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r Academy of Management Discoveries2016, Vol. 2, No. 1, 79–107.Online onlyhttp://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amd.2015.0020

ENACTING A CONSTELLATION OF LOGICS: HOWTRANSFERRED PRACTICES ARE RECONTEXTUALIZED IN

A GLOBAL ORGANIZATION

SARA VARLANDERPAMELA HINDS

BOBBI THOMASONBRANDI M. PEARCEHEATHER ALTMANStanford University

We explore how new practices are transferred across locations in a global organization. Thecompany we studied strove to infuse more user-centered innovation and quicker, more agiledelivery of software into their development teams. The practices for doing so were crafted inthe United States and then transferred to China and India. Over a period of 20 months, weobserved how three practices were transferred to and enacted at each location. Our findingssuggest a constellation of logics, which varied by site and by practice, molded the particularrecontextualizations at each site. We contribute to a deeper understanding of how employeesexperience and respond to the transfer of practices from abroad by proposing that a constel-lation of logics guides recontextualization of meaning as well as action. Our empirical workand analysis also raises numerous questions about the effects of the recontextualizations onperformance, what makes a particular logic or constellation of logics salient for a particularpractice at aparticular time, the stability andmalleability of these logics, andwhathappens inglobal collaborations when different logics are invoked at different locations.

Editor’s CommentThe authors of this paper observed that employees “inheriting” best work practices fromheadquarters or elsewhere inevitablymodify or recontextualize such practices into theirown local contexts. How these employees legitimize and successfully implement suchrecontextualized practices is driven by the use of a fascinating range of entrepreneurial-,market-, engineering-, and community-based institutional logics. The discovery of thismyriad constellation of institutional logics for practice transfers serves to spawn a richstream of future inquiry and theorizing about the universality of these logics, and whysome contexts draw only on a particular logic or different constellations of logics.

Soon Ang, Action Editor

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INTRODUCTION

With the expansion of multinational firms, or-ganizations face a dilemma regarding the extent towhich strategic organizational practices should bereplicated across locations. On one hand, havingshared practices reinforces a common corporateculture and enables the deployment of uniqueprograms that give organizations a competitiveadvantage. On the other hand, practices that areeffective and appropriate in one local context maybe ineffective, impractical, or even illegal in others.Research on the global transfer of practices suggeststhat organizations are faced with “institutionalduality,” a condition in which subsidiaries ofglobal firms operate in the institutional environ-ments of both the multinational firm and thecountry in which they are located, thus creatingrival pressures from these locations as the subsidiar-ies try to meet competing demands (Kostova, 1999;Kostova & Roth, 2002).

To date, researchers have explored themeaning ofinstitutional duality for organizations and theirsubsidiaries, suggesting that, as a result, adoption ofpractices may be ceremonial (Kostova & Roth, 2002)or hybridized (Ferner, Edwards, & Tempel, 2011),rather than reflecting full compliance and in-ternalization (Winter, Szulanski, Ringov, & Jensen,2012). Researchers, for example, have argued thatpractices are subject to translation or editing(Czarniawska&Sevon, 1996; Frenkel, 2005;Morris&Lancaster, 2006; Sahlin & Wedlin, 2008; Saka,2004), glocalization (Gond & Boxenbaum, 2013),recontextualization (Brannen, 2004), and adapta-tion (Ansari, Fiss, & Zajac, 2010; Canato, Ravasi, &Phillips, 2013; Ferner et al., 2011), which suggestthat as practices are transferred to new geographicalcontexts they take on newmeanings and “acquire[s]elements characteristic of the host setting” (Ferneret al., 2011: 16) (e.g., Szulanski & Jensen, 2006). Theexpectation is that some level of adaptation is nec-essary to assure a cultural, political, and technicalfit with the local context (Ansari et al., 2010).This view promotes an understanding of practicesthemselves as moldable as they move into newgeographical contexts.

Even though research has started to provide in-sight into the process of cross-national transfer ofpractices, important gaps remain. First, nearly all ofthe research thus far has been conducted at the fieldor industry level rather than at the intraorganiza-tional level (see Ansari, Reinecke, & Spaan, 2014).As Gondo and Amis (2013: 229) note, “our un-derstanding of what happens within organizationswhen new practices are adopted remains at a dis-tinctly nascent stage.” As a result, little is knownabout how overseas locations within the same orga-nization experience and respond to the transfer ofpractices, and whether and how the prescribedpractices evolve to fit these diverse contexts. Second,although scholars have begun to study how practicesare adapted (Ansari et al., 2014; Gond & Boxenbaum,2013), much of this work focuses on managerialstrategies (e.g.,Ansari et al., 2014), so a gap remains inour understanding of the experience and activitiesof those enacting the practice. Finally, there hasbeen some discussion of the fit or misfit of practiceswith the recipient context (e.g., Ansari et al., 2014),but how the fit is determined by those enactingthe incoming practices remains underexplored. Asa result, we do not know how, within the same or-ganization, units enacting practice transfers fromabroad make sense of those practices and how thisaffects adaptation (or absence of adaptation) of thepractices.

WHAT EXISTING THEORY TELLS USABOUT ADAPTATION

Practice scholars have conceptualized practices ina variety of ways. For the purposes of this study, weborrow from Schatzki, who defines practices as“embodied, materially mediated arrays of humanactivity centrally organized around shared practicalunderstanding” (2001: 2). Thus, the notion of prac-tices focuses on patterns of behaviors within a situ-ated context.

Recent studies on the global transfer of practicehave examined whether adaptation leads to positiveor negative outcomes, the fidelity of the transfer, an-tecedents to successful transfers, and, to a lesser ex-tent, how transfer and the adaptation of practicesoccurs. Insomesense,multinationalsare tornbetweenrolling out practices consistently for strategic advan-tage and adapting practices to specific geographies toensurealignmentwith the local context (seeKostova&

Author’s voice:What motivated you personally toundertake this research andwhy is it important to you?

We thank SAP Labs, Silicon Valley, China, and Indiafor their support and participation in this study. Inparticular, Sam Yen, Philipp Skogstad, and Li Gongwere instrumental in paving the way for this work,providing regular updates, and answering ourquestions. We also thank the members of the CenterforWork, Technology &Organization and SoonAng,associate editor, and the reviewing team at AMD fortheir helpful comments as we developed this work.

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Roth, 2002). Historically, research on the transfer ofpractices has equated “successful” transfers withtransfers of high fidelity, that is, identical to that of thesending context. Jensen and Szulanski (2004), for ex-ample, found that adaptations to the local contextcontributed todifficulties in cross-national transfers ofpractice. Although focused on collaboration betweendistant locations rather thanon the transfer ofpractice,Nicholson and Sahay’s (2001) study of outsourcingfrom Britain to India also tells us that local views ofsoftware development as an art (Britain) as comparedto an engineering activity (India) can affect the waythat software development practices are interpretedand enacted.

Over the years, however, scholars have challengedthe contention that high-fidelity transfers are opti-mal. Kostova and Roth (2002), for example, in a sur-vey-based study of subsidiaries of a large U.S.multinational corporation, show that quality man-agement practices transferred from headquarterswere often adopted ceremonially and not fully in-ternalized by subsidiaries. “Ceremonially adoptedpractices” have the veneer of adoption, but the be-liefs and values underlying the practices are notassimilated. They argue that, particularly withstrategic organizational practices, which are “domi-nant, critical, or crucial for achieving the strategicmission of the firm,” success depends on the trans-ferability of meaning and value, not merely thetransfer of knowledge (e.g., Kostova, 1999: 308).Studies have also shown that when practices aretransferred across locations, they tend to be re-constituted as they are enacted by organizationalmembers (Czarniawska & Sevon, 1996; Gond &Boxenbaum, 2013; Sahlin & Wedlin, 2008). In herdetailed examination of Walt Disney Company’s at-tempts to transfer theme park practices from theUnited States to Japan and France, for example,Brannen (2004) describes how transferred “assets”took on new meanings through “recontextualiza-tion,” which she articulates as a process throughwhich individuals adapt themeaning of a practice totheir own context. Specifically, Brannen shows theimportance of historical, political, and cultural con-texts to how recipients decode the meaning of thepractice being transferred. Brannen and others haveargued that a lack of adaptation of meaning to thelocal context can lead to dramatic failures. For ex-ample, English law firms’ attempts to transfer prac-tices to Italy, without alteration, failed because thefirms found themselves out of alignment and inconflict with local regulatory, normative, and cog-nitive expectations (Muzio & Faulconbridge, 2013).Although not focused on a global transfer of practice,Canato et al. (2013) studied the implementation ofa Six Sigma practice at 3M when there was a misfit

between the practice and the organization’s culture.They found that implementation of the practice re-quired mutual adaptations in the practice and theorganizational culture. Taken together, evidencestrongly suggests that adaptation of practices is nec-essary for the successful transfer of practices to newnational contexts.

Scholars have also explored antecedents to suc-cessful adaptations of practices from abroad. Takinga management perspective, Ansari et al. (2014)identified strategies that organizations employ toactively manage adaptation and carefully engineerthe transfer process. In their study of the adapta-tion of Six Sigma practices in the United States andKorean companies, Yu & Zaheer (2010) examinedconceptual, social, and technical underpinnings ofthe organizational practice and report that more so-cial practices (e.g., the amount of social interactiondemanded by the practice) increase the extent towhich a practice is influenced by national-levelcontextual variables. In other words, practices thatare more social demand more local adaptation.Brannen (2004) also argues that “soft” technologies,such as personnel practices, are more likely to berecontextualized.

Although nascent, there are also several studiesthat begin to illuminate the dynamics of how adap-tation occurs in the transnational transfer of prac-tices. In their field-level study of the diffusion ofresponsible investment practices in France andQuebec, Canada, for example, Gond andBoxenbaum(2013) report three types of activities which they callcontextualization work—filtering, repurposing, andcoupling. Filtering work refers to activities that in-volve the minimization or elimination of features ofthe practice that are incongruent with the new con-text. Repurposing is the changing of meaning or ap-plication of a practice to align with the receivingcontext. Coupling refers to actors integrating the newpractice with existing practices or objects that arealready seenas locally legitimate.According toGondand Boxenbaum, each of these facilitates the accep-tance of the practice into the new context. Focusingon the adaptation of management innovation prac-tices to their context, Scarbrough, Robertson, andSwan (2015) studied the global diffusion of resourceplanning and show how “carriers and hosts co-construct management practices diffusing into newsettings” (Ansari, et al., 2010; Scarbrough et al., 2015:

Author’s voice:How did the paper evolve andchange as you worked on it?

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86). Particularly, they underline the critical role ofagency both at the field level where innovation is con-tinuously reframed discursively and by organization-level actors who enacted and adapted the innovation tothe organizational contexts.

In sum, studies examining the cross-nationaltransfer of practice establish the critical role ofadaptation and shed light on factors that affectadaptation as well as how it can be managed.Evidence also indicates that individuals are ac-tively engaged in the adaptation process. Despitethese advances, our understanding of how ad-aptations occur, especially at the intraorgani-zational level, and the microlevel processesinvolved remains limited. In particular, we knowlittle about how those enacting them make senseof practices coming from company locationsabroad. Recent research has employed the idea ofinstitutional logics to describe how people andorganizations make sense of and import ideas andpractices. Early evidence from existing researchsuggests that institutional logics may illuminatethe process of how practices are transferredglobally.

