INSTITUTIONALISED JUSTIFICATION OF CORPORATE ACTION: INTERNATIONALISATION AND THE EU IN CORPORATE REPORTS

Markus Granlund, Kari Lukka and Jan Mouritsen

Scandinavian Journal of Management, 1998, vol. 14, issue 4, 433-458

Abstract: This paper provides an institutional analysis of the way a set of Finnish firms have used the concept of internationalisation and the EU in justifying major strategic decisions. They have used internationalisation, and in particular the then new possibility of Finland joining the EU, as an argument in support of radical change. An analysis of their annual reports reveals a number of institutional arguments which are strong because they are generally accepted, a priori, as being important not only to firms but indeed to Finland as a whole. In using institutional arguments firms are aligning their own interests with those of the country, and in so doing are able to justify radical changes in most parts of their own organisations. We are not claiming that Finnish firms should not react to the challenges which EU represents. Rather, we suggest that by using institutional arguments they are borrowing legitimacy from a wider public. The arguments used are typically very broad, invoking very general visions of the role of Finland in the EU. We call these arguments "easy rides" because, even if they are only partially explicated, it is generally assumed that they will become accepted without questioning by public and employees alike. Certain specific patterns of "easy rides" can be distinguished: i) The mobilisation of a "national mission", ii) "Sacrifice now, reap the benefit later", and iii) "Bigger is better". The paper concludes with a methodological discussion about the difficulty of distinguishing between the technical/functional and the institutional arguments.

Keywords: Decision-making; justifications; of; strategic; action; institutional; theory; internationalisation; The; European; Union; narratives; of; corporate; annual; reports; Finnish; food; manufacturing; industry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1998
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956522197000468
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:scaman:v:14:y:1998:i:4:p:433-458

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/872/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... me/872/bibliographic

Access Statistics for this article

Scandinavian Journal of Management is currently edited by Janne Tienari

More articles in Scandinavian Journal of Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().