The relevance of neo-institutionalism for organizational change

This essay reviews the literature and discusses the utility of neoinstitutionalism for organizational change in public administration.Neoinstitutionalism theory has been characterized as focusing on the similarities of organizations (isomorphism) and the stability of organizational arrangements in a field of organizations.However, in the past two decades, greater attention has been paid to how neo-institutional theory contributes to an understanding of change.This has been done by examining the following: the types of change considered; drivers of organizational change; and reasons for investigating public organizations and the reasons they help gain insight; and research results, including the types of methods used.Neo-institutionalism presents an effective framework to conduct public organization research on organizational change and for public administration practice for several reasons.