Organizational discretion in responding to institutional practices: Hospitals and cesarean births

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Goodrick, E; Salancik, GR
• 署名单位: Carnegie Mellon University
• 刊物名称: ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0001-8392
• DOI: 10.2307/2393984
• 发表日期: 1996
• 页码: 1-28
• 关键词: SECTION RATES; incentives; CHOICE; rise

摘要

While others have tried to accommodate agency and interests within institutional theory by directly incorporating a strategic choice perspective, we propose here that institutions are primary and exist as the context within which interests operate. We argue that uncertainty provides discretion, implying that organizational influence on practice will be greatest when institutional standards are most uncertain. We examine these arguments in the context of cesarean section surgeries in hospitals with different ownership and teaching structures. As expected, we found that hospitals' characteristics were influential in determining the use of cesareans only when the level of institutional uncertainty was high, that is, when patient risk was at an intermediate rather than a high or low level.