David Chandler

  Ph.D. Candidate in Organization Theory and Strategic Management

  Department of Management

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Research Interests

“Economics is all about how people make choices; sociology is all about how they don’t have any choices to make.”

James Duesenberry (1960: 233)

My broad area of research interest lies at the intersection between the organization and its institutional environment. Specifically, I am interested in processes of organizational adoption, learning, and the imitation of symbolic action.

I am also interested in the strategic implications of corporate social responsibility and firm/stakeholder relations. My publications in this area include the textbook Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility (Sage, December 2005).

Dissertation

Title

The Adoption and Imitation of Symbolic Action: A Socio-structural Perspective on Organizational De-coupling

Abstract

The concepts of myth and ceremony are central to an institutional theory perspective on organizational behavior. As an open system, organizations interact with their environments and respond to laws, norms, and other pressures to conform in search of societal legitimacy. Given that the substance of organizational action is often difficult to assess objectively, however, symbolic actions allow organizations to decouple formal structure from operational practice, minimizing the impact of conformity on the technical core. By definition, such action is deceptive and difficult to detect. As such, in spite of a strong theoretical foundation and a growing body of empirical evidence, there is still much that we do not know about decoupling. In particular, it is not clear how a firm’s social environment influences its extent of decoupling. In contrast to the majority of work in this area that has focused on issues of power and politics, therefore, this study seeks to develop the foundation of a broader socio-structural perspective to illuminate more completely this organizational phenomenon. A theoretical framework of adoption and imitation is proposed that identifies various socio-structural antecedents at the organization, industry, and network levels as predictors of when a firm is more likely to decouple stated intention from actual practice. The empirical context for this study will be the organizational members of the Ethics and Compliance Officers Association that adopted the position of Ethics and Compliance Officer during the period from 1992 to 2008.

Committee

Pamela Haunschild (Chair)

Martin Kilduff

Matt Kraatz

Violina Rindova

Jim Westphal

Publications

Journal Articles

Chandler, David & Rindova, Violina, 2008, ‘Would You Like Fries With That? Producing and Consuming Social Measures of Firm Value.’ In George T. Solomon (Ed.), Proceedings of the Sixty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (CD), ISSN 1543-8643.

Werther, William B. & Chandler, David, ‘Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility as Global Brand Insurance,’ Business Horizons, Vol. 48, Issue 4, July 2005, pp. 317-324.

Chandler, David & Werther, William B., ‘Contrasts in CR: Fair trade versus consumer apathy,’ Corporate Responsibility Management, Vol. 2, Issue 5, April/May 2006.

Book Chapters

Haunschild, Pamela & Chandler, David, ‘Institutional-Level Learning: Learning as a Source of Institutional Change,’ in ‘The Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism,’ Greenwood, Royston; Oliver, Christine; Sahlin-Andersson, Kerstin & Suddaby, Roy, Sage Publications, 2008.

Working Papers/Work-in-Progress

Chandler, David & Rindova, Violina, ‘Would You Like Fries With That? Producing and Consuming Social Measures of Firm Value,’ Best Paper Proceedings, Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Anaheim CA, 2008.

Chandler, David; Filipe, Nuno & Henderson, Andrew, ‘The Adoption of Corporate Social Responsibility: Competitive Strategy as a Determinant of Firm Behavior,’ Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Philadelphia PA, August 3-8, 2007.

Haunschild, Pamela; Chandler, David; Rhee, Mooweon & Beckman, Christine, ‘The Liability of a Good Reputation for Interorganizational Networks,’ Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Philadelphia PA, August 3-8, 2007.

Kraatz, Matthew & Chandler, David, ‘An Organizational Perspective on Institutional Theory.’

Chandler, David, ‘Expanding the New and Informing the Old: Re-establishing Value at the Heart of Institutional Theory.’

Textbooks

Werther, William B. & Chandler, David, ‘Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Stakeholders in a Global Environment,’ Sage Publications, 2005.

Books

‘JET Programme: Tobikonde-miyou,’ Japanese translation, Chandler, David & Kootnikoff, David (Eds.), Toyokan, December 2002.

Foreword to both reprinted editions written by Junichiro Koizumi, the former Japanese Prime Minister.

‘The JET Programme: Getting Both Feet Wet,’ 2nd edition, Chandler, David & Kootnikoff, David (Eds.), JPGSpress, Tokyo, October 2002. First edition published September 1999.

 Winner of The Japan Festival Awards 2000, administered by The Japan Festival Fund, and awarded “for outstanding achievements in furthering the understanding of Japanese culture in the UK”.

Presentations

‘Would You Like Fries With That? Producing and Consuming Social Measures of Firm Value,’ Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Anaheim CA, 2008.

‘The Adoption of Corporate Social Responsibility: Competitive Strategy as a Determinant of Firm Behavior,’ Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Philadelphia PA, August 8, 2007.

‘The Liability of a Good Reputation for Interorganizational Networks,’ Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Philadelphia PA, August 7, 2007.

‘Corporate Social Responsibility,’ Donors Forum of South Florida's 16th Annual Meeting, Corporate Funders Group, Fort Lauderdale, December 10, 2004.

Other Publications

Chandler, David & Werther, William B., ‘In Defence of Corporate Social Responsibility,’ Ethical Corporation Magazine, April 24, 2006.

Chandler, David, ‘Self-interest in a Globalizing World: A Response to the Economist,’ Ethical Corporation Magazine, February 6, 2005, 

Batstone, David & Chandler, David, ‘Ford’s success formula not followed to a T,’ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, December 17, 2004.

Articles featuring David Chandler

‘World Class Winners,’ Business Miami, Summer 2003, cover story, pp.13-14.

Kennedy-Brown, Everett, ‘Surviving to Write About the JET Program,’ JET STREAM, The Japan Times, June 22, 2001, p15.

‘Publishing an Essay in Japanese,’ Shinano Mainichi Shimbun (Japanese language newspaper), July 31, 2001, p37.

Education

2005-Present     University of Texas at Austin

                          Ph.D., Organization Theory and Strategic Management

2002-2004         University of Miami, FL

                          MBA, Management and International Business

1998-1999         University of Sheffield, UK

                          M.Sc., East Asian Business

1987-1991         University of Kent at Canterbury, UK

                          B.A. Honors, American Studies: Politics & Government

david.chandler@phd.mccombs.utexas.edu

http://phd.mccombs.utexas.edu/david.chandler/