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Strategies and Institutions: A Pluralistic Account of Strategies in the Taiwanese Computer Industry

Department of Industrial Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan

Richard Whittington

New College, University of Oxford, U.K.

The 'new institutionalism' had led to increasing emphasis on the 'embed dedness' of organizations in local social systems. In this journal, Sorge (1991) and Whitley (1994) have shown, in particular, how the dominant forms of organization within countries or sectors are shaped by distinct national sys tems. The liability of these institutionalist approaches, however, is a focus on broad comparisons that gives little access to the diversity that is often observ able on the ground. Examining nine Taiwanese computer firms during the 1980s and early 1990s, this paper demonstrates that their strategies followed no singular system logic, displaying instead a wide scope for strategic divers ity. The paper argues that this kind of diversity can be explained not by rejecting institutionalism, but by recognizing the plural systems — business, technology and political — in which the dis-embedded actors of modernity now engage. Such a pluralistic approach has the potential to extend institu tionalist analysis beyond the broadly comparative to the strategies of individual firms.

Key Words: Descriptors: institutions • strategy • structuration • resource-based theory • Taiwan

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