Strategies and institutions: A pluralistic account of strategies in the Taiwanese computer industry

The 'new institutionalism' had led to increasing emphasis on the 'embeddedness' of organizations in local social systems. In this journal, Serge (1991) and Whitley (1994) have shown, in particular, how the dominant forms of organization within countries or sectors are shaped by distinct national systems. The liability of these institutionalist approaches, however, is a focus on broad comparisons that gives little access to the diversity that is often observable on the ground. Examining nine Taiwanese computer firms during the 1980s and early 1990s, this paper demonstrates that their strategies followed no singular system logic, displaying instead a wide scope for strategic diversity. The paper argues that this kind of diversity can be explained not by rejecting institutionalism, but by recognizing the plural systems - business, technology and political - in which the dis-embedded actors of modernity now engage. Such a pluralistic approach has the potential to extend institutionalist analysis beyond the broadly comparative to the strategies of individual firms.