Mimicry, Director Interlocks, and the Interorganizational Diffusion of a Quality Strategy: A Note.

While practitioners and teachers of management accounting have long emphasized quality issues, it is only recently that systematic research on the topic has been conducted. In addition, while there has been some interest in investigating how and why particular management accounting technologies diffuse, this body of work is not large. The aim of this study is to contribute to both literatures by examining the influence of director interlocks on the interorganizational diffusion of ISO quality accreditation within a sample of Australian firms in the early 1990s. It finds that when size and industry effects are controlled for, director interlocks matter; that is, firms that are interlocked with previously accredited firms are more likely to achieve accreditation themselves. The results suggest that future research could usefully investigate whether the institutionalization and spread of other accounting practices is affected by the presence of diffusion mechanisms such as interlocking directorates.