This study investigates the effect of founders socialization experiences and
contextual interpretations on the deviation of recently-established law firms from the
dominant organizational form in the B.C. legal profession. Through this research I
address three issues fundamental to the neo-institutional perspective on organizational
analysis: 1) whether consensually-understood frameworks exist in highly-institutionalized
environments, 2) the extent to which new entrants to such industries reproduce
or depart from these prescribed arrangements, and 3) why some conform while others
deviate.
In the first phase of my investigation, I ascertained the nature of the legal profession
s dominant template for organizing by analyzing qualitative data collected from
multiple data sources including both observers of and practitioners within this industry.
I subsequently validated this template by collecting quantitative data through a
survey administered to a panel of lawyers. The results support the existence of a commonly-
perceived template for organizing in the B.C. legal profession.
In the second phase of my research, I investigated sixty recently-established law
firms in B.C. Through a background questionnaire and personal interview conducted
with the founder of each firm, I collected data on multiple dimensions of form, the
founder s experience, and his or her rationale for designing the firm in a certain way. I
also administered a survey to a separate panel of lawyers, to obtain their perceptions of
the extent to which alternative arrangements differed from those of the dominant
template. This data was used to calculate deviation measures for the recentlyestablished
firms.
The results revealed that, despite the prevalence with which founders voiced
disenchantment with the dominant template, 85% of their firms exhibited very little
deviation from the normative form. Thus, it appears that most new entrants to a highlyinstitutionalized
setting act primarily as agents of institutional perpetuation rather than
entrepreneurship. The 15% that exhibited greater deviation tended to be headed by
founders with less experience in the industry s most prominent organizations and by
those who most strongly questioned the moral legitimacy of prevailing organizational
arrangements. Experience in marginal organizations or other industries, as well as
doubts about the dominant template s pragmatic legitimacy, were insufficient triggers
of new entrant deviation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/11403 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Cliff, Jennifer E. |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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