies' institutions in an informal context. The study reveals that informal entrepreneurs entering a polycentric system are able to establish norms and rules of interaction, to exploit brokerage opportunities and multivocality between contradictory networks, and through robust action, generate proto-institutional outcomes. Collectively, these three essays reveal novel knowledge about the organisational mechanisms behind informal economic activities, constituting a theoretical bridge between the fields of institutional theory, inequality and governance and providing fundamental insights for the development of new management theories.

Swedish Amnesty was founded in 1964 for the purpose of working for the release of prisoners of conscience. Forty years later the organization has expanded its realm of activity to include ideas such as women’s rights, homosexuals’ rights and corporate responsibility for human rights. When these ideas were first introduced, they challenged prevailing assumptions about what the organization should be concerned with. Adopting a longitudinal approach, this dissertation investigates how these three ideas have been transformed from organizational anomalies into organizational practices. This study contributes to organizational institutional theory in general, and the translation of ideas in particular. The study shows that the translation of ideas in an organization is characterized more by conflicting interests and power relationships than previous research in the area has suggested. Four different editing strategies through which ideas were translated into practice could be seen: assimilation, colonization, creolization, and loose coupling. The processes were driven by institutional entrepreneurs who had a personal interest in the ideas and who saw the organization as a tool for promoting their development in society. The entrepreneurs were primarily new members who were shaped more by their historical life trajectories than by the organizational context into which they had entered. The study shows that the institutionalization of ideas about new practices is an incremental process in which ideas are translated into the organization in piecemeal versions. It suggests that institutionalization is an ongoing process in which the practice changes continuously. At the same time this process is also characterized by a certain amount of stability. New practices blend elements of old ones. Finally, this study has shown that organizational identities and interests are not antecedents of action, but rather are something emerging in the translation process.

Record Companies in Sweden- 100 years of music business institutionalisation This thesis is about the development of Record Companies in Sweden over more then hundred years. The Aim is to understand the role of the record company in the change of the music industry by narrating and interpreting its development. The Record Companies did dominate the music industry in Sweden from its birth 1903 until after year 2000, when new forms of music business were born. Despite this the remaining record companies still have similarities with the firs gramophone company from 1903. The empirical story is based on some 20 interviews with central actors in the music industry together with a mapping of the independent music producers, published 2004 and material from other studies on the music business. The story is in it self an important contribution to research since it appears to be the first one done in this way. The conception of the record company as the dominant actor in the organisational field, the music industry, very soon became an institution. This institution has been created and developed in an institutional process that here is analysed in four themes: delimitations, dominant logics, and organising and ownership structure/actors. During the process the limitations for the record company and the organisational field is changing. The logic is being push towards either art or comers during different periods, different forms of organising are created and developed and actors turn up and disappear. A main conclusion is that the cognitive processes highlight the institutionalisation but also the normative and the regulative processes helps to explain. At the same time this must, as in the model developed in the thesis, be connected to the four themes in order to create the holistic understanding of the institutionalization of the music business in Sweden being demanded in the aim of the thesis. In the model the actors are being emphasized as most important in the creation, remaining, developing, changing and at the and also liquidation of the institutional conception of the record company as the dominant form of music business. Partly this could be explained by and in itself explain the lack of a strong common organization in the music business together with the rather limited impact from attempts of regulations. New and old actors are now defined as institutional entrepreneurs as they are creating the new music industry, forcing the record companies to step aside from its dominant role in the same way as the music publishers once did. They might even give the dominance back to the publishers, or maybe there will not bee yet another institution in the music industry or any dominant role. Maybe it will change into something completely different? The model developed and used in this thesis is proposed for use in other longitudinal studies especially in other art businesses and similar organizational fields. / Avhandlingen framlagd vid Göteborgs universitet.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / A significant literature gap exists in our understanding of the motivating mechanisms for creation of foundations by philanthropists, a rapid paradigm shift that is occurring in many countries. This study aims to address the literature gap by discovering Chinese entrepreneurs' heterogeneous responses to the conditions that may lead to creation of their own foundations. Adopting the institutional entrepreneurship theory, which examines agency/change in breaking from an old institution, the researcher tested and operationalized four major factors derived from the institutional entrepreneurship theory--i.e. conflict, heterogeneity, institutional logic, and power--to account for the behavioral change. Through investigating 209 wealthy Chinese entrepreneurs from the 2003-2004 Top 100 Philanthropists List produced by the Hurun Research Institute, utilizing the event history analysis method, the study discovered that among the four factors only heterogeneity resulting from strategic industry intersection and the entrepreneurs' political power are the antecedents of their creation of foundations. Other factors--such as conflict, heterogeneity resulted from civil network, and institutional logic--were not relevant in this study. These results suggest that Chinese entrepreneurs who benefit from their improved political and social standing and increased capital are also making endeavors to take initiatives to contribute to the social and economic well-beings in the social areas that the entrepreneurs' industry intersect heavily. This study enriches our understanding of the creation of foundations from entrepreneurs' contextual background in an emerging market. The empirical validation of the antecedents of behavior change and civic leadership innovation also provides practical implications for policy-makers, philanthropy advisers, and nonprofit leaders.

