This article uses a mid-century text to reengage a late-1970s concept to answer a new century question. The authors return to Alvin Gouldner’s classic (1954) study Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy to reexamine the “coupling” concept in contemporary institutionalism in a way that engages the following question: How do new institutional forms emerge? Based on Gouldner’s detailed observations of work in a gypsum mine, the authors argue that coupling processes are key mechanisms in the emergence of institutional forms. Examining coupling as a dynamic process and activity helps us to understand how the institution of bureaucracy emerged in the gypsum mine and interacted with previous social orders of authority and control. Gouldner’s account of coupling at the mine is a story of formal and informal power struggles and active conflict over meaning, bringing the process of local institutional formation into sharp relief.
Alvarez, J. L., Mazza, C., Strandgaard, J., & Svejenova, J. (2005). Shielding idiosyncrasy from isomorphic pressures: Towards optimal distinctiveness in European filmmaking. Organization, 12(6), 863-888.
2.
Baron, J. P., Dobbin, F., & Jennings, C. P. D. (1986). War and peace: The evolution of modern personnel administration in U.S. industry. American Journal of Sociology, 92, 250-283.
3.
Bartunek, J. M. (1984). Changing interpretive schemes and organizational restructuring: The example of a religious order. Administrative Science Quarterly, 29, 355-372.
4.
Berger, P., Berger, B., & Kellner, H. (1974). The homeless mind: Modernization and consciousness. New York: Vintage.
5.
Brown, R. H. (1978). Bureaucracy as praxis: Toward a political phenomenology of formal organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 23, 365-382.
6.
Burawoy, M. (1979). Manufacturing consent. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
7.
Burawoy, M. (2003). Revisits: An outline of a theory of reflexive ethnography. American Sociological Review, 68(5), 645-679.
8.
Chriss, J. J. (1999). Alvin W. Gouldner: Sociologist and outlaw Marxist. Brookfield, VT: Ashgate.
9.
Coburn, C. E. (2004). Beyond decoupling: Rethinking the relationship between the institutional environment and the classroom. Sociology of Education, 77, 211-244.
10.
Creed, W. E. D, Scully, M., & Austin, J. (2002). Clothes make the person: The tailoring of legitimating accounts and the social construction of identity. Organization Science, 13(5), 475-496.
11.
DiMaggio, P. (1988). Interest and agency in institutional theory. In L. Zucker (Ed.), Institutional patterns and organizations: Culture and environment. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.
12.
DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. (1983). The iron cage revisited. American Sociological Review, 48(1), 147-160.
13.
Dobbin, F., Edelman, L., Meyer, J. W., Scott, W. R., & Swidler, A. (1988). The expansion of due process in organizations. In L. G. Zucker (Ed.), Institutional patterns and organizations. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.
14.
Dobbin, F., & Sutton, J. R. (1996). The two faces of governance: Responses to legal uncertainty in U.S. firms, 1955-1985. American Sociological Review, 61(5), 794-811.
15.
Dobbin, F., Sutton, J. R., Meyer, J. W., & Scott, R. (1993). Equal opportunity law and the construction of internal labor markets. American Journal of Sociology, 99, 396-427.
16.
Edelman, L. (1990). Legal environments and organizational governance: The expansion of due process in the American workplace. American Journal of Sociology, 95, 1401-1440.
17.
Edelman, L. (1992). Legal ambiguity and symbolic structures: Organizational mediation of civil rights law. American Journal of Sociology, 97, 1531-1576.
18.
Fligstein, N. (2001). Social skill and the theory of fields. Sociological Theory, 19(2), 105-125.
19.
Gans, H. J. (1992). Sociological amnesia: The noncumulation of normal social science. Sociological Forum, 7(4), 701-710.
20.
Glassman, R. B. (1973). Persistence and loose-coupling in living systems. Behavioral Science, 18, 83-98.
21.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday.
22.
Gouldner, A. W. (1954). Patterns of industrial bureaucracy. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
23.
Gouldner, A. W. (1955). Wildcat strike. Yellow Springs, OH: Antioch Press.
24.
Hallett, T. (2003). Symbolic power and organizational culture. Sociological Theory, 21(2), 128-149.
25.
Handelman, D. (1976). Re-thinking banana time: Symbolic integration in a work setting. Urban Life, 4, 433-448.
26.
Hannan, M. T., & Freeman, J. (1984). Structural inertia and organizational change. American Sociological Review, 49(2), 149-164.
