Tammar Zilber | The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (original) (raw)
Papers by Tammar Zilber
This symposium explores the concept of custodianship in organizational life – actors who are inve... more This symposium explores the concept of custodianship in organizational life – actors who are invested in the continuity of traditions, and who engage in official and unofficial roles to guide, adapt, and protect them. At the intersection of institutional work and culture, custodianship appears to play an essential role in explanations of how macro-organizational phenomena persist over time, including institutions, identities, technologies, and practices, with recent studies finding custodians working 'behind the scenes' to maintain even the most apparently stable social arrangements. But who are the custodians? Why do they engage in custodial work? How? Custodianship is a promising concept but at risk of becoming vague and unhelpful without theoretical elaboration. This symposium is organized to spur the development of custodianship into a coherent and useful construct for management theorists. To that end, we bring together four studies which put custodians center stage, ex...
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2018
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2012
Institutional work has attracted much interest recently. In tandem with calls to further explore ... more Institutional work has attracted much interest recently. In tandem with calls to further explore the microfoundations of institutions, and to move away from heroic depictions of institutional entre...
Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 2019
This book applies a reflective and critical gaze on the production of knowledge within management... more This book applies a reflective and critical gaze on the production of knowledge within management and organization studies. Seasoned scholars reflect on how we carry out research to provide insights into the assumptions and practices we employ, and how they affect the production and consumption of managerial knowledge and organization theory.
The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 2022
In this paper, we aim to help researchers think, design, and execute their empirical journey by m... more In this paper, we aim to help researchers think, design, and execute their empirical journey by mapping the terrain of choices common in qualitative research. We offer a matrix that relates to various dimensions—the level at which to study the phenomenon (level of analysis), types of field materials, time orientation of research and data, the analytic approach, and the unit of data (unit of analysis). This matrix is intended to support making informed decisions that result in specific research designs and the continuous process of reflection as to how these choices open and limit the ability to answer the research question and offer an analytic generalization based on the findings.
The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism
In this symposium, we present and discuss examples of field-level ethnography that examine the mi... more In this symposium, we present and discuss examples of field-level ethnography that examine the micro-processes of organizing in institutional fields. We offer a platform to consider the contribution of field-level ethnography to our understanding of collaboration among individuals and firms, emergence of new fields, and institutional change, as well as to reflect on the challenges associated to this method. We argue that field-level ethnography is important to advance research on the microfoundations of institutional change. In addition, conducting field-level ethnography involves struggles and peculiarities that we believe are of methodological interest. Questions that may be discussed during the symposium include: how to sample and collect data over a geographically dispersed field; how to gain familiarity with a field constituted by either transitory or intermittent arrangements among individuals and organizations; how to plan your exit when you are analyzing evolving processes o...
Agents, Actors, Actorhood: Institutional Perspectives on the Nature of Agency, Action, and Authority, 2019
The authors set out to study institutional work under complexity building on the struggle for leg... more The authors set out to study institutional work under complexity building on the struggle for legitimacy of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community in Israel as their case study. The authors took a discursive approach and were interested in what actors claim they do. The findings suggest that actors manipulate the intentions and outcomes of their acts, thereby claiming for actorhood or negating it. These differential constructions are not random but echo the norms of the discursive spaces within which they are presented and interact with other actors’ work. Overall, the authors argue that actorhood is not a pre-condition for institutional work, nor is it its outcome, but rather an integral part thereof.
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2018
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2019
Place and space have long been the focus of studies of organizations (e.g. Bucher & Langley, ... more Place and space have long been the focus of studies of organizations (e.g. Bucher & Langley, 2016; Elsbach, 2004; Elsbach & Pratt, 2007; Tuan, 1974), but only recently were explored, mostly indirec...
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2012
Identity is a prevalent concept in the discourse of the social sciences in the past decades, and ... more Identity is a prevalent concept in the discourse of the social sciences in the past decades, and in the discourse of institutional theory as well. From the very beginning of institutional theory, a...
