Network Linkage and Organizational Transformation: A Longitudinal Study of the United States Mutual Fund Industry

In this dissertation, I propose that federal network linkage, defined as the linking of organized entities to a common federation management, should have significant bearing on organizational transformation. Two contrasting predictions of the impact of the linkage were derived and tested on the U.S. mutual fund industry. In the network inertia thesis, network linkage creates inertia and reduces the ability and willingness of the management to undertake major changes. In the network fluidity thesis, increased unabsorbed slack, diffused impact of change failure, and enhanced external legitimacy claim may enhance the ability of and lower the barriers facing the management to undertake core changes. The results show that the federation of mutual funds within the industry generally reduces the likelihood of core feature change, supporting the network inertia view of linkage. However, federal network linkage has significant interactive effects (mostly positive) with fund specialism, environmental downturn, market competition, and previous change experience on mutual fund transformation, suggesting support for the network fluidity view. The evidence empirically demonstrates the close relationships between interorganizational linkage and organizational transformation.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Business Adminstration

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Lim, Ghee Soon

Contributors dc:contributor

• Leblebici, Huseyin

• Business Administration, Management

Identifier

(UMI)AAI9411690

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/72313