Institutional Logics and the Transfer of Practice

Logics are generally understood to be belief sys-tems located at the macrolevel that shape actors’cognitions and actions at the field level. Institutionallogics have been defined as the “socially con-structed, historical patterns of material practices,assumptions, values, beliefs, and rules by which in-dividuals produce and reproduce their materialsubsistence, organize time and space, and providemeaning to their social reality” (Thornton & Ocasio,1999: 804). Logics are imbued with values andprinciples that guide attitudes and behaviors (seeThornton, 2004; Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury,2012) and are “embodied in practices that are sus-tained by and reproduced through cultural rules,norms, and beliefs” (Lok, 2010: 1308; see alsoThornton & Ocasio, 2008). This link between logicsand practices has been well established (e.g.,Greenwood, Dıaz, Li, & Lorente, 2010; Greenwood,Raynard, Kodeih, Micelotta, & Lounsbury, 2011;Lounsbury, 2007; Zilber, 2006). Zilber (2002), forexample, in her study of a rape crisis center in Israel,showed that practices were infused with meaningsassociatedwith both feminist and therapeutic logics.Smets, Morris, and Greenwood’s (2012) study ofa merger of an English and a German internationallaw firm also illustrates how members at the twosites were guided by largely different logics—theexpertise/client–service and fiduciary logics, whichprescribed different values and practices. These

studies establish the role of logics in informingpractice.

Although not global, several studies using the lensof institutional logics have further established thatpractices (and their transfer) are rooted in differentgeographic locations (Greenwood et al., 2010;Lounsbury, 2007). Through his study of logics re-lating to mutual funds in Boston and New York,Lounsbury (2007), for example, established thatmultiple logics related to efficiency and perfor-mance, which were sometimes tied to geographiclocation, affected where and how practices spread.In a study drawing on data from the Spanishmanufacturing sector, Greenwood et al. (2010) showthat a combination of local conditions (concentra-tion of branches) and regional policies (spending onindustrial development) heavily influence the logicsembedded in local communities (in their case, re-lated to the decision to downsize) and argue that “therichness of local processes may have been signifi-cantly underestimated” in research on institutionallogics (p. 535). In a study of business group restruc-turing, Chung and Luo also document how gover-nance models are institutionalized at the nationallevel “because of their historically path-dependentdevelopment in the unique cultural and politicalconfigurations of their ownnational contexts” (2008:768). They show, for example, how an institutionallogic of family control influenced corporate gover-nance models in Taiwan. Thus, growing evidencesuggests that different geographic locations likelyhold different and potentially incompatible logics,which may, in turn, affect how practices evolve. Weposit, therefore, that one body of research that canelucidate the transfer process is recent work on in-stitutional logics—especially cases in which multi-ple logicsareatplay, as theymaybewhen transferringpractices within an organization and across nationalborders.

Over the last decade, research has increasinglyfocused on complex institutional environments inwhich organizations are faced with multiple, oftencompeting, logics (e.g., Greenwood et al., 2010, 2011;Seo & Creed, 2002; Thornton & Ocasio, 2008). Plu-ralistic environments impose conflicting demandsand pressures on organizations (Greenwood, et al.,2010; Jarzabkowski, Smets, Bednarek, Burke, &Spee, 2013; Kraatz & Block, 2008) and force organi-zations and their members to selectively, con-sciously or unconsciously, enact one or more logicsto achieve their goals. Dunn and Jones (2010), forexample, studiedmedical schools thatdrewonhealthcare and academic logics. Powell and Sandholtz(2012) studied biotechnology companies that in-corporated science and market logics, and Pacheand Santos (2013a, 2013b) studied competing social


welfare and commercial logics. The gist of thisresearch is that multiple logics are not always com-patible (Greenwood et al., 2010) and the more diversethe logics, the greater the challenges an organizationconfronts (Besharov & Smith, 2012).

Studies have further established that organiza-tional actions are influenced by potentially com-peting logics andmany organizations face enduringcomplexity where, rather than one dominant logicwinning, multiple logics coexist for extended pe-riods (see Greenwood et al., 2011). Dunn and Jones(2010), for example, show how the logics of careand science interacted with societal changes, suchas the rise of managed care and the increase ofwomen in the profession, and influenced the de-livery of medical education over a 38-year period.Goodrick and Reay (2011), based on their study ofthe pharmacist profession in the United States, in-troduced the idea of a “constellation of logics” tocapture situations in which a combination of logicsguide the behavior of actors. Their study wasamong the first to document a situation in whichdifferent logics sustained overtime in professionalwork.

Microlevel Responses to ComplexInstitutional Environments

Although scholars have shown an interest in un-derstanding the characteristics, evolution, andchallenges in industries characterized by complexinstitutional environments, much less research in-vestigates what happens at the microlevel of orga-nizations in a pluralistic environment. Thorntonet al. (2012) recentlyunderlined theneed for adeeperunderstanding of the microfoundations of logics,and scholars have just begun to explore how logicsare enacted and play out in the everyday lives of or-ganizational members. In a pioneering study, Reayand Hinings (2009), for example, report how orga-nizational actors in the Alberta Health Care sectorconducted their day-to-day work in a context ofmultiple logics. They allude to how physicians andmanagers can maintain their independence and si-multaneously collaborate despite drawing on dif-ferent logics. Pache and Santos (2013a) take anadditional step toward microlevel processes by ex-ploring how organizational members experienceconflicts and enact individual responses; they sug-gest competing logics create the latitude for indi-vidual action.

McPherson and Sauder (2013) also report agencyin actors’ everyday use of logics. They examine theways professionals used logics to negotiate deci-sions in a drug court with four distinct orientations:the logics of criminal punishment, rehabilitation,

community accountability, and efficiency. Theyshow how actors employ logics in their microlevelinteractions, bring logics from a societal level downto the field level, and actualize logics in practice.Drawing on the toolkit approach (Swidler, 1986),McPherson and Sauder (2013) highlight that logicsare constructed, transmitted, and used by peoplewith interests, beliefs, and preferences—leading toactors employing different logics at different timesand using the same logic to achieve differentgoals, depending on the situation. They state that“conceiving of logics as tools reveals how theycan be continuously combined, configured, andmanipulated to serve the purposes of actors” (2013:4). In the drug courts they studied, actors hijackedthe logics of other groups to establish legitimacy. Lok(2010) also examines identity work of managementand institutional investors faced with a shift in thelogic of shareholder value. He shows that executivesused ambiguities and contradictions to reconstructtheir identities “in ways that qualified and specifiedthe meaning and jurisdiction of the logics of en-lightened shareholder value in their every daypractices” (2010: 1330).

In a more direct examination of how individualsrespond when they encounter new competing logics,Pache and Santos (2013b) outline five strategies thatindividuals may employ: ignorance, compliance,defiance, combination, and compartmentalization.Combination and compartmentalization reflect typesof adaptation, but ignorance, compliance, and de-fiancedonot.AlignedwithPache andSantos’ (2013b)notion of compartmentalization, Murray (2010) ar-gues that conflict between multiple logics does notnecessarily always present challenges of compatibil-ity. Instead, in hybrid contexts, individuals can en-gage in strategies to preserve the distinctiveness ofparticular logics, thus allowing for multiple logics toreside side-by-side. Although most of the forgoingstudies have not examined logics across nationalboundaires, Luo (2007) offers one exception. In hermicrolevel cross-national study, Luo examined atti-tudes toward training inmultiple countries and foundthat national institutional logics affected workers’ at-titudes through direct cognitive effects, goals, andstructure of the incentive systems. This study pro-vides evidence that the logics employed may varyacross national boundaries, although it stops short ofarticulating how logics shape practice.

Overall, research on microlevel responses to com-plex organizational environments indicates thatworkers have agency and use improvisations, espe-cially when the meaning of logics are ambiguousand contradictory, to interpret and enact differentlogics at different times in a way that aligns withtheir interests. Nevertheless, to date, little attention


has been devoted to the practices of membersworking within a context characterized by insti-tutional complexity (Jarzabkowski, Matthiesen, &Van de Ven, 2009) and how organizational mem-bers, evenwithin the same organization, can invokelogics to make sense of transferred practices. Par-ticularly, gaps remain in our knowledge about howthis happens across geographies, especially in amultinational setting.

In summary, research on the global transfer ofpractices andrelated inquiries showthatadaptationofpracticesmay be necessary to enable new practices tothrive in these diverse, multiple, and fragmentedsettings and that logics can be rooted in geographiclocations. At the microlevel, there is also strongevidence of agency, suggesting that actors and groupsof actors make use of different logics to establish andmaintain legitimacywhenembedded incontextswithmultiple incompatible logics. Questions that remainopen, and that we address in our research, revolvearound how adaptations occur and what influencesthe form that they take, especially from the perspec-tive of units confronted with the day-to-day exigen-cies of multiple logics in complex institutionalsettings. In the absence of longitudinal studies of thetransfer of practices across international contexts, oneof our contributions is to show how employees makesense of, and respond to, a new set of practices trans-ferred from vastly different institutional contexts.

METHODS

Our empirical data stem from a longitudinal eth-nographic study at InnoTech (a pseudonym), a largemultinational software development company. In2011, InnoTechdecided itwas time for an intellectualrenewal of the organization. To realize this renewal,the leadership team argued that employees neededto change their work methods and “acquire a newmind-set.” To achieve this, top management pro-moted Innovation Centers that would incorporateAgile methodology and innovation practices. Agilemethods call for a more dynamic software develop-ment process. In short, Agile methods

are characterized by short iterative cycles ofdevelopment driven by product features, pe-riods of reflection and introspection, collabora-tive decision making, incorporation of rapidfeedback and change, and continuous integra-tion of code changes into the system underdevelopment working together on rapid proto-typing with continuous customer involvementto identify requirements as they emerge so thatthey can respond to change quickly. (Nerur,Mahapatra, & Mangalaraj, 2005: 75)

These values promoted a largely different workprocess compared with the highly structured wa-terfall models of software development on whichInnoTech had traditionally relied. In addition, theInnovation Centers had a strong focus on “designthinking”—an approach to innovation charac-terized by being human centered, iterative, andcollaborative.

TheUnitedStateswas the first location to roll out thenew “Innovation Center,” a few miles away from themain U.S. campus. Separation from the main campuswas considered necessary to facilitate a change inwork practices and mind-set, and to “mentally takea break from the [InnoTech] prison” (Interview, Man-ager). Within a few months, Innovation Centers werealso rolledout at theChinese and Indian locations, andsubsequently at handful of other locations. At eachsite, the rollout of the Innovation Center was initiatedwithanonsite 3-dayworkshopheldby representativesfrom the U.S. InnoTech management team where thebasic principles of agile methodology and designthinking were introduced. The first workshop washeld at the U.S. Innovation Center, followed by theChinese and finally the Indian site. The global rolloutof the Innovation Centers created an ideal context tostudy the global transfer of practices. In this article, wefocus on how the new Innovation Center work prac-tices were implemented at the U.S. location andtransferred to newly established Chinese and IndianCenters. Our sites can be seen as an extreme case(Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007) of geographic disper-sion, with sites located in different parts of the world.These extreme cases allowed for theoretical develop-ment since they enabled strong contrasts and facili-tated visibility into divergent patterns.

Data Collection

In this study, we followed the rollout of the In-novation Centers at the three sites during 20 monthsbetween January 2011 and September 2012, relyingmainly on observational fieldwork and interviews.We also conducted preliminary interviews at Inno-Tech’s German and several other sites to better un-derstand what the new practices, especially agilemethodologies and design thinking meant to Inno-Tech. In Summer 2011, we initiated our ethno-graphic data collection. We started our research ateach site in conjunction with the opening of their

Author’s voice:How did you gain access to thesite?


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Innovation Center, which allowed us to capture theinitial experiences of team members and observehow practices evolved over time.

We went into the field with the intent to followa development project at each site from beginning toend. Project teams that were part of the InnovationCenters were composed of 7 to 10 members, in-cluding a mix of developers and designers. While atthe sites, we focused on the project teams, but alsoconducted interviews and observations with mostmembers of the Innovation Centers at each location.Our focus was broadly to grasp work practices asthey transferred to the Innovation Centers. A typicalfield day lasted 5–10 hours and involved observingtheCenters’workpractices, such as individualwork,project interactions, and project meetings; informalinteractions, such as coffee chats and lunches; andstructured interviews. We also attended numerousconference calls and joined the Center members atsocial events. These observations were important togather behavioral data, and detect how membersenacted the newwork practices at different sites. SeeTable 1 for a schedule of observations and informantcharacteristics by location.

