organization theory must-read articles

Teppo

Gordon at the Conglomerate sent me an email a while back requesting the “must-reads” of organization theory.  I think there are several important overview-type books (e.g., see this post on relevant books for example by Scott and Pfeffer), and several classic theory-building books (e.g., see this post on Cyert and March; of course March and Simon, Coleman, Hannan and Freeman, Barnard, McKelvey, Williamson, Weick, etc), but let me here just stick to journal articles (which in part delimits my set to the past 40 years or so).  For now just an alphabetical list of organization theory must-read articles:

Meyer, John and Brian Rowan. 1977. “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure

Meyer, John and Brian Rowan. 1977. “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure

as Myth and Ceremony.” American Journal of Sociology 83: 340-63.

• Coleman, J. 1986. Social theory, social research, and a theory of action.  American Journal of Sociology, 91: 1309-1335.
• DiMaggio, P. & Powell, W. 1983. The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields.  American Sociological Review, 48: 147-160.
• Granovetter, M. 1985. Economic and social action: The problem of embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology, 91: 481-518.
• Lawrence & Lorsch. 1967. Differentiation and integration in complex organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 12: 1-47.
• Levitt, B. & March, J. 1988. Organizational learning. Annual Review of Sociology, 14: 319-340.
• March, J. 1991. Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning.  Organization Science, 2: 71-87.
• Meyer, J. & Rowan, B. 1977. Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony.  American Journal of Sociology, 83: 333-363.
• Powell, W.W., Koput, K.W., & Smith-Doerr, L. 1996.  Interorganizational collaboration and the locus of innovation: Network of learning in biotechnology. Administrative Science Quarterly, 41: 116-145.
• Walsh, J. 1995. Managerial and organizational cognition: Notes from a trip down memory lane. Organization Science, 6: 280-321.
• Williamson, O. 1977. Transaction-cost economics: The governance of contractual relations.  Journal of Law and Economics, 22: 233-261.

(For a more comprehensive list of key pieces and theories – see this extensive doctoral readings list by Andy Van de Ven.)

This list is probably not that controversial (the above articles ought to show up in anyone’s top 50 [ok, maybe 100], and these articles tend to be among the most highly cited.  Admittedly “learning” shows up too prevalently given my own research interests, institutional approaches also appear to fair rather well, and, if I consider “strategy” articles – the list would obviously be quite different [Barney, Teece, etc. etc.).  Well, I’ll provide a much more controversial, ‘alternative’ list in a later post (i.e. my “classics” – for example, I am partial to these type of pieces, or these types).