In Deutschland und den USA engagiert sich die unternehmerische Philanthropie zunehmend in der Allgemeinbildung, während der letzten Dekade vor allem in den „MINT“ und den „STEM“ Fächern. Hierzu gibt es bisher kaum systematische Studien. Diese vergleichende Arbeit untersucht, warum und wie sich Unternehmen in diesen Bereichen engagieren, und wie sich ihre Rolle in der Bildung verändert. Die Studie beruht auf einer historischen Analyse der Rolle von Unternehmen in der Bildung seit 1945 und auf Interviews mit Experten aus dem MINT- und STEM-Bereich. Die wichtigsten Befunde der Studie sind: (1) Zuvor überwiegend in der dualen Bildung aktiv, begannen deutsche Unternehmen in den frühen 2000er Jahren u.a. als Reaktion auf den PISA-Schock, sich philanthropisch in der allgemeinen Schulbildung zu engagieren. (2) Unternehmerische Philanthropie führten die MINT und STEM Bildungsbewegung an. Aufgrund ihrer etablierten, gut vernetzten und vielfach finanzkräftigeren Stiftungen gelang es US-amerikanischen Unternehmen besser als deutschen, das Thema ins öffentliche Bewusstsein zu rücken, Ressourcen zu erschließen und Änderungen in der Bildungspolitik zu erwirken. (3) Unternehmen und deren Stiftungen wurden in erster Linie durch Entwicklungen auf dem Arbeitsmarkt, langfristige ökonomische Überlegungen und die Notwendigkeit zur Innovation motiviert, sich zu engagieren; aufgrund unterschiedlicher demographischer Aspekte und Entwicklungen in der Bildung fanden sich Unterschiede zwischen den beiden Ländern. (4) In Deutschland und den USA agiert die unternehmerische Philanthropie zunehmend strategisch, d.h. sie handelt ergebnisorientiert und achtet auf Skalierbarkeit ihrer Aktivitäten. Dies hat das Engagement von Unternehmen in der Bildungspolitik verstärkt und die Anforderung der Wirtschaft in den Fokus gerückt. Manche US-amerikanische Unternehmen haben begonnen, Berufsbildungswege zu schaffen, was bisher nicht die Regel war. / Corporate philanthropy is active in K-12 education in Germany and the U.S. but there is minimal research about it. Over the last decade corporate philanthropic actors in both countries have become active in STEM* education (in Germany, MINT). This comparative study is about why and how they decided to invest in these initiatives and how that is tied to their traditional roles in education. It leans on the history of company involvement in education since 1945 and on interviews with experts active in the STEM and MINT education scenes. The main findings are: (1) As a result of the PISA shock and other factors, German companies that traditionally engaged only in vocational education have become active in general K-12 education. (2) Corporate philanthropy led the STEM and MINT education movements. However, U.S. companies and their foundations, with decades of philanthropic experiences and networks in education, were more successful in raising awareness, organizing resources, and achieving policy changes at the federal level. (3) Companies and their foundations were driven to invest in STEM and MINT education largely by workforce, long-term innovation, and economic concerns but there were key differences because of the differing demographic and education trends in the two countries. (4) In the U.S. and Germany, corporate philanthropy is attempting to be more strategic. This has resulted in a focus on outcome-based measurements and scalability but has also led to more investments in nonprofit and policy organizations instead of schools or their booster clubs. It has also resulted in corporate philanthropy better aligning with company competencies and needs, which made STEM and MINT ideal. In the case of the U.S., this has also resulted in some companies creating vocational programs, an area of education most companies avoided in the past. *STEM= Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math MINT= Mathematik, Informatik, Naturwissenschaften und Technik

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Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-01T19:18:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 alexandre.pdf: 2045242 bytes, checksum: 1b3e698896436f1fb29516791db96e58 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-04-27 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / In recent decades, structural and socio-political changes occurred in the Brazilian public sphere caused mainly by the redemocratization process of the country. These changes influenced the inclusion of a new approach to public agrarian policies, the Sustainable Territorial Development (STD). The implementation of such programs encourages the construction of participatory spaces that enable the mobilization of a process of co-production of the public goods, i.e. spaces which would allow for a dialogue and the sharing of power and responsibilities between governmental authorities and civil society in the promotion of rural development. The management of these participatory spaces requires public managers to develop new skills and attitudes. Faced with this issue, the present dissertation seeks to answer the following question: In which ways institutional entrepreneurs of CODETER have promoted collective action and mobilized co-production in the management and planning of the rural development of the Santa Catarina mountain range? In order to answer this question, a combined case study strategy was employed which featured diverse techniques of data collection aiming the interpretation of the results. The case study was conducted in the Colegiado de Desenvolvimento Territorial (CODETER) which is located in the Santa Catarina mountain range. CODETER qualifies as na institute that promotes the implementation of STD actions. The analysis of the data was interpreted via