• Disentangling the Difficulties in Cross National Practice Adoption: The Role of Perception of Institutional Logics

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to theorize how importation, a form of international practice transfers in which firms adopt practices developed by foreign organizations, is fundamentally problematic and thus gives rise to distinctive difficulty.

Design/methodology/approach – Conceptual study.

Findings – Due to importation’s nature as cross national and inter organizational transfer, adopters tend to lack perception of cultural misfit between the foreign practice and the adopting organization. We develop a framework for the consequences of such bounded perception.

Research limitations/implications – We limit scope of our framework to the case where cultural misfit involves conflicting institutional logics.

Practical implications/Social implications – This paper proposes that adopters’ initial perceptions of logics underlying the foreign practice and the adopting organization can result in fundamental problems and affect subsequent organizational learning and adaptation.

Originality/value – This study provides contextual as well as cognitive analysis of source of difficulty in cross national practice adoption.

Keywords – Cross national transfer of organizational practices, Cultural misfit, Institutional logics, Managerial bounded perception