Legitimizing the apprenticeship practice in a distant environment: Institutional entrepreneurship through inter-organizational networks

TY - JOUR

T1 - Legitimizing the apprenticeship practice in a distant environment

T2 - Institutional entrepreneurship through inter-organizational networks

AU - Fortwengel, Johann

AU - Jackson, Gregory

PY - 2016/11/1

Y1 - 2016/11/1

N2 - This paper asks how Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) engage in institutional entrepreneurship to successfully transfer the organizational practice of apprenticeship-based training from Continental Europe to the distant host environment of the United States. In our case study, we highlight the important role of inter-organizational networks to coordinate engagement with the cognitive, normative, and regulative pillars of host country institutions. This networked form of institutional entrepreneurship involves the formation of inter-organizational networks for the purpose of bringing about institutional change collaboratively. In the process of transferring apprenticeship, a particular vision of workforce training was created, support gathered, and institutional change was sustained locally around the issue of training. We argue further that networked institutional entrepreneurship is a useful strategic tool to overcome the particular kind of institutional distance between the institutional settings of more coordinated market economies (CMEs) and more liberal market-oriented economies (LMEs). We contribute to existing knowledge by showing how practice transfer is shaped by particular kinds of institutional distance, and highlighting the role of inter-organizational networks as a way of governing collective agency associated with institutional entrepreneurship and the emergence of new local proto-institutions.

AB - This paper asks how Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) engage in institutional entrepreneurship to successfully transfer the organizational practice of apprenticeship-based training from Continental Europe to the distant host environment of the United States. In our case study, we highlight the important role of inter-organizational networks to coordinate engagement with the cognitive, normative, and regulative pillars of host country institutions. This networked form of institutional entrepreneurship involves the formation of inter-organizational networks for the purpose of bringing about institutional change collaboratively. In the process of transferring apprenticeship, a particular vision of workforce training was created, support gathered, and institutional change was sustained locally around the issue of training. We argue further that networked institutional entrepreneurship is a useful strategic tool to overcome the particular kind of institutional distance between the institutional settings of more coordinated market economies (CMEs) and more liberal market-oriented economies (LMEs). We contribute to existing knowledge by showing how practice transfer is shaped by particular kinds of institutional distance, and highlighting the role of inter-organizational networks as a way of governing collective agency associated with institutional entrepreneurship and the emergence of new local proto-institutions.

KW - Institutional entrepreneurship

KW - MNEs

KW - Agency

KW - Practice transfer

KW - Institutional distance

KW - Apprenticeships

KW - Inter-organizational networks

KW - Networked institutional entrepreneurship

KW - Comparative capitalisms

KW - Qualitative case study

U2 - 10.1016/j.jwb.2016.05.002

DO - 10.1016/j.jwb.2016.05.002

M3 - Article

SN - 1090-9516

VL - 51

SP - 895

EP - 909

JO - JOURNAL OF WORLD BUSINESS

JF - JOURNAL OF WORLD BUSINESS

IS - 6

ER -