system persist in spite of increasing diffusion of practices worldwide. This avenue of research
may also illuminate why some attempts to transfer practices across dissimilar societies fail
while others succeed.
CONCLUSION
This study examined the transfer of the American business practice of Socially Responsible
Investment (SRI) to France and Quebec, illuminating two contextualization processes. The
findings show how individuals selected and mobilized local institutions to fit SRI to the new
context, and they revealed that SRI took different form in the two transfer processes. This
finding is consistent with previous studies. A practice that is transferred to two societies takes
different form because the institutional structures in the two host societies are different. Our
findings are based on only two case studies. Other case studies, conducted in parallel, would
help determine whether the institutional structures (partially) explain the observed differences
in the contextualized form of SRI.
The study also revealed that the same five micro-strategies were employed in both
transfer processes. The SRI practice took different shape in the two host societies, but the
strategies used in the process of contextualize were similar. This finding suggests some
general patterns of contextualization. Additional research would be required to determine
whether the repertoire of micro-strategies is generalizable beyond SRI transfers, francophone
entrepreneurs, and contemporary time. We compared our findings to previous research on
contextualization, translation, and institutional transfer and found that the micro-strategies
extended previous research on these topics. They also linked disparate lines of inquiry to one
another. The micro-strategies bridge the individual level of analysis with the societal level of
analysis. Most importantly, they show how individuals engage creatively and strategically
with institutional structures to produce the kind of outcomes that have been identified in
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