The Diffusion of Human Resource Management Practices in Indifferent Environments: A Model of Non-isomorphic Diffusion Through Nascent Consulting Markets

This study contributes to the growing research agenda exploring the diffusion of high performance HRM practices in emergent economies. It argues that the creation of management consulting markets is an important, yet insufficiently studied mechanism through which HRM practices are diffused in emergent economies. In a departure from the standard institutional approaches to the study of management practices transfer, it uses the lenses of entrepreneurial theories of decision-making in early markets to unravel how the building of HR consulting firms sets diffusion processes into motion. The analysis illuminates the formation of preferences for new management practices, and the role of institutional entrepreneurship in the build-up of proto-institutions that further the non-isomorphic diffusion process in institutional contexts where new HR practices are met with stiff indifference or reluctance.