Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T20:03:20.076Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Translating models of organization: Can the Mittelstand move from Bavaria to Geelong?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2015

Danielle M. Logue ,
Walter P. Jarvis ,
Stewart Clegg  and
Antoine Hermens
Danielle M. Logue*
Affiliation:
UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Walter P. Jarvis
Affiliation:
UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Stewart Clegg
Affiliation:
UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Antoine Hermens
Affiliation:
UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
*
Corresponding author: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the increasing global attention being given to the German organizational form of the Mittelstand over the past decade. We do so, especially, in consideration of the construction of Australian analogues to the Mittelstand. Such translations have been posited as a solution to the current crisis facing Australian manufacturing. Translation out of context always poses problems: can a specifically national form of organization, such as the German Mittelstand, be something that can, potentially, be translated to other nations and industrial contexts? The Australian case offers an empirical setting in which to explore understandings of transnational translation of management innovations. Our findings demonstrate how globally theorized models subject to translation align abstract value orientations with local templates. Our discussion focuses on the translation of a Bavarian model of organization into very different locations, such as Geelong, Australia.

Keywords

translationglocalizationtheorizationinnovationMittelstand
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 17 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ansari, S. M., Fiss, P. C., & Zajac, E. J. (2010). Made to fit: How practices vary as they diffuse. Academy of Management Review, 35(1), 67–92.Google Scholar
Atkins, R. (2012). Germany: The miraculous machine. Financial Times. Retrieved 19 April 2012 from http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/dff3976a-8a08-11e1-87f0-00144feab49a.htmlGoogle Scholar
Australian Business Foundation (ABF). (2011). Manufacturing future. Australia: Australian Business Foundation and NSW Business Chamber.Google Scholar
Australian Business Foundation and NSW Chamber of Business (2011). Manufacturing Futures. April 2011. Retrieved from http://www.nswbusinesschamber.com.au/NSWBC/media/Misc/Policy%20Documents/NBC-515_Manufacturing_Futures_Paper.pdf.Google Scholar
Avery, G. & Bergsteiner, H. (2010). Honeybees and Locusts: The business case for sustainable leadership. Sydney: Allen & Unwinn.Google Scholar
Baum, J. A., & Powell, W. W. (1995). Cultivating an institutional ecology of organizations: Comment on Hannan, Carroll, Dundon, and Torres. American Sociological Review, 60(4), 529–538.Google Scholar
Bauman, Z. (1988). Freedom. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bendix, R. (1956). Work and authority in industry: Ideologies of management in the course of industrialisation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Berkeley.Google Scholar
Benford, R. D., & Snow, D. A. (2000). Framing processes and social movements: An overview and assessment. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 611–639.Google Scholar
Berghoff, H. (2006). The end of family business? The Mittelstand and German capitalism in transition, 1949-2000. Business History Review, 80, 263–295.Google Scholar
Birkinshaw, J., Hamel, G., & Mol, M. (2008). Management innovation. Academy of Management Review, 33, 825–845.Google Scholar
Blackbourn, D. (2003). History of Germany, 1780-1918: The long nineteenth century. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Blasco, M., & Zølner, M. (2010). Corporate social responsibility in Mexico and France: Exploring the role of normative institutions. Business and Society, 49(2), 216–251.Google Scholar
Bryant, C. (2012). A model that everyone wants. Financial Times. Retrieved 6 August 2012 from http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/cdd959be-dfbe-11e1-b81c-00144feab49a.html#axzz2AqVi7qttGoogle Scholar
Campbell, J. L. (2004). Institutional change and globalization: Problems and prospects. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Chandler, J. (2012). New Polish on the factory floor. The Age, March 16. Retrieved from http://www.theage.com.au/national/new-polish-on-the-factory-floor-20120315-1v83k.htmlGoogle Scholar
Cohen, M. D., March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. (1972). A garbage can model of organizational choice. Administrative Science Quarterly, 17(1), 1–25.Google Scholar
Czarniawska, B., & Joerges, B. (1996). Travel of ideas. In B. Czarniawska & G. Sevón (Eds.), Translating organizational change (pp. 13–48). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Czarniawska, B., & Sevon, G. (1996). Translating organizational change. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Czarniawska, B., & Sevon, G. (Eds.) (2005). Global ideas: How ideas, objects, and practices travel in the global economy. Copenhagen: Liber and Copenhagen Business School Press.Google Scholar
Davis, G., Diekmann, K., & Tinsley, C. (1994). The decline of the conglomerate firm in the 1980s: The deinstitutionalization of an organizational form. American Sociological Review, 59(4), 547–570.Google Scholar
Djelic, M.-L. (1998). Exporting the American model: The post-war transformation of European business. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Djelic, M. L. (2008). Sociological studies of diffusion: Is history relevant? Socio-Economic Review, 6(3), 538–557.Google Scholar