the instrument of a range of theoretical lenses. The Theory of Social Skill (FLIGSTEIN, 2009) was used to identify and understand the tactics institutional entrepreneurs used to coordinate and mediate the conflict in planning the territorial development in the context of CODETER. Different paradigms on the phenomenon of collective action were also considered in order to grasp whether there is in fact concerted action in the mountain range of Santa Catarina (CODETER) and what are its main features. Furthermore, based on the concept of co-production of public goods and their variables, we sought to understand to what extent this collective action promotes a new kind of public action, one which would deepen the participation and engagement of civil society with the public problems of the territory. As a result of the field research, the existence of a collective action in the CODETER was confirmed, through which various initiatives that have contributed to rural development of the territory have emerged. A further observation of field research was that the co-production of public goods was occurring, though one of low intensity. Some obstacles observed to co-production in the Collegiate were: disempowerment of some of the players from civil society; uniformity of the represented social groups; and conflicts involving the dispute of resources and institutional interests. Notwithstanding, the co-production is an ongoing process in the CODETER. Currently their advocates display a greater engagement with public issues, a collective understanding of rural development and a deeper sense of belonging to the territory than that prior to the time of implementation of the program. In order that these advances would occur, the role of the institutional entrepreneurs was crucial. They used their social skills to alleviate the limitations of the coproduction process and to promote the legitimacy of the Collegiate in the region. The observed results corroborate the conclusion that the CODETER was institutionalized, becoming a legitimate council in the region, because there was a movement of collective action of different local actors, coordinated by institutional entrepreneurs of the territory / Nas últimas décadas, mudanças estruturais e sociopolíticas ocorreram na esfera pública brasileira, provocadas, principalmente, pelo processo de redemocratização do país. Essas mudanças influenciaram a inserção de uma nova abordagem na agenda das políticas públicas agrárias, o Desenvolvimento Territorial Sustentável (DTS). A implementação de programas governamentais com esse enfoque desafia a constituir espaços participativos que oportunizem a mobilização de um processo de co-produção do bem público, ou seja, que possibilitem o diálogo e o compartilhamento de poderes e responsabilidades entre entidades públicas e da sociedade civil na promoção do desenvolvimento rural. A condução desses espaços participativos exige que os gestores públicos desenvolvam novas habilidades e atitudes. Diante desta problemática, busca-se nessa dissertação responder: De que maneira os empreendedores institucionais do CODETER têm atuado para promover a ação coletiva e mobilizar a co-produção no planejamento e gestão do desenvolvimento rural da Serra Catarinense? Para responder esta questão, foi empregada uma estratégia de investigação de estudo de caso que combinou a utilização de diversas técnicas qualitativas de coleta de dados para orientar a interpretação dos resultados. A pesquisa concentrou-se no Colegiado de Desenvolvimento Territorial (CODETER) da Serra Catarinense, que é um órgão paritário de planejamento e articulação de iniciativas para o DTS. Para embasar a análise, foram utilizadas algumas abordagens teóricas. A teoria da Habilidade Social (FLIGSTEIN, 2009) foi empregada para identificar e compreender as táticas que os empreendedores institucionais utilizaram para coordenar e mediar o conflito no CODETER da Serra Catarinense. Diferentes teorias sobre o fenômeno da ação coletiva também foram considerados para compreender se existe uma ação concertada no Colegiado e quais suas características principais. Além disso, com base no conceito de co-produção do bem público e suas variáveis, buscou-se compreender em que medida essa ação coletiva promove um novo tipo de ação pública, ampliando a participação e o comprometimento da sociedade civil com os problemas públicos do território. Como resultado da pesquisa, constatou-se a existência de uma ação coletiva no CODETER, por meio da qual emergiram diversas iniciativas que contribuíram para o desenvolvimento rural do território. Verificou-se, ainda, a ocorrência de um processo de co-produção do bem público, porém, de baixa intensidade. Alguns dos obstáculos observados para co-produção no Colegiado foram: baixo empoderamento de alguns representantes da sociedade civil; uniformidade dos segmentos sociais representados; e conflitos envolvendo disputas de recursos e interesses institucionais. Contudo, a co-produção é um processo em construção no CODETER. Atualmente, seus representantes possuem um engajamento maior com os problemas territoriais, um significado compartilhado de desenvolvimento rural e um sentimento de pertencimento com o território maior do que o existente na época da sua implantação. Para que esses avanços ocorressem, foi essencial o papel dos empreendedores institucionais que utilizaram suas habilidades sociais para amenizar as limitações do processo de co-produção e promover a legitimação do Colegiado na região. Os resultados observados corroboram que o CODETER se institucionalizou, tornando-se um conselho legítimo no território, porque houve um movimento de ação coletiva dos diferentes atores locais, coordenado por empreendedores institucionais do território