Institutional Analysis of Scholarly Communication

我们对日本的一些学术出版商进行了比较案例研究，以考察学术界和出版界之间的机构间关系。以下是我们研究的四个主要发现1。学术出版商的内在困境。我们发现，学术出版商的活动中存在着两组矛盾：文化与商业，手艺与官僚。组织认同的内部矛盾。上述矛盾可以有意义地概念化为文化机构、商业、手艺、官僚四种类型的组织认同之间的矛盾。组织身份和制度逻辑。组织身份的多样性与学术出版商所属的组织领域或社会世界的多样性密切相关。4.多重组织身份和决策过程。关于出版哪些书的决策过程与四种类型组织身份之间的相对权重之间存在密切关系。学术出版商是在包括学者世界、读者世界和商业公司在内的多个组织领域之间提供桥梁的把关人或“边界扳手”。虽然出版商经常承受着社会世界特有的不同制度逻辑的交叉压力，但它有时也作为一名制度企业家，为学术传播的重构做出贡献。

We have been engaged in a comparative case study of a number of scholarly publishers in Japan in order to examine the inter-institutional relationships between the academic world and the publishing world. The following are four major findings of our research1. Inherent Dilemma of Scholarly Publishers.We found that two sets of contradictions are built into the activities of scholarly publishers i.e., culture vs. commerce, craft vs. bureaucracy.2. Internal Contradiction amonu Organizational Identities.The above contradictions can be meaningfully conceptualized as contradictions among four types of organizational identities cultural institution, business, craft, bureaucracy.3. Organizational Identities and Institutional Logics.The multiplicity of organizational identities is closely related to the multiplicity of organizational fields or social worlds to which a scholarly publisher belongs.4.Multiple Organizational Identities and Decision-making Process.There exists a close relationship between the decision-making__process as to "which books to publish" and relative weights among the four types of organizational identities.A scholarly publisher is a gatekeeper or a "boundary spanner" that provides bridges among the multiple organizational fields, including worlds of academicians, of readers, and of business firms. While a publisher often suffers from cross pressures of different institutional logics characteristic of the social worlds, it also sometimes serves as an institutional entrepreneur who contributes to the reconfiguration of the scholarly communication.