Pan-Pacific Conference XXXIV. Designing New Business Models in Developing Economies

Furthermore, there was not an agreement among
empirical inquiries about the support behind the
extension of the theory of planned behavior to a firm
level. Some additional studies applied the theory
directly [22], without further theoretical sustenance
related to the level of the dependent variable. Other
inquiries sustained their propositions in additional
theories, such as upper echelon one [30], or “modify
the theory of planned behavior to fit the business
context and the specific objectives” [26, p. 42] of the
study. However, above all, these empirical findings
did not deal with the main innovation of the theory of
planned behavior, which was to propound that the
prediction of a specific behavior was not complex
and could be based on a limited set of factors [16]. In
addition, this inquiries were not able to consider some
relevant topics in their interpretation of reality, such
as legitimacy or the interaction between agency and
structure 1 , issues studied under the neo-institutional
theory [18][28]. Furthermore, these studies did not
offer approaches to firms’ competitive advantages
founded on concepts of internal resources and
capabilities, which was the main concern of the
resource-based theory [6].
THE SCOPE AND CONNECTEDNESS OF NEO-
INSTITUTIONAL AND RESOURCE-BASED
THEORIES
On the other hand, the focus of neo-institutional and
resource-based theories, including the natural
resourced-based view, was to explain organizational
level phenomena [6][13][19]. Regarding the neoinstitutional
theory, the literature emphasized that “a
central claim is to understand the organizing of
collective efforts” [23, p. 1222], where organizations
are “socially constructed phenomenon that has been
endowed with agency and considerable power” [23,
p. 1223]. Likewise, inquiries remarked the relevance
of resource-based theory to explain organizations [7].
Moreover, these theories allowed to explain the
influence of structure and agency [21][25] on firms’
practices, and their interactions.
Furthermore, the connectedness between the neoinstitutional
and resource-based theories found
support in the literature [14][25][32]. This situation,
where explanations of firms’ level phenomena
founded on different theoretical approaches
coexisted, was admitted and promoted by the
literature. The literature remarked the
multidisciplinary character of strategic management
and mentioned that one of the ways to reduce this
theoretical pluralism was to “Identify and promoting
theoretical developments and empirical analysis that
subsume and integrate multiple theoretical steams”
[14 , p. 11]; moreover, an inquiry based on both neo-
1 A possible approach to the interaction between
agency and structure could emerged from the study of
feedback loop between behavior and social norms.
With regard to that, the literature remarked that the
theory did not neglect these feedbacks loops [4];
nevertheless, the theory did not study in depth this
topic or propound an explanation of social change
based on the interaction between agency and social
structure.
260
institutional and resource-based theories was
acknowledged as an example of this perspective [11].
In this context, the relationship between institutions
and firms’ practices obtained support in the neoinstitutional
theory, under its concepts of legitimacy
and institutional logics. Legitimacy was sustained on
“actors’ perceptions of the organization, as a
judgement with respect to the organization, or as the
behavioral consequences of perceptions and
judgement, manifested in actors’ action-‘acceptance’,
‘endorsement’, and so forth” [9, p. 152]. On its
behalf, institutional logics were “the socially
constructed, historical patterns of cultural symbols
and material practices, including assumptions, values,
and beliefs, by which individuals and organizations
provide meaning to their daily activity, organize time
and space, and reproduce their lives and experiences”
[29, p. 1].
Moreover, the microfoundations of neo-institutional
and resource-based theories [17] could support the
inclusion of managers’ environmental attitudes in the
explanation of firms’ environmental practices.
Microfoundations focused “on applying individuallevel
concepts, such as cognition and learning, to the
firm level” [5, p. 138] analysis of phenomenon. In
addition, concepts of sense-making [27], proposed by
of neo-institutional theory, and dynamic managerial
capabilities [1], from the resource-based theory,
completed the explanation of the firm level
phenomenon.
CONCLUSION
An explanation of firms’ behavior that included
institutional and managers’ attributes brought issues
that emerged from the interaction of structure and
agency, microfoundations, and firms’ capabilities.
These topics were analyzed and interpreted by both
neo-institutional and resource-based theories. In spite
of the relevance of theory of planned behavior in the
explanation of human social behavior, it lacked the
theoretical extension that allowed to find the
justification of firms’ behavior.
REFERENCES
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