During data collection, we continuously took fieldnotes. In total, we spent 92 days in the field; each daygenerated 5–15 typed pages of notes, which werecompleted within 12 hours of the observation. Wealso took numerous photos at each site to rememberdetails of the context, such as artifacts, workspacearrangements, and ways of interacting. Our ap-proach also involved informant interviewing and an“interweaving of looking and listening, of partici-pating and asking” (Lofland &Lofland, 2006: 18).Weconducted formal semistructured interviews as wellas had informal conversations with organizational

members. To understand a variety of perspectives,we conducted 57 interviews with organizationalmembers from different roles and functions withinthe organization. Most interviews took place face-to-face, and the questions were open ended to allowelaboration, discussion, and for unexpected issuesto emerge.

Although we modified the interview protocolthroughout data collection to make sure we graspedemerging themes (Spradley, 1979), common to eachprotocol were questions about members’ (a) pro-fessional background and experience, (b) un-derstanding and experience of the work practice inthe Innovation Center, and (c) typical work day.During the entire data collection period, we main-tained an informal relationship with several teammembers and managers. This was vital for us to re-main informed about organizational changes andevolving experiences of those at the Centers, espe-cially while we were away from them.

Data Analysis

Analysis of the data followed a grounded theoryapproach (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). In the firststage, we conducted data collection and analysis it-eratively by identifying important issues from theinterviews and the observations (Eisenhardt, 1989)and delving deeper in subsequent observations and

TABLE 1Overview of Data Collected by Location

Location Observation ScheduleNumber of

Observation DaysNumber ofInterviews

Respondent Gender andNationality

Respondent Roles (Engineer/Designer)

China 7 Weeks (Summer 2011) 36 13 F 5 2, M 5 11 Engineer5 12Skype check-ins 2 Chinese5 13 Designer5 12 Days (Spring 2012)

India 5 Weeks (Summer 2011) 30 31a F 5 5, M 5 25 Engineer5 28Skype check-ins 7 Indian5 30 Designer5 21 Day (Spring 2012)2 Weeks (Summer 2012)

UnitedStates

2 Months (Summer 2011) 27 12a

IndividualF 5 3, M 5 8 Engineer5 8

Monthly (Fall2011–Spring 2012)

1 Group US 5 1 Designer5 3Indian5 2Russian5 1Chinese5 5German5 2

Notes. F 5 female; M 5male.a One team member interviewed twice.

Author’s voice:What was the most difficult orchallenging aspect of this researchproject from your perspective?


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interviews. As an example, after each day of obser-vation or interviews, we identified and summarizedkey issues so that we could bring these new un-derstandings into the subsequent observations andinterviews (Ezzy, 2002; Yin, 2008). In the field, eachresearcher also wrote memos reflecting emergingareas of inquiry, which they shared with the rest ofthe research team. This procedure enabled us tocontinually refine the interview questions and, insubsequent interviews, focus on key insights as theyemerged.

In the second stage, we conducted open coding(Strauss & Corbin, 1998). At this point, multiple au-thors used NVivo to code all of the data across alllocations to identify emerging themes. A few exam-ples of open codes were “use of space,” “meaning ofagile,” “practices of customer interaction,” “prac-tices of shortened development time frame.” It be-came apparent at this stage that the differentInnovation Centers diverged in their interpretationof many of the practices associated with agilemethods anddesign thinking.Our next stepwas thento identify key practices and code each practice bylocation. The combination of agile and designthinking led to a handful of practices that, froma managerial perspective, characterized the In-novation Centers. In our analysis, three practicesemerged as being particularly salient acrosslocations—the 90-day cycle, user-centered design,and open collaborative spaces. In short, the 90-daycycle represented InnoTech’s commitment to dra-matically reduce development time for market-ready software applications by shifting from theyearlong development cycles InnoTech had tra-ditionally used. User-centered design specifiedthat users should be involved early on and through-out the software development process. Finally, theopen collaborative spaces dictated the replacementof the former cubicle arrangements with an openand flexible space in which individuals with dif-ferent roles were colocated together rather thanbeing separated, as had traditionally been the caseat InnoTech.

As we analyzed our coding by practice across lo-cations (e.g., examining all data related to the 90-daycycle in the United States, China, and India), it be-came clear that there was variation across sites interms of how they engaged with each of the threepractices. To capture this variation in a more fine-grained manner, in a third round of coding we iter-ated with the literature on the transnational transferof practice and, ultimately, on institutional logics tounderstand how and why these practices variedacross sites. At this stage, it became clear that eachsite drew on different meaning systems to makesense of the practice and guide their actions. As we

iterated between the data and the scholarly litera-ture, trying out different lenses, it became clear thatthe notion of institutional logics could help us un-derstandwhy recontexualization varied across sites.It was particularly apt at helping us to understandwhy practices were enacted differently and captur-ing how the local meaning systems at each site wereemployed. We again coded the data by practice bylocation and captured the way that members at eachlocation made sense of each practice. In some cases,the logics on which they drew mapped to logicspreviously discussed in the literature (e.g., the mar-ket logic). In others, the logic was not familiar, so welabeled it as a new logic (e.g., the engineering logic).We examined both meanings and actions associatedwith the practices, which gave us a deeper un-derstanding of the variation that occurred across sitesand led us to uncovering various forms of recontex-tualization. These were manifested in the vastly dif-ferent behaviors and meanings that emerged at eachsite as members enacted the transferred practices.

FINDINGS

As mentioned earlier, the 90-day cycle, user-centered design, and open collaborative spacesemerged as particularly salient practices in the In-novation Centers we studied. In their efforts to trans-fer these practices, the U.S. location began with a3-day workshop prior to the opening of each newCenter. Periodically, one of the leadership teams fromthe United States also visited the China and IndiaCenters to assess the implementation and addressquestions and issues that arose. These individuals re-sembled the “mediators” that Orlikowski et al. (1995)refer to, and similarly, helped users to incorporate thenew practice by “providing advice, demonstration,and hand-holding” (p. 440). Although therewas someacceptance on the part ofmanagement that adaptationwould be necessary, there was also a desire for rea-sonably high-fidelity transfers. Despite this, we no-ticed divergence in each of these practices and howthey were made sense of and enacted in the UnitedStates, China, and India.

The 90-Day Cycle

The “90-day cycle” was one of several key prac-tices associated with the Innovation Centers. Topmanagement argued that entrepreneurs and evenstudent teams were able to put applications into themarket in a few months, so InnoTech should be ableto do the same.

The former practice involved getting products tomarket within a considerably longer 18–36 months’


time frame. As one manager said when discussingpast problems:

Inotherwords,webrought it too lateand then thewrong thing. [. . .] for 36months, you can do a lotof planning, you can keep a lot of people busyplanning. But it also slows things down. And so,initially the intent was to put pressure on reducethe planning, just iterate quickly . . . so speed thecompany up. Do real work. Throw it at the walls.See what sticks, what is good. Keep it moving.

Management told us that the 90-day cycle aimed atresolving this situation and having “feedback comein very quickly” instead of doing more internaltesting and planning. They also argued that the re-duced time frame was a way to minimize complexinterdependencies between developers and resolveproblems earlier. As one manager explained:

Assuming I have 100 developers working, if Ihave 100 developers working for 1 day, I need toonly plan 1 dayworth of dependencies that theytouch. If I have them working 10 days, I need tohave 10 days’ worth of dependencies. Waymore. If I have 100days . . . . So, you get thepoint.It goes up exponentially.

All locations were accustomed to extended (18–36months) development cycles thatwere planned indetail using a traditional waterfall method. Ourstudy revealed that for the teams in theUnitedStates,China, and India, the 90-day cycle came to meandifferent things and resulted in different enactmentsof the practice.

Enactment of the 90-day cycle at the U.S. site.The U.S. teammembers viewed the 90-day cycle asa vehicle to jump-start more innovative processesand felt they had the agency to dowhatwas needed.The 90-day cycle, for example, was described asfostering a new organizational structure with moreflexibility. Echoing this widespread view, one de-signer described the 90-day cycle as offeringa looser structure, in which teams had the discre-tion to distribute tasks among themselves. Heexplained:

There isn’t like a very rigid org structure, andpeople are basically put together that havecomplementary skills and self-manage . . . .There’s nobody telling: You’ve got to do this andyou’ve got to turn it in at this time. You, asa team, basically say, “Okay, this is what theproject needs; here’s my strengths and here areareas that I want to improve upon.” So, youknow, you can stretch yourself as much as youlike. And then, as a team, you figure out whatneeds to be done and get it done.

Center members in the United States stated it wasimperative to be flexible and take on tasks that wereoutside their work descriptions and formal roles. Il-lustrating this, one member emphasized how work-ing at the Innovation Center and using 90-day cyclewere similar to working in a start-up, where roles aredynamic and everyone is expected to contribute tothe execution of various tasks. He said:

You can’t have somebody specializing in a role;you have to wear multiple hats, . . . you have tobe willing to also pick up other things, and youhave to be willing to do one thing one weekand another thing another week. You’re used totaking a look at what needs to be done this weekand volunteering for things, even if it’s not yourexpertise. So, that kind of attitude is necessary.

In addition to feeling that the 90-day cycle pro-moted a looser, more flexible structure, U.S. teammembers experienced having agency in redefiningand adapting the process, depending on the cir-cumstances and how the work proceeded. Ratherthan experiencing the 90-day cycle as set in stone,Center members in the United States assumed thatthey had the ability and right to define and redefineits content and meaning. They argued, for example,that the number of days was actually somewhatflexible. One member in the United States said, “Ithink that’s a huge accomplishment for us to provethis works in 90 or 95 days, whatever the exactnumber is.” Another member described being re-sponsible for the initial user research, and that theproject team had decided that stage should be re-moved from the 90-day cycle—a decision that ex-tended the actual product development timeconsiderably, but was seen as perfectly within thepurview of the project team to decide.

Another feature of how theU.S. Center enacted the90-day cyclewas their acceptance of the inevitabilityof failure. They experienced the shorter develop-ment cycle as a trial-and-error process, where moreideas could be explored and prototyped, but alsomore projects would be terminated at an earlystage—“killed,” as many said. To team members,failure was not something negative; rather, it wasa normal and necessary part of the innovation pro-cess. As one manager explained, it was important tohave the mind-set that sometimes throwing awaywork is necessary as part of the learning process andto make progress. He said:

You have to be willing to have the mindset that,I’m going to spend my time this week buildingstuff which may be completely thrown awaynext week, but that’s okay because we’ve gottensome insight, which will make a better product.


This tolerance for failure was echoed in our con-versations with U.S. Center members, who oftentalked about how the Innovation Center, and partic-ularly the 90-day cycle, implied having “the courageto fail,” and “fail often and fail early,” because thetime investment is relatively modest. One teammember, who was also a product lead, describedhow the90-daycycle supported anearlydiscovery ofimperfect product ideas:

But you don’t invest that much up front becauseit . . . after 90 days, you figure out, you know,that’s not really working, it’s not really . . . . Yes,we spent 90 days, 10 people’s time, you know,but it’s not a huge investment, especially not ifyou look at the scope . . . . So, and I think it has todo with that concept that, yes, we would beallowed to fail. . . . This is a completely newconcept within [InnoTech], to have the luxuryalmost to fail with something.

In summary, the U.S. Center’s enactment of the 90-day cycle reflected a belief in the ability of this practiceto foster innovation through more dynamic coordina-tion and looser structures, in which employees hadagency and authority to make things happen. The U.S.site’s enactment also drew heavily on the reasoningthat shorter cycles invited and demanded more iter-ative processes, in which failures were inevitableand necessary for learning and innovation.

