The imitation game: Are the MNCs immune to mimetic isomorphism?

Abstract

Organizations tend to shape their practices and policies mimicking those they consider to be successful and legitimate. This phenomenon is called a mimetic isomorphism. Mimetic isomorphism is the result of uncertainties in an environment and of unclear organizational goals. Current institutional isomorphism studies in the organizational sciences have been focused mainly on the impact of mimetic isomorphism on a particular action and the impact of this form of isomorphism on organizational outcomes. The authors of this paper want to examine whether the mimetic isomorphism has an influence on the strategic decision-making process in multinational companies or whether the concept of institutional freedom actually exists as suggested by some authors. Extensive triangulation research was performed and the results of the quantitative and qualitative analysis are presented in this article. The theoretical part of the paper summarizes key ideas of mimetic isomorphism and contributes to the theoretical understanding of this form of isomorphism from the MNC perspective. The empirical part of the paper consists of quantitative and qualitative research. The correlation of the form of mimetic isomorphism with the decision-making process was examined by multiple cross-section regression analysis.