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2019
Institutions—the taken-for-granted structures, practices, and meanings that define what people an... more Institutions—the taken-for-granted structures, practices, and meanings that define what people and organizations within their jurisdiction think, do, and aspire to—are all about process, even though this may not always have been evident in some of the institutional theory literature. In this introduction, the editors call for a strong process approach to institutional dynamics, one that highlights institutions as emergent, generative, political, and social. They first relate “weak” and “strong” process views with the two metaphors commonly used to explain institutionalization—diffusion and translation. After reviewing some of the recent developments within institutional theory that set the ground for a strong process view, they move to exemplify the potential of a strong process view for institutional theory. They then end the introduction with some suggestions that will contribute positively to the ongoing development of institutional theory through a strong process view.
The author explores the relevance of “place” in institutional field dynamics by examining how act... more The author explores the relevance of “place” in institutional field dynamics by examining how actors working in the Israeli high-tech industry construct the meaning and implications of its location. She finds that place is a rich construct that goes far beyond geography and includes culture, character, and values. The discourse of space is plurivocal, offering multiple, sometimes contradictory or ambivalent depictions of the meaning and consequences of location and of the local and global more generally. Place is therefore not given. It is used by institutional actors in different, sometimes contradictory ways, in their abiding efforts to define their identity as part of institutional work.
The Production of Managerial Knowledge and Organizational Theory: New Approaches to Writing, Producing and Consuming Theory, 2019
In this introduction, the authors outline some critical reflections on the sociology of knowledge... more In this introduction, the authors outline some critical reflections on the sociology of knowledge within management and organization theory. Based on a review of various works that form a sociology of organizational knowledge, the authors identify three approaches that have become particularly prominent ways by which scholars explore how knowledge about organizations and management is produced: First, reflective and opinion essays that organization studies scholars offer on the basis of what can be learned from personal experience; second, descriptive craft-guides that are based on more-or-less comprehensive surveys on doing research; third, papers based on systematic research that are built upon rigorous collection and analysis of data about the production of knowledge. Whereas in the studies of organizing the authors prioritize the third approach, that is knowledge produced based on systematic empirical research, in examining our own work the authors tend to privilege the other tw...
Academy of Management Journal
This symposium explores the concept of custodianship in organizational life – actors who are inve... more This symposium explores the concept of custodianship in organizational life – actors who are invested in the continuity of traditions, and who engage in official and unofficial roles to guide, adapt, and protect them. At the intersection of institutional work and culture, custodianship appears to play an essential role in explanations of how macro-organizational phenomena persist over time, including institutions, identities, technologies, and practices, with recent studies finding custodians working 'behind the scenes' to maintain even the most apparently stable social arrangements. But who are the custodians? Why do they engage in custodial work? How? Custodianship is a promising concept but at risk of becoming vague and unhelpful without theoretical elaboration. This symposium is organized to spur the development of custodianship into a coherent and useful construct for management theorists. To that end, we bring together four studies which put custodians center stage, ex...
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2018
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2012
Institutional work has attracted much interest recently. In tandem with calls to further explore ... more Institutional work has attracted much interest recently. In tandem with calls to further explore the microfoundations of institutions, and to move away from heroic depictions of institutional entre...
Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 2019
This book applies a reflective and critical gaze on the production of knowledge within management... more This book applies a reflective and critical gaze on the production of knowledge within management and organization studies. Seasoned scholars reflect on how we carry out research to provide insights into the assumptions and practices we employ, and how they affect the production and consumption of managerial knowledge and organization theory.
The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 2022
In this paper, we aim to help researchers think, design, and execute their empirical journey by m... more In this paper, we aim to help researchers think, design, and execute their empirical journey by mapping the terrain of choices common in qualitative research. We offer a matrix that relates to various dimensions—the level at which to study the phenomenon (level of analysis), types of field materials, time orientation of research and data, the analytic approach, and the unit of data (unit of analysis). This matrix is intended to support making informed decisions that result in specific research designs and the continuous process of reflection as to how these choices open and limit the ability to answer the research question and offer an analytic generalization based on the findings.
The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism
In this symposium, we present and discuss examples of field-level ethnography that examine the mi... more In this symposium, we present and discuss examples of field-level ethnography that examine the micro-processes of organizing in institutional fields. We offer a platform to consider the contribution of field-level ethnography to our understanding of collaboration among individuals and firms, emergence of new fields, and institutional change, as well as to reflect on the challenges associated to this method. We argue that field-level ethnography is important to advance research on the microfoundations of institutional change. In addition, conducting field-level ethnography involves struggles and peculiarities that we believe are of methodological interest. Questions that may be discussed during the symposium include: how to sample and collect data over a geographically dispersed field; how to gain familiarity with a field constituted by either transitory or intermittent arrangements among individuals and organizations; how to plan your exit when you are analyzing evolving processes o...
Agents, Actors, Actorhood: Institutional Perspectives on the Nature of Agency, Action, and Authority, 2019
The authors set out to study institutional work under complexity building on the struggle for leg... more The authors set out to study institutional work under complexity building on the struggle for legitimacy of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community in Israel as their case study. The authors took a discursive approach and were interested in what actors claim they do. The findings suggest that actors manipulate the intentions and outcomes of their acts, thereby claiming for actorhood or negating it. These differential constructions are not random but echo the norms of the discursive spaces within which they are presented and interact with other actors’ work. Overall, the authors argue that actorhood is not a pre-condition for institutional work, nor is it its outcome, but rather an integral part thereof.
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2018
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2019
Place and space have long been the focus of studies of organizations (e.g. Bucher & Langley, ... more Place and space have long been the focus of studies of organizations (e.g. Bucher & Langley, 2016; Elsbach, 2004; Elsbach & Pratt, 2007; Tuan, 1974), but only recently were explored, mostly indirec...
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2012
Identity is a prevalent concept in the discourse of the social sciences in the past decades, and ... more Identity is a prevalent concept in the discourse of the social sciences in the past decades, and in the discourse of institutional theory as well. From the very beginning of institutional theory, a...
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2019
Institutions—the taken-for-granted structures, practices, and meanings that define what people an... more Institutions—the taken-for-granted structures, practices, and meanings that define what people and organizations within their jurisdiction think, do, and aspire to—are all about process, even though this may not always have been evident in some of the institutional theory literature. In this introduction, the editors call for a strong process approach to institutional dynamics, one that highlights institutions as emergent, generative, political, and social. They first relate “weak” and “strong” process views with the two metaphors commonly used to explain institutionalization—diffusion and translation. After reviewing some of the recent developments within institutional theory that set the ground for a strong process view, they move to exemplify the potential of a strong process view for institutional theory. They then end the introduction with some suggestions that will contribute positively to the ongoing development of institutional theory through a strong process view.
The author explores the relevance of “place” in institutional field dynamics by examining how act... more The author explores the relevance of “place” in institutional field dynamics by examining how actors working in the Israeli high-tech industry construct the meaning and implications of its location. She finds that place is a rich construct that goes far beyond geography and includes culture, character, and values. The discourse of space is plurivocal, offering multiple, sometimes contradictory or ambivalent depictions of the meaning and consequences of location and of the local and global more generally. Place is therefore not given. It is used by institutional actors in different, sometimes contradictory ways, in their abiding efforts to define their identity as part of institutional work.
The Production of Managerial Knowledge and Organizational Theory: New Approaches to Writing, Producing and Consuming Theory, 2019
In this introduction, the authors outline some critical reflections on the sociology of knowledge... more In this introduction, the authors outline some critical reflections on the sociology of knowledge within management and organization theory. Based on a review of various works that form a sociology of organizational knowledge, the authors identify three approaches that have become particularly prominent ways by which scholars explore how knowledge about organizations and management is produced: First, reflective and opinion essays that organization studies scholars offer on the basis of what can be learned from personal experience; second, descriptive craft-guides that are based on more-or-less comprehensive surveys on doing research; third, papers based on systematic research that are built upon rigorous collection and analysis of data about the production of knowledge. Whereas in the studies of organizing the authors prioritize the third approach, that is knowledge produced based on systematic empirical research, in examining our own work the authors tend to privilege the other tw...
Academy of Management Journal