Sociology Isomorphism

Isomorphism is the sociological term for when two organizations come to resemble one another. The organizations, even if they are competing, have a relationship where they observe the practices of the opposing organization, and if they are successful they may adopt the practice. The organizations cannot be completely independent of each other, if they were then the lack of sharing ideas would cause both organizations to suffer.

An excellent example of this is McDonald's and Burger King. These two restaurants have been actively competing for years, and both of them still maintain a strong company. They each try new and different things to try and get an edge, and if the new idea works a little later the opposing organization will adapt it for their own needs. One of the most notable and consumer friendly examples of this are the dollar menu at McDonald's and the value menu of Burger King. They have different names but they are essentially the same thing. They are menus where everything is cheap. Burger King was the first to add their value menu in 1998. After seeing how much of a success it was McDonald's introduced their dollar menu in 2002.

A more recent example between the two organizations is the new chicken nuggets at Burger King. McDonalds has had chicken mcnuggets on their menu for awhile and they are fantastic. Recently Burger King has started to try and compete with this by introducing their own chicken nuggets, which aren't nearly as good sadly. But the point is that Burger King saw that this was working for McDonald's and decided to try their own version of it. There are countless other examples that can be seen between these two companies ranging from their free fry day once a year to the fact that they both use drive through.