27.
Heimer, C. A. (1999). Competing institutions: Law, medicine, and family in neonatal intensive care. Law and Society Review, 33, 17-66.
28.
Hirsch, P. M., & Lounsbury, M. (1997). Ending the family quarrel. American Behavioral Scientist, 40, 406-418.
29.
Kogut, B., & Zander, U. (2000). Did socialism fail to innovate? A natural experiment of the two Zeiss companies. American Sociological Review, 65, 169-190.
30.
Lawrence, T., & Suddaby, R. (2006). Institutions and institutional work. In S. R. Clegg, C. Hardy, W. R. Nord, & T. Lawrence (Eds.), Handbook of organization studies (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
31.
Lounsbury, M., Ventresca, M. J., & Hirsch, P. M. (2003). Social movements, field frames, and industry emergence: A cultural-political perspective. Socio-Economic Review, 1(1), 2-33.
32.
March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. (1975). Choice situations in loosely coupled worlds. Unpublished manuscript, Stanford University.
33.
March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. (1976). Organizational choice under ambiguity. In J. G. March & J. P. Olsen (Eds.), Ambiguity and choice in organizations. Bergen, Norway: Universitets for laget.
34.
Merton, R. K. (1940). Bureaucratic structure and personality. Social Forces, 18(4), 560-568.
35.
Merton, R. K. (1982). Alvin W. Gouldner: Genesis & growth of a friendship. Theory and Society, 11(6), 915-938.
36.
Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83(2), 340-363.
37.
Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1978). The structure of educational organizations. In M. W. Meyer (Ed.), Environments and organizations (pp. 78-109). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
38.
Orton, D. J., & Weick, K. E. (1990). Loosely coupled systems: A reconceptualization. The Academy of Management Review, 15(2), 203-223.
39.
Perrow, C. (1986). Complex organizations: A critical essay. New York: McGraw-Hill.
40.
Pfeffer, J. (1981). Management as symbolic action: The creation and maintenance of organizational paradigms. In L. L. Cummings & B. M. Staw (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 3, pp. 1-52). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
41.
Sahlin-Andersson, K. (1994). Group identities as the building blocks of organizations: An essay about nurses’ daily work. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 10(2), 131-145.
42.
Schneiberg, M. (2005). Combining new institutionalisms: Explaining institutional change in American property insurance. Sociological Forum, 20(1), 93-137.
43.
Scott, W. R. (2001). Institutions and organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
44.
Scully, M., & Creed, D. (1997, August). Stealth legitimacy: Employee activism and corporate response during the diffusion of domestic partner benefits. Paper presented at the Academy of Management Meetings, Boston.
45.
Scully, M., & Meyerson, D. (1996). Before isomorphism: The dynamics of legitimation in the early days of corporate ethics programs. Working paper.
46.
Scully, M., & Segal, A. (2002). Passion with an umbrella: grassroots activists in the workplace. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 19, 125-168.
47.
Selznick, P. (1949). TVA and the grass roots. Berkeley: University of California Press.
48.
Selznick, P. (1957). Leadership in administration. Berkeley: University of California Press.
49.
Spillane, J. P., & Burch, P. (2005). The institutional environment and the technical core in K-12 schools: ‘Loose coupling’ revisited. In H. Meir & B. Rowan (Eds.), The new institutionalism in education. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
50.
Stein, M. R. (1982). Alvin W. Gouldner: The dialectic of Marxism and sociology during the buffalo years. Theory and Society, 11(6), 889-897.
51.
Stern, R., & Barley, S. (1996). Organizations and social systems: The neglected mandate. Administrative Science Quarterly, 41, 146-162.
52.
Stinchcombe, A. L. (1982). Should sociologists forget their mothers and fathers?American Sociologist, 17, 2-11.
53.
Stinchcombe, A. L. (1997). On the virtues of the old institutionalism. Annual Review of Sociology, 23(1), 1-18.
54.
Thompson, J. D. (1967). Organizations in action. New York: McGraw-Hill.
55.
Ventresca, M. J., & Lacey, R. (2000). Institutional assembly and industry entrepreneurs: Evidence from online database services, 1965-1984. Working paper, Kellogg School of Management.
56.
Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology (G. Roth & C. Wittich, Eds.). Berkeley: University of California Press.
57.
Weick, K. E. (1976). Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21, 1-19.
58.
Weick, K. E. (1979). The social psychology of organizing. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
