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Discourse and Deinstitutionalization: The Decline of DDT
Abstract
Drawing on institutional theory emphasizing translation and discourse, we explore outsider-driven deinstitutionalization through a case study of the abandonment of widespread, taken-for-granted practices of DDT use between 1962 and 1972. Our findings illustrate how abandonment of practices results from "problematizations" that-through subsequent "translation"- change discourse in ways that undermine the institutional pillars supporting practices. This occurs through new "subject positions" from which actors speak and act in support of problematizations, and new bodies of knowledge, which normalize them. We introduce the concept of "defensive institutional work" and illustrate how actors carry out disruptive and defensive work by authoring texts.
... However, a practice firmly entrenched in one period or place can experience decline or even abandonment in another (Oliver 1992). Practices once regularly enacted become increasingly rare as they are questioned, contested, and sanctioned (Ahmadjian and Robinson 2001, Rao et al. 2003, Maguire and Hardy 2009). Yet, even as a practice trends toward deinstitutionalization, organizations may continue to use it (e.g., Gaba and Dokko 2016). ...
... Although those in charge of organizations "ultimately decide on whether to engage in a practice or not" (Clemente and Roulet 2014, p. 97), those lower in the organization have little choice but to inhabit a practice (Scully andCreed 1997, Hallett andVentresca 2006) from a prior institutional era. People performing a practice in the context of temporal miscoupling are likely to experience uncertainty about what they can or should be doing as the appropriateness, functionality, and meaning of the practice are challenged (Thornton 2002, Maguire and Hardy 2009, Cobb 2015. Furthermore, the symbolic and material resources that inform a practice have faded (Huising 2016). ...
... Such practices include, for example, bureaucratic methods to manage health and safety (Hallett and Ventresca 2006), international quality standards (Sandholtz 2012), total quality management (Zbaracki 1998), grievance procedures (Edelman et al. 1999), and standardized grading and lesson plans (Hallett 2010). These practices are created and diffused by field-level actors including professional associations (Carter and Mahallati 2019), consultants (David and Strang 2006), social movement actors (Rao et al. 2003, Hiatt et al. 2009), nongovernmental organizations (Maguire and Hardy 2009), regulators (Kameo 2015), and various other arms of the state (Hallett and Meanwell 2016). Field-level actors provide resources that are drawn on to inform the local performance of the practice (Hallett and Ventresca 2006, Binder 2007, Huising 2016. ...
A practice firmly entrenched in one period can experience decline or even deinstitutionalization in another. However, at the organization level, practice abandonment can be a slow process. Organizations may continue to use a practice that is in decline or out of date, coupling asynchronously with a prior institutional environment. In this paper we develop the concept of temporal miscoupling and examine the challenges of performing a practice under this condition. Drawing on a field study of a labor strike in Canada, we examine the difficulties of inhabiting the practice of striking—picketing a workplace—with eroding political, legal, and cultural support; declining familiarity with the practice; and fading narratives to motivate and justify the practice. We show how strikers developed extemporaneous resources that gave local meaning and form to the practice. These improvised resources supported the practice but distorted historical meanings and performances. Our study expands the analytical repertoire of inhabited institutionalism by problematizing the temporal lag between institutional conditions and organizational practices for the on-the-ground enactment of practices. The extemporaneous resources generated in the context of temporal miscoupling threaten future enactments, indicating an important role for practice enactment in processes of decline and revitalization.
Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2021.16026 .
... This conceptualization of institutionalization recognizes individuals' embedded agency in reproducing, repairing, and defending institutionalized practices in the face of challenges to their legitimacy from within the organization and the external environment (Battilana and D'Aunno 2009;Herepath and Kitchener 2016;Lawrence and Suddaby 2006;Maguire and Hardy 2009). Prior research has classified such challenges as either evolutionary or revolutionary in pace (Micelotta, Lounsbury, and Greenwood 2017); here, we are most interested in theorizing 'revolutionary' institutional change, which is typically instigated by "institutional disruptions": "jolts" or "shocks" that expose contradictions or ambiguities and call into question the legitimacy of established practices (Desai 2011;Greenwood, Suddaby, and Hinings 2002;Hoffman 1999). 1 When successful, these disruptions may erode the legitimacy of institutionalized practices, resulting in their eventual abandonment (Oliver 1992); however, the work of institutional defenders can restore the status quo ante or moderate the extent of the resulting change (Micelotta and Washington 2013;Nite 2017). ...
... For example, Munir (2005) shows how the introduction of digital imaging technology was understood as a disruption only when field organizations theorized it as being disruptive and brought the disruption to the notice of other actors in the field. Maguire and Hardy (2009), in the same vein, demonstrate how Rachel Carson's 1962 book, Silent Spring, was "translated" by organizations as a problem for existing practices, and how those translations, as they spread across the field, resulted in the deinstitutionalization of the use of DDT in agriculture. These studies cohere with a broader literature on events in organizational studies generally theorizing events as being intersubjectively constructed (Ballinger and Rockmann 2010;Morgeson, Mitchell, and Liu 2015), although this literature generally does not use the enacted sensemaking/sensegiving framework per se. ...
