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David Aveiro
Giancarlo Guizzardi
Sérgio Guerreiro
Wided Guédria (Eds.)
LNBIP 334
Advances in
Enterprise Engineering XII
8th Enterprise Engineering Working Conference, EEWC 2018
Luxembourg, Luxembourg, May 28 – June 1, 2018
Proceedings
123
Lecture Notes
in Business Information Processing 334
Series Editors
Wil van der Aalst
RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
John Mylopoulos
University of Trento, Trento, Italy
Michael Rosemann
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Michael J. Shaw
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA
Clemens Szyperski
Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA, USA
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/7911
David Aveiro Giancarlo Guizzardi
•
Sérgio Guerreiro Wided Guédria (Eds.)

•
Advances in
Enterprise Engineering XII
8th Enterprise Engineering Working Conference, EEWC 2018
Luxembourg, Luxembourg, May 28 – June 1, 2018
Proceedings
123
Editors
David Aveiro Sérgio Guerreiro
University of Madeira and Madeira Instituto Superior Técnico,
Interactive Technologies Institute Universidade de Lisboa
Funchal, Portugal Lisbon, Portugal
Giancarlo Guizzardi Wided Guédria
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano Luxembourg Institute of Science
Bolzano, Brazil and Technology
Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
ISSN 1865-1348 ISSN 1865-1356 (electronic)

Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing
ISBN 978-3-030-06096-1 ISBN 978-3-030-06097-8 (eBook)
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Preface
The CIAO! Enterprise Engineering Network (CEEN) is a community of academics and

practitioners who strive to contribute to the development of the discipline of enterprise
engineering (EE) and to apply it in practice. The aim is to develop a holistic and general
systems theory-based understanding on how to (re)design and run enterprises effec-
tively. The ambition is to develop a consistent and coherent set of theories, models, and
associated methods that: enable enterprises to reflect, in a systematic way, on how to
realize improvements; and assist them, in practice, in achieving their aspirations.
In doing so, sound empirical and scientific foundations should underlie all efforts
and all organizational aspects that are relevant should be considered, while combining
already existing knowledge from the scientific fields of information systems, software
engineering, management, as well as philosophy, semiotics, and sociology, among
others. In other words, the (re)design of an enterprise and the subsequent implemen-
tation of changes should be the consequence of rationalized decisions that: take into
account the nature and reality of the enterprise and its environment; and respect rele-
vant empirical and scientific principles.
Enterprises are systems whose reality has a dual nature by being simultaneously, on
one hand, centrally and purposefully (re)designed, and, on the other hand, emergent in
a distributed way, given the fact that its main agents, the humans that are the pearls
of the organization, act with free will in a creative and in a responsible (or sometimes
not) way. We acknowledge that, in practice, the development of enterprises is not
always a purely rational/evidence-based process. As such, we believe the field of EE
aims to provide evidence-based insights into the design and evolution of enterprises
and the consequences of different choices irrespective of the way decisions are made.
The origin of the scientific foundations of our present body of knowledge is the
CIAO! Paradigm (Communication, Information, Action, Organization) as expressed in
our Enterprise Engineering Manifesto and the paper “The Discipline of Enterprise
Engineering.” In this paradigm, organization is considered to emerge in human com-
munication, through the intermediate roles of information and action. Based on the
CIAO! Paradigm, several theories have been developed and are still being proposed.
They are published as technical reports.
The CEEN welcomes proposals of improvements to our current body of knowledge,
as well as the inclusion of compliant and alternative views, always keeping in mind the
need to maintain global systemic coherence, consistency, and scientific rigor of the
entire EE body of knowledge as a prerequisite for the consolidation of this new
engineering discipline. Yearly events like the Enterprise Engineering Working Con-
ference and associated Doctoral Consortium are organized to promote the presentation
of EE research and application in practice, as well as discussions on the contents and
current state of our body of theories and methods.
Since 2005, the CEEN has organized the CIAO! Workshop and, since 2008, its
proceedings have been published as Advances in Enterprise Engineering in the
VI Preface
Springer LNBIP series. From 2011 on, this workshop was replaced by the Enterprise
Engineering Working Conference (EEWC). This volume contains the proceedings
of the 8th EEWC, held in Luxembourg. There were 24 submissions. Each submission
was reviewed (double-blind) by three Program Committee members and the decision
was to accept nine full papers and three short papers, which were carefully reviewed
and selected for inclusion in this volume.
The EEWC aims at addressing the challenges that modern and complex enterprises
are facing in a rapidly changing world. The participants of the working conference
share a belief that dealing with these challenges requires rigorous and scientific solu-
tions, focusing on the design and engineering of enterprises. The goal of EEWC is to
stimulate interaction between the different stakeholders, scientists, as well as practi-
tioners interested in making EE a reality.
May 2018 David Aveiro

Giancarlo Guizzardi
Sérgio Guerreiro
Wided Guédria
Organization
EEWC 2018 was the eighth Working Conference resulting from a series of successful
CIAO! Workshops and EEWC Conferences over the past few years. These events were
aimed at addressing the challenges that modern and complex enterprises are facing in a
rapidly changing world. The participants in these events share the belief that dealing
with these challenges requires rigorous and scientific solutions, focusing on the design
and engineering of enterprises.
This conviction has led to the effort of annually organizing an international working
conference on the topic of enterprise engineering, in order to bring together all
stakeholders interested in making enterprise engineering a reality. This means that not
only scientists are invited, but also practitioners. Moreover, it also means that the
conference is aimed at active participation, discussion, and exchange of ideas in order
to stimulate future cooperation among the participants. This makes EEWC a working
conference contributing to the further development of enterprise engineering as a
mature discipline.
The organization of EEWC 2018 and the peer review of the contributions to the
conference were accomplished by an outstanding international team of experts in the
fields of enterprise engineering. The following is the organizational structure of EEWC
2018.
Advisory Board
Antonia Albani University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
Jan Dietz Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Conference Chairs
Henderik A. Proper Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology,
Luxembourg
Jan Verelst University of Antwerp, Belgium
Program Chairs
David Aveiro University of Madeira and Madeira Interactive
Technologies Institute, Portugal
Giancarlo Guizzardi Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
Organizing Chair
Wided Guédria Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology,
Luxembourg
VIII Organization
Program Committee
Alberto Silva INESC and University of Lisbon, Portugal
Carlos Pascoa University of Lisbon, Portugal
Christian Huemer Vienna University of Technology, Austria
David Aveiro University of Madeira, Portugal
Duarte Gouveia University of Madeira, Portugal
Eduard Babkin Higher School of Economics, Nizhny Novgorod,
Russia
Florian Matthes Technical University Munich, Germany
Frank Harmsen Maastricht University and Ernst & Young Advisory,
The Netherlands
Geert Poels Ghent University, Belgium
Giancarlo Guizzardi Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
Graham McLeod University of Cape Town and Inspired.org,
South Africa
Hans Mulder University of Antwerp, Belgium
Jan Dietz Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Jan Hoogervorst Sogeti Netherlands, The Netherlands
Jens Gulden University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Joao Paulo Almeida Federal University of Espírito Santo, Brazil
Jose Tribolet INESC and University of Lisbon, Portugal
Joseph Barjis Institute of Engineering and Management,
San Francisco, CA, USA
Junichi Iijima Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
Marcello Bax Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil
Martin Op ’t Land Capgemini, The Netherlands; University of Antwerp,
Belgium
Mauricio Almeida Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil
Miguel Mira Da Silva INESC and University of Lisbon, Portugal
Monika Kaczmarek University Duisburg Essen, Germany
Niek Pluijmert INQA Quality Consultants, The Netherlands
Peter Loos University of Saarland, Germany
Petr Kremen Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic
Philip Huysmans University of Antwerp, Belgium
Rony Flatscher Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Austria
Sérgio Guerreiro INESC and University of Lisbon, Portugal
Steven van Kervel Formetis, The Netherlands
Stijn Hoppenbrouwers HAN University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands
Sybren de Kinderen University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Tatiana Poletaeva Higher School of Economics, Nizhny Novgorod,
Russia
Tiago Prince Sales University of Trento, Italy
Ulrik Franke Swedish Defense Research Agency, Sweden
Contents
On Architecture
The Institutional Logic of Harmonization: Local Versus

Global Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Maximilian Brosius, Stephan Aier, M. Kazem Haki, and Robert Winter
Systems Approaches in the Enterprise Architecture Field of Research:

A Systematic Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Jarkko Nurmi, Mirja Pulkkinen, Ville Seppänen, and Katja Penttinen
Affordance-Driven Software Assembling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Ondřej Dvořák, Robert Pergl, and Petr Kroha
Understanding Architecture Principles as Working Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . 55

Mark Paauwe
On Security and Blockchain
Decentralized Enforcement of Business Process Control Using Blockchain. . . 69

Diogo Silva, Sérgio Guerreiro, and Pedro Sousa
Enterprise Engineering in Business Information Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Yuri Bobbert and Hans Mulder
Exploring a Role of Blockchain Smart Contracts

in Enterprise Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Barbora Hornáčková, Marek Skotnica, and Robert Pergl
On DEMO
Validating the DEMO Specification Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

M. A. T. Mulder
Modeling the System Described by the EU General Data Protection

Regulation with DEMO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Duarte Gouveia and David Aveiro
DEMO as a Tool of Value Co-creation Strategy Realization . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Eduard Babkin and Pavel Malyzhenkov
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X Contents
Colored Petri-Net for Implementing DEMO/PSI Transactions

for N Actor Roles (N >= 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Duarte Gouveia and David Aveiro
On Teaching
Towards a Multi-stage Strategy to Teach Enterprise Modelling . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Henderik A. Proper, Marija Bjeković, Bas van Gils,
and Stijn J. B. A. Hoppenbrouwers
Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

On Architecture
The Institutional Logic of Harmonization:
Local Versus Global Perspectives
Maximilian Brosius(&), Stephan Aier, M. Kazem Haki,

and Robert Winter
Institute of Information Management, University of St. Gallen,

St. Gallen, Switzerland
{maximilian.brosius,stephan.aier,
kazem.haki,robert.winter}@unisg.ch
Abstract. Perspectives in organizations differ to which extent information

systems (IS) should be tailored towards local (e.g., business unit) needs or
toward organization-wide, global goals (e.g., synergies, integration). For con-
tributing to overall IS performance success, the harmonization of different
perspectives becomes essential. While many scholars have highlighted the role
of IS management approaches, institutional studies argue that harmonization is
not solely the result of managerial action, but a consequence of institutional
pressures that guide organizational decision-making. In the paper at hand, we
follow the call for adopting institutional theory on the intra-organizational level
of analysis and study the logic of attaining harmonization along institutional
pressures. By means of a revelatory case study, we find harmonization attained
in a dynamic interplay between different institutional pressures. Mimetic pres-
sures influence normative pressures, which in turn influence coercive pressures.
Our findings as well as our implications for enterprise engineering guide
prospective research in studying the attainment of harmonization through an
institutional lens.
Keywords: Institutional theory Institutional pressures Harmonization
1 Introduction
In virtue of ever-growing complex organizational environments, perspectives on the

development of information systems (IS) differ on whether to meet local business needs
or organization-wide, global IS performance goals [1]. While tailored IS solutions may
support local business unit operations [2], cost efficiencies and synergies are said to
become realized through aligned and consistent IS landscapes at the global level, which
requires harmonization efforts [3]. Consequently, it has become the underpinning
rationale of numerous IS management approaches to harmonize local (i.e. business
unit) needs with global (i.e. organization-wide) goals [4]. Yet, Mignerat and Rivard
[5, p. 369] posit that researchers might not be able to explain “everything that happens
in organizations by considering only rational actions of managers”. For studying how
global goals are achieved, the institutional logic that surrounds decision-makers in
exercising their tasks needs to be considered, and requires a closer investigation [6].
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

