W. Richard Scott Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
Department of Sociology
Stanford University
Email: scottwr@stanford.edu
Discipline: Sociology
Expertise: Organization of Care, Physician Practice Arrangements
Investigator Award 
Development and Evaluation of an Integrated Theoretical Model of Changes in the Organization of Medical CareAward Year: 1993 This study elaborates upon and empirically evaluates an integrated theoretical framework designed to depict and better account for changes in the organization of the U.S. medical care delivery system during the past three decades. It includes and synthesizes important developments in organization theory including contingency theory, resource dependence, population ecology, transaction costs economics, and institutional theory and illuminates fundamental changes that have occurred in medical care organizations since 1960. Major organization theories and existing empirical research on medical care organizations are evaluated. A data base on changes occurring in the medical services sector in the San Francisco Bay area from 1960 to 1995 are assembled and analyzed to support the testing of hypotheses drawn from a variety of theoretical perspectives.
Background 
W. Richard (Dick) Scott is professor emeritus in the department of sociology of Stanford University, with courtesy appointments in the Graduate School of Business, School of Education, and School of Medicine. He also served as the founding director of the Stanford Center for Organizations research (SCOR) - 1988-1996. He has spent his entire career at Stanford. After becoming Emeritus in 1999, he has been recalled by the Dean to active service, and continues to teach doctoral-level seminars in the Department. He is the author or co-author of many scholarly books and articles including, Institutions and Organizations, Sage Publications, 2007, 3rd ed., Institutional Change and Healthcare Organizations: From Professional Dominance to Managed Care (with Martin Ruef, Peter Mendel and Carol Caronna), University of Chicago Press, 2000; and Organizations and Organizing: Rational, Natural and Open System Perspectives (with Gerald F. Davis), Prentice-Hall, 2007. He has also published over 100 scholarly articles and book chapters. Scott is a past fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and was the recipient in 1988 of the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Management and Organization Theory Division of the Academy of Management. In 1996, he received the Richard D. Irwin Award from the Academy of Management for a career of distinguished scholarly contributions to management. And, in 2000, the American Sociological Association, Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work created the "W. Richard Scott" award to recognize annually the outstanding article contributing to the advancement of the field. He has received honorary degrees from the Copenhagen School of Business (2000) and from the Helsinki School of Economics (2001). He is currently involved in theoretical work bringing together institutional theory in organizations with social movement theory; and in conducting empirical research on institutional change at the community level with collaborators from School of Education and institutional conflicts at the global level with collaborators from the School of Engineering.
- Ruef, M., Scott, W.R. A Multidimensional Model of Organizational Legitimacy: Hospital Survival in Changing Institutional Environments. Administrative Science Quarterly, 1998, 43(4): 877-904.
- Ruef, M., Mendel, P., Scott, W.R. An Organizational Field Approach to Resource Environments in Healthcare: Comparing Entries of Hospitals and Home Health Agencies in the San Francisco Bay Region. Health Services Research, 1998, 32(6): 775-803.