Nils Brunsson
Biographic Data
| ID | 1315506 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nils Brunsson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nils |
| FAMILY NAME | Brunsson |
| SIGNATURE | BRUNSSON N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stockholm School of Economics |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9236-0350 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 15 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 21 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1985 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
How Organizing Expands
We live in a world of extensive organizing, often leading to highly organized social orders not only within, but also among and outside formal organizations – even on a global scale. What drives this widespread level of organizing? We present empirical studies of how the international management standard ISO 9001 has implied an organizing among organizations that has expanded over time and resulted in a highly organized global order. We provide a…
Organization Studies and the Legal Person
The social construction of legal persons developed in the Western world about one thousand years ago has historically influenced the construction of organizations, including monasteries, guilds, cities, universities, states, associations, and businesses. Yet the notion of legal person was not present in influential, early definitions of organizations; rather organizations were understood as systems of interacting physical persons. This understand…
Institution und Organisation
Die frühe Organisationstheorie hob Entscheidungen als Merkmal formaler Organisationen und als Unterschied zwischen Organisationen und ihrer »Umwelt« hervor. Die institutionelle Perspektive, die spätere Organisationsanalysen dominierte, kann als fundamentale Kritik am Entscheidungsfokus und an der Unterscheidung zwischen Organisation und Umwelt gesehen werden. Denn Institutionen sind Verhaltensmuster und Bedeutungsstrukturen, die unhinterfragt übe…
Organizing and Reorganizing Markets
Organizing and Reorganizing Markets is an edited volume that brings organization theory to the study of markets. The differences between markets and organizations are often exaggerated. Both are organized. Organizing exists in addition to other processes and phenomena that form markets: the mutual adaption among sellers and buyers as described in mainstream economics and the institutions described in institutional economics and economic sociology…
The Reforming Organization
Originally published in 1993. Organizations have become larger, more professionalized, more differentiated, and wealthier. At the same time, they are often subject to large-scale changes: either as a result of mergers and acquisitions, or simply in response to changed market conditions or new technologies. In this climate the people who run organizations frequently find themselves acting as "reformers". The central concern of this study is to ana…
Reform as routine
Reform as Routine
Large contemporary organizations seem to be in an almost continual state of change. Whether in public or private organizations, managers are trying to implement new organizational forms, introduce new procedures or systems, or change the attitudes of employees. Such reforms often yield disappointing results, and so new reforms are deemed necessary. This book considers why reform takes place. It looks at why reforms occur when they do, what their …
The Hopeful Organization
This chapter provides some examples of ‘mechanisms of hope’ that prevent people from relinquishing their ideals — that keep them hopeful and encourage them to continue reforming even when they experience great difficulty in implementing their reforms. Mechanisms of hope are necessary ingredients in a world in which we are expected to believe in lofty ideas, in a world in which practical experience is not allowed to play an overly important role i…
Beliefs Creating Reform
This chapter discusses the difference between beliefs and practice within institutions, and investigates the effects of this difference on the frequency of reforms. It argues that even when beliefs are poor descriptions of practice, they can still have important, although more indirect, practical effects. One such effect is the production of reforms. This thesis is illustrated by referring to institutionalized beliefs about the organizations, com…
Organizational Reforms as Routines
This chapter argues that organizational reforms are driven by problems to be addressed, by solutions to be applied, and by forgetfulness. The greater the supply of any of these factors, the more likely it is that reforms will occur. Without problems, reforms are difficult to justify; without solutions they cannot be formulated; and without forgetfulness there is a risk that people will be discouraged by the fact that similar reforms have been tri…
