Snow Brand Milk Crossed the Divide between Institutional and Competitive Isomorphism

: The development and diffusion of compliance activities in Japanese companies from around 2000 can be thought of as a typical example of the institutional isomorphism discussed by DiMaggio and Powell (1983), that is, isomorphism mechanisms that were at work irrespective of performance (Aizawa, 2018a). Snow Brand Milk Products had a corporate scandal in 2000, and the compliance activities it began soon after comprised institutional isomorphism. In actuality, at that time there was no extraordinary worsening of performance, though directly after the scandal in 2002, the company was beset by a worsening of performance that put the company in danger, and it waged its survival on a wide-ranging rethinking of the details of its compliance activities to make them more unique. In addition, it spun off core businesses and transferred some of its shares in order to win back trust. Companies that have confronted management crises and have survived work toward restoring trust using similar methods. In other words, even when the same company doesn’t have selection pressures, institutional isomorphism may arise, and when there are selection pressures, competitive isomorphism may arise.


Introduction
According to Aizawa (2018a), the compliance activities of Japanese companies are typical examples of institutional isomorphism. Institutional isomorphism was discussed by DiMaggio and Powell (1983) 1 as an organizational theory in the New Institutionalism of Meyer and Rowan (1977). Progressive isomorphism as a result of natural selection differs from competitive isomorphism, and institutional isomorphism progresses through the separate and independent mechanism of performance. There are said to be three types of isomorphism: coercive, mimetic, and normative (Takahashi, 2010). Mechanisms of each of these have been at work in the compliance activities of Japanese firms.
Institutional isomorphism is not linked to performance. In fact, many Japanese companies have created specialized departments for compliance, maintaining various systems and rules related compliance in company workplaces, and have also implemented various types of training. However, there are questions as to the effects of such activities, and cases of scandals in large companies as 1 Further, DiMaggio and Powell took Weber's concept of the "iron cage" and stated that isomorphism impacts corporate activities, though in recent years the mistaken "iron cage" translation of Talcott Parsons has been said to be "gehäuse" in Weber's original German, which should be translated as "shell" (Takahashi, 2015

Corporate Scandals
Snow Brand Milk Products Co., Ltd. (below, "Snow Brand Milk") is a food manufacturer that was established in 1925. Because of the two company scandals, the company later went through a merger and changed its name, and it has continued with food as its primary business. The company was originally established as a dairy cooperative in Hokkaido, in the spirit of "building land, building people." In the year prior to the occurrence of the first scandal, the company had 12,877 employees, and its consolidated sales were 1.2877 trillion yen. It was a leading company in its industry (Mead,

Compliance Activities and Change of an Organization
Having created a scandal in 2000, Snow Brand Milk began compliance activities shortly thereafter. These activities took the form of institutional isomorphism as other companies, including "creation of a corporate code of ethics," "formation of a compliance committee," and "establishing an external and internal whistleblower desk". However, beset by poor economic performance that hit crisis levels after the 2002 scandal, the company was forced to divest the subsidiary that had caused the problem. The management team took responsibility and resigned, and the company brought on an external director from an external consumer organization to act as the chair of a compliance committee as well as reviewed a broad range of compliance activities. 2 While the framework of the institution itself did not change, details did, and 2 Inviting the external director as a consumer representative was proposed by Koji Morioka, acting as a shareholder ombudsman. The invitation of the consumer agency that previously had nothing to do with the company was opposed by some, but in the end resulted in a more aggressive compliance (Hiwasa, 2003).

Concluding Remarks
Some point out that discussions on institutional isomorphism have not yet hit the inside of individual organizations (Greenwood & Hinings, 1996), 6 and some assert that the focus should be more on differences between individual organizations (Azuma, 2004 Meyer and Rowan (1977) also thought that an organization's institutions differed from actual activities, and that they were loosely integrated (Weick, 1976). 7 Research has been on institutional isomorphism in mobile phone companies in cases of competition among companies (Uenishi, 2014). scandal has little impact on customers, or if (b) a scandal is related to a company's products, but those products are difficult to replace, making it difficult for customers to leave, then selection pressures may not arise and the institutional isomorphism that does occur may be of questionable effect.