University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

The duality of practices and its organizational implications: Adoption of new HR practices and consequences on innovation in Korean firms following the 1997 Asian financial crisis

Lee, Seung Hoon

Content Files
LEE-DISSERTATION-2019.pdf

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/105863

Description

Title
The duality of practices and its organizational implications: Adoption of new HR practices and consequences on innovation in Korean firms following the 1997 Asian financial crisis
Author(s)
Lee, Seung Hoon
Issue Date
2019-06-19
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Love, E. Geoffrey
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Kraatz, Matthew S.
Committee Member(s)
  • Somaya, Deepak
  • Schijven, Mario
Department of Study
Business Administration
Discipline
Business Administration
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Date of Ingest
2019-11-26T20:58:28Z
Keyword(s)
  • Organizations' Practice Adoption
  • Institutional Theory
Abstract
Organizations face normative pressures from institutional actors to adopt various practices. Much institutional research has offered insights about diffusion processes, decoupling, and adoptions’ implication for organizational legitimacy. However, this vast literature appears to have largely overlooked a parallel set of questions about whether and when institutionally prescribed practices deliver the intended outcomes. The questions are important given the dual nature of practices: They have both technical and institutional characteristics and serve as both tools and symbols. Such dual nature of practices has also been recognized to be accountable for unintended negative consequences of technically sound practices. Chapter 2 of my dissertation has two objectives. First, it provides needed empirical evidence about the intended consequences of institutional prescriptions in the context of Korean manufacturing firms. Following the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, Korean firms faced normative pressure to adopt a comprehensive set of new market-oriented HR practices, where the practices were intended to facilitate innovation. Based on the positive effect of the prescription found in this context, I build more general theory about the conditions under which prescriptions deliver intended outcomes. The second objective of Chapter 2 is to develop and test theory about the types of practices more or less likely to deliver intended effects. Consistent with the theory’s predictions, the results show that the prescribed practices have divergent effects on innovation. Chapter 3, which is a qualitative add-on to Chapter 2, examines the practices’ organizational ramifications and innovation outcomes through a comparative case study of four major conglomerates in Korea. By doing so, the chapter aims to provide a deeper understanding of the mechanism behind the divergent effects of the prescribed HR practices.
Graduation Semester
2019-08
Type of Resource
text
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105863
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2019 Seung Hoon Lee

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