Managing in Transition

Abstract

MagoTaplan is a medium-sized, Cuban manufacturing firm located about 30 kilometers from Havana. Despite the catastrophic state of the Cuban economy, MagoTaplan continues to manufacture quality goods and is steadily increasing quality, product diversity, and production volume. But what management practices allowed this firm to succeed while others fail in an economy that has experienced a 50% drop in industrial output over the past 5 years? A large part of the answer lies in the careful and effective management of the complex institutional context faced by MagoTaplan combined with rapid innovation at an organizational level. In this article, the authors explore how managers at MagoTaplan implemented fundamental organizational change while managing complex institutional linkages and stringent ideological demands in a rapidly changing and uncertain institutional context. The results provide a basis for a discussion of institutional entrepreneurship and isomorphism in reaction to radical change in the institutional context.