Enactment of the 90-day cycle at the China site.In contrast with the U.S. site, where the 90-daycycle was understood and enacted as a vehicle tomodernize ways of working within the organiza-tion, the Center in China made sense of the 90-daycycle (or “90-day challenge,” as amember referredto it) by viewing it largely as a way to increase ef-ficiency. As onemember in China described it, the90-day cycle would enable them to think about “whatkind of time we can prevent to waste.” Along similarlines,aChinesedeveloperelaboratedonhowthe90-daycycle would enable the Center to showcase their effi-ciency to other InnoTech sites. He said the InnovationCenter would “create that kind of challenge to let us toprove thatwe can achieve a project or finish a project inmaybe less than 90 days.” Along similar lines, anotherCentermember inChinaargued thathe liked the shorterdevelopment cycle; he considered it a challenge thatwould motivate members to work harder and be moreefficient due to a tighter deadline. He also thought thishigher level of efficiency would enable InnoTech tokeep up with the competition. He said:

Sometimes because people’s nature seems . . .we are lazy, so we don’t want to do it very hur-riedly, but I think we can do it in a short time.So, it’s a very good idea, especially these days,

everyone need to do things quickly becausewe . . . have a lot of rivals, like other companies,they will, yes, we have a lot of competition.

Thus, themembers at theChinaCenter understoodthe 90-day cycle as being aligned with their hard-working approach and saw this as an opportunity todemonstrate their efficiency to colleagues at otherlocations. This increased efficiency was also per-ceived as away to remaincompetitive andcontributeto InnoTech’s success. Interestingly, since those atthe Chinese Center experienced the 90-day cycle asalignedwith their preexisting approach, they arguedthat, despite it being a newpractice, it did not changethe way they worked. As one developer whoworkedparticularly with user interface design, told us:

Frommy point of view, the change . . . is not toomuch different from normal development be-causewe end . . . one cycle and then start anothercycle. And, from my experience, it is not toomuch from normal development times.

Our observations confirmed that little changed inmembers’ way of working at the China Center rela-tive to the introduction of the 90-day cycle.

Although the China site did not change the waythey approached their work, they still worried thatthe 90-day cycle would lead to negative outcomes.They felt that, since the development time was rad-ically shorter, it forced them to choose only a fewfeatures to incorporate into an application to be ableto launch it on time. As one junior designer at theChina site explained, “Because we have limited re-sources, . . . so we can only make one or two func-tions.” The Center members felt that having fewerfunctions would negatively affect InnoTech’s per-formance in the Chinese market. A memberexpressed this concern, arguing that it was a riskyapproach and could potentially challenge Inno-Tech’s status in the market: the 90-day cycle wouldlead to releasing products with fewer appealing fea-tures, thus making them unattractive to Chinesecustomers. She also suggested that the time to un-derstand customer needs would be cut short:

Yes, I think it’s a very tight schedule . . . to deliveran application, even a small application, evena small function from . . . within 90-day cyclebecause from the . . . first, I need to include thecustomer research. I think for myself, I want todeliveranapplication,which itwillbepopular. . . .So . . . they can do a lot of . . . do more customerresearch to make sure what we will . . . deliver isreally meaningful.

One intended purpose of the 90-day cycle was toidentify applications, early on, thatwere not likely to


succeed in the market, so the organization couldchange course. This short time frame stood in con-trast to the many years the teams traditionally spentdeveloping applications. As described above, theU.S. members of the Center welcomed this new ap-proach and “failure” as part of a learning process.Those at the China Innovation Center, however, wereafraid Chinese customers would lose confidence inInnoTech if a product was terminated after the initial90 days. They argued that this approach could po-tentially jeopardize InnoTech’s status in the market.One Center member said, “If we would fail, the cus-tomerwouldbe angry andwewould losehim.”Alongsimilar lines, referring to the lack of tolerance forfailure,ChinaCentermembers stated that theirproject“just cannot gowrong.”Hence,members inChinahaddifficulties adopting the “fail early, fail fast” mantraespoused as part of the 90-day cycle. Instead, theChinese market dictated another belief system thatimplied products andprojects always had to succeed.

In sum, in contrast to theU.S. site, theChinaCenterenacted the 90-day cycle as a vehicle to increase ef-ficiency andperceived it as dependent on clear plansand structure rather than emergent and dynamicprocesses. Rather than enacting more dynamic andflexible work processes, as was done in the UnitedStates, those at the Center in China reinforced tra-ditional roles and hierarchical structures. Chinamembers articulated that role flexibility was notsomething they unequivocally considered a positivething. The China Center’s concerns with efficiencyalso led to apprehensions regarding the lack of fitbetween the 90-day cycle and the particularities ofChinese customers and market.

Enactment of the 90-day cycle at the India site.In India, the 90-day cyclewasunderstood inwayswedid not encounter in the United States or China, es-pecially with regard to enabling customer engage-ment and better aligning with the larger softwaredeveloper community. One way that members at theIndia site understood the 90-day cycle was as a wayto engage quickly with customers. A developer toldus that the aim of the 90-day cycle is to “createproducts very fast, as fast as possible, and to show-case it to customers.” Immediate and early customerfeedbackwas a crucial aspect of how the IndiaCentermembers understood the value of the 90-day cycle.As the project manager in India described it:

Because we come up with a concept, we finallysee the product at the end of 90 days, and that’sthere in the market. It’s not that just you havea product and it’s not in the market; you have itin themarket, and you already are in the processof selling it to the customers, where you geta chance to talk to the end customers.

Along similar lines, a developer who was alsoa product lead described how the shortened cycleallowed for the development of tangible productsthat facilitated prompt interaction with customers:

It’s 90 days, you have to do a lotmore, comparedtowhat you normally do. But I think that is . . . . Ithink the good thing is it works in the consumerspace. Because for every developer who works,you know that they are seeing the effectimmediately.

In addition to viewing the 90-day cycle as a way toobtainmore rapid interactionwith and feedback fromcustomers, several Center members in India framedthe 90-day cycle as a way for the India site to alignmore with the larger community of software de-velopers outside of InnoTech that is moving towardshorter cycles—particularly in the well-known Sili-con Valley. As one developer at the Indian site stated:

An app like this shouldn’t take more than90 days to deliver because when comparing theBay Area guys iPhone and all these kind of appdevelopers in the California, and these guysdevelop like within a week . . .

Along similar lines, a developer at the Indian siteexplained how the 90-day cycle resonated withpraxis of other large companies in the industry:

A lot of big companies are following this kind ofstrategy; they don’t want to waste a lot of time,likeoneyear, twoyears, no.They are shortening,like, six months or four months, four, three, fourmonths, they want to develop something andgive to the customer, get their feedback, andimmediately put that feedback into the nextproduct cycle, and this is working.

Focusing on getting customer feedback and align-ing practices with the larger software developercommunity led members at the Indian site to em-brace the 90-day cycle.

In summary, the Indian site understood the 90-daycycle as valuable in providing opportunities to ob-tain customer feedback. Thus, the boundaries be-tween the 90-day cycle and user-centered designwere somewhat intertwined for the members at theIndia site. Those at the Indian Center also experi-enced the 90-day cycle as a way to allow betteralignment with the global community of softwaredevelopers.

User-Centered Design

User-centereddesignwasanothercornerstoneof theInnovation Center concept at InnoTech. User-centered


design refers to the incorporation of the user perspec-tive throughout the design process through methodssuch as interviewing users and inviting user feedbackon early prototypes. Management argued that user-centered designwas away for the company to developproducts that would also be appealing for and providea rich experience for users. One manager explainedthat traditionally, when users were not involved earlyin the process and the process was governed by a longspecification document, a product could be functionalin the sense that it fulfilled all the criteria as specifiedin the document, yet provide a bad user experience.The move toward user-centered design was aimed ataddressing this issue. As one manager said “I thinkwe’vehad thenotion toooften thatwebring somethingto market that, for whatever reason, wasn’t what usersneed. In other words, we brought it too late and thenthe wrong thing.” User-centered design was aimed toremedy this by, as one manager explained, doing“formal user research,” for example, “interviews withinfluencers” and “lead users.”

In the following section, we discuss how user-centered design enactment differed between thethree Centers.

Enactment of user-centered design at the U.S.site.Centermembers at theU.S. site didnot see beinguser centered as something radically new. Memberstalked frequently about “customer engagement” intheir daily work, referring to “user-centered design,”“user research,” and “customer interviews” as basesfor decisions about product features or alterations. Adiscussion between two project team members viv-idly illustrates how the user perspective permeateddiscussions:

Teammember 1: I still favor theuser experience,the touch pad experience . . . . I am looking at it, Itap it, the numbers show up. I tap it again, thenumbers would disappear. I think it’s pretty . . .it’s less frequent, and [the customer]wants to seeall the numbers . . . once for him to do the math.

Team member 2: Yeah. I feel like we’re makingsome assumptions there, that he doesn’t want tocompare, because I don’t think we explicitlyasked him that question.

The project team assumed that their task was touncover problems consumers might experiencewhen the product went to market. As one managerdescribed it, user research was a way to understandproblems consumers might experience and to getinsights for suitable solutions:

These are some of the values, right, you know.To be insight-driven, but what that means isgoing out, talking to customers, getting the

customers’ needs and where they are, and theircontext, and understanding those and bringingthat into our solution development.

We also observed how the U.S. site’s desire toengage with customers and acquire honest andstraightforward feedback manifested in practice.This is illustrated by an excerpt from an interactionbetween a Center member and a customer, in whichthe Center member responds to some negative feed-back. He says:

No, no. This is exactly what we want to hear.Don’t say any “sorry.” We want your honestfeedback . . . . If you don’t get it, that means wedidn’t do good enough job . . . . We don’t wanta sugar-coated response to this, we want yourunfiltered, authentic response.

Authentic user feedback was seen as a conduit forcrafting better products and fueled the user-centereddesign process. Consistent with this, Center mem-bers in theUnitedStates talked frequently about howand when they could and should acquire user input,andwhich customers to involve. Thiswas illustratedduring an all-hands meeting, when a participantasked, “So, which customers do we want to engageand target, andwhen in the cycle? . . .Howmany andwhen?” Along similar lines, one designer explainedhow different customers were involved in differentphases of the development:

So, advisors are sort of the less time-intensivefolks that come in perhaps . . . focus group, orperhaps . . . an event, they give you some input toaprototype.Then, reviewcustomers.Webroughtthem into actually monthly sprint reviews . . . .And then,we had design customers. So, literally,we’d go to their location, meet with their user . . .

The user-centered design process in the UnitedStates extended beyond the actual design of a prod-uct to itsmarket launch. Themembers at theU.S. siteargued that customers who had been active partici-pants during the development phase were importantambassadors of the product in the go-to-marketphase, and that customer participation in thisphase would facilitate market entry and promotesuccess. One member explained:

Because customers thatarehappyhavingavoice inthe development process, presumably or hope-fully—if you do things right—are also customersthat are going to become promoters of the solutionandyour firstadopters.Andso, theearlieryoubringthese people into the process, the better—right?

A manager told us that reliance on users in the go-to-market phase was imperative.


Those at the U.S. Innovation Center enacted user-centered design as a vehicle to acquire a bettermarketorientation and keep the needs of customers con-stantly in mind. Those at the Chinese site, however,interpreted and experienced it quite differently.

Enactment of user-centered design at the Chinasite. At the outset, those at the Center in China werelargely unfamiliar with user-centered design, andour observations suggest a continued absence ofconsideration of users in thedevelopment process. Adeveloper at the Center, for example, explained thathe did not consider user-centered design as theworkof an engineer. He said, “I feel that, because I’m anengineer, I don’t want to do a lot of research.” Thiswas in stark contrast to engineers at theU.S. site,whosaw interaction with customers as a central and de-sirable part of their role.

