Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- 1. The Reforming Organization -- The construction of organizations -- Reforms: frequency, contents, and consequences -- Reforms along fundamental institutions -- Reform dynamics -- Homogeneity and heterogeneity of forms -- 2. Beliefs Creating Reform: The Case of Markets and Organizations -- Beliefs and practice -- Markets and organizations -- Allocation of responsibility -- Bases and problems of legitimacy -- Reforms -- 3. Constructing Organizations: The Example of Public Sector Reform -- Reforms that construct organizations -- Constructing identity -- Constructing hierarchy -- Constructing rationality -- Reforms in packages or in strings -- Degrees of organization: actors, agents, and arenas -- Organizatory reform as completion -- Incentives for constructing organizations -- Conclusions -- 4. Politicization and 'Company-ization' - On Institutional Affiliation and Confusion in the Organizational World -- The political organization and the company -- Politicization, company-ization, and associationization -- Processes of institutional confusion -- Weak institutions -- 5. Organizational Reforms as Routines -- The supply of problems -- The supply of solutions -- The supply of forgetfulness -- The risks of reform -- Avoiding reform -- 6. The Standardization of Organizational Forms as a Cropping-up Process -- Standardization processes -- A cropping-up model of organizational forms -- Model dynamics -- Interaction between reforms and discourse -- Some additional questions -- 7. Reform and Power -- Reformers as agents -- Reform as image building -- 8. The Hopeful Organization -- The hope for the true organization -- Mechanisms of hope -- Maintaining hope -- References -- Index.