Institutional Regime, Opportunity Space and Organizational Path Constitution: Case Studies of the Conversion of Military Firms in China

This study examines organizational path constitution from an institutional regime view. The research setting is the conversion of military firms to the civilian market in China since the country's economic reform in 1978. We begin with a questionnaire survey to better understand the situation and context of military conversion, and then conducted an embedded multiple-case study method that shows how different patterns of organizational path constitution arise from a process of change efforts, change outcomes and opportunity space. Our context further allows us to examine how heterogeneous locally-based institutional regimes affect the opportunity space of embedded organizations, enabling or constraining their change actions. The overall contribution is a theoretical model that reveals the relations between heterogeneous institutional regimes, opportunity spaces and organizational path constitution. Our findings have implications for the path dependence literature.