Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Exposure To The Field And The Meanings Managers Hold: Evidence From Manufacturing Best Practices Programs, Peter Cebon, E. Geoffrey Love

Peter Cebon

A central proposition of neo-institutional theory is that exposure to institutional fields shapes the meanings actors within the field hold. We test that proposition by asking whether variations in exposure to field-level processes will lead to variations in meanings held by actors. To do so, we examine the implementation of a managerial practice – Manufacturing Best Practices Programs – across a large sample of manufacturing sites in Australia and New Zealand. We assess exposure to field-level processes both indirectly (through structural characteristics such as site size and technological sophistication), and directly (as contact with theorizing agents and communities of practice). …