Isomorphism and Status of General Hospitals : On the Establishment of Cancer Center

• In Event: 256 - Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 22. Institutional Theory II

Abstract

This paper examines the increasing establishment of cancer centers by Korean hospitals since 1980 through the perspective of neo-institutional organization theory. Specifically, this paper uses the theory of organizational isomorphism, however, the usage of the theory in this paper differs somewhat from that of other implementations in that status was included as a variable that mediates the mechanism of mimetic isomorphism. For the analysis, the discrete time-logit model, which is one of the statistical methods used for Event History Analysis, was used. As a result, this paper shows that mimetic isomorphism of establishing cancer centers was observed only in high status hospitals. Furthermore, policy on the establishment of National Cancer Center and increase in cancer related knowledge in the form of the number of articles related to cancer had an effect on the establishment of cancer centers. This indicates that general hospitals were building cancer centers because of the pressure of normative isomorphism. For future research, the societal repercussions of establishing many cancer centers should be examined.

Author

• Sang Teck Oh, Yonsei University