The reluctanceof theChinesemembers to embraceuser-centered design seemed to stem from severalsources. In contrast with the United States, whereusers were seen as valuable sources of insight, in theChinese context, users were described as indecisiveand inarticulate about their needs, and thusunable toprovide viable input. As one project lead in Chinasaid, “But because sometimes, our customer . . . hewant this, but really to see that he don’t want this,he want[s] that.” A developer in China furtherexplained that it was the job of the developers tocreate the needs in the market, more so thanunveiling them:

Because you have to guide the customers, guidethemarkets to find something new,what has notexisted in the market. So, this is part . . . this isvery critical part of our daily work . . .

It was also argued that Chinese customers wouldbe uncomfortable having people observe them aspart of trying tounderstand their everydaywork.Onemanager said, “But you know, due to the differentculture in China, [the] customer . . . will feel very,very nervous if you monitor them. They will feelangry.” Hence, the view that Chinese customerswould be reluctant to be involved created resistanceto engaging with user-centered design, at least in theways enacted by the U.S. members of the InnovationCenter.

The Chinese members also argued that they lackedthe expertise needed to understand user needs, be-cause users were situated in diverse and highlyspecialized fields. The excerpt below from a productlead, related to a financial application being de-veloped, illustrates this common view:

But they may not understand: what is the realinsights of customers, to talk about their pain-points, because they don’t understand the

business context, they don’t have the domainknowledges of this business. So, I think a lot ofpeople will not understand the financial pro-cesses, and also they will face a lot of questionswhen [they] design . . . solutions for them.

Inaddition to skepticismaboutChineseusershavinguseful input that could be extracted and understoodby developers, the members in China found the con-stant deviation from specifications, which often re-sulted when engaging with users, disruptive andinefficient. They even argued that this violated theirwork principles. The story about feedback in the de-velopment process that one developer shared illus-trates thisparticularlywell.Heexplainedhis frustrationwith the frequent changes throughout a project becauseof customer feedback saying: “And I know the plan al-ways change, but we don’t like that.” He added thatthis led to numerous problems with the process.

In summary, the user-centered design process inChina was understood as placing demands on cus-tomers and developers who were in conflict withengineering expectations and practices. The mem-bers in China reported that their roles as engineersdid not encompass user research, that users wereunreliable and unwilling participants in this pro-cess, and that constant changes from the iterativeprocess disrupted their ability to deliver good code.Thus, the members resisted and made minimalchanges to their practices to incorporate users.

Enactment of user-centered design at the Indiasite. Those at the Innovation Center in India per-ceived user-centered design as aligned with theirexisting practices of engaging with customers. Theyfrequently told us that, several years earlier, theystarted to engage inuser-centereddesignpractices.Amember in India described how user research be-cameanestablishedpractice after a project using thatapproach was successful in the market. He said:

The team went and talked to the sales team inIndia, and they went there thinking this wouldbe some variation of a CRM-like application.And right then, after two weeks of discussionswith the endusers, when they realized that CRMis not what the users want . . . . So, six monthslater, they had developed the first version of theprototype . . . . And, at that point is when [theCTO] made the decision that he wants to pro-ductize it. Because one, it met a real user need. Itlooked like therewas going tobe agenericneedofthemarket, because the initial research and eventhe follow-up research over the six-monthperiodindicated that, for many of the larger companies,theydon’t necessarilyhave suchsystems inplacewhere the sales reps have these . . . this kind ofinformation at their fingertips.


Thus, user research was a practice that membersat the Center in India had already embraced. Whatemerged as being particularly characteristic aboutthe way the Indian team enacted user-centereddesign was their reliance on the community andpersonal networks to acquire user feedback. Re-lated to the quote above, it was explained, “Theteam went and talked to the sales team.” In oursubsequent interviews, we learned that this was anexample of their largely informal way of acquiringuser feedback: users were defined very broadly,and feedback was acquired through casual dis-cussions or community websites. The excerptbelow from an interview with a product leadelaborates:

So, we specified . . . we put in what we required.So, at one point, we said we are needing peopleto test . . ., people to do logo design, to writeout . . . to meet up with engineers, tell therequirements, all these things we put up in thecommunity page. So, people came up, peopleparticipated.

Compared with the U.S. site, which targeted andapproached users more formally and guided theirinput by preset questions, the Indian approach wasmore open and unstructured. Those at the IndiaCenter relied on a broader community and onpeople volunteering input into the design. Theyreported a strong feeling that potential users wereamong them and perceived the community’sknowledge as valuable and accessible through in-formal interactions.

Interestingly, unlike the U.S. site, the India mem-bers did not frame user-centered design primarily asa way to create more successful products, althoughthat was a desired outcome. Unlike the members inChina, the India site did not feel that user-centereddesign was inappropriate for either engineers orcustomers. Rather, the India members saw it asa natural way to engage the community in their ac-tivities, to be transparent, and to start dialogs. Theysaw user-centered design as aligned with how theytraditionally engaged with the community; theyemployed a largely informal and unstructured pro-cess and relied on volunteers and their personalnetworks for input.

Open Space

For proponents of the Innovation Centers, an im-portant focus was to adapt the office space to en-courage more collaborative interaction. InnoTechmanagement believed that Innovation Centerswould engage in better design and produce moreinnovative solutions in open office space compared

to the cubicle space that traditionally was usedthroughout the organization. It was also argued thatthe former space created communication and col-laboration challenges. As one manager explained:

Therewas anotion that it took a very long time tobuild something, which I thinkwas perceived aslargely being a function of distributed develop-ment; distributed not only in terms of differentlocations, but also different buildings, differentcubicles, so on. And then, so it’s . . . that kind ofcombination lent itself to the notion: Okay, weneed to remove as many barriers as possible,kinds of physical . . . you know, bring them alltogether. Because if you’re in the same room,you can have ad hoc conversations. And so, thatis removing the physical barriers, removing thedisciplinary barriers, and we’re having all thesedisciplines—design, development, architecture,project management—all literally in the samespace.

The management argued that the desired featuresof a space suitable for innovation should incorporatefeatures such as openness and flexibility to fostercollaboration across functions and roles. Manage-ment highlighted the importance of “removing thebarriers to communication”—physical as well asfunctional to foster more “ad hoc conversations”—which would eventually lead to better softwaredevelopment.Theyalsowanted tocreate a“workshopstyle” that they arguedwould “give the permission totry about anything.” In addition, remoteness from themain campus would facilitate freedom of thought.Despite the fact that the space, including the furniture,was designed to be nearly the sameat eachof the sites,as we see below, the open space was interpreted andused quite differently at the Innovation Centers in thethree locations.

Enactment of open space at the U.S. site. Theconviction that open space should replace tradi-tional cubicles resonatedwith the beliefs of theU.S.Center members. Our field notes were filled withexamples of a dynamic atmosphere, where mem-bers worked in dyads at someone’s desk and hadspontaneous encounters. Meetings often took placein the social area—in the center of the space—ratherthan in closed meeting rooms. In our interviewswith U.S.-based members, they claimed “the col-laboration level at [the Innovation Center] is sig-nificantly higher” compared with that at the maincampus. One developer said that setting up meet-ings was much more spontaneous and efficient inthe open space, and it would take 3 or more daysto carve out the same meeting time in the tradi-tional space. Frequently, we witnessed those atthe U.S. Center bump into each other, engage in


conversation, and end up working jointly at one oftheir desks. Furthermore, we witnessed how mem-bers framed the Innovation Center’s remotenessfrom the main campus as positive, stating that thisenabled them to focus on their work as developersand innovators, instead of losing time and pro-ductivity being involved in organizational politics.One U.S. member told us during our observations,“In the [Innovation Center] . . . they waste no energyin worrying about this [organizational politics],while at the main campus it is all about politics.”Thus, the Innovation Center’s remoteness was seenas allowing members to focus on developing newinnovative products without being disrupted byissues or tasks less central to their work.

Those at the U.S. Center also experienced therough and rugged aesthetic of the office space, withcement floors andwhiteboardwalls, as being alignedwith the aesthetics of many start-up firms in SiliconValley or a local university’s design thinking labo-ratory and evoking a sense of connection to thebroader entrepreneurial and innovative SiliconValley context. A manager explained the motivationbehind the rough, unfinished aesthetics of the space:he hoped for a start-up mentality, with a workshopfeel that is “kept rough.”

In summary, in theU.S. context, thenewspacewasenacted as a collaborative space, and it fostereda collaborative, highly interactive, and dynamic at-mosphere. The rough aesthetics made members atthe U.S. site feel connected to the local entrepre-neurial context and was perceived as fostering cre-ativity and providing the Innovation Center withlegitimacy in the local context.

Enactment of open space at the China site. Ourobservations of the members in China started5 weeks before they moved to the new offsite In-novation Center. This allowed us to gain an un-derstanding of members’ way of working in thetraditional space before the move. Our field notesfrom this time are replete with descriptions of howpeople worked individually at their desks and howsilent it was in the office. “Only the humming fromthe AC can be heard in the office”was a typical wayto characterize the atmosphere. Innovation Centermembers rarely worked in dyads at a desk or ina cubicle, but it happened occasionally. Further-more, almost all meetings were scheduled, and theytook place in meeting rooms. Generally, lunchtimewas the only time members interacted informallyand socialized at work.

When we asked members of the China InnovationCenter what they thought the new Innovation Centerfacilitieswouldmean to them, they claimed that theywere still struggling to find a “short and clear defi-nition” of it. We were struck, however, by their

frequent mentioning of the new space as a way tosolve problems pertinent to projects, and their un-derstanding of the new space as supporting betterand more efficient work practices. As articulated byamale product leadwho had been at InnoTechmorethan 5 years:

So everybody will be on the same page, knowcurrent status, and what is our blocks, what isthemost important targets that we need to finishfor each week, and what is the long-term goalsfor the project, and also what is the most im-portant KPI.

The members at the Chinese site were also con-cerned that the move would entail a risk to the de-velopment process. As one developer stated, “It maybring some risk to our projects because when youmove something, you need to adjust to the develop-ment environment . . . from hardware to software.”When the group eventually moved to the new facil-ities outside campus, their interaction and collabo-ration remained largely the same as it had been inthe traditional cubicle space, despite being located inan open office environment. The open space didnot lead to more interaction or informal meetings.During most of the day, the office was silent andconversations remained uncommon; members con-tinued to conduct most of their work individually attheir desks. It was explained to us that open andcollaborative spaces were still rather unusual inChina, and the members at the Innovation Centerwere not used to interacting and moving aroundfreely in an open space. As a developer explained inan interview:

You know, because in some companies, like[Company X], we are not allowed to do some-thing like this:walk so freely in theoffice areas . . .our policy is we have to stay in our cubiclesmaybe, yes. It’s not a formal policy, but if youjust . . . you always walk around . . . the adminwill come and tell you, “Don’t walk around sofrequently. Why don’t you stay at your place inthe cubicle.”

One intention with the new Innovation Center inChina—with an open office space and only two ad-jacent meeting rooms (one of which was appro-priated by the manager as an office shortly aftermoving in)—was that the members should use theopen space and social areas for meetings, and thusengage in a less formal way of coordinating work.The members of the China Center instead com-plained from the start about the lack of meetingrooms. This resulted in Chinese-based membersscheduling meeting rooms on the main campus in-stead of using the open space and the social areas at


the Innovation Center. Finally, in contrast to theU.S.site, where separation from the main campus wasperceived as positive and allowing more freedom,the Chinese members experienced the separation asdisruptive and isolating, leading many Centermembers to want to move back to the main campus.

In summary, the work style of the Chinese In-novation Center members remained largely un-changed despite relocating to an open space office.Instead of engaging in more collaboration and in-teraction, those at the China site maintained theirprevious work practices in the open space orreturned to the main campus. Day after day, wewitnessedmembersworking in silence, individuallyat their desks, only occasionally engaging in anyform of spontaneous interaction in the open space.Their ability to solve problems more effectively, ashoped, did not materialize because meeting roomswere not available, they were not comfortablemeeting in the open space, and the access to otherson the main campus they felt they needed was lim-ited.As a result, they spentmore andmore time at themain campus instead of at the Innovation Center.

