John W. Meyer: Actor

John W. Meyer is Sociologist and professor at Stanford University. Explore interesting quotes on actor.

John W. Meyer: 12 quotes0 likes

“The authors analyze the nation-state as a worldwide institution constructed by worldwide cultural and associational processes, developing four main topics:
(1) properties of nation-states that result from their exogenously driven construction, including isomorphism, decoupling, and expansive structuration;
(2) processes by which rationalistic world culture affects national states;
(3) characteristics of world society that enhance the impact of world culture on national states and societies, including conditions favoring the diffusion of world models, expansion of world-level associations, and rationalized scientific and professional authority;
(4) dynamic features of world culture and society that generate expansion, conflict, and change, especially the statelessness of world society, legitimation of multiple levels of rationalized actors, and internal inconsistencies and contradictions”

John W. Meyer, et al. "World society and the nation‐state." American Journal of sociology 103.1 (1997): 144-181.

“Some institutionalist lines of thought, arising particularly in economics and political science, retain very strong notions of society as made up of bounded, purposive, sovereign, and rational actors. In economics, these might be individuals or organizations, operating in market-like environments. In political science, they might be sovereign national-states operating in an almost anarchic environment. Institutionalism, in such schemes, involves the idea that some fundamental institutional principle must be in place before systems of such actors can effectively operate. The classic core principle required in economic versions is property rights (North & Thomas, 1973). In international relations theory it is the principle of nation-state sovereignty”

Krasner, 1999
Source: "Reflections on institutional theories of organization,." 2008, p. 790

“Moving further away from realist models, we come to some core ideas of modern sociological institutionalism (see DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Powell & DiMaggio, 1991; Scott, 2001; Jepperson, 2002; Hasse & Kruecken, 2005). Here, actors are substantially empowered and controlled by institutional contexts, and these contexts go far beyond a few norms or network structures. Further, these contexts are by no means simply constructions built up by the contemporary actors themselves, but rather are likely to have prior and exogenous historical origins.”

Source: "Reflections on institutional theories of organization,." 2008, p. 791-92

“Most institutional theories see local actors – whether individuals, organizations, or national states – as affected by institutions built up in much wider environments. Individuals and organizations are affected by societal institutions, and national-states by a world society.”

Source: "Reflections on institutional theories of organization,." 2008, p. 790