Djelic, M.-L., & Quack, S. (Eds.) (2003). Globalisation and institutions: Redefining the rules of the economic game. UK: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Djelic, M.-L., & Sahlin-Andersson, K. (Eds.) (2006). Transnational governance: Institutional dynamics of regulation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Drori, G., Meyer, J. W., & Hwang, H. (Eds.) (2006). Globalization and organization: World society and organizational change. USA: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Drori, G., Höllerer, M., & Walgenbach, P. (2014). Global themes and local variations in organization and management. New York, NY, USA: Routledge.Google Scholar
Eberle, E. (2002). Dignity and liberty: Constitutional visions in Germany and the United States. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.Google Scholar
Eberle, E. (2008). Equality in Germany and the United States. San Diego International Law Journal, 10, 63–120.Google Scholar
Fioretos, O. (2011). Creative reconstructions: Multilateralism and European varieties of capitalism after 1950. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Gioia, D. A., Price, K. N., Hamilton, A. L., & Thomas, J. B. (2010). Forging an identity: An insider-outsider study of processes involved in the formation of organizational identity. Administrative Science Quarterly, 55(1), 1–46.Google Scholar
Gittens, R. (2012). For true productivity gains, co-operate don’t fight. Sydney Morning Herald, August 8. Retrieved 19 April 2012 from http://www.rossgittins.com/2012/08/for-true-productivity-gains-co-operate.htmlGoogle Scholar
Glasman, M. (1996). Unnecessary suffering: Managing markets utopia. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Glossner, C. (2010). The making of the German post-war economy: Political communication and public reception of the social market economy after World War Two. London: Tauris.Google Scholar
Greenwood, R., Suddaby, R., & Hinings, C. R. (2002). Theorizing change: The role of professional associations in the transformation of institutionalized fields. The Academy of Management Journal, 45(1), 58–80.Google Scholar
Guillen, M. (1994). Models of management. USA: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hamilton, G., & Biggart, N. (1988). Market, culture, and authority: A comparative analysis of management and organization in the far East. The American Journal of Sociology, 94(Supplement): Organizations and Institutions: Sociological and Economic Approaches to the Analysis of Social Structure), S52–S94.Google Scholar
Höllerer, M. A. (2013). From taken-for-granted to explicit commitment: The rise of CSR in a corporatist country. Journal of Management Studies, 50(4), 573–606.Google Scholar
James, D. (2012). For want of a nail. Business Review Weekly. Retrieved 29 November 2012 from http://www.brw.com.au/p/sections/features/for_want_of_nail_c8idXmCiXM9FUNTjHKeVjGoogle Scholar
Jarvis, W. P., & Logue, D. M. (2012). Is the Toyota way the only way? The Conversation. Retrieved 3 May 2012 from www.theconversation.org.auGoogle Scholar
Jones, D. (2012). Masters of the universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the birth of neoliberal politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Jones, L. P., Sakong, I., & Jones, L. (1980). Government, business, and entrepreneurship in economic development: The Korean case. Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Judt, T. (2005). Postwar: A history of Europe since 1945. Random House.Google Scholar
Kostova, T., Roth, K., & Dacin, M. T. (2008). Institutional theory in the study of multinational corporations: A critique and new directions. Academy of Management Review, 33(4), 994–1006.Google Scholar
Locke, R. (1996). The collapse of the American management mystique. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Locke, R., & Spender, J. C. (2011). Confronting managerialism: How the business elite and their schools threw our lives out of balance. London: Zed.Google Scholar
Logue, D. M. (2014). Adoption and abandonment: Global diffusion and local variation in university top management teams. In G. Drori, M. Höllerer & P. Walgenbach (Eds.), Global themes and local variations in organization and management (pp. 175–188). New York, NY, USA: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lounsbury, M. (2007). A tale of two cities: Competing logics and practice variation in the professionalising of mutual funds. Academy of Management Journal, 50(2), 289–307.Google Scholar
Lounsbury, M., & Crumley, E. T. (2007). New practice creation: An institutional perspective on innovation. Organization Studies, 28(7), 993–1012.Google Scholar
Marceau, J. (1997). The high road or the low road: Alternatives for Australia’s future. Sydney: Australian Business Foundation.Google Scholar
Marsh, P. (2012). China’s industries in Mittelstand-off. Financial Times. Retrieved 14 November 2012 from http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c27821fc-b167-11e1-bb9b-00144feabdc0.htmlGoogle Scholar
Mazorol, T. (2012). The missing middle: What could Australia learn from Germany. The Conversation. Retrieved 19 May 2012 from www.theconversation.org.auGoogle Scholar
Meyer, R. E. (2014). ‘Re-localization’ as micro-mobilization of consent and legitimacy. In G. Drori, M. Höllerer & P. Walgenbach (Eds.), Global themes and local variations in organization and management (pp. 79–89). New York, NY, USA: Routledge.Google Scholar