Enactment of open space at the India site. Thenew practices were officially introduced to the Indiasite in August 2011, but members did not move intothe new Innovation Center until October 2011. Wewere not present at the time of the move, but ob-served before the move and spoke regularly to In-novation Center members in the months followingthe move and returned 5 and 8 months later to ob-serve the practices in the new Innovation Center.

Before the move into the new space, the Indianmembers worked in a traditional cubicle space, butthe team was highly interactive even in the cubiclespace. Frequently, we observed them interact asa community, where not only work but also otheractivities such as sharing food, looking at personalphotos, playing the guitar, and drawing were im-portant elements of their day. Members describedtheir collaborative and interactive ways of workingin the cubicle space as a “work-around,”where theyresisted the imposed partitions and enacted the cu-bicle space “as if” it were an open space.

When themembers of the Center in Indiamoved tothe offsite Innovation Center, surprisingly, theirhighly interactive andcollaborativepractices didnottransfer. Rather, our field notes were replete withoccasions where team members worked in-dividually and silently in the meeting rooms, usingthem as “quiet spaces,” while the open office spaceremained empty. As one member described:

But I don’t think we’ve utilized this whole col-laboration the way we have planned it. . . . Theengineers and the, you know, they have gone in

the rooms and worked, but I haven’t seen somuch conversation . . . kind of out in the open.

The fact that the open space was frequently emptyand was felt to stifle conversations was explained asa concern about privacy. One developer in India toldus that he could not talk in the open space in theInnovation Center because everyone could hear.Along similar lines, another developer asked, “Ev-erybody can see what I am doing; and how do I getprivate space?” This led to a situation where mostinformal conversations instead took place in theclosed meeting rooms and involved only a fewproject members rather than the whole project team,unlike before. The primary difference between theold and the new spacewas that the cubicle space hadallowed for a certain level of privacy. This base levelof privacy may have been a precondition for the vi-brant and highly interactive work that occurred be-fore. Our observations suggest that when thepossibility for privacy was removed, members triedto recreate it by isolating themselves in meetingrooms, leading to less spontaneous interaction. Asone designer summarized, when talking about howthey were using the space, “The entire well of thewhole thing is empty.”

Unlike in the United States, Innovation Centermembers in India received the start-upaestheticwithskepticism. In an informal conversation with oneteam member, we were told, “An office should bewell taken care of; it shouldn’t have things that arebroken on the floor.” In contrast to the U.S. site, theIndia members argued that, for innovation to hap-pen, they needed a “clean cubicle that is comfort-able, with carpets,” rather than “a garage set up, withthe flooring of a garage.”As one developer told us, ifthey have to do something “new and out of the box,”then they should have a “nice space.” The concernover the sparse aesthetic of the Innovation Centerwas reinforced by the fact that the India membersviewed their office space as a showcase for their ac-tivities vis-a-vis customers. Although it was alsoseen as a showcase in the United States, where thestart-up aesthetic brought legitimacy to the In-novation Center, in India it was perceived as anembarrassment and a liability.

Contrary to the United States and more like China,those at the Innovation Center in India experiencedseparation from the main campus as problematic, cre-ating a feeling of alienation from the organization andtheir colleagues in other teams. We were told, and weobserved, that previous connections with others hadsplintered; members bemoaned the fact that their tieswith others at the main campus were weakening.

In summary, paradoxically, those in India hadenacted the traditional cubicle space as collaborative


and highly communal space; however, when theymoved to the Innovation Center, their collaborativepractice was disrupted and they felt isolated fromothers at the main campus. Furthermore, the roughaesthetic did not resonate with the members; theyfound that it did not meet their expectations forconditions conducive to innovative work or hostingcustomers.

DISCOVERING LOGICS AS A BASISFOR RECONTEXTUALIZATION

Our findings suggest that the Innovation Centerconcept, when it was transferred, was made sense ofand enacted quite differently at the different sites.We describe above how three practices embedded inthe Innovation Centers at InnoTech—the 90-day cy-cle, user-centered design, and open space—cameto take on different meanings and were enacteddifferently at each site. Similar toBrannen (2004),wenoticed a process of “recontextualization” as Centermembers reinterpreted the practices through thelens of their local context. In Brannen’s work, re-contextualization is a way that individuals interpreta practice within their particular context and createa meaning that makes sense to them. Brannen’smacrolevel analysis, however, was not able to iden-tify the particular meaning systems being drawn onor how recontextualization occurred. Our analysissuggests that the different meaning systems used ateach location for figuring out what these practicesmeant to them were based on logics. That is, thelogics provided “meaning to their social reality”(Thornton & Ocasio, 1999: 804).

We argue that diverse recontextualizations of thepractices at the various sites can be seen as mani-festations of largely different constellations oflogics on which team members drew. Our datashow that when professionals are spread acrossdifferent local contexts they may draw on en-tirely or partially different constellations of logics.Figures 1a–1c illustrate the processes that we ob-served, in which different constellations of logicswere used at each location for a given practice. Asindicated in the figures, a practice (e.g., the 90-daycycle, see Figure 1a) was transferred to a given lo-cation (e.g., India) and a particular logic or set oflogics (e.g., amarket logic and a community logic inthe case of India) were invoked to make sense ofthat practice.

As illustrated in Figures 1a–1c, the team locatedin the United States drew primarily on an entre-preneurial logic (90-day cycle and open space)and market logic (user-centered design) when en-acting these practices. The entrepreneurial logicimplies a belief in creativity and innovativeness,suggesting practices such as diversity in thinking,tolerating uncertainty, reframing problems, andacting quickly with a focus on defining and imple-menting new opportunities and solutions (BartonCunningham, Gerrard, Schoch, & Lai Hong, 2002).Drawing on an entrepreneurial logic, both the90-day cycle and the open space practices in theUnited States were enacted as vehicles to use in-creasingly informal, loose, and collaborative pro-cesses and structures, as well as to recognize failureas a learning opportunity, all in the service of be-coming more flexible and innovative. Our findingsfrom the United States show that the Center alsodrew on a market logic to make sense of user-centered design. When organizational membersdraw on a market logic, they are imbued by a beliefsystem governed by self-interest (Thornton et al.,2012), the focus of which is to acquire status in themarket and profit maximization and which dictatespractices such as acquiring a deep understanding ofcustomers’ needs. This logic particularly man-ifested in the way in which the U.S. members madesense of and enacted user-centered design—theysaw it as a vehicle for developing better productsthat would please customers and meet marketneeds. They also had a strategic way of involvingcustomers that they hoped would lead to advocacyfor the product.

Those located in the Center in China, in contrast,relied more heavily on engineering (90-day cycle,user-centered design, and open space) and marketlogics (90-day cycle and user-centered design),which were associated with different enactments ofthe three practices as compared with the UnitedStates (see Figures 1a–1c). Based on our observationsat InnoTech, the engineering logic reflects a beliefsystem grounded in professional expertise, witha focus on technological features and their ad-vancement, scientific methods, and practices thatfollow a scheduled process and adhere to traditionalengineering methods and specifications rather thanneeds and insights generated or expressed by cus-tomers. The China members focused on the effi-ciency benefits of a 90-day development cycle andwere skeptical of a user-centered design process thatdisrupted standard practices. They also preferred towork in a more hierarchical and individual manner,despite the affordances for collaboration offered bythe open space. The China members also drewheavily on a market logic, but a somewhat different

Author’s voice:Was there anything that surprised youabout the findings, and, if so, what?


http://video.aom.org/0u7xh0ow






version of the Western market logic described in thecurrent literature on logics (e.g., Thornton et al.,2012). The Chinese version was based on assump-tions influenced by the planned economy, whichwas dominant in theChinese context until the 1980s.In short, when amarket logic is influenced by beliefsstemming from themodel of aplannedeconomy, lessimportance is placed on understanding customerneeds. Instead, centralized production is seen asimproving productivity and coordination based onconsolidated economic resources (Durlauf & Blume,2008). Our findings show that, on one hand, theChinese Center members enacted the 90-day cycledrawing on elements common in the Western marketlogic, such as increasing efficiency and keeping upwith competition. However, the team also advo-cated for strict boundaries between customers andproducers, which aligns with a market logic ofa planned economy where customers have littleinfluence on the actual production. In sum, thoseat the China Center employed an engineering logicwhen encountering the open space, and the engineer-ing logic in constellationwith themarket logic tomakesense of the 90-day cycle and user-centered design.

Finally, those at the India site also relied on themarket logic (90-day cycle and open space), but drewheavily on the community logic as well (90-daycycle, user-centered design, and open space, seeFigures 1a–1c). The community logic reflects a beliefsystem based on reciprocity where organizationsare not only economic actors but also part of localcollectives, focusing on investments and commit-ments to the community and its values, as a form of“cooperative capitalism” (Thornton et al., 2012: 73).For the 90-day cycle, this was revealed in members’focus on the benefits of aligning with a larger devel-opment community. In terms of user-centered de-sign, our findings showed that the India siteroutinely involved individuals from their personalnetworks and volunteers in the user research. Theyconsidered their everyday engagements with thecommunity as part of the user research process.Interestingly, we found that the open space wasdisruptive to the community logic on which theydrew, despite the fact that the intent was to in-crease collaboration. Although members had col-laborated, as well as engaged in activities such asplaying music and sharing food, once they moved

FIGURE 1ALogics invoked at each site related to the transfer of the 90-day cycle

US

India

China

Communitylogic

Marketlogic

Entrepre-neuriallogic

90-daycycle

90-daycycle

90-day cycle(as envisioned)

90-daycycle

Marketlogic

Marketlogic

Engineeringlogic

A

When the 90-day cycle was transferred to the respective units (United States, China, and India), Center members invoked different logics(e.g., the entrepreneurial logic) or constellations of logics (e.g., the market logic and community logic in India) when enacting the practice.


to the Innovation Center, there was a disconnectbetween the reality of the space and the com-munity logic on which members relied. As a re-sult, the India site became less, rather than more,interactive.

Finally, the India Center relied heavily on themarket logic to make sense of the 90-day cycle andthe open space. Members argued that the main ben-efit of the 90-day cycle was to obtain immediatecustomer feedback that would enable them to im-prove the success of their products. Their negativereaction to the open space was also tied, in part, to amarket logic. They argued that the space was unattrac-tive and unsuitable for hosting customers, suggestingthat more expensive, professional furniture would beneeded to create the image they desired.

Logics and Recontextualization

What emerges from our findings is an enhanced un-derstanding of the global transfer of practices and howunits, when spread across the globe, draw on diverseconstellations of logics to make sense of a new practice.Our inductive approach enables us to discern the con-stellation of logics that seemed to matter most at eachparticular site when engaging with the new practice.

These constellations of logics prescribe different formsof sensemaking and practices across sites as they areemployedintheprocessof recontextualization.Brannen(2004) argues that language is “a critical part of the cul-tural context that significantly affects the transnationaltransfer of firm assets” (p. 595). Our findings align withand extend Brannen’s work by articulating the role oflogics in this process and expand beyond her semioticperspective to incorporate actions as well asmeanings.

