The Ceremonial Adoption of Organisational Practices Revisited: Implications for Development Cooperation Practitioners

Abstract

Development Cooperation Agencies (DCAs) transfer organisational practices to improve the capability of public organisations in developing countries and to standardise overseas office administration across DCAs. However, the transfer often fails because the recipients merely ceremonially adopt transferred practices. Development cooperation practitioners and scholars commonly believe that ceremonial adoption is a “nuisance.” This paper refutes this thought by interpreting ceremonial adoption through the lenses of institutional theory and cultural theory, and by referring prior literature. Due to limited research in the international development sphere, the paper borrows a wealth of knowledge in the field of business, especially International Human Resource Management (IHRM) studies of practice transfer within Multinational Corporations (MNCs). Scholars who employ the two theories acknowledge the value of ceremonial adoption. They claim that the foreign subsidiaries of MNCs ceremonially adopt practices mandated by a head office to balance institutional and cultural gaps between their host countries and the head office's home country. In addition, ceremonial adoption helps MNCs to survive by letting them camouflage themselves. Finally, ceremonial adoption serves as the first stage of internalisation and integration of practices and assists in the hybridisation of brought practice and an existing practice. The two theories as well as IHRM literature suggest that ceremonial adoption also plays a beneficial role in development cooperation.