INSTITUTIONAL TRANSLATION GONE WRONG: THE CASE OF VILLAGES FOR AFRICA IN RURAL TANZANIA

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Claus, Laura; Greenwood, Royston; Mgoo, John
• 署名单位: University of London; University College London; University of Alberta; University of Edinburgh
• 刊物名称: ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0001-4273
• DOI: 10.5465/amj.2017.1089
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 1497-1526
• 关键词: COGNITIVE-EMOTIONAL DISTINCTIVENESS; ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY; FOREIGN SUBSIDIARIES; collective memory; Aid effectiveness; distance; strategies; work; IDENTITY; stress

摘要

Why do ideas that have been successfully moved across highly different contexts subsequently disappear? To answer this question, we use longitudinal data on the organization Villages for Africa that introduced macrocredit loans to rural Tanzanians that would enable them to establish their own village enterprises. Several years after the implementation of the idea, it collapsed. Our findings allowus to make two key contributions. First, we provide a process model of high-distance translation that shows how proponents can strategically introduce an idea across highly different contexts by culturally detaching it from its institutional origins, leading to the idea being culturally assimilated into the recipient context. However, although cultural detachment and cultural assimilation indicate the successful translation of an idea, the means of doing so can later prompt its rejection. We call this the reactance effect of translations across highly different contexts. Second, we showcase the role of history for translation theory more generally. History-particularly the historical relationship between the sociocultural categories of the mzungu (Swahili for foreigner) and the villagers-influenced the way in which the macrocredit idea could be introduced to villagers and played a key role in its subsequent rejection.