D. Aveiro et al. (Eds.): EEWC 2018, LNBIP 334, pp. 3–17, 2019.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-06097-8_1
4 M. Brosius et al.
Institutional logic is defined as the patterns of rules, values, assumptions, and

beliefs by which individuals (re-)produce their material subsistence, organize time and
space, and provide meaning to their social reality [7]. It intends to explain the formal
and informal rationales of action and interaction for accomplishing organizational goals
and tasks [8, 9]. Institutional logic is promoted by institutional theory, which is among
the most vibrant theoretical lenses in IS research [5]. However, to date, institutional
theory has been applied mainly at the inter-organizational level, i.e. explaining har-
monization between organizations.
In the paper at hand, we follow several calls in the root discipline of institutional
theory [10–13] as well as in IS research [5] and take an intra-organizational per-
spective through a revelatory case study of a highly decentralized organization. High
decentralization is a well-suited structure for our purpose as it helps to translate the
setting of pressures among different organizations into a setting of pressures among
different units within an organization. We thus aim to learn how the distinctive
influence of each pressure alone as well as the dynamic influence of pressures inter-
acting (e.g., shaping, constraining, or constituting each other among different units)
contribute to the attainment of harmonization. We seek to answer the following
research question:
What is the institutional logic of harmonization in a decentralized organization?
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows: first, we provide the theoretical
foundation, i.e. institutional theory, its state of research in IS, as well as the research
gap along which we position our contribution. Next to the research method, the case
analysis is presented, following the reflection of institutional pressures and their
influence. We conclude by discussing implications of our insights for future research.
2 Theoretical Background
2.1 Institutional Theory

Institutional theory [14–16] understands organizations as social constructions, which
seek to gain legitimacy in their environment. To gain legitimacy, organizations must
adhere to assumptions, values, beliefs, and rules that are prevailing in their environ-
ment. In turn, adhering to a common set of assumptions, values, beliefs, and rules leads
organizations to become homogenous over each other, i.e. a state of harmonization,
which shapes and constrains organizational action and behavior [8].
Numerous theorists have contributed to explain how harmonization becomes
attained. More prominently, regulative, normative, and cultural systems have been
associated by theorists as “vital ingredients of institutions” [8, p. 59]. These associa-
tions are particularly reflected in the three institutional pressures introduced by
Dimaggio and Powell [16], namely, coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures.
Theory further argues that each pressure is catered by types of carriers, namely,
symbolic systems (coded meaningful information), relational systems (horizontal and
vertical structures fostering commitment), activities (actions, routines), and artifacts
(objects, materials) [8]. Coercive pressures build on the logic of instrumentality,
The Institutional Logic of Harmonization: Local Versus Global Perspectives 5
through which organizations constrain and regularize behavior. Rules, laws, or sanc-
tions are prominent carriers. Normative pressures introduce an obligatory dimension
into social life to which behaviors can be compared. Normative pressures are typically
carried by values, norms, and standards, building on the logic of appropriateness and
social obligations. Finally, mimetic pressures result from similar responses to uncer-
tainty and refer to the imitation of one organization seen by another as more legitimate
or successful, following the logic of perceived benefits. Observation, communication,
and the work climate are prominent carriers of mimetic pressures.
IS research has applied institutional theory as a lens on a variety of settings, such as
IS innovation, IS implementation, and IS adoption [5, 17]. A growing body of work
thereby explicates the importance of institutional pressures on the inter-organizational
level, leading to harmonized courses of action between organizations [5]. For instance,
Teo et al. [18] found that all three pressures work in parallel and respectively have an
influence on an organization’s intention to adopt IS. However, they found that pres-
sures’ effects vary in strength with regards to the level of exertion (competitors, parent
organization, customers, and suppliers). Pressures also vary due to different firm
characteristics (i.e. dominant/less dominant market player), a perspective that has been
promoted by Bala and Venkatesh [19]. While working simultaneously, pressures are
also shaped by external influences: Liang et al. [20], for instance, examined mediating
effects on external institutional pressures, highlighting the role of top management on
information technology (IT) assimilation. Furthermore, the combination of institutional
pressures may vary over time. For instance, Benders et al. [21] found varying effects
and strengths of institutional pressures over several IS adoption phases. Finally,
Nielsen et al. [17] demonstrated that organizations change their responses to institu-
tional pressures over time. Their findings broadened the understanding of institutional
pressures, reflecting organizational concerns of conformity and nonconformity.
2.2 Intended Contribution

To date, the existing discourses in IS research on institutional theory mainly refer to the
inter-organizational level, studying the influence of pressures on harmonization
between organizations [5]. According to Mignerat and Rivard’s [5] review of 53 IS
studies that adopt institutional theory, only two focused the intra-organizational level.
In line with Greenwood et al.’s [13] outline in organization science, Mignerat and
Rivard [5] motivate the adoption of institutional theory on the intra-organizational level
—such as on/among units—for future IS research. We follow their call and study the
attainment of harmonization along institutional pressures on the intra-organizational
level.
Furthermore, the discourses in IS research illustrate pressures to work in combi-
nation [5], in different organizational contexts [e.g., 18], as well as in different temporal
circumstances [21]. By shifting the focus from the organization as such to different
units within an organization, we assume that harmonization may be explained by more
than just the distinctive influence of each pressure separately. Particularly, we aim to
account for the dynamics of institutional pressures interacting among different units,
which may be shaping, constraining, or even constituting one another.
6 M. Brosius et al.
To develop a first understanding of how institutional pressures lead to harmo-

nization in an intra-organizational setting, we study the institutional logic. Institutional
logic intends to explain the patterns of rules, values, assumptions, and beliefs (i.e.
carriers of institutional pressures) by which individuals (re-)produce their material
subsistence, organize time and space, and provide meaning to their social reality [7]. It
explains the formal and informal rationales of action and interaction for accomplishing
organizational goals and tasks [8, 9]. For our purpose, it may help to explain how local
(i.e. business and IS) needs become harmonized with global business and IT goals. As
organizations are infused with various (often competing) rationales of what constitutes
global goals and how to pursue these, institutional logic may be well-suited to explain
the distinctive as well as the dynamic influence of institutional pressures in place [22].
In recent years, institutional logic has been pertinently used for explaining how intra-
organizational processes affect organizational goals, change, and success [23–25].
3 Research Method
Case studies are a dominantly used approach for studying institutional logic [23, 26,
27]. We selected a single case along the criteria of criticalness and revelatory insights,
conducting a series of twelve semi-structured interviews [28]. Following our research
objective, we opted for a highly decentralized organization, operating under labor
division and granted autonomy. This structure may be well-suited to explain how
unbounded local units, focused on meeting specific demands of their respective cus-
tomers, may become guided toward global goals. High decentralization also helped us
magnifying the focus on the (dynamic) influence of institutional pressures within and
between different units as well as between local and global levels.
3.1 Case Description

The case organization is one of the Europe’s leading providers of public services in its
respective field. With a yearly operating budget of over €200 million and more than
3,000 employees, it supplies its services to over 8,000 international customers on three
continents namely, South America, Europe, and Eastern Asia. Additionally, the
organization has over 50 partnership agreements with peer organizations around the
world. The organization is structured highly decentralized: while adhering to shared
global goals, the attainment of these goals is left autonomously in the hands of its local
units. Overall, the organization offers four types of services. The first is a standardized
service for a heterogeneous market of about 7,000 customers. The second is specialized
and tailored to an exclusive market of around 1,000 customers. The third service type is
a knowledge-centered public service, offered to a small market of international experts.
The fourth service type is also knowledge-centered, however, mostly offered locally.
Global Business. The organization is operating under a global management board. Its
president is temporarily elected out of the over 100 local business unit managers, being
responsible for supervising the legitimacy of internal decisions. Three vice-presidents
support the president in the fields of services, internal operations, and international
relations. While decisions are exercised through the board of management, decision-
making is commissioned by an authorized committee. This committee consolidates
goals and interests of local units by the leading business unit managers, who are
members of this committee.
Global IT. The global IT department employs around 50 full-time equivalents and is
headed by the Chief Information Officer (CIO). The CIO manages the project portfolio
and stands in close contact with the global business. In total, up to 50 projects on
different levels of complexity are run simultaneously by the global IT department,
ranging from large, global transformation projects to daily business incidents.
Local Business. In total, there are over 1,000 local employees and over 100 leading
service managers in around 40 business units. While specialized on their respective
market segment, they operate autonomously. For service types 1 and 2, business units
are interdependent and have to align their activities with other local units and the global
business level. Service types 3 and 4 follow individual market segments. As local units
are not interdependent in service 3 and 4, no alignment is necessary there.
Local IT. The local IT are independently operating units in the organization and
complement the global IT. The business support as well as their modes of operation lie
autonomously in the hands of the local IT. Currently, five business units exclusively
employ local IT for their operational support. The strengths of the local IT are primarily
a quicker and more flexible mode of operation—as compared to the global IT—such as
in technological (e.g., tool support, incidents) and business process solutions.
3.2 Data Collection

The data collection took place between November 2016 and November 2017. The
collection comprised empirical data from primary and secondary sources.
Primary sources refer to the interviews conducted in the organization. In total, we
conducted twelve semi-structured interviews under the thematic frame of the three
institutional pressures. Each of the three interview parts started with a structured
question, followed by an open discussion for collecting carriers of institutional
pressures:
(1) Coercive: “What are the rules, laws, regulations, guidelines or sanctions that direct
local goals to global goals?”
(2) Normative: “What are the behaviors, norms, values, ideals, or philosophies that
direct local goals to global goals?”
(3) Mimetic: “What are your perceptions, thoughts, beliefs, routines or best-practices
that direct local goals to global goals?
Following our research objectives of understanding the logic of harmonization from
an organizational (not solely IS-specific) perspective, interviewees were chosen from
four distinct areas (Table 1): business global, business local, IT global, and IT local.
All interviews were recorded and transcribed. Complementing our interviews by sec-
ondary sources allowed a triangulation of the data. We used different sources to gain an
in-depth understanding of the organization’s structure, goals, functions, roles, and
8 M. Brosius et al.
dependencies. We studied organigrams, regulations, job descriptions, annual reports,

strategies, mission/vision statements, newspaper articles and the content of webpages.
Table 1. Profiles of interviewees

Role Function (length)
Global Vice-president Director of internal operations (60 min)
business Vice-president Director of administration (60 min)
Vice-president Director of corporate services (60 min)
Global IT CIO Director of IT administration and services
(90 min)
Head of global unit Responsible for service evolution (60 min)
Local business Head of local unit Mainly engaged in service 1, 2, and 3 (60 min)
Head of local unit Mainly engaged in service 4 (60 min)
Head of local unit Engaged in service 1, 2, 3, and 4 (60 min)
Head of local unit Engaged in service 1, 2, 3, and 4 (60 min)
Member of local Mainly engaged in service 1 and 3 (90 min)
unit
Local IT IT service manager Engaged in central IT administration (60 min)
Head of local IT Engaged in local IT administration/services
(90 min)
3.3 Scheme-Guided Analysis

Following Miles and Hubermann [29] as well as Eisenhardt [30], the data analysis was
divided into two phases: coding and case analysis (next section). The coding scheme
was developed based on the three institutional pressures promoted by institutional
theory [8]. These were studied on both local (operational units) and global (adminis-
trative units) levels. Table 2 illustrates our analysis scheme (adapted from [8]).
Table 2. Coding scheme (adapted from [8])

Pressures Coercive Normative Mimetic
Global level Examples: Examples: Examples:
Local level • Rules, regulations • Values, norms • Thoughts, beliefs
• Sanctions • Standards • Shared understanding
• Incentives • Expectations • Work culture/climate
We coded the entire case transcript using Atlas.ti software. In order to identify
institutional pressures, we followed Scott’s [8, p. 60] theoretical descriptions as well as
illustrative examples of carriers (Table 2). Consistent with Scott [8], we considered the
reflection of pressures via symbolic systems, relational systems, activities, and artifacts.
4 Case Analysis
In the following, we describe the identified carriers reflecting the pressures that con-
tribute to the attainment of harmonization in the organization. Consistent with our
focus of analysis, we study the reflection of pressures on global and local business and
IT levels. We report on the both distinctive (i.e. separate) as well as dynamic (i.e.
interacting) influence of pressures.
4.1 Institutional Pressures
Coercive Pressures. At the global business level, coercive pressures are carried by the
overall vision and strategy. Vision and strategy reflect negotiated compromises of the
organization’s committee. They comprise a global business orientation, which is used
to initiate and direct local change and development projects. Furthermore, the global
business monitors and evaluates standards of local business service. Together with the
global business, the global IT develops IT-related parts of the overall strategy. For
operationalizing IT-related strategies, the global IT is in constant negotiation with the
global business for the allocation of budgets. Toward the local business, the global IT is
required to steer IT developments that either operationalize global goals or non-
standardized business support solutions. Despite these regulations, the global IT is
granted autonomy in pursuing technological support for the local business.
On the local business level, coercive pressures are reflected in the standardization of
services, in strict definitions of service processes and minimum quality requirements.
For developing technological solutions to which no standardized products exist, the
global business requires mandatory consultancies from local business units with the IT.
Despite these consultancies and the minimum quality requirements, there are no
coercive pressures on the operations of local business units. Moreover, autonomy is
granted by the regulation not to regulate local units’ operations. By granted autonomy,
local units specialize in tasks and labor to supply their services to their respective
market, guided by the global frame of vision and strategies. The local IT is constrained
by budgets, which are allocated by the global IT and the local business level. For
services that support the global IT, the local IT takes advantage of financial subsidies
from the global IT. Yet, the operationalization of local business demands lies auton-
omously in the hands of the local IT and is not further regulated.
Normative Pressures. At the global business level, normative pressures are carried by
norms, values, and the overall identity. Norms focus the generation of quality and
innovativeness in outputs and services, comprising desired performance toward the
customer. Values refer to the organization’s brand and reputation, creating a common
desire of belonging and foster the motivation to actively engage in corporate devel-
opment. Another major carrier of normative pressures is the committee, which com-
prises over 100 representatives from global and local levels with the goal of corporate
development. While decisions are executed at the global business level, the committee
collects and negotiates contesting and potentially conflicting local goals and expecta-
tions, fostering a compromise among these. Compromises then become externalized in
10 M. Brosius et al.
vision and strategies. Finally, identity is among the normative pressures, carrying the
meaning attached to goals that are negotiated among local and global levels. Moreover,
identity encompasses shared expectations, such as toward roles and contributions. The
global IT shares values and norms of the global business, understanding its role as
supporting function for the global business. In order to excel support, the global IT
employs high standards of technical resources deployment as well as personnel
capabilities. Due to high standards, the global IT becomes involved in organizational
development regarding IT-related aspects in global vision and strategies.
As local units serve different markets, they differ with regards to norms and values.
Expectations to pursue these values are also specific, differing particularly within local
units: while having a strong team focus, unit members value specializations in tasks as
well as their different levels of knowledge and expertise. In turn, they value pro-active
engagement in corporate development. As local unit representatives are members of the
committee, contesting and potentially conflicting goals, norms, values, and expecta-
tions become mutually negotiated toward a global compromise. Operating autono-
mously, the local IT understands its role as a flexible business support provider.
Local IT units operate directly with the business, independently from global supervi-
sion. Service orientation, while not directly delivering on the organization’s output,
drives the local IT. The mode of working within the local IT is similarly characterized
by a high degree of flexibility in pursuing operations (emphasizing a service way of
thinking).
Mimetic Pressures. At the global business level, mimetic pressures are triggered by
transparent communication channels and an endorsed feedback culture. Transparent
channels of communication foster the exchange of knowledge and experience among
global and local levels. Thereby, the global business learns how overall goals are
operationalized, and what best practices or performance challenges resulted. In this
vein, personal contact and bilateral communication between global and local repre-
sentatives is valued and encouraged for a shared understanding on corporate devel-
opment. Besides, the global business learns from the observation of industry
competitors. At the global IT level, mimetic pressures are also triggered by observa-
tions: on the one side, the global IT observes the global business in joint operations,
learning from a centralized body operating in a comparable administration function. On
the other side, global IT units observe industry competitors in regular peer meetings,
where project management practices, success stories, and field reports are shared.
Communication and reporting channels as well as bilateral contact among global IT
representatives follow this relation. Learnings and experience are also shared with the
local IT based on personal contacts as well as the bilateral exchange of knowledge and
best practices.
At the local business level, mimetic pressures are reflected in mutual perception and
communication, supported by the work climate. Business units closely observe their
counterparts’ performance. Based on communicated knowledge, success stories, and
best practices, they learn and derive benchmarks for their own operations. By the same
token, learning and the derivation of benchmarks occurs within local business units:
unit members value different qualifications of their colleagues (e.g., education back-
grounds, specialized skills), by which they individually contest toward a greater
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performance of the respective unit. Especially trust, reliability, curiosity as well as the
willingness to learn are important factors of the work climate that support communi-
cation and observation. The comparably small size of the local IT unit permits close
physical colocation for mutual observation, helping local IT units’ members to gather
an understanding of best practices and success stories. As a result of pro-active
endorsement of the local IT’s supervisors, experience, knowledge, and learnings are
collectively shared. Likewise, trust and reliability support communication and inter-
action on the local IT level.
4.2 Institutional Logic of Harmonization

Building on our analysis, in the following, we synthesize our findings into six pressure-
specific propositions on explaining the institutional logic of harmonization attained in a
decentralized organization. We further report on the dynamics between institutional
pressures, deriving a seventh proposition on the interplay of pressures (Table 3).
Table 3. Propositions on institutional pressures and their dynamics

P1 In decentralized While local units adhere to their own coercive Coercive
organizations,… mechanisms, globally-enforced coercive pressures
pressures reflect a set of mutually negotiated
compromises among local units
P2 Global coercive pressures foster guided
interaction among local units by providing a
general orientation frame for decision-making
P3 Local units retain their own distinctive norms and Normative
values, that are shared by the market segments in pressures
which they operate and compete
P4 Distinctions in norms and values among local
units are negotiated at the global level toward a
mutually-generated identity
P5 The appreciation of distinct qualifications and Mimetic
perception of best practices set the benchmarks pressures
within local units
P6 The appreciation of distinct norms/values and
perception of best practices set the benchmarks
among local units
P7 Harmonization becomes attained in a dynamic Dynamics
interplay between institutional pressures, i.e. of
between mimetic and normative as well as pressures
normative and coercive pressures
P7a Coercive pressures are influenced by normative
pressures
P7b Normative pressures are influenced by mimetic
pressures
In decentralized organizations, coercive pressures are not enforced from one level
to another. They are a product of local and global negotiations of individual expec-
tations to pursue valued ends. This leads to a compromise of goals and expectations,
becoming reflected in a set of mutually-agreed mechanisms (e.g., vision) (P1). In effect,
these mechanisms harmonize differences among local units and provide an orientation
frame for decision-making toward valued ends (e.g., outputs) as well as guided
interaction (e.g., transparency in communication) among local and global levels (P2).
Local levels adhere to individual norms and values. This mainly results from the
specialization of local units as they operate and compete in different market segments.
Therefore, each local unit shares the prevailing norms and values of their respective
market segment (P3). In turn, normative pressures are also found to stimulate the
adherence of local levels to global values (feeling of belonging). That is, local units
engage in the negotiation of goals and expectations, which contributes not only to the
finding of compromises, but also to an overall identity due to shared expectations (P4).
Communication channels allow for mimetic behavior within and among local units.
Within local units, members appreciate different qualifications of their colleagues, all
contesting toward greater performance of the respective unit. Simultaneously, best
practices are perceived as benchmarks for members’ performance in their own unit
(P5). This fosters the formation of cross-market knowledge among local units, which
perform to different market segments, and eventually leverages mimetic behavior based
on lessons learned from other market segments. Also, local units perceive best practices
as benchmarks, triggering output performance on the global level (P6).
Coercive pressures are externalized in the organization’s overall vision and
strategies. Coercive carriers are the result of mutual agreements among local units on
how to regulate and develop the overall business at the global level. The resultant
compromises comprise norms, values, and expectations among global and local levels.
This brings us to a dynamic interplay between coercive and normative pressure, in
which coercive pressures are impacted by normative pressures that cater negotiated
norms, values, and expectations of local units (P7a). At the local level, two types of
normative pressures are reflected. One type originates in the specific market segment to
which the respective local unit belongs. Consequently, local units try to gain legitimacy
in their respective market through compliance with the given market’s norms and
values. The other type of normative pressures stems from the organization itself: as
such, local units gain legitimacy in the organization through respecting shared norms
and values among different local units. In effect, local units appreciate their differences,
while deriving benchmarks from each other based on success stories and best practices.
This fosters the rise and acquisition of common norms and values as local units try to
mimic the behavior of their successful counterparts (P7b).
To conclude, the institutional logic of harmonization in highly decentralized
organizations can be explained through a dynamic interplay between institutional
pressures (P7). As local units try to mimic behavior of their successful counterparts,
shared norms and values among local units become leveraged. In turn, shared norms
and values become reflected in means to communicate and regulate them in the
organization.
5 Discussion and Conclusion
Our research responds to recent calls for conducting institutional research on the intra-
organizational level of analysis [13]. We make two contributions: firstly, our results
provide six pressure-specific propositions on the institutional logic of harmonization at
the intra-organizational level, which are similarly supported by IS literature at the inter-
organizational level [19, 21, 31–35]. Secondly, our results show the dynamics of
institutional pressures, which are mutually interacting and constitutive. For prospective
research, this finding provides new insights and offers a vantage point for discussion.
5.1 Contribution
For coercive pressures, we found diverging goals and expectations of local levels
reflected in a set of mutually-negotiated mechanisms (P1). IS literature supports this
finding at the inter-organizational level. For example, Bala and Venkatesh [19] found
that inter-organizational business process standards are co-developed by organizations
to standardize their business processes as well as to strengthen their relations to other
firms. Asset connectedness, resource synergies, and collaboration are aimed for
mutually-developed standards. Our proposition that coercive pressures foster guided
interaction among local units by providing an orientation frame for decision-making
(P2) is also line with the inter-organizational IS literature: mechanisms that routinize
decision-making, for instance the allocation of material or authorization of human
resources, are shown to provide a regulative frame for guided decision-making
[31, 32].
Furthermore, we proposed normative pressures along distinctive norms, values, and
beliefs of local levels (P3) as well as their negotiation at the global level toward a
mutually-generated identity (P4). The distinctiveness of norms and values corresponds
to the inter-organizational perspective [33]. A general assumption is that due to dif-
ferent spatial and hierarchical levels, norms, values, and beliefs differ in an organization
[36]. Simultaneously, values, rationales, and opinions are shared within the organiza-
tion and thus yield a collective, assimilated social structure [33]. Davidson and Chismar
[34], among others, discuss that expectations between actors may spill over to
behavioral obligations. In turn, these obligations foster an overall “structure”, which
shapes and provides meaning to organizational behavior [34].
Mimetic pressures were reflected in the appreciation of distinct qualifications and
perception of best practices that set benchmarks among local units (P6) as well as their
members (P5). This is similarly uphold in inter-organizational IS studies, such as by
Bala and Venkatesh [19], who maintain that organizations have a competitive interest
in expanding their relations to others to benefit from shared knowledge, IT/IS assets,
and routines. According to Nicolaou [35, p. 140], communication and social relations
among personnel help organizations to learn about each other’s solutions and “whether
they intend to or not, facilitate imitation of each others’ developments and decisions.”
Benders et al. [21] show that IS managers are attracted by best practices, which
simultaneously leads to industry-wide standardized practices as a result of competitors
that perceive successful practices as an opportunity to catch up in competition.
Finally, we discovered a distinctive logic, in which harmonization becomes attained

in a dynamic interplay between pressures (P7). We find that mimetic pressures influ-
ence normative pressures (P7b), which in turn influence coercive pressures (P7a).
Further, coercive pressures carry normative reflections throughout the organization. In
the inter-organizational IS literature, we selectively found indications that coercive
pressures may derive from normative pressures [e.g., 19]. Further, we found evidence
that normative pressures are influenced by mimetic pressures [e.g., 33, 34, 36].
However, our findings on the institutional logic, occurring dynamically from local to
global levels in a distinctive interplay of mimetic, normative, and coercive pressures,
respectively, lacks evidence in the existing IS literature. This is where our research
contributes with new insights and simultaneously opens an avenue for prospective IS
research.
5.2 Implications
Our findings have implications for the understanding of institutional theory on the
intra-organizational level (explanatory findings) and the discipline of enterprise
engineering.
Explanatory Findings. Our findings show that harmonization emerges in a dynamic
interplay between institutional pressures, a finding that goes beyond existing expla-
nations on the distinctive influence of pressures. While IS research has studied how
institutional pressures work in parallel [5], in different organizational contexts [18], as
well as in different temporal circumstances [21], little is known about their dynamic,
i.e. their interacting influence. Hence, we motivate to consider the dynamic influence of
institutional pressures for future research.
While pressures are dynamic and their influence may change over time, there are
also continuities, i.e. features that are highly stable and persisting in organizations. This
is what institutional theory refers to as “imprinting” [8]. Such continuities may reflect
particular norms, beliefs, rules or combined configurations of them [8]. Our case shows
one major continuity – the institutional logic – that was discovered as a persisting
process, stable due to the constant negotiation of norms, values, and goals. Although IS
scholars have started to focus more on longitudinal and historical examinations of
institutional processes [e.g., 37–39], a large extent of research so far neglects explicit
considerations of stable and persisting features of organizations [5]. Due to this
shortcoming, we outline organizational imprinting as a topic for future research.
Enterprise Engineering. In enterprise engineering (EE), a common discourse
addresses the empowerment of individuals for accomplishing organizational goals and
tasks [40]. Research has propagated to mitigate the Taylorist separation of global
(“thinkers”) and local (“workers”) actors. To this end, our finding of local actors who
negotiate global goals and tasks to pursue these has major implications for any
approach to engineer the organization. For example, approaches that are coercive (e.g.,
strict architecture rules) and not balanced against goals, values, and expectations of
local actors may risk ineffectiveness or non-conformity. This brings us to the following
outline.
Regarding our findings on normative and mimetic pressures, it becomes evident that
harmonization is a dynamic process that occurs along constantly re-negotiated insti-
tutional demands. Consequently, we motivate a more dynamic perspective on EE. In
line with Hoogervorst [40] who suggests to consider the unplanned, self-organizing,
and emerging nature of organizational environments, we motivate to establish and
pursue EE as a continuous process of considering and continuously negotiating goals,
goals, values, beliefs, and best practices among different organizational levels [e.g., see
also 41, 42]. In line with our findings and EE research [43, 44], feedback sessions,
communication channels, and alignment meetings within and between organizational
units may provide a pertinent avenue to dynamically establish and pursue EE over time.
5.3 Limitations
This research has limitations. In line with our research objective, we purposefully chose
a highly decentralized organization. Yet, organizations differ by contextual factors and
personal motives [45]. In consequence, they also respond differently to institutional
pressures. In order to generalize the discovered logic independent from contextual
factors and motives, we suggest extending our single case approach by multiple case
studies, enriching our qualitative data and conducting cross-case analyses.
Another limitation reconciles with this study’s lack of considering timeliness.
While demonstrating the attainment of harmonization as a dynamic process through
interplaying pressures, our study neglects further insights on their temporal evolve-
ment. Moreover, institutionalization is a process that occurs over time and thus raises
the consideration of timeliness [8]. Historic conflicts, changes, or unforeseen events
could lead to a deeper understanding of why some pressures are meaningful in a given
situation or environment, while others are not. A longitudinal perspective may allow
for deeper insights. Hence, we outline the consideration of timeliness in studying the
attainment of harmonization [10] complementarily to the future progress of this
research.
Acknowledgement. This work has been supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation
(SNSF).
References
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2. Peterson, R.: Crafting information technology governance. Inf. Syst. Manag. 21(4), 7–22
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3. Pawlowski, S.D., Robey, D.: Bridging user organizations: knowledge brokering and the
work of information technology professionals. MIS Q. 28(4), 645–672 (2004)
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which they granted us leave to send from it, proved them more
ignorant than kittens of America’s liveliest idiosyncrasies.
In the United States an impression prevails that the annals of Asia
and of Europe are too long and too complicated for our
consideration. Every now and then some educator, or some politician
who controls educators, makes the “practical” suggestion that no
history prior to the American Revolution shall be taught in the public
schools. Every now and then some able financier affirms that he
would not give a fig for any history, and marshals the figures of his
income to prove its uselessness.
Yet our vast heterogeneous population is forever providing
problems which call for an historical solution; and our foreign
relations would be clarified by a greater accuracy of knowledge. To
the ignorance of the average Congressman and of the average
Senator must be traced their most conspicuous blunders. Back of
every man lies the story of his race. The Negro is more than a voter.
He has a history which may be ascertained without undue effort.
Haiti, San Domingo, Liberia, all have their tales to tell. The Irishman
is more than a voter. He has a long, interesting and instructive
history. It pays us to be well informed about these things. “The
passionate cry of ignorance for power” rises in our ears like the
death-knell of civilization. Down through the ages it has sounded,
now covetous and threatening, now irrepressible and triumphant. We
know what every one of its conquests has cost the human race; yet
we are content to rest our security upon oratorical platitudes and
generalities, upon the dim chance of a man being reborn in the
sacrament of citizenship.
In addition to the things that it is useful to know, there are things
that it is pleasant to know, and pleasure is a very important by-
product of education. It has been too long the fashion to deny, or at
least to decry, this species of enjoyment. “He that increaseth
knowledge increaseth sorrow,” says Ecclesiastes; and Sir Thomas
Browne musically bewails the dark realities with which “the
unhappiness of our knowledge too nearly acquainteth us.” But it was
probably the things he did, rather than the things he knew, which
soured the taste of life in the Hebrew’s mouth; and as for Sir Thomas
Browne, no man ever derived a more lasting satisfaction from
scholarship. His erudition, like his religion, was pure profit. His
temperament saved him from the loudness of controversy. His life
was rich within.
This mental ease is not so much an essential of education as the
reward of education. It makes smooth the reader’s path; it involves
the capacity to think, and to take delight in thinking; it is the keynote
of subtle and animated talk. It presupposes a somewhat varied list of
acquirements; but it has no official catalogue, and no market value. It
emphatically does not consist in knowing inventories of things, useful
or otherwise; still less in imparting this knowledge to the world.
Macaulay, Croker, and Lord Brougham were men who knew things
on a somewhat grand scale, and imparted them with impressive
accuracy; yet they were the blight rather than the spur of
conversation. Even the “more cultivated portion of the ignorant,” to
borrow a phrase of Stevenson’s, is hostile to lectures, unless the
lecturer has the guarantee of a platform, and his audience sits before
him in serried and somnolent rows.
The decline and fall of the classics has not been unattended by
controversy. No other educational system was ever so valiantly and
nobly defended. For no other have so many masterly arguments
been marshalled in vain. There was a pride and a splendour in the
long years’ study of Greek. It indicated in England that the nation
had reached a height which permitted her this costly inutility, this
supreme intellectual indulgence. Greek was an adornment to the
minds of her men, as jewels were an adornment to the bodies of her
women. No practical purpose was involved. Sir Walter Scott put the
case with his usual simplicity and directness in a letter to his second
son, Charles, who had little aptitude for study: “A knowledge of the
classical languages has been fixed upon, not without good reason,
as the mark of a well-educated young man; and though people may
scramble into distinction without it, it is always with difficulty, just like
climbing over a wall instead of giving your ticket at the door.”
In the United States we have never been kindly disposed towards
extravagance of this order. During the years of our comparative
poverty, when few citizens aspired to more than a competence, there
was still money enough for Latin, and now and then for Greek. There
was still a race of men with slender incomes and wide acquirements,
to whom scholarship was a dearly bought but indestructible delight.
Now that we have all the money there is, it is universally understood
that Americans cannot afford to spend any of it on the study of “the
best that has been known and thought in the world.”
Against this practical decision no argument avails. Burke’s plea for
the severity of the foundation upon which rest the principles of taste
carries little weight, because our standard of taste is genial rather
than severe. The influence of Latinity upon English literature
concerns us even less, because prose and verse are emancipated
from the splendid shackles they wore with such composure. But the
mere reader, who is not an educational economist, asks himself now
and then in what fashion Milton and Dryden would have written, if
vocational training had supplanted the classics in their day. And to
come nearer to our time, and closer to our modern and moderate
appreciations, how would the “Elegy Written in a Country
Churchyard,” and the lines “On the Death of a Favourite Cat” have
been composed, had Gray not spent all his life in the serene
company of the Latins?
It was easy to define the requirements of an educated man in the
year 1738, when Gray, a bad mathematician and an admirable
classicist, left Cambridge. It is uncommonly difficult to define them
to-day. Dr. Goodnow, speaking a few years ago to the graduating
class of Johns Hopkins University, summed up collegiate as well as
professional education as the acquisition of the capacity to do work
of a specific character. “Knowledge can come only as the result of
experience. What is learned in any other way seldom has such
reality as to make it an actual part of our lives.”
A doctor cannot afford to depend too freely on experience,
valuable though it may be, because the high prices it asks are paid
by his patients. But so far as professional training goes, Dr.
Goodnow stood on firm ground. All it undertakes to do is to enable
students to work along chosen lines—to turn them into doctors,
lawyers, priests, mining engineers, analytical chemists, expert
accountants. They may or may not be educated men in the liberal
sense of the word. They may or may not understand allusions which
are current in the conversation of educated people. Such
conversation is far from encyclopædic; but it is interwoven with
knowledge, and rich in agreeable disclosures. An adroit participant
can avoid obvious pitfalls; but it is not in dodging issues and
concealing deficits that the pleasures of companionship lie. I once
heard a sparkling and animated lady ask Mr. Henry James (who
abhorred being questioned) if he did not think American women
talked better than English women. “Yes,” said the great novelist
gently, “they are more ready and much more brilliant. They rise to
every suggestion. But”—as if moved by some strain of recollection
—“English women so often know what they are talking about.”
Vocational training and vocational guidance are a little like
intensive farming. They are obvious measures for obvious results;
they economize effort; they keep their goal in view. If they “pander to
cabbages,” they produce as many and as fine cabbages as the soil
they till can yield. Their exponents are most convincing when they
are least imaginative. The Dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of
Business Administration says bluntly that it is hard for a young man
to see any good in a college education, when he finds he has
nothing to offer which business men want.
This is an intelligible point of view. It shows, as I have said, that
the country does not feel itself rich enough for intellectual luxuries.
But when I see it asserted that vocational training is necessary for
the safety of Democracy (the lusty nursling which we persist in
feeding from the bottle), I feel that I am asked to credit an absurdity.
When the reason given for this dependence is the altruism of labour,
—“In a democracy the activity of the people is directed towards the
good of the whole number,”—I know that common sense has been
violated by an assertion which no one is expected to take seriously.
A life-career course may be established in every college in the land,
and students carefully guarded from the inroads of distracting and
unremunerative knowledge; but this praiseworthy thrift will not be
practised in the interests of the public. The mechanical education,
against which Mr. Lowell has protested sharply, is preëminently
selfish. Its impelling motive is not “going over,” but getting on.
“It takes a much better quality of mind for self-education than for
education in the ordinary sense,” says Mrs. Gerould; and no one will
dispute this truth. Franklin had two years of schooling, and they were
over and done with before he was twelve. His “cultural opportunities”
were richer than those enjoyed by Mr. Gompers, and he had a
consuming passion for knowledge. Vocational training was a simple
thing in his day; but he glimpsed its possibilities, and fitted it into
place. He would have made an admirable “vocational counsellor” in
the college he founded, had his counsels not been needed on
weightier matters, and in wider spheres. As for industrial education,
those vast efficiency courses given by leading manufacturers to their
employees, which embrace an astonishing variety of marketable
attainments, they would have seemed to him like the realization of a
dream—a dream of diffused light and general intelligence.
We stand to-day on an educational no man’s land, exposed to
double fires, and uncertain which way to turn for safety. The
elimination of Greek from the college curriculum blurred the high
light, the supreme distinction, of scholarship. The elimination of Latin
as an essential study leaves us without any educational standard
save a correct knowledge of English, a partial knowledge of modern
languages, and some acquaintance, never clearly defined, with
precise academic studies. The scientist discards many of these
studies as not being germane to his subject. The professional
student deals with them as charily as possible. The future financier
fears to embarrass his mind with things he does not need to know.
Yet back of every field of labour lies the story of the labourer, and
back of every chapter in the history of civilization lie the chapters that
elucidate it. “Wisdom,” says Santayana, “is the funded experience
which mankind has gathered by living.” Education gives to a student
that fraction of knowledge which sometimes leads to understanding
and a clean-cut basis of opinions. The process is engrossing, and, to
certain minds, agreeable and consolatory. Man contemplates his
fellow man with varied emotions, but never with unconcern. “The
world,” observed Bagehot tersely, “has a vested interest in itself.”
The American Laughs
It was the opinion of Thomas Love Peacock—who knew whereof
he spoke—that “no man should ask another why he laughs, or at
what, seeing that he does not always know, and that, if he does, he
is not a responsible agent.... Reason is in no way essential to mirth.”
This being so, why should human beings, individually and
collectively, be so contemptuous of one another’s humour? To be
puzzled by it is natural enough. There is nothing in the world so
incomprehensible as the joke we do not see. But to be scornful or
angry, to say with Steele that we can judge a man’s temper by the
things he laughs at, is, in a measure, unreasonable. A man laughs
as he loves, moved by secret springs that do not affect his
neighbour. Yet no sooner did America begin to breed humorists of
her own than the first thing these gentlemen did was to cast doubts
upon British humour. Even a cultivated laugher like Mr. Charles
Dudley Warner suffered himself to become acrimonious on this
subject; whereupon an English critic retaliated by saying that if Mr.
Warner considered Knickerbocker’s “New York” to be the equal of
“Gulliver’s Travels,” and that if Mr. Lowell really thought Mr. N. P.
Willis “witty,” then there was no international standard of satire or of
wit. The chances are that Mr. Lowell did not think Mr. Willis witty at
all. He used the word in a friendly and unreflecting moment, not
expecting a derisive echo from the other side of the sea.
And now Mr. Chesterton has protested in the “Illustrated London
News” against the vogue of the American joke in England. He says it
does not convey its point because the conditions which give it birth
are not understood, and the side-light it throws fails to illuminate a
continent. One must be familiar with the intimacies of American life
to enjoy their humorous aspect.
Precisely the same criticism was offered when Artemus Ward
lectured in London more than a half-century ago. The humour of this
once famous joker has become a disputable point. It is safe to say
that anything less amusing than the passage read by Lincoln to his
Cabinet in Mr. Drinkwater’s play could not be found in the literature
of any land. It cast a needless gloom over the scene, and aroused
our sympathy for the officials who had to listen to it. But the
American jest, like the Greek epic, should be spoken, not read; and it
is claimed that when Artemus Ward drawled out his absurdities,
which, like the Greek epic, were always subject to change, these
absurdities were funny. Mr. Leacock has politely assured us that
London was “puzzled and enraptured with the very mystery of the
humour”; but Mr. Leacock, being at that time three years old, was not
there to discern this for himself. Dr. S. Weir Mitchell was there on the
opening night, November 13, 1866, and found the puzzle and the
mystery to be far in advance of the rapture. The description he was
wont to give of this unique entertainment (a “Panorama,” and a
lecture on the Mormons), of the depressing, unventilated Egyptian
Hall in which it was given, of the wild extravagances of the speaker,
which grew wilder and wilder as the audience grew more and more
bewildered, was funny enough, Heaven knows, but the essence of
the fun lay in failure.
Americans, sixty years ago, were brought up on polygamous jests.
The Mormons were our neighbours, and could be always relied upon
to furnish a scandal, a thrill, or a joke. When they mended their
ways, and ceased to be reprehensible or amusing, the comic papers
were compelled to fall back on Solomon, with whose marital
experiences they have regaled us ever since. But to British eyes,
Brigham Young was an unfamiliar figure; and to British minds,
Solomon has always been distinguished for other things than wives.
Therefore Artemus Ward’s casual drolleries presupposed a
humorous background which did not exist. A chance allusion to a
young friend in Salt Lake City who had run away with a boarding
school was received in stupefied silence. Then suddenly a woman’s
smothered giggle showed that light had dawned on one receptive
brain. Then a few belated laughs broke out in various parts of the
hall, as the idea travelled slowly along the thought currents of the
audience, and the speaker went languidly on to the next
unrecognizable pleasantry.
The criticism passed upon Americans to-day is that they laugh
often and without discrimination. This is what the English say of us,
and this is what some Americans have said of the English. Henry
James complained bitterly that London play-goers laughed
unseasonably at serious plays. I wonder if they received Ervine’s
“John Ferguson” in this fashion, as did American play-goers. That a
tragedy harsh and unrelenting, that human pain, unbearable
because unmerited, should furnish food for mirth may be
comprehensible to the psychologist who claims to have a clue to
every emotion; but to the ordinary mortal it is simply dumbfounding.
People laughed at Molnar’s “Liliom” out of sheer nervousness,
because they could not understand it. And “Liliom” had its comedy
side. But nobody could have helped understanding “John Ferguson,”
and there was no relief from its horror, its pitifulness, its sombre
surrender to the irony of fate. Yet ripples of laughter ran through the
house; and the actress who played Hannah Ferguson confessed that
this laughter had in the beginning completely unnerved her, but that
she had steeled herself to meet and to ignore it.
It was said that British audiences were guilty of laughing at “Hedda
Gabler,” perhaps in sheer desperate impatience at the
unreasonableness of human nature as unfolded in that despairing
drama. They should have been forgiven and congratulated, and so
should the American audiences who were reproached for laughing at
“Mary Rose.” The charm, the delicacy, the tragic sense of an
unknown and arbitrary power with which Barrie invested his play
were lost in the hands of incapable players, while its native dullness
gained force and substance from their presentation. A lengthy
dialogue on a pitch-black stage between an invisible soldier and an
inarticulate ghost was neither enlivening nor terrifying. It would have
been as hard to laugh as to shudder in the face of such tedious
loquacity.
We see it often asserted that Continental play-goers are incapable
of the gross stupidities ascribed to English and Americans, that they
dilate with correct emotions at correct moments, that they laugh,
weep, tremble, and even faint in perfect accord with the situations of
the drama they are witnessing. When Maeterlinck’s “Intruder” was
played in Paris, women fainted; when it was played in Philadelphia,
they tittered. Perhaps the quality of the acting may account for these
varying receptions. A tense situation, imperfectly presented,
degenerates swiftly into farce—into very bad farce, too, as Swift said
of the vulgar malignities of fate.
The Dublin players brought to this country a brand of humour and
pathos with which we were unfamiliar. Irish comedy, as we knew it,
was of the Dion Boucicault type, a pure product of stageland, and
unrelated to any practical experiences of life. Here, on the contrary,
was something indigenous to Ireland, and therefore strange to us.
My first experience was at the opening night of Ervine’s “Mixed
Marriage,” in New York. An audience, exclusively Semitic (so far as I
could judge by looking at it), listened in patient bewilderment to the
theological bickerings of Catholics and Protestants in Belfast. I sat in
a box with Lady Gregory who was visibly disturbed by the slowness
of the house at the uptake, and unaware that what was so familiar
and vital to her was a matter of the purest unconcern to that
particular group of Americans. The only thing that roused them from
their apathy was the sudden rage with which, in the third act, Tom
Rainey shouted at his father: “Ye’re an ould fool, that’s what ye are; a
damned ould fool!” At these reprehensible words a gust of laughter
swept the theatre, destroying the situation on the stage, but shaking
the audience back to life and animation. It was seemingly—though I
should be sorry to think it—the touch of nature which makes the
whole world kin.
When that mad medley of fun and fancy, of grossness and
delicacy, “The Playboy of the Western World,” was put on the
American stage, men laughed—generally at the wrong time—out of
the hopeless confusion of their minds. The “Playboy” was admittedly
an enigma. The night I saw it, the audience, under the impression
that it was anti-Irish, or anti-Catholic, or anti-moral, or anti-
something, they were not sure what, hurled denunciations and one
missile—which looked strangely like a piece of pie—at the actors. It
was a disgraceful scene, but not without its humorous side; for when
the riotous interruptions had subsided, an elderly man arose, and,
with the manner of an invited speaker at a public dinner, began,
“From time immemorial”—But the house had grown tired of
disturbances, and howled him down. He waited for silence, and then
in the same composed and leisurely manner began again, “From
time immemorial”—At this point one of the policemen who had been
restoring order led him gently but forcibly out of the theatre; the play
was resumed; and what it was that had happened from time
immemorial we were destined never to know.
A source of superlative merriment in the United States is the two-
reel comic of our motion-picture halls. Countless thousands of
Americans look at it, and presumably laugh at it, every twenty-four
hours. It is not unlike an amplified and diversified Punch and Judy
show, depending on incessant action and plenty of hard knocks.
Hazlitt says that bangs and blows which we know do not hurt
provoke legitimate laughter; and, until we see a funny film, we have
no conception of the amount of business which can be constructed
out of anything so simple as men hitting one another. Producers of
these comics have taken the public into their confidence, and have
assured us that their work is the hardest in the motion-picture
industry; that the slugging policeman is trained for weary weeks to
slug divertingly, and that every tumble has to be practised with
sickening monotony before it acquires its purely accidental character.
As for accessories—well, it takes more time and trouble to make a
mouse run up a woman’s skirt at the right moment, or a greyhound
carry off a dozen crullers on its tail, than it does to turn out a whole
sentimental scenario, grey-haired mother, high-minded, pure-hearted
convict son, lumber-camp virtue, town vice, and innocent childhood
complete. Whether or not the time and trouble are well spent
depends on the amount of money which that mouse and those
crullers eventually wring from an appreciative and laughter-loving
public.
The dearth of humorous situations—at no time inexhaustible—has
compelled the two-reel comic to depend on such substitutes as
speed, violence, and a succession of well-nigh inconceivable
mishaps. A man acting in one cannot open a door, cross a street, or
sit down to dinner without coming to grief. Even the animals—dogs,
donkeys and pigs—are subject to catastrophes that must wreck their
confidence in life. Fatness, besides being funny, is, under these
circumstances, a great protection. The human body, swathed in rolls
of cotton-wadding, is safe from contusions and broken bones. When
an immensely stout lady sinks into an armchair, only to be
precipitated through a trap-door, and shot down a slide into a pond,
we feel she has earned her pay. But after she has been dropped
from a speeding motor, caught and lifted high in air by a balloon
anchor, let down to earth with a parachute, picked up by an elephant,
and carried through the streets at the head of a circus parade, we
begin to understand the arduousness of art. Only the producers of
comic “movies” know what “One crowded hour of glorious life” can
be made to hold.
Laughter has been over-praised and over-analyzed, as well as
unreasonably denounced. We do not think much about its
determining causes—why should we?—until the contradictory
definitions of philosophers, psychologists and men of letters compel
us to recognize its inscrutable quality. Plato laid down the principle
that our pleasure in the ludicrous originates in the sight of another’s
misfortune. Its motive power is malice. Hobbes stoutly affirmed that
laughter is not primarily malicious, but vainglorious. It is the rough,
spontaneous assertion of our own eminence. “We laugh from
strength, and we laugh at weakness.” Hazlitt saw a lurking cruelty in
the amusement of civilized men who have gaged the folly and
frivolity of their kind. Bergson, who evidently does not frequent
motion-picture halls, says that the comic makes its appeal to “the
intelligence pure and simple.” He raises laughter to the dignity of a
“social gesture” and a corrective. We put our affections out of court,
and impose silence upon our pity before we laugh; but this is only
because the corrective would fail to correct if it bore the stamp of
sympathy and kindness. Leacock, who deals in comics, is sure of but
one thing, that all humour is anti-social; and Stevenson ascribes our
indestructible spirit of mirth to “the unplumbed childishness of man’s
imagination.”
The illustrations given us by these eminent specialists are as
unconvincing as the definitions they vouchsafe, and the rules they
lay down for our guidance. Whenever we are told that a situation or a
jest offers legitimate food for laughter, we cease to have any
disposition to laugh. Just as we are often moved to merriment for no
other reason than that the occasion calls for seriousness, so we are
correspondingly serious when invited too freely to be amused. An
entertainment which promises to be funny is handicapped from the
start. It has to plough deep into men’s risibilities before it can raise its
crop of laughter. I have been told that when Forepaugh first fired a
man out of a cannon, the audience laughed convulsively; not
because it found anything ludicrous in the performance, but because
it had been startled out of its composure, and relieved from a
gasping sense of fear.
Sidney Smith insisted that the overturning of a dinner-table which
had been set for dinner was a laughable incident. Yet he was a
married man, and must have known that such a catastrophe (which
seems to us to belong strictly to the motion-picture field) could not
have been regarded by Mrs. Smith, or by any other hostess, as
amusing. Boswell tells us that Dr. Johnson was so infinitely diverted
by hearing that an English gentleman had left his estate to his three
sisters that he laughed until he was exhausted, and had to hold on to
a post (he was walking home through the London streets) to keep
himself from falling to the ground. Yet no reader of Boswell ever saw
anything ludicrous in such a last will and testament. Sophocles
makes Electra describe Clytemnestra as “laughing triumphantly”
over the murder of Agamemnon; but Electra was a prejudiced
witness. Killing an undesired husband is no laughing matter, though
triumph over its accomplishment—when failure means death—is a
legitimate emotion. Clytemnestra was a singularly august and
composed sinner. Not from her did Orestes and Electra inherit their
nervous systems; and not on their testimony should we credit her
with an excess of humour alike ill-timed and unbecoming.
In our efforts to discover what can never be discovered—the
secret sources of laughter—we have experimented with American
children; testing their appreciation of the ludicrous by giving them
blocks which, when fitted into place, display absurd and incongruous
pictures. Their reactions to this artificial stimulus are of value, only
when they are old enough for perception, and young enough for
candour. The merriment of children, of little girls especially, is often
unreal and affected. They will toss their heads and stimulate one
another to peals of laughter which are a pure make-believe. When
they are really absorbed in their play, and astir with delicious
excitation, they do not laugh; they give vent to piercing shrieks which
sound as if they were being cut into little pieces. These shrieks are
the spontaneous expression of delight; but their sense of absurdity,
which implies a sense of humour, is hard to capture before it has
become tainted with pretence.
There are American newspapers which print every day a sheet or
a half-sheet of comic pictures, and there are American newspapers
which print every Sunday a coloured comic supplement. These
sincere attempts to divert the public are well received. Their vulgarity
does not offend. “What,” asks the wise Santayana, “can we relish if
we recoil at vulgarity?” Their dullness is condoned. Life, for all its
antics, is confessedly dull. Our absurdities may amuse the angels
(Walpole had a cheerful vision of their laughter); but they cannot be
relied on to amuse our fellow men. Nevertheless the coloured
supplement passes from hand to hand—from parents to children,
from children to servants. Even the smudgy black and whites of the
daily press are soberly and conscientiously scrutinized. A man,
reading his paper in the train, seldom skips that page. He examines
every little smudge with attention, not seemingly entertained, or
seeking entertainment, but without visible depression at its
incompetence.
I once had the pleasure of hearing a distinguished etcher lecture
on the art of illustrating. He said some harsh words about these
American comics, and threw on the screen a reproduction of one of
their most familiar series. The audience looked at it sadly. “I am
glad,” commented the lecturer, “that you did not laugh. Those
pictures are, as you perceive, as stupid as they are vulgar. Now I will
show you some clever English work”: and there appeared before us
the once famous Ally Sloper recreating himself and his family at the
seashore. The audience looked at him sadly. A solemn stillness held
the hall. “Why don’t you laugh?” asked the lecturer irritably. “I assure
you that picture is funny.” Whereupon everybody laughed; not
because we saw the fun—which was not there to see—but because
we were jolted into risibility by the unwarranted despotism of the
demand.
The prohibition jest which stands preeminent in the United States,
and has afforded French and English humorists a field which they
have promptly and ably filled, draws its vitality from the inexhaustible
springs of human nature. Readers and play-goers profess
themselves tired of it; moralists deprecate its undermining qualities;
but the conflict between a normal desire and an interdict is too
unadjustable, too rich in circumstance, and too far-reaching in
results, to be accepted in sober silence. The complications incidental
to prohibition, the battle of wits, the turns of the game, the
adventures—often sorry enough—of the players, all present the
essential elements of comedy. Mrs. Gerould has likened the situation
to an obstacle race. It is that, and it is something more. In earlier,
easier days, robbery was made justifiably droll. The master thief was
equally at home in northern Europe and in the far East. England
smiled at Robin Hood. France evolved that amazing epithet,
“chevalier d’industrie.” But arrayed against robbery were a moral law
and a commandment. Arrayed against wine are a legal ordinance
and the modern cult of efficiency. It will be long before these become
so sacrosanct as to disallow a laugh.
The worst that has been said of legitimate American humour is
that it responds to every beck and call. Even Mr. Ewan S. Agnew,
whose business it is to divert the British public, considers that the
American public is too easily diverted. We laugh, either from light-
hearted insensitiveness, or from the superabundant vitality, the half-
conscious sense of power, which bubbles up forever in the callous
gaiety of the world. Certainly Emerson is the only known American
who despised jocularity, and who said early and often that he did not
wish to be amused. The most striking passage in the letters of Mr.
Walter Page is the one which describes his distaste for the “jocular”
Washington luncheons at which he was a guest in the summer of
1916. He had come fresh from the rending anxiety, the heroic stress
and strain of London; and the cloudless atmosphere of our capital
wounded his spirit. England jested too. “Punch” had never been so
brilliant as in the torturing years of war. But England had earned the
right to jest. There was a tonic quality in her laughter. Page feared
from the bottom of his soul lest the great peaceful nation, safe, rich
and debonair, had suffered her “mental neutrality” to blot out from
her vision the agony of Europe, and the outstanding facts which
were responsible for the disaster.
This unconcern, which is the balance wheel of comedy, has
tempered the American mind to an easy acceptance of chance. Its
enthusiasms are modified, its censures are softened by a restraining
humour which is rooted deeply in indifference. We recognize the
sanity of our mental attitude, but not its incompleteness.
Understanding and sympathy are products of civilized life, as
clarifying in their way as tolerance and a quick perception of the
ludicrous. An American newspaper printed recently a photograph
entitled “Smilin’ Through,” which showed two American girls peering
through two holes in a shell-torn wall of Verdun, and laughing
broadly at their sport. The names and addresses of these frolicsome
young women were given, and their enjoyment of their own drollery
was emphasized for the diversion of other young women at home.
Now granted that every nation, like every man, bears the burden
of its own grief. Granted also that every woman, like every man, has
her own conception of the humorous, and that we cannot reasonably
take umbrage because we fail to see the fun. Nevertheless the
memories of Verdun do not make for laughter. There is that in its
story which sobers the world it has ennobled. Four hundred
thousand French soldiers gave their lives for that battered fortress
which saved Paris and France. Mr. Brownell reminds us that there is
such a thing as rectitude outside the sphere of morals, and that it is
precisely this austere element in taste which assures our self-
respect. We cannot analyze, and therefore cannot criticize, that
frothy fun which Bergson has likened to the foam which the receding
waves leave on the ocean sands; but we know, as he knows, that
the substance is scanty, and the after-taste is bitter in our mouths.
We are tethered to our kind, and it is the sureness of our reaction to
the great and appealing facts of history which makes us inheritors of
a hard-won civilization, and qualified citizens of the world.
The Idolatrous Dog
We shall never know why a feeling of shame attends certain
harmless sensations, certain profoundly innocent tastes and
distastes. Why, for example, are we abashed when we are cold, and
boastful when we are not? There is no merit or distinction in being
insensitive to cold, or in wearing thinner clothing than one’s
neighbour. And what strange impulse is it which induces otherwise
truthful people to say they like music when they do not, and thus
expose themselves to hours of boredom? We are not necessarily
morons or moral lepers because we have no ear for harmony. It is a
significant circumstance that Shakespeare puts his intolerant lines,
“The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.
Let no such man be trusted”—
in the mouth of Lorenzo who disdained neither stratagems nor

spoils, and who carried off the Jew’s ducats as well as the Jew’s
daughter. And Jessica, who sits by his side in the moonlight, and
responds with delicate grace
“I am never merry when I hear sweet music,”

is the girl who “gilded” herself with stolen gold, and gave her dead
mother’s ring for a monkey.
It is a convenience not to feel cold when the thermometer falls,
and it is a pleasure to listen appreciatively to a symphony concert. It
is also a convenience to relish the proximity of dogs, inasmuch as
we live surrounded by these animals, and it is a pleasure to respond
to their charm. But there is no virtue in liking them, any more than
there is virtue in liking wintry weather or stringed instruments. An
affection for dogs is not, as we have been given to understand, a test
of an open and generous disposition. Still less is their affection for us
to be accepted as a guarantee of our integrity. The assumption that a
dog knows a good from a bad human being when he sees one is
unwarranted. It is part of that engulfing wave of sentiment which
swept the world in the wake of popular fiction. Dickens is its most
unflinching exponent. Henry Gowan’s dog, Lion, springs at the throat
of Blandois, alias Lagnier, alias Rigaud, for no other reason than that
he recognizes him as a villain, without whom the world would be a
safer and better place to live in. Florence Dombey’s dog, Diogenes,
looks out of an upper window, observes Mr. Carker peacefully
walking the London streets, and tries to jump down and bite him then
and there. He sees at once what Mr. Dombey has not found out in
years—that Carker is a base wretch, unworthy of the confidence
reposed in him.
A few animals of this kind might, in real life, close the courts of
justice. The Dickens dog is detective, prosecuting attorney, judge,
jury and executioner, all in one. He stands responsible for a whole
school of fictitious canines who combine the qualities of Vidocq,
Sherlock Holmes, and the Count of Monte Cristo. I read recently a
story in which the villain was introduced as “that anomalous being,
the man who doesn’t like dogs.” After that, no intelligent reader could
have been unprepared to find him murdering his friend and partner.
So much was inevitable. And no experienced reader could have
been unprepared for the behaviour of the friend and partner’s dog,
which recognizes the anomaly as a person likely to commit murder,
and, without wasting time on circumstantial evidence, tracks him
down, and, unaided, brings him to his death. A simple, clean-cut
retribution, contrasting favourably with the cumbersome processes of
law.
A year ago the Governor of Maine had the misfortune to lose his
dog. He signified his sense of loss, and his appreciation of the
animal’s good qualities, by lowering the American flag on the
Augusta State House to half-mast. He was able to do this because
he was Governor, and there was no one to say him nay.
Nevertheless, certain sticklers for formality protested against an
innovation which opened up strange possibilities for the future; and
one logical lady observed that a dog was no more a citizen than was
a strawberry patch, a statement not open to contradiction. The
country at large, however, supported the Governor’s action.
Newspaper men wrote editorials lauding the “homespun” virtues of
an official who set a true value on an honest dog’s affection. Poets
wrote verses about “Old Glory” and “Garry” (the dog’s name); and
described Saint Peter as promptly investing this worthy quadruped
with the citizenship of Heaven. The propriety or impropriety of
lowering the national flag for an animal—which was the question
under dispute—was buried beneath the avalanche of sentiment
which is always ready to fall at the sound of a dog’s name.
A somewhat similar gust of criticism swept Pennsylvania when a
resident of that State spent five hundred dollars on the obsequies of
his dog. The Great War, though drawing to a close, was not yet over,
and perhaps the thought of men unburied on the battle-field, and
refugees starving for bread, intensified public feeling. There was the
usual outcry, as old as Christianity—“this might have been given to
the poor.” There was the usual irrelevant laudation of the
Pennsylvania dog, and of dogs in general. People whose own affairs
failed to occupy their attention (there are many such) wrote
vehement letters to the daily press. At last a caustic reader chilled
the agitation by announcing that he was prepared to give five
hundred dollars any day for the privilege of burying his next-door
neighbour’s dog. Whether or not this offer was accepted, the public
never knew; but what troubled days and sleepless nights must have
prompted its prodigality!
The honour accorded to the dog is no new thing. It has for
centuries rewarded his valour and fidelity. Responsibilities, duties,
compensations—these have always been his portion. Sirius shines
in the heavens, and Cerberus guards in hell. The dog, Katmir, who
watched over the Seven Sleepers for three hundred and nine years,
gained Paradise for his pains, as well he might. Even the ill-fated
hounds of Actæon, condemned to kill their more ill-fated master, are
in some sort immortal, inasmuch as we may know, if we choose, the
names of every one of them. Through the long pages of legend and
romance the figure of the dog is clearly outlined; and when history
begins with man’s struggle for existence, the dog may be found his
ally and confederate. It was a strange fatality which impelled this
animal to abandon communal life and the companionship of his kind
for the restraints, the safety, the infinite weariness of domesticity. It
was an amazing tractableness which caused him to accept a set of
principles foreign to his nature—the integrity of work, the
honourableness of servitude, the artificial values of civilization.
As a consequence of this extraordinary change of base, we have
grown accustomed to judge the dog by human standards. In fact,
there are no other standards which apply to him. The good dog, like
the good man, is the dog which has duties to perform, and which
performs them faithfully. The bad dog, like the bad man, is the dog
which is idle, ill-tempered and over-indulged by women. Women are
responsible for most of the dog-failures, as well as for many of the
man-failures of the world. So long as they content themselves with
toy beasts, this does not much matter; but a real dog, beloved and
therefore pampered by his mistress, is a lamentable spectacle. He
suffers from fatty degeneration of his moral being.
What if the shepherd dog fares hardly, and if exposure stiffens his
limbs! He has at least lived, and played his part in life. Nothing more
beautiful or more poignant has ever been written about any animal
than James Hogg’s description of his old collie which could no longer
gather in the sheep, and with which he was compelled to part,
because—poor Ettrick shepherd—he could not afford to pay the tax
on two dogs. The decrepit beast refused to be separated from the
flocks which had been his care and pride. Day after day he hobbled
along, watching the new collie bustling about his work, and—too
wise to interfere—looking with reproachful eyes at the master who
had so reluctantly discarded him.
The literature of the dog is limitless. A single shelf would hold all
that has been written about the cat. A library would hardly suffice for
the prose and verse dedicated to the dog. From “Gêlert” to “Rab”
and “Bob, Son of Battle,” he has dominated ballad and fiction. Few
are the poets and few the men of letters who have not paid some
measure of tribute to him. Goethe, indeed, and Alfred de Musset
detested all dogs, and said so composedly. Their detestation was
temperamental, and not the result of an unfortunate encounter, such
as hardened the heart of Dr. Isaac Barrow, mathematician, and
Master of Trinity College. Sidney Smith tells us with something akin
to glee that this eminent scholar, when taking an early stroll in the
grounds of a friend and host, was attacked by a huge and
unwarrantably suspicious mastiff. Barrow, a fighter all his life (a man
who would fight Algerine pirates was not to be easily daunted),
hurled the dog to the ground, and fell on top of him. The mastiff
could not get up, but neither could Barrow, who called loudly for
assistance. It came, and the combatants were separated; but a
distaste for morning strolls and an aversion for dogs lingered in the
Master’s mind. There was one less enthusiast in the world.
We are apt to think that the exuberance of sentiment entertained
by Americans for dogs is a distinctively British trait, that we have
inherited it along with our language, our literature, our manliness, our
love of sport, our admirable outdoor qualities. But it may be found
blooming luxuriously in other and less favoured lands. That
interesting study of Danish childhood by Carl Ewald, called “My Little
Boy,” contains a chapter devoted to the lamentable death of a dog
named Jean, “the biggest dog in Denmark.” This animal, though at
times condescending to kindness, knew how to maintain his just
authority. “He once bit a boy so hard that the boy still walks lame. He
once bit his own master.” The simple pride with which these
incidents are narrated would charm a dog-lover’s soul. And the lame
boy’s point of view is not permitted to intrude.
Of all writers who have sung the praises of the dog, and who have
justified our love for him, Maeterlinck has given the fullest expression
to the profound and absorbing egotism which underlies this love.
Never for a moment does he consider his dog save as a worshipper.
Never does he think of himself save as a being worshipped. Never
does he feel that this relationship can be otherwise than just,
reasonable, and satisfying to both parties. “The dog,” he says,
“reveres us as though we had drawn him out of nothing. He has a
morality which surpasses all that he is able to discover in himself,
and which he can practise without scruple and without fear. He
possesses truth in its fullness. He has a certain and infinite ideal.”
And what is this ideal? “He” (the dog) “is the only living being that
has found, and recognizes, an indubitable, unexceptionable and
definite god.”
And who is this god? M. Maeterlinck, you, I, anybody who has
bought and reared a puppy. Yet we are told that the dog is intelligent.
What is there about men which can warrant the worship of a wise
beast? What sort of “truth in its fullness” is compatible with such a
blunder? Yet it is for the sake of being idolized that we prize and
cherish the idolater. Our fellow mortals will not love us unless we are
lovable. They will not admire us unless we are admirable. Our cats
will probably neither love nor admire us, being self-engrossed
animals, free from encumbering sensibilities. But our dogs will love
and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their
uncritical homage. M. Maeterlinck recognizes our dependence on
the dog for the deification we crave, and is unreasonably angry with
the cat for her aloofness. In her eyes, he complains, we are
parasites in our own homes. “She curses us from the depths of her
mysterious heart.”
She does not. She tolerates us with a wise tolerance, recognizing
our usefulness, and indulgent of our foibles. Domesticity has not cost
her the heavy price it has cost the dog. She has merely exchanged
the asylum of cave or tree for the superior accommodation of the
house. Her habits remain unaltered, her freedom unviolated. Cream-
fed and pampered, she still loves the pleasures of the chase; nor will
she pick and choose her prey at the recommendation of prejudiced
humanity. M. Maeterlinck, who has striven to enter into the
consciousness of the dog, describes it as congested with duties and
inhibitions. There are chairs he must not sit on, rooms he must not
enter, food he must not steal, babies he must not upset, cats he
must not chase, visitors he must not bark at, beggars and tramps he
must not permit to enter the gates. He lives under as many, and as
strict, compulsions as though he were a citizen of the United States.
By comparison with this perverted intelligence, this artificial morality,
the mind of the cat appears like a cool and spacious chamber, with
only her own spirit to fill it, and only her own tastes and distastes to
be consulted and obeyed.
Perhaps it is because the dog is so hedged in by rules and
regulations that he has lost his initiative. Descended from animals
that lived in packs, and that enjoyed the advantages of communal
intelligence, he could never have possessed this quality as it was
possessed by an animal that lived alone, and had only his own
acuteness and experience to rely on. But having surrendered his will
to the will of man, and his conscience to the keeping of man, the dog
has by now grown dependent for his simplest pleasures upon man’s
caprice. He loves to roam; but whereas the cat does roam at will,
rightly rejecting all interference with her liberty, the dog craves
permission to accompany his master on a stroll, and, being refused,
slinks sadly back to confinement and inaction. I have great respect
for those exceptional dogs that take their exercise when they need or
desire it in self-sufficing solitude. I once knew an Irish terrier that had
this independent turn of mind. He invited himself to daily
constitutionals, and might have been seen any morning trotting along
the road, miles away from home, with the air of an animal walking to
keep his flesh down. In the end he was run over by a speeding
motor, but what of that? Die we must, and, while he lived, he was
free.
A lordliness of sentiment mars much of the admirable poetry
written about dogs. The poet thrones himself before addressing his
devoted and credulous ally. Even Matthew Arnold’s lines to “Kaiser
Dead”—among the best of their kind—are heavy with patronage:
“But all those virtues which commend
The humbler sort who serve and tend,
Were thine in store, thou faithful friend.”
To be sure, Kaiser was a mongrel; but why emphasize his low

estate? As a matter of fact, mongrels, like self-made men, are apt to
have a peculiar complacency of demeanour. They do not rank
themselves among “the humbler sort”; but “serve and tend” on the
same conditions as their betters.
Two years ago Mr. Galsworthy, who stands in the foremost rank of
dog-lovers, and who has drawn for us some of the most lifelike and
attractive dogs in fiction, pleaded strongly and emotionally for the
exemption of this animal from any form of experimental research. He
had the popular sentiment of England back of him, because popular
sentiment always is emotional. The question of vivisection is one of
abstract morality. None but the supremely ignorant can deny its
usefulness. There remain certain questions which call for clean-cut
answers. Does our absolute power over beasts carry with it an
absolute right? May we justifiably sacrifice them for the good of
humanity? What degree of pain are we morally justified in inflicting
on them to save men from disease and death? If we faced the issue
squarely, we should feel no more concern for the kind of animal
which is used for experimentation than for the kind of human being
who may possibly benefit by the experiment. Right and wrong admit
of no sentimental distinctions. Yet the vivisectionist pleads, “Is not
the life of a young mother worth more than the life of a beast?” The
anti-vivisectionist asks: “How can man deliberately torture the
creature that loves and trusts him?” And Mr. Galsworthy admitted
that he had nothing to say about vivisection in general. Cats and
rabbits might take their chances. He asked only that the dog should
be spared.
It has been hinted more than once that if we develop the dog’s
intelligence too far, we may end by robbing him of his illusions. He
has absorbed so many human characteristics—vanity, sociability,
snobbishness, a sense of humour and a conscience—that there is
danger of his also acquiring the critical faculty. He will not then
content himself with flying at the throats of villains—the out-and-out
villain is rare in the common walks of life—he will doubt the godlike
qualities of his master. The warmth of his affection will chill, its
steadfastness will be subject to decay.
Of this regrettable possibility there is as yet no sign. The hound,
Argus, beating the ground with his feeble tail in an expiring effort to
welcome the disguised Odysseus, is a prototype of his successor to-
day. Scattered here and there in the pages of history are instances
of unfaithfulness; but their rarity gives point to their picturesqueness.
Froissart tells us that the greyhound, Math, deserted his master, King
Richard the Second, to fawn on the Duke of Lancaster who was to
depose and succeed him; and that a greyhound belonging to
Charles of Blois fled on the eve of battle to the camp of John de
Montfort, seeking protection from the stronger man. These
anecdotes indicate a grasp of political situations which is no part of
the dog’s ordinary make-up. Who can imagine the fortunate, faithful
little spaniel that attended Mary Stuart in her last sad months, and in
her last heroic hours, fawning upon Queen Elizabeth? Who can
imagine Sir Walter Scott’s dogs slinking away from him when the
rabble of Jedburgh heaped insults on his bowed grey head?
The most beautiful words ever written about a dog have no
reference to his affectionate qualities. Simonides, celebrating the
memory of a Thessalian hound, knows only that he was fleet and
brave. “Surely, even as thou liest in this tomb, I deem the wild beasts
yet fear thy white bones, Lycas; and thy valour great Pelion knows,
and the lonely peaks of Cithæron.” This is heroic praise, and so, in a
fashion, is Byron’s epitaph on Boatswain. But Byron, being of the
moderns, can find no better way of honouring dogs than by defaming
men; a stupidity, pardonable in the poet only because he was the
most sincere lover of animals the world has ever known. His tastes
were catholic, his outlook was whimsical. He was not in the least
discomposed when his forgetful wolf-hound bit him, or when his
bulldog bit him without the excuse of forgetfulness. Moore tells us
that the first thing he saw on entering Byron’s palace in Venice was a
notice, “Keep clear of the dog!” and the first thing he heard was the
voice of his host calling out anxiously, “Take care, or that monkey will
fly at you.”
It is a pleasant relief, after floundering through seas of sentiment,
to read about dogs that were every whit as imperfect as their
masters; about Cowper’s “Beau” who has been immortalized for his
disobedience; or Sir Isaac Newton’s “Diamond” who has been
immortalized for the mischief he wrought; or Prince Rupert’s “Boy”
who was shot while loyally pulling down a rebel on Marston Moor; or
the Church of England spaniel, mentioned by Addison, who proved
his allegiance to the Establishment by worrying a dissenter. It is also
a pleasure of a different sort to read about the wise little dog who ran
away from Mrs. Welsh (Carlyle’s mother-in-law) on the streets of
Edinburgh, to follow Sir Walter Scott; and about the London dog of
sound literary tastes who tried for many nights to hear Dickens read.
It is always possible that if men would exact a less unalterable
devotion from their dogs, they might find these animals to be
possessed of individual and companionable traits.
But not of human sagacity. It is their privilege to remain beasts,
bound by admirable limitations, thrice happy in the things they do not
have to know, and feel, and be. “The Spectator” in a hospitable
mood once invited its readers to send it anecdotes of their dogs. The
invitation was, as might be imagined, cordially and widely accepted.
Mr. Strachey subsequently published a collection of these stories in
a volume which had all the vraisemblance of Hans Andersen and
“The Arabian Nights.” Reading it, one could but wonder and regret
that the tribe of man had risen to unmerited supremacy. The
“Spectator” dogs could have run the world, the war and the
Versailles Conference without our lumbering interference.
THE END
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Advances in Enterprise Engineering XII 8th

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Advances in Enterprise Engineering XI 7th Enterprise

The Practice of Enterprise Modeling 12th IFIP Working

Rules and Reasoning Second International Joint Conference

Building a corporate culture of security : strategies for

Sustainable Management of Arthropod Pests of Tomato 1st

Servilia and her family First Edition. Edition Servilia.

Thinking Skills for the Digital Generation: The

Animals and Science Education Ethics Curriculum and

Sérgio Guerreiro Wided Guédria (Eds.)

ISSN 1865-1348 ISSN 1865-1356 (electronic)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018964608

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

The CIAO! Enterprise Engineering Network (CEEN) is a community of academics and

May 2018 David Aveiro

The Institutional Logic of Harmonization: Local Versus

Systems Approaches in the Enterprise Architecture Field of Research:

Affordance-Driven Software Assembling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Understanding Architecture Principles as Working Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . 55

On Security and Blockchain

Decentralized Enforcement of Business Process Control Using Blockchain. . . 69

Enterprise Engineering in Business Information Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Exploring a Role of Blockchain Smart Contracts

Validating the DEMO Specification Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Modeling the System Described by the EU General Data Protection

DEMO as a Tool of Value Co-creation Strategy Realization . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Colored Petri-Net for Implementing DEMO/PSI Transactions

Towards a Multi-stage Strategy to Teach Enterprise Modelling . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Maximilian Brosius(&), Stephan Aier, M. Kazem Haki,

Institute of Information Management, University of St. Gallen,

Abstract. Perspectives in organizations differ to which extent information

Keywords: Institutional theory Institutional pressures Harmonization

In virtue of ever-growing complex organizational environments, perspectives on the

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

Institutional logic is deﬁned as the patterns of rules, values, assumptions, and

2.1 Institutional Theory

2.2 Intended Contribution

To develop a ﬁrst understanding of how institutional pressures lead to harmo-

3.1 Case Description

3.2 Data Collection

dependencies. We studied organigrams, regulations, job descriptions, annual reports,

Table 1. Proﬁles of interviewees

3.3 Scheme-Guided Analysis

Table 2. Coding scheme (adapted from [8])

4.1 Institutional Pressures

4.2 Institutional Logic of Harmonization

Table 3. Propositions on institutional pressures and their dynamics

5 Discussion and Conclusion

Finally, we discovered a distinctive logic, in which harmonization becomes attained

“The man that hath no music in himself,

Let no such man be trusted”—

in the mouth of Lorenzo who disdained neither stratagems nor

“I am never merry when I hear sweet music,”

To be sure, Kaiser was a mongrel; but why emphasize his low

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S.