... Finally, our theorizing suggests that a greater focus may be paid to the moments immediately following a fieldwide event in studying institutional change brought about by exogenous shocks (Micelotta, Lounsbury, and Greenwood 2017). As discussed above, the predominant approach to studying such institutional change has been to consider the institutional disruption as coterminous with the precipitating event (Desai 2011;Maguire and Hardy 2009) that leads to a prolonged dialectic of disruptive, defensive, and reconstructive institutional work (Fredriksson 2014;Micelotta and Washington 2013). Here, by focusing on the construction of the disruption as a contingent phenomenon after a fieldwide event but antecedent to this institutional work, we draw attention to the link between framing and action during periods of ambiguity as a mechanism for understanding the nature and effectiveness of the institutional work that emerges. ...
If an event happens in the woods, and nobody responds to it, is it a disruption? In this paper, we address a gap in the organizational sociology literature about how events are constructed as “institutional disruptions” in institutionally plural fields. We integrate the disconnected literatures of sensemaking/sensegiving and institutional pluralism to argue that institutional disruptions in institutionally plural fields are not coterminous with exogenous events, but rather are the result of a process of fieldwide sensemaking and sensegiving mediated by intermediary organizations. We use the American higher education community’s response to the Trump administration’s 2017 ‘travel ban’ as a paradigmatic example that illuminates these dynamics with some clarity. In particular, we illuminate the relationships between conditions of institutional pluralism, extra-field events, the social construction of meaning within fields, the role of intermediary organizations, and the nature of organizational actions in response. Emerging from our theoretical exploration, we offer implications and avenues for future research for organizational sociologists. Collectively, our theorizing opens the door for scholars to re-examine previously taken-for-granted assumptions about disruptions and better theorize the earliest moments of institutional change.
... un nuevo conjunto de reglas y normas que orientan el funcionamientos de empresas públicas y privadas o de la puesta en funcionamiento de un política pública en particular) que más se adecue con su forma de pensamiento, valores, interés particulares, o el simple anhelo, benévolo, de lograr materializar cambios de índole institucional que piensa puede beneficiar considerablemente a una nación. La respuestas que han salido a la luz sobre estas preguntas indican que existen unas condiciones particulares que afectan el entorno en donde los emprendedores operan que incitan el proceso de cambio (Julie Battilana, 2011;J Battilana & D'Aunno, 2009;Boxenbaum & Battilana, 2005;Garud, Hardy, & Maguire, 2007;Hardy & Maguire, 2008, 2010aHardy & Maguirre, 2009;T. Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006;Steve Maguire & Hardy, 2009;S. ...
... Greenwood et al., 2002;Hardy & Maguire, 2008;Rao, Morril, & Zald, 2000;Townley, 2002); sin embargo, otros estudios han mostrado que dependiendo del contexto institucional en el que se encuentre el campo, los cambios institucionales pueden ser iniciados por actores que ocupan diferentes posiciones sociales, centrales (Boxenbaum & Battilana, 2005;R. Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006;Rao et al., 2000), y periféricas (Hardy & Maguirre, 2009;Hensman, 2003). Además, estudios recientes muestran que actores que no están embebidos en un solo campo tienen acceso a experiencias alternativas provenientes de múltiples campos y una variedad de mecanismos. ...
... Sobre esta última cuestión, los estudios empíricos recientes más sobresalientes del campo del emprendimiento institucional (Julie Battilana, 2011;Buhr, 2012;Hardy & Maguirre, 2009) continúan reportando el rol central que tienen los emprendedores, los cuales aprovechan las condiciones que permiten el cambio institucional para llevar a cabo sus propuestas, y sobrepasan las restricciones que ejercen las estructurales institucionales en las que están inmersos. Como he explicado en este documento, la literatura de emprendimiento institucional ha llamado a estos actores emprendedores institucionales, mientras que el MSF se denominan emprendedores políticos. ...
Los modelos actuales que explican el proceso de emprendimiento institucional adolecen de una comprensión profunda sobre cómo varían en el tiempo las condiciones que facilitan la ocurrencia de cambios institucionales al nivel de políticas enfocadas en el sector de la vivienda. Para llenar ese vacío, se propone en este libro el análisis del diseño y creación de un sistema financiero conocido como la Unidad de Poder Constante (UPAC), que impulsó el sector de la construcción desde la década del setenta hasta los noventa y representa a su vez un cambio institucional de considerables proporciones en un país como Colombia. Para poder entender este hecho histórico, el autor plantea apoyarse en el concepto de emprendedor institucional, representado por el papel del economista canadiense y colombiano Lauchlin Currie, y analizar dos casos que permitieron el surgimiento del UPAC: La Operación Colombia y el Plan de las Cuatro Estrategias. Con este planteamiento, el lector al final logrará entender cómo se produjo la creación del UPAC a lo largo de una época crítica de la historia colombiana.
... Diffusion can be accelerated and reoriented by theorizing and modeling ideas. Energy efficiency applications are theorized in certain events such as professional, political and organizational discourses and provide application models (Maguire & Hardy, 2009). Theorizations on energy efficiency in organizations can include appropriate measures to be taken regarding energy efficiency, strategic or investment decisions. ...
... Efforts to increase energy efficiency do not only mean innovation, but also the adoption of new practices and the abandonment of old practices. Maguire and Hardy (2009) state that abandonment of applications is due to the problem. Viewing as a problem undