Journal Articles

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/7915

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Subject: search.filters.subject.institutional theory

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    Can MNCs promote more inclusive tourism? Apollo tour operator's sustainability work
    (Taylor and Francis Group, 2018-08-08) Zapata Campos MJ; Hall CM; Backlund S
    Outbound tour operators are key actors in international mass tourism. However, their contribution to more sustainable and inclusive forms of tourism has been critically questioned. Drawing from new institutional theories in organization studies, and informed by the case of one of the largest Scandinavian tour operators, we examine the corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability work in large tour operators and the challenges faced in being more inclusive. On the basis of in-depth interviews with corporate officers, document analysis and media reports, we show how top-down coercive and normative pressures, coming from the parent company and the host society shape the ability of the daughter corporation to elaborate a more inclusive agenda. However, daughter companies do not merely comply with these institutional pressures and policy is also developed from the ‘bottom-up’. We show how the tour operator's sustainability work is also the result of organizational responses including buffering, bargaining, negotiating and influencing the parent organization. By creating intra and inter-sectoral learning and collaborative industry platforms, MNCs not only exchange and diffuse more inclusive practices among the industry, but also anticipate future normative pressures such as legislation and brand risk. Daughter organizations help shape their institutional arrangements through internal collaborative platforms and by incorporating local events and societal concerns into the multinational CSR policy, especially when flexible policy frameworks operate, and the corporate CSR agenda and organizational field are under formation. However, risks do exist, in the absence of institutional pressures, of perpetuating a superficial adoption of more inclusive practices in the mass tourism industry.
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    The evolution of SME policy: the case of New Zealand
    (Taylor & Francis Group, 17/01/2019) Jurado T; Battisti M
    Building on policy process theories, this study constructs a meaningful historical narrative that explains the developments in small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) policy in New Zealand during the period 1978–2008 that marked the point where SME policy was firmly institutionalized as a subsystem within the wider economic policy framework. Temporality is a key characteristic of the policy process and historical accounts are an important means of describing how the process unfolds over time. The enquiry draws on archival sources as well as the personal accounts by individuals who were directly involved in SME policy development. Findings illustrate how the role of SMEs as a policy subsystem develops within an overarching economic policy framework. More specifically, we identify the periods of stability and those of change and what the role of actors, context and events is in this process by highlighting the complexity and interrelated nature of SME policy development. At the time of writing, the foundations of globalization are being called into question. Together with the ever faster rate of technological change, these are important pillars in the predominant political discourses that underpinned the formulation of SME policy during the period of this study. Understanding how SME policy was developed in the past could lead to a better understanding of the role of SME in this new world. As new policy is developed, this study brings to the fore the dynamics of institutional context, policy actors and stakeholders, and the impact they have on policy outcomes.