We rely on our empirical data to depict a morecomprehensive view of recontextualization (seeFigure 2) by showing how,when encountering a newpractice (practice1. . .n) that is crafted outside oftheir own context, organizational members in aparticular location (location1. . .n) draw on con-stellations of local logics (logics1. . .n) to makesense of it. These constellations may be composedof a variety of logics, depending on the context. Inour case, we outline how members at the sites in-voked four different logics in various constellationsto make sense of the transferred practices. Theconstellation of logics (e.g., the specific combina-tion of 1. . .n) thatmembers invoke at each sitemay beentirely different or partially overlapping betweensites. In our case, theywere partly overlapping sincethe market logic was prevalent at several sites. For

FIGURE 1BLogics invoked at each site related to the transfer of user-centered design

User-centereddesign

User-centereddesign (as

envisioned)

US

India

China

User-centereddesign

User-centereddesign

Communitylogic

Marketlogic

Marketlogic

Engineeringlogic

B

Whenuser-centered designwas transferred to the respective units (United States, China, and India), Centermembers invokeddifferent logics (e.g.,the market logic in the United States) or constellations of logics (e.g., the market logic and engineering logic in China) when enacting the practice.


different practices, members at each site may alsodraw on different logics, thus generating a constel-lation of logics for a particular practice at a particu-lar location. Traditionally, scholars have tended toview the global transfer of practices as transfersfrom one national context with onemeaning systemto another national contextwithadifferentmeaningsystem. Our approach suggests that this may be toosimplistic of a view and that multiple meaningsystems, as depicted in Figures 1a–1c, may be in-voked when members at a particular site enacta particular practice.

We also found that various forms of recontextu-alization were associated with the different con-stellations of logics that members invoke at eachsite. The constellation of logics on which Centermembers draw at a particular site constitute a lens,whichmakes them attribute variousmeanings andbehaviors to an incoming practice. In some situa-tions, members invoke a constellation of logicsthat promotes practices that lie close to the originsof the incoming practice, which then requirelittle recontextualization. In other situations, theconstellation of logics invoked by the members at

each Center promotes practices that are radicallydifferent from the intended meanings and actions,which leads members to recontextualize thepractice to fit their context. In their recent reviewon culture in organizational studies, Giorgi,Lockwood, and Glynn (2015) call for more re-search on culture that incorporates action as wellas meaning. In our analysis, we found that bothactions and meanings were subject to recontex-tualization. We saw cases in which the meaningswere either recontextualized or not, dependingon the logics invoked and how they squared withthe intent of the practice. We also saw cases inwhich actions were recontextualized or not,depending on the logics employed and alignmentwith existing practices. As illustrated in Figure 3,recontextualization can occur in terms of the de-gree to which (a) recipients reinterpret themeaning of the practice and (b) members re-interpret the newly prescribed actions. Ouranalysis illustrates four forms of recontextuali-zation that occurred at the three sites.

In several cases, we observed an “absence ofrecontextualization.” This took two forms. The first

FIGURE 1CLogics invoked at each site related to the transfer of open space

US

India

China

Commu-nity logic

Entrepreneuriallogic

Open space

Open space(as

envisioned)

Open space

Open space

Marketlogic

Engineer-ing logic

C

Whenopen spacewas transferred to the respective units (United States, China, and India), Centermembers invokeddifferent logics (e.g., theentrepreneurial logic in the United States) or constellations of logics (e.g., the market logic and community logic in India) when enacting thepractice.


was when the fit between the meaning and ac-tions associated with the incoming practice alignedso well with those at the recipient site that no re-interpretation was necessary. When participants inthe United States, for example, encountered user-centered design, they drew on a market logic. Theirsensemaking of the practice, therefore, residedclose to its origins, and the core meaning remainedlargely the same (low recontextualization of mean-ing). At the same time, it was congruent with theirexisting patterns of behaviors related to the in-clusion of users in their development process, sothey enacted these practices as prescribed withoutexperiencing a need for recontextualization (lowrecontextualization of action). Absence of recon-textualization can also reflect a scenario in whichemployees in a given location are unable to in-voke a suitable logic to make sense of the mean-ings or actions associated with the practice andmake it legitimate. As a result, they reject thepractice without recontextualization. When mem-bers at the Innovation Center in China, for ex-ample, encountered the open space, they invokedthe engineering logic, which made the prescribed

meanings and actions being transferred incom-prehensible to the Center members. Thus, theprevalence of the engineering logic made themunable to reinterpret the meaning of the openspace in a way that made sense to them withintheir own context, nor did this logic provide animperative for them to change their actions. Thepractice, therefore, never worked for them andwas rejected.

Wealso observedwhatwe refer to as “reconstruedrecontextualization.” Reconstrued recontextuali-zation occurs when there is high recontextualiza-tion of meaning, but without recontextualizationof actions. The China site’s treatment of the 90-daycycle followed this pattern. Invoking a constella-tion of the engineering and market logics, themembers at the China site recontextualized themeanings associated with the 90-day cycle asa way to showcase the team’s efficiency inter-nally in the organization. They did not, however,reinterpret or alter behaviors associated with thispractice as espoused from the main campus orthe U.S. Innovation Center. Instead, they acceptedthe 90-day deadline, planned tighter schedules,

FIGURE 2The role of logics in the transfer of practices to different locations

Location1

Location2 Locationn

Logic1

Logic2

Logic2

Logic2

Logic3

Logic1

Logic4

Logicn

Logicn

Logicn

Logic1

Practice1

Practice2

Practicen

When encountering a newpractice (practice1. . .n) coming fromelsewhere, organizationalmembers in a given location (location1. . .n) drawonconstellations of local logics (logics1. . .n) to make sense of it.


and attempted to make it work for them. Thus, inChina the explicit actions associated with the90-day cycle, for example, completing projectswithin 90-days, were enacted, but with little ofits original intent to create a more flexible andfeedback-rich software development practice.Thus, the actions were performed as prescribedalbeit with a differentmeaning attributed to them.Although not present in our data, it is possiblethat a high level of recontextualization of mean-ing and low level of recontextualization of actioncould also result when behavioral patterns are al-ready aligned, so recontextualization of actionswould not be required.

A third type of recontextualization was “perfor-mance recontextualization.” In this case, themeanings remained largely the same as intendedwith the incoming practice, but the actions wereperformed differently than prescribed, thus theactions were highly recontextualized. The Indiasite, for example, subscribed to the originalmeaning of open space as collaborative and in-teractive, which was aligned with the values pre-scribed by the community logic on which theydrew. Hence, little recontextualization of meaningwas needed. Concerns about privacy, however,emerged as critical once they occupied the openspace. This led to recontextualization of actionssuch that those in India reconstituted the ex-pected behaviors to better suit their context. Para-doxically, then, they stopped engaging in the(desired) spontaneous and interactive behaviorsthat were intended with the open space and had

characterized their former way of working. Thus,the meanings were aligned and required norecontextualization, but actions were altered toaddress privacy concerns.

Finally, we introduce “radical recontextualiza-tion,” a type of recontextualization that relies onrecontextualizing both the meanings and the ac-tions associated with a practice into a local con-text. We observed radical recontextualization atthe U.S. (90-day cycle and open space) and India(90-day cycle and user-centered design) sites. Inthese cases, both the meaning and practices werehighly recontextualized so they resonated with thelocal cultural context. In the United States, for ex-ample, the 90-day cycle represented an unfamiliarpractice, but team members used an entrepre-neurial logic tied to rapid innovation to understandit in their context. They applied the prescribed ac-tions in ways that made sense to them—for exam-ple, by using the 90 days as a guide rather thana requirement and as a way to experiment more,thus recontextualizing both meaning and action tobe aligned with the entrepreneurial logic on whichthey relied.

DISCUSSION

As global organizations transfer practices acrosslocations, adaptations are generally necessaryto ensure a fit between the practices and the lo-cal context (e.g., Ansari et al., 2014). We buildon studies related to the transfer (Boxenbaum,2006; Czarniawska & Sevon, 1996; Frenkel, 2005;

FIGURE 3Outcomes based on recontextualization of meaning and action

PerformanceRecontextualization

RadicalRecontextualization

Absence ofRecontextualization

ReconstruedRecontextualization

Low HighAction

Mea

ning

Low

Hig

h

With regard to meaning, high refers to high recontextualization of meaning and low refers to low recontexualization of meaning. Similarly,with regard to action, high refers to high recontextualization of action and low refers to low recontexualization of action.


Morris & Lancaster, 2006; Sahlin & Wedlin, 2008;Saka, 2004) and recontextualization (Brannen,2004) of practices by articulating how recipientsmake sense of and react to practices coming fromafar. To date, research has taken a decidedly macroview of the transfer of practices, treating it asa strategic (e.g., Brannen, 2004) or managerialconcern (e.g., Boxenbaum, 2006). This macro-level approach has created a gap in our under-standing of how units receiving practices fromabroad make sense of and enact these prac-tices. By observing innovation centers as theyreceived practices coming from overseas, we areable to better describe what happens at themicrolevel. Our analysis suggests that when re-cipients are faced with an unfamiliar practice,they draw on one or more logics, and the logic(s)they choose varies by practice and by location.The result is different forms of recontextualiza-tion, where individuals alter either meanings,actions, or both.

Viewing the global transfer of practices froman institutional logics lens, as we have, enablesa broader understanding that takes into accounthow a constellation of field-level logics shapesmicrolevel, everyday practices at each site. Spe-cifically, the notion of a constellation of logicsallows us to describe how various logics aredrawn on for different practices in different lo-cations to inform recontextualizaton. We showthat logics, therefore, are a crucial sourceemployed to make sense of practices coming fromafar. The fact that the team in the United States,for example, drew primarily on a market logicwhen enacting the user-centered design practicemade the U.S. Center’s recontextualization of thedesign process look significantly different com-pared with user-centered design at the Center inIndia, which drew mainly on the communitylogic for this practice. Thus, when the ideal ofa practice (the practice as it is intended, e.g., bymanagement) is transferred to other locations, thepractice may be recontextualized by individualswho draw on different logics. We further foundthat Centers frequently employed multiple logicsin making sense of a given practice. China, forexample, drew mainly on a constellation of anengineering logic and a market logic in enactingthe 90-day cycle and India drew on both marketand community logics when making sense of thenew open space arrangement. We, therefore, es-tablish that logics inform the form of adaptationand that multiple logics may be invoked to makesense of a practice.

Our inductive approach using a practice lensenabled us to discern the logics on which

employees drew. Our empirical work answers acall to focus on practices as a means to “explainhow and why culture influences a range of orga-nizational processes” (Giorgi et al., 2015: 40).Rather than focusing on the legal and regulativesystems, or the traits and values, we inductivelyarrived at the constellation of logics that seemedto matter the most for the members at each par-ticular site when engaging with the new practice.This effort resonates with the turn toward “micro-institutional theory,” which, with its focus on“enaction, interpretation, translation, and mean-ing” (Powell & Colyvas, 2008: 276), has started toemphasize how actors enact institutions “on theground” (McPherson & Sauder, 2013; Thorntonet al., 2012), underlining the importance of “sit-uated cultural beliefs, norms and behaviors thatreflect particular areas of life” (Giorgi et al.,2015: 36).

As a result, we provide insight into different out-comes of the transfer process that are tied to recon-textualization of both meaning and action. Wepropose that there can be an absence of recon-textualization, reconstrued recontextualization,performance recontextualization, and radicalrecontextualization, extending Brannen’s (2004) ar-ticulation of the recontextualization process at thefirm level. We are not the first to try to characterizehow employees might deal with competing logics ortransferred practices, although previous work hastended to bemore theoretical than empirical. In theirconceptual paper, for example, Pache and Santos(2013b) theorize that individuals engage in differentstrategies, including ignorance, compliance, de-fiance, combination, andcompartmentalization,whenthey confront a new logic. Lucke, Kostova, and Roth(2014) take this a step further by suggesting cognitivestrategies that multicultural managers might usewhen encountering a practice transferred from abroad,including compartmentalization, integration, in-clusion, convergence, or generalization. The ac-tivities of filtering, repurposing, and couplingwere also identified as types of contextualizationwork done by actors importing practices (Gond &Boxenbaum, 2013). We see our contribution asorthogonal to the above approaches because ouremphasis on practice has enabled us to focus onnot the activities or strategies employed in thetransfer process, but the variety of outcomes, whereeither meanings, actions, both, or none are recon-textualized as the practice is integrated (or not) intothe local context. Examining outcomes of the re-contextualization process provides a more nuancedunderstanding of how the fit between incom-ing practices and the local logics contributes tothe form of adaptation. In addition to telling us


more about the outcomes of various forms ofrecontextualization, it suggests when it will nothappen. That is, in some cases an absence ofrecontextualization reflected a fit between exist-ing meanings and behaviors and those prescribedby the practice, leading to high-fidelity trans-fers. In such cases, project members invoked logicsthat were similar to those in the context wherethe practice was crafted. Absence of recontextu-alization also occurred when recipients identi-fied no suitable logic for making sense of theincoming practice. In those situations, the prac-tice was rejected. Thus, we argue that it is im-portant to look at the logics invoked as well as thestrategies employed to fully understand howpractices are transferred and when recontextu-alization occurs. This also adds nuance to thediscussion about whether fidelity or adaptationis desirable and shows that this is contingent onthe situation. As our findings suggest, under cir-cumstances when logics are aligned (absence ofrecontextualization and performance recontex-tualization) fidelity of practices is a reasonableexpectation. In other cases, when logics are notwell aligned (reconstrued and radical recon-textualization), adaptation is a more reasonableexpectation.

Our work also raises new areas of inquiry, in-cluding questions about the role of recontextuali-zation of meaning and behavior in subsidiaryperformance and coordination across locations.Most research has focused on fidelity of the transfer.Our data suggest that the highest fidelity transfersoccur when meanings and behaviors are alreadyaligned. When the recipient context varies enoughthat alternative logics are relied on to make sense ofthe practice, some form of recontextualization isneeded. Questions remain, however, about the effectof these forms of recontexualization (reconstrued,performance, and radical) on subsidiary perfor-mance. Questions also remain about what makesa particular logic or constellation of logics salient fora given practice at a given time. Why are membersdrawing on those particular logics? Are the logicson which units draw relatively stable or are theysusceptible to internal (e.g., personalities of mem-bers, existing schemas, etc.) and external influences?Rerup and Feldman defined organizational inter-pretive schema as a shared set of assumptions or“knowledge structures that organize past and futureexperiences” (2011: 578). It would be useful to un-derstand the relationship between logics and theseshared schema, which may reside somewhere be-tween individual schema and logics and could pos-sibly help to guide the selection of logics. Further, itwouldbehelpful to explore the relationship between

strategies used and the logics on which units draw.In otherwords, are some strategiesmore effective atproducing logics aligned with the original intent ofthe practice? How can managers support and en-able employees to draw on particular constella-tions of logics to create beneficial outcomes?Furthermore, given that our article suggests that thebenefits of fidelity versus adaptation of practicesdepend on the situation, we need to better un-derstand how managers can evaluate the trade-offsbetween fidelity and adaptation depending on thecontext to which practices are being transferred.Finally, our work captures the recontextualizationof these transfers, butwe do not have data at enoughpoints in time to characterize the unfolding of therecontextualization process. Additional inquiry ata more detailed level will be important for un-derstanding the evolution of the recontexualizationprocess. For example, do recipients of the transfer tryoutmultiple logics and ultimately settle on a few or isit clear from the start which logics will be invoked?We hope that our empirical work provides a founda-tion for future discoveries along these lines.

Through our research, we also show that ina global context, in contrast to Pache and Santos(2013b), various constellations of logics may existside-by-side without being perceived as in conflict,yet affect theways inwhichpractices are transferred.Murray (2010) similarly pointed out the fact thatseemingly competing logics can coexist, althoughher research was not conducted across contexts.Extending this work, we found another conditionwhen logics can exist side-by-side—when individ-uals within the same organization carry out theirwork in different geographic locales and are influ-enced by the constellation of logics prevalent in theirlocal context. Even if the constellations vary acrosssites (as they did in our study), individuals may notexperience competition between logics. Hence, in-dividuals may not consistently invoke the cognitivecoping strategies that Pache and Santos (2013b)outline because organizational members neednot be aware of the multiple logics. We thereforebring to the surface a new line of inquiry into howorganizations cope with the recontexualizationof practices and multiple logics when competi-tion and institutional complexity are not experi-enced by its members, yet diverse enactmentsresult. Our findings suggest future research ex-ploring questions about the consequences forglobally distributed collaboration when distantworkers unknowingly rely on different logics toguide the recontextualizations of their practices.Situations with incompatible practices have beendescribed as challenging and resisting reconcil-iation (e.g., Cramton & Hinds, 2014; Nicholson &


Sahay, 2001), but little is known about how hav-ing diverse, yet not necessarily incompatible prac-tices, plays out. A lens of institutional logicsprovides an additional framework to explorethese questions.

Related to this, our findings also show that thecontent of familiar logics may themselves varyacross sites. We allude to how the market logicshared some traits across sites, while at the samebeing characterized by some different features indifferent locations. We saw, for example, that inthe Chinese context, the history of a plannedeconomy seemed to influence the content of themarket logic, such that it was different than themarket logic in the United States. Although ourfindings only allowed us to see variations of themarket logic, this discovery establishes that suchvariations in familiar logics are possible. It wouldbe reasonable to assume, for example, that thelogic of entrepreneurship might look different indifferent regions given the different compositionand use of social networks for entrepreneurialendeavors (Dodd & Patra, 2002; Klyver & Foley,2012). One extension of our work would be to ex-plore how other taken-for-granted logics mightvary across contexts.

It is important to note that, along with Brannen,we focus not on adaptation, for example, how re-cipients change their own meanings and actions,but recontextualization, for example, how thepractices themselves are reconstituted at theboundary of the local context. This is in starkcontrast to how studies on practice adoption(Kostova, 1999; Kostova & Roth, 2002) tradition-ally have conceptualized the transfer process,where the practice has been viewed as an entitythat is adopted following patterns that lead to ei-ther full, minimal, partial, or ceremonial adoption(Kostova & Roth, 2002). The previous focus hastherefore emphasized the degree of adoptionacross sites and de-emphasized how a transferredpractice can take on partially or entirely newmeanings and actions in a new context. Therecontextualization perspective thus supportsa view of practices as socially constructed andemergent rather than predetermined and stable. Wesee one of our contributions as extending Brannen’s(2004) work and allowing for a view of recontextu-alization as a multidimensional process. WhileBrannen (2004) is mainly occupied with how “lan-guage produces meaning in situated contexts”(p. 595), we show that a focus on language capturesonly one part of a more comprehensive processof recontextualization. A focus on language un-derstates the important link between meaning-making and action, and how they are mutually

reconstituting. We argue that it is also vital to ac-count for how recontextualization occurs at thelevel of actions because patterns of actions generatepractices (Reckwitz, 2002), which in turn directattention and inform meaning-making (Giorgiet al., 2015). Meaning is created not only in andthrough language as semiotics teaches us but alsoin the embodied and practical endeavors of in-dividuals (Gallagher & Zahavi, 2008). This high-lights the need for more longitudinal, microlevelstudies that focus on practices and recontextual-ization in situ, across a variety of contexts, ratherthan a primary emphasis on using interviews andarchival means to understand the application oflogics.

Furthermore, Brannen (2004) assumes that prac-tices are transferred from one dominant meaningsystem to another. Our logics approach, in con-trast, shows that several parallel meaning systems,that is, constellations of logics, inform recontex-tualization. One advantage of taking a logics ap-proach to the transfer of practices is that logicsaccount for more situated and local dynamicscompared to the notions of national culture andinstitutional foreignness (see Brannen, 2004), whichtend to assume a more static view of culture.Logics provide a language to talk about differencesin institutional contexts and how these manifest inthe diverse practices within organizations. Thus,employing the lens of logics, especially the cul-tural “toolbox” approach (Swidler, 1986), pro-motes an understanding that is more sensitive tothe elements of culture that matter most in a par-ticular situation, for a particular individual orgroup, at a particular time. While the values-basedview of culture treats culture as stable (e.g.,Hofstede, 1984), the institutional logics lens fo-cuses on recursiveness, arguing that institutionsare produced and reproduced in the very practicesof itsmembers (Jarzabkowski et al., 2009; Thorntonet al., 2012). Along similar lines, scholars (Giorgiet al., 2015; Perlow, Gittell, & Katz, 2004) argue fora recursive view of culture where values andpractices constitute and reconstitute each other,suggesting a multilevel view of culture. Such anapproach allows a more contextualized view ofculture that extends beyond the values-based no-tion of culture as being in the heads of individuals(Hofstede, 1984, 2001), which has dominated thediscussion of national culture in the field of man-agement.We argue that individuals are confrontedwith a multiplicity of norms, values, routines, in-stitutions, and infrastructures that they navigatein each situation—at various times, different in-stitutions may be dominant in informing the wayin which an individual enacts a practice. Through


our empirical work and by capturing the role oflogics in the cross-national transfer of practice, weaim to change the conversation from one heavilydependent on the articulation of cultural valuesand beliefs in a given national context to onethat focuses on logics, which may align with, butare not bound by national borders or culturalvalues.

Our research also invites future discovery inareas beyond cross-national transfer of practice.In her study of the appropriation of technologywithin a single firm, Orlikowski, for example,identifies different interpretive conditions, in-cluding the “the larger social systemwithinwhichusers work” (2000: 421) and suggests that theseinstitutional conditions affect how technologyis integrated into practice. Our results extendOrlikowski’s, suggesting that recipients of newtechnologies may employ a constellation of logicsto recontextualize the meanings and actions as-sociatedwith a technology as it diffuses. Althoughwe focus on transfer of practices across nationalboundaries as an extreme case, our results mayequally apply to domestic contexts that are in-formed by different logics. For example, strategicalliances rely, to some extent, on common prac-tices across organizations to coordinate effec-tively (see Pearce, 2015). Based on our findings,it is reasonable to predict that different constel-lations of logics may be salient within differentfirms, particularly if they occupy different in-dustries. As a result, the spread of practiceswithin strategic alliances may follow a similarprocess.

In sum, we have conducted a detailed longi-tudinal study that suggests the integration oftheories related to recontextualization and in-stitutional logics to better inform how practicesfrom afar are experienced by the units that enactthem. In doing so, we surface new questions aboutwhat guides the selection of logics for the recon-textualization of a given practice in a given lo-cation,what the consequences are for cross-locationcollaboration when practices are recontextualizedand enacted quite differently across sites, and fi-nally, how do strategies applied to the transfer ofpractice used by organizations and members inter-act with logics and determine which logics areemployed?

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Sara Varlander ([email protected]) is an associate professor atthe Stockholm Business School, Sweden. Her research re-volves around implementationand transferofnewpractices inorganizations, as well as the processes and outcomes of theimplementation of new technology and spatial contexts inorganizations.

Pamela Hinds ([email protected]) is a professor of theDepartment of Management Science and Engineering, Stan-fordUniversity. Shehas conductedextensive researchon thedynamics of globally distributed work teams. Most recently,she has been exploring the relationship between nationalculture andworkpractices andbetweennational culture and

technology use, particularly use of collaborative technolo-gies. She received her PhD fromCarnegieMellonUniversity.

Bobbi Thomason ([email protected]) is a seniorfellow at the Wharton School at the University of Penn-sylvania. Her research broadly examines how individualsexperience work and pursue their careers in globalizingand emerging economies. She earned her PhD in the De-partment of management Science and Engineering atStanford University.

Brandi M. Pearce ([email protected]) is a lecturerand the director of Team Performance and Research at UCBerkeley, Haas School of Business. She earned her PhDfrom the CarnegieMellonUniversity. Her research broadlyexplores collaborative dynamics within global organiza-tions. Specifically, she is interested in the collaborative in-teractions between interfirm boundary spanners, differencesin collaborative dynamics across cultures, and the link be-tween the implementation of collaborative space and indi-vidual identity work.

HeatherAltman ([email protected]) is a PhD student inthe Department of Management Science and Engineering atStanford University. Her research interests include team dy-namics in global work environments, in particular howteams coordinate and collaborate to promote creativityand innovation.


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