Globalization Pressures and the Creative Response

Abstract

This essay investigates globalization as a complex institutionalization process and the potential of institutional theory to clarify the phenomenon, especially in the way it occurs in the peripheral regions. It is distinguished hegemonic globalization, which takes place as an institutional diffusion originated in the central countries, from counter-hegemonic globalization which comprises bottom-up responses. With a synthesis of the “old” and "new" institutionalism in organization studies, the institutional theory seems able to contextualize the process adequately. However, by excessive attachment to the normal tendency to equilibrium, this theory encounters difficulties in dealing with the dynamic aspects of the phenomenon. Although the alternatives of response considered by Oliver (1991) include varied forms of resistance against conformity, this article defends, following the example of Zimmerman and Zeitz (2002), an expanded typology of strategic responses. By including the creative response, this typology seems more apt to mirror the contrasting processes of globalization, including the ones that introduce fundamental changes in the environment itself.