Validating the core tenets of deinstitutionalization – a process model of managerial practice abandonment

Purpose While research on institutional theory has comprehensively investigated the adoption and diffusion of managerial practices, far less attention has been paid to their decline and abandonment, particularly in the context of transplanted practices across institutional boundaries. The author know little about how institutional distance and uncertainty interact with insider resistance to destabilize and ultimately dismantle practices imported from other institutional contexts. This study aims to address this gap by analysing the case of Toyota Kirloskar Motors in India (1999–2014) to validate and extend the core tenets of deinstitutionalization. Specifically, this study investigates the mechanisms, phases and outcomes of the decline of the Toyota Production System (TPS) while offering a conceptual framework and propositions that clarify when and how transplanted practices are abandoned or transformed into hybrid local institutions. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a rigorously structured conceptual research design grounded in theory-building principles. Drawing on institutional theory, deinstitutionalization and institutional transplantation literature, this study develops an integrated process model supported by an in-depth secondary case analysis of TPS implementation in India. Findings The analysis identifies a multi-phased deinstitutionalization process comprising legitimacy erosion, resistance escalation, pressure convergence and negotiated adaptation. It demonstrates how normative, political and coercive pressures – mobilized primarily by local actors – undermined TPS’s taken-for-granted status, resulting not in outright disappearance but in hybrid transformation into the Toyota India Production System. The findings extend deinstitutionalization theory by distinguishing insider and outsider pressures and specifying boundary conditions of high institutional distance and uncertainty. Practical implications Increased international business activity across the world owing to globalization has resulted in enterprises exporting, borrowing and/or experimenting with management concepts and models developed in different institutional contexts. This paper is a call to practitioners to consider the potential pitfalls inherent within such initiatives. Originality/value This is the first work – to the best of the authors’ knowledge – that has used the lens of deinstitutionalization to explore the transplantation journey of an overseas affiliate of the Japanese global automotive giant Toyota.