The Standardization of Organizational Forms as a Cropping‐up Process
A key argument in institutional theories of organization is that organizational forms are strongly influenced by widely held norms and ideas about the kind of organizational forms that are natural, correct, or desirable. Norms and ideas held in common constitute a major impetus to standardization; they promote similarities in many organizations, even those which conduct quite different types of production but which operate within the same culture…
Ideas and Actions
This chapter discusses the relationship between ideas and actions. It is not easy either for individuals or for groups to reconcile ideas and actions. The world of ideas is very different from the world of action. Three differences in particular between the conditions for ideas and action can create difficulties in achieving consistency and control. The first concerns the actual content of ideas and actions. Second, ideas may develop one way in c…
The Consequences of Decision-Making
This book questions the rationality of decision-making, and argues that it is as important to understand other aspects of decision-making apart from choice — such things as mobilizing action, allocating responsibility, and legitimizing organizations. These aspects of decisions can influence decision-making, and the assumptions about feasible norms that provide their context. The norm of rationality is far from obvious: sometimes decision-makers c…
The Organization of Markets
Markets have sometimes been described as vastly different from and even opposite to formal organizations. But markets and organizations share a similarity as well. Both are organized – by the use of decisions on membership, rules, monitoring, sanctions or hierarchy. Market organization creates differences among markets, and specific dynamics, which can be explained by the actions and interactions of market organizers: profiteers, ‘others’, seller…
Organization outside organizations
It is common practice in organizational research to restrict the concept of organization to formal organizations, and to describe the world outside these entities by such other concepts as institutions or networks. It is argued in this article that the concept of organization can be fruitfully broadened to include some aspects of the order that exists outside and among organizations. A broader concept includes not only complete, formal organizati…
Meta-organizations
A growing number of organizations are meta-organizations; rather than individuals they have other organizations as their members. This comprehensive book explains, in-depth, the unique way in which meta-organizations function, how they differ from organizations with individual membership, and how they are crucial agents in the process of globalization.
Organizing Organizations
Organizations and meta-organizations
Constructing Organizations
Organizations are socially constructed phenomena. A crucial task for organizational research is to analyze how and why people construct organizations rather than other social forms. In this paper, it is argued that recent public-sector reforms can be interpreted as attempts at constructing organizations. Public-sector entities that could formerly be described as agents or arenas have been transformed into `more complete' organizations by installi…
Ideas and actions
The Irrational Organization
Organizing Organizations
Organization Studies and the Legal Person
The social construction of legal persons developed in the Western world about one thousand years ago has historically influenced the construction of organizations, including monasteries, guilds, cities, universities, states, associations, and businesses. Yet the notion of legal person was not present in influential, early definitions of organizations; rather organizations were understood as systems of interacting physical persons. This understand…
The Irrational Organization
Ideas and actions
Constructing Organizations
Organizations are socially constructed phenomena. A crucial task for organizational research is to analyze how and why people construct organizations rather than other social forms. In this paper, it is argued that recent public-sector reforms can be interpreted as attempts at constructing organizations. Public-sector entities that could formerly be described as agents or arenas have been transformed into `more complete' organizations by installi…
Organizations and meta-organizations
Organizing Organizations
Meta-organizations
A growing number of organizations are meta-organizations; rather than individuals they have other organizations as their members. This comprehensive book explains, in-depth, the unique way in which meta-organizations function, how they differ from organizations with individual membership, and how they are crucial agents in the process of globalization.
