Isomorphic Organizational Structure in Medium Dressmaking Companies in the City of Bogota

Abstract

Dressmaking production in Colombia is a high employment and added value generator, because it constitutes a key exporting sector. In the present, medium dressmaking companies show high organizational similarity levels, mainly generated by processes of rules achievement, by commercial agreements and legitimization in the market. This phenomenon shows that there is a high level of isomorphic organization in the companies analyzed in this investigation. Accordingly, this study takes the contributions from the organizational institutionalism school as reference to explain the isomorphic development of these companies. At the same time, this article shows how the behavior towards homogenization in the structure and organizational design of the dressmaking sector has been a consequence of the industry it belongs to, as well as of various agents such as the government, their productive performance and the adoption of mechanisms that lead to uniformity (such as ISO norms).