Abstract: At present， institution research is a hot topic in the academics of international social sciences. Its main research areas are related to politics， sociology， psychology， and management. Introduced into the field of institution research in the 1970s， organization has attracted extensive attention in the academia. This paper systematically examines the developmental course of institution research and reviews the new institutionalism and its contributions to organization studies.

Key words: institution, organization, new institutionalism, legitimacy