DiMaggio and Powell Industry Analysis

Paper Summary:

This paper explores industries that best illustrate the concepts in DiMaggio and Powell's article, 'The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields'. According to the paper, isomorphism's illustration in the disk drive industry is analyzed from the coercive, mimetic and normative mechanisms that the authors analyze and present in their article.

Outline:
Isomorphism & Storage Technologies: Made for Each Other
Exploring the Facets of Institutional Isomorphism as it Relates to the Storage Industry

From the Paper:

"In terms of coercive isomorphism, the disk drives' industry has at times be hypocritical in their practices on the one hand and their reliance on government intervention on the one hand. When Japanese manufacturers were the first to generate the highest densities and the lowest cost per GB and in turn beat other nations; manufacturers to the next level of performance, US and westernized nations aggressively used anti-dumping policies through their governments in an attempt to slow down the technological leads in other nations. Yet these same disk drive manufacturers would load up their channels and report shipped storage products as sold on their balance sheets when they had merely been sent to distribution partners. This level of coercive isomorphism became heightened and was driven by manufacturers looking for differentiation through public policy, having exhausted product-related differentiation as products at this point were different only on price and their date of availability."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Intel (2006) - A Prediction Made Real Saves Millions of Lives, Gordon Moore page. Intel Corporation. Accessed from the Internet on May 31, 2006: http://www.intel.com/technology/silicon/mooreslaw/
• DiMaggio and Powell (1983) - The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in organizational Fields. American Sociological Review. 1983. pp. 147 - 158.
• Disk Trend (2006) - Disk/Trend Industry Analyst by Jim Porter. 1956 - 2003 Retrieved from the Internet on May 31, 2006: http://www.tomcoughlin.com/Techpapers/DISK%20DRIVE%20HISTORY,%20TC%20Edits,%20050504.pdf

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