Meyer, R. E., & Höllerer, M. A. (2010). Meaning structures in a contested issue field: A topographic map of shareholder value in Austria. Academy of Management Journal, 53(6), 1241–1262.Google Scholar
Munir, K. A., & Phillips, N. (2005). The birth of the ‘kodak moment’: Institutional entrepreneurship and the adoption of new technologies. Organization Studies, 26(11), 1665–1687.Google Scholar
Nigam, A., & Occasio, W. (2010). Event attention, environmental sensemaking, and change in institutional logics: An inductive analysis of the effects of public attention to Clinton’s health care reform initiative. Organisation Science, 21(4), 823–841.Google Scholar
Paster, T. (2012). The role of business in the development of the welfare state and labor markets in Germany: Containing social reforms. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Powell, W., Gammal, D., & Simard, C. (2005). Close encounters: The circulation and reception of managerial practices in the San Francisco bay area nonprofit community. In B. Czarniawska & G. Sevon (Eds.), Global ideas (pp. 233–258). Copenhagen: Liber and Copenhagen Business School Press.Google Scholar
Prime Minister’s Manufacturing Task Force (2012). Report of Non-Government Members “Smarter Manufacturing for a Smarter Australia”. 16 August 2012. Retrieved from: http://www.industry.gov.au/industry/manufacturing/Taskforce/Pages/Library%20Card/SmarterManufacturing.aspx.Google Scholar
Rao, H., Monin, P., & Durand, R. (2003). Institutional change in Toque Ville: Nouvelle cuisine as an identity movement in French gastronomy. The American Journal of Sociology, 108(4), 795–843.Google Scholar
Reay, T. & Hinings, C. B. (2005). The recomposition of an organizational field: Health care in Alberta. Organization Studies, 26(3), 351–384.Google Scholar
Riege, A., & Zulpo, M. (2007). Knowledge transfer process cycle: Between factory floor and middle management. Australian Journal of Management, 32(2), 293–314.Google Scholar
Sahlin-Andersson, K. (1996). Imitating by editing success: The construction of organizational fields. In B. Czarniawska & G. Sevon (Eds.), Translating organizational change (pp. 69–92). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Sahlin-Andersson, K., & Engwall, L. (Eds.) (2002). The expansion of management knowledge: Carriers, flows, and sources. USA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Sandrock, O., & du Plessis, J. (2012). The German system of supervisory codetermination by employees. In J. du Plessis et al. (Eds.), German corporate governance in international and European context (2nd ed.). London: Springer.Google Scholar
Servan-Schreiber, J. (1967). The American challenge. New York, NY: Scribner.Google Scholar
Silvia, S. (2013). Holding the shop together: German industrial relations in the postwar era. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Simon, H. (1996). Hidden champions. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School.Google Scholar
Strang, D., & Meyer, J. W. (1993). Institutional conditions for diffusion. Theory and Society, 22(4), 487–511.Google Scholar
Strang, D., & Soule, S. A. (1998). Diffusion in organizations and social movements: From hybrid corn to poison pills. Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 265–290.Google Scholar
Stout, L. (2012). The shareholder myth: how putting shareholders first harms investors, corporations, and the public. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.Google Scholar
Suddaby, R., & Greenwood, R. (2005). Rhetorical strategies of legitimacy. Administrative Science Quarterly, 50(2005), 35–67.Google Scholar
Svejenova, S., Mazza, C., & Planellas, M. (2007). Cooking up change in haute cuisine: Ferran Adrià as an institutional entrepreneur. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 28(5), 539–561.Google Scholar
Taylor, L. (2003). Facing up to change. Australian Financial Review, January 18. Retrieved from http://www.afr.com/p/national/item_XealjWGTwTGFL0G49tT8LLGoogle Scholar
The Economist (2012). Why doesn’t France have a Mittelstand? Envy of Germany’s medium-sized firms sparks a desire to emulate them. Published 20 October 2012, accessed at http://www.economist.com/news/business/21564898-envy-germany’s-medium-sized-family-firms-sparks-desire-emulate-them.Google Scholar
Tipler, C. (2012). German elixir for our Dutch disease. Business Spectator. Retrieved 29 February 2012 from http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Dutch-disease-German-manufacturing-economy-currenc-pd20120222Google Scholar
Tolbert, P., & Zucker, L. (1996). Institutionalization of institutional theory. In S. Clegg, C. Hardy & W. Nord (Eds.), Handbook of organizational studies. London: Sage, pp. 175–190.Google Scholar
Van Maanen, J. (1979). Reclaiming qualitative methods for organizational research: A preface. Administrative Science Quarterly, 520–526.Google Scholar
Venohr, B., & Meyer, K. (2007). The German miracle keeps running: How Germany’s hidden champions stay ahead in the global economy, Working Paper No. 30, Institute of Management, Berlin School of Economics, Berlin.Google Scholar
Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission, Victorian Government, Australia (2011). Victorian manufacturing: Meeting the Challenges. June 2011. Retrieved from www.vcec.vic.gov.au/files.Google Scholar
Walker, M. (1971/1998). German home towns: Community, state, and general estate. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. pp. 1648–1871.Google Scholar
Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Zilber, T. B. (2006). The work of the symbolic in institutional processes: Translations of rational myths in Israeli high tech. Academy of Management Journal, 49(2), 281–303.Google Scholar