W e draw upon institutional theory to investigate the interactive influences of institutional mechanisms-coercive, mimetic, and normative-on the diffusion of a controversial and socially stigmatized practice, same-sex partner health benefits, in Fortune 500 corporations between 1990 and 2003. Given the social stigma associated with domestic partnerships of lesbians and gay men during the period of the study, the provision of these benefits was highly controversial and induced intense contestation between proponents and opponents of the institution of equal treatment for lesbian and gay employees. We explore the diffusion of theses benefits using data on cumulative adoptions by similar others, state laws forbidding discrimination based on sexual orientation, and overall tenor in press coverage of the benefits. Our analysis shows that the cumulative number of adoptions within industry increased the positive effect of state laws on the corporation's decision to provide the benefits. However, the cumulative number of adoptions in the state of the corporation's headquarters decreased the positive effects of both state laws and overall tenor in press coverage on such a decision. Accordingly, our study contributes to institutional theory by pointing to complex interactive influences of institutional mechanisms on the institutionalization of contested practices, and to the literature on lesbian and gay issues in the workplace by studying factors influencing organizational decisions to adopt policies supportive of lesbian and gay employees.

Past research on group diversity tends to overlook organizational contextual and group process variables. Although recent studies have revealed the main effects of group diversity on intra-group conflict, it is important to examine the contextual factors reducing or facilitating those effects on intra-group conflict. This paper presents a conceptual analysis and research proposals that build on past research on intra-group conflict and organizational culture to examine the relationships between organizational culture, intra-group conflict, and group diversity. The paper proposes that organizational cultural intensity and content have direct impact on intra-group conflict and moderate the relationship between group diversity and intra-group conflict, depending on the degree of value congruence and the value content shared among group members.

In this study, we draw upon a social movement perspective to examine how movements and institutional opportunity (political and cultural) influenced a sample of Fortune 500 corporations' adoption of a controversial organizational practice-same-sex partner health benefits. Our results show that while corporations ' gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) employee resource groups increased the rate of the corporations' benefits adoption, the effect of the GLBT employee resource groups became weaker when the degree of resource concentration of local GLBT advocacy organizations was high. Political opportunity derived from state legal environments and cultural opportunity derived from the tenor of moral legitimacy in leading national press coverage had little influence on the rate of benefits adoption. Furthermore, the influence of a GLBT employee resource group on the rate of benefits adoption by its corporation became weaker when cultural opportunity, derived from increases in positive tenor of pragmatic legitimacy discourse used by movement and countermovement organizations in the press, was present. Accordingly, our study shows the complicated effects of movements within and outside corporations and cultural opportunity on the adoption of a controversial practice and reveals the importance of mobilizing structure (both internal and external movements) and cultural opportunity in the adoption. Acknowledgments: We are grateful to Kristina Dahlin, Tim Pollock, and Jung-Chin Shen for their comments on earlier drafts and to Zoe Chan, Hoi-Yee Ding, Alex Edwards, Glory Keong, Mathulan Moorthy, and Ron Ophir for their data coding assistance.

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