It may be that LTIPs belong to a class of organizational
innovations that are both symbolic and substantive and
whose formal features can be decoupled at relatively low
cost from actual practices. Similar innovations might include
quality circles and affirmative action rules. Future research
should examine whether organizational practices or policies
whose adoption entails extensive political, cognitive, or
financial resource commitments are as well-suited to
potential decoupling. Devoting greater attention to the study
of how, or under what circumstances, internal political
processes affect the adoption and subsequent
implementation of innovations would help us learn more
about both institutionalization and diffusion. It would also
teach us to be more skeptical. As this study shows,
assuming from the fact of its adoption that an innovation has
been implemented may be mistaking a symbolic action for a
substantive change. When the purpose of innovations is
controversial or ambiguous, as it is in CEO compensation
practices, substance and symbolism may be particularly
likely to diverge. The payoffs for recognizing this divergence
could be great.