Materializing the Societal Effect: Organizational Forms in the Change of Paper Industry Dominance

Abstract

This paper reports an empirical study on the coevolution of competitive conditions, dominating firms and organizational forms in the paper industry. It has two main theoretical implications. First, with respect to research on national business systems and the societal effect we suggest that the country of origin imprints firms especially by allowing them to develop distinctive organizational forms. Second, we show that the competitive conditions, dominant forms and dominant firms remain in constant flux even in mature industries. There is, therefore, a need for coevolutionary research to continue to combine longterm perspectives and intensive research designs in the study of specific industries.