Organization outside organizations
It is common practice in organizational research to restrict the concept of organization to formal organizations, and to describe the world outside these entities by such other concepts as institutions or networks. It is argued in this article that the concept of organization can be fruitfully broadened to include some aspects of the order that exists outside and among organizations. A broader concept includes not only complete, formal organizati…
The Organization of Markets
Markets have sometimes been described as vastly different from and even opposite to formal organizations. But markets and organizations share a similarity as well. Both are organized – by the use of decisions on membership, rules, monitoring, sanctions or hierarchy. Market organization creates differences among markets, and specific dynamics, which can be explained by the actions and interactions of market organizers: profiteers, ‘others’, seller…
Reform as Routine
Large contemporary organizations seem to be in an almost continual state of change. Whether in public or private organizations, managers are trying to implement new organizational forms, introduce new procedures or systems, or change the attitudes of employees. Such reforms often yield disappointing results, and so new reforms are deemed necessary. This book considers why reform takes place. It looks at why reforms occur when they do, what their …
The Hopeful Organization
This chapter provides some examples of ‘mechanisms of hope’ that prevent people from relinquishing their ideals — that keep them hopeful and encourage them to continue reforming even when they experience great difficulty in implementing their reforms. Mechanisms of hope are necessary ingredients in a world in which we are expected to believe in lofty ideas, in a world in which practical experience is not allowed to play an overly important role i…
Beliefs Creating Reform
This chapter discusses the difference between beliefs and practice within institutions, and investigates the effects of this difference on the frequency of reforms. It argues that even when beliefs are poor descriptions of practice, they can still have important, although more indirect, practical effects. One such effect is the production of reforms. This thesis is illustrated by referring to institutionalized beliefs about the organizations, com…
Organizational Reforms as Routines
This chapter argues that organizational reforms are driven by problems to be addressed, by solutions to be applied, and by forgetfulness. The greater the supply of any of these factors, the more likely it is that reforms will occur. Without problems, reforms are difficult to justify; without solutions they cannot be formulated; and without forgetfulness there is a risk that people will be discouraged by the fact that similar reforms have been tri…
The Standardization of Organizational Forms as a Cropping‐up Process
A key argument in institutional theories of organization is that organizational forms are strongly influenced by widely held norms and ideas about the kind of organizational forms that are natural, correct, or desirable. Norms and ideas held in common constitute a major impetus to standardization; they promote similarities in many organizations, even those which conduct quite different types of production but which operate within the same culture…
Ideas and Actions
This chapter discusses the relationship between ideas and actions. It is not easy either for individuals or for groups to reconcile ideas and actions. The world of ideas is very different from the world of action. Three differences in particular between the conditions for ideas and action can create difficulties in achieving consistency and control. The first concerns the actual content of ideas and actions. Second, ideas may develop one way in c…
The Consequences of Decision-Making
This book questions the rationality of decision-making, and argues that it is as important to understand other aspects of decision-making apart from choice — such things as mobilizing action, allocating responsibility, and legitimizing organizations. These aspects of decisions can influence decision-making, and the assumptions about feasible norms that provide their context. The norm of rationality is far from obvious: sometimes decision-makers c…
Organizing and Reorganizing Markets
Organizing and Reorganizing Markets is an edited volume that brings organization theory to the study of markets. The differences between markets and organizations are often exaggerated. Both are organized. Organizing exists in addition to other processes and phenomena that form markets: the mutual adaption among sellers and buyers as described in mainstream economics and the institutions described in institutional economics and economic sociology…
The Reforming Organization
Originally published in 1993. Organizations have become larger, more professionalized, more differentiated, and wealthier. At the same time, they are often subject to large-scale changes: either as a result of mergers and acquisitions, or simply in response to changed market conditions or new technologies. In this climate the people who run organizations frequently find themselves acting as "reformers". The central concern of this study is to ana…
Reform as routine
Institution und Organisation
Die frühe Organisationstheorie hob Entscheidungen als Merkmal formaler Organisationen und als Unterschied zwischen Organisationen und ihrer »Umwelt« hervor. Die institutionelle Perspektive, die spätere Organisationsanalysen dominierte, kann als fundamentale Kritik am Entscheidungsfokus und an der Unterscheidung zwischen Organisation und Umwelt gesehen werden. Denn Institutionen sind Verhaltensmuster und Bedeutungsstrukturen, die unhinterfragt übe…
Organization Studies and the Legal Person
The social construction of legal persons developed in the Western world about one thousand years ago has historically influenced the construction of organizations, including monasteries, guilds, cities, universities, states, associations, and businesses. Yet the notion of legal person was not present in influential, early definitions of organizations; rather organizations were understood as systems of interacting physical persons. This understand…
How Organizing Expands
We live in a world of extensive organizing, often leading to highly organized social orders not only within, but also among and outside formal organizations – even on a global scale. What drives this widespread level of organizing? We present empirical studies of how the international management standard ISO 9001 has implied an organizing among organizations that has expanded over time and resulted in a highly organized global order. We provide a…
Political science (16 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Business (9 works) · Economics (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Public relations (7 works) · Epistemology (6 works) · Management and Organizational Studies (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works)