Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Institutional changes in the Swedish meat industry

Institutional changes in the Swedish meat industry Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explain institutional changes in the Swedish meat industry after major external events. Design/methodology/approach – Analysis based on secondary data sources and interviews with people involved when the dominant meat co-operative in Sweden underwent major changes. Findings – The decline in the Swedish meat industry is interpreted using the theory of institutional change presented by Aoki (2007, 2011). The country’s former national agricultural policy created a specific set of norms and values. Co-operatives were considered to be indispensable. The co-operative sector was large and hierarchically organised. Therefore, external signals did not create sufficient endogenous processes within the co-operatives. Co-operative adaptation to rising competitive pressure took place only reluctantly and belatedly. Hence many farmer-members defected and the major co-operative faced finally insurmountable problems. A strong ideological conviction caused the once dominant co-operative to collapse and much of the Swedish meat industry to disappear. Originality/value – This study shows that strong ideology (here a conviction about the advantages of politically governed co-operatives) can hamper endogenous processes within an organisation. Management may ignore outside influences, to the extent that even a large industry is impaired. Other large, hierarchically structured and top-governed organisations with a strong ideology may behave in a similar way. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png British Food Journal Emerald Publishing

Institutional changes in the Swedish meat industry

British Food Journal , Volume 117 (10): 14 – Oct 5, 2015

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/institutional-changes-in-the-swedish-meat-industry-xySWMct0gZ

References (22)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN
0007-070X
DOI
10.1108/BFJ-11-2014-0378
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explain institutional changes in the Swedish meat industry after major external events. Design/methodology/approach – Analysis based on secondary data sources and interviews with people involved when the dominant meat co-operative in Sweden underwent major changes. Findings – The decline in the Swedish meat industry is interpreted using the theory of institutional change presented by Aoki (2007, 2011). The country’s former national agricultural policy created a specific set of norms and values. Co-operatives were considered to be indispensable. The co-operative sector was large and hierarchically organised. Therefore, external signals did not create sufficient endogenous processes within the co-operatives. Co-operative adaptation to rising competitive pressure took place only reluctantly and belatedly. Hence many farmer-members defected and the major co-operative faced finally insurmountable problems. A strong ideological conviction caused the once dominant co-operative to collapse and much of the Swedish meat industry to disappear. Originality/value – This study shows that strong ideology (here a conviction about the advantages of politically governed co-operatives) can hamper endogenous processes within an organisation. Management may ignore outside influences, to the extent that even a large industry is impaired. Other large, hierarchically structured and top-governed organisations with a strong ideology may behave in a similar way.

Journal

British Food JournalEmerald Publishing

Published: Oct 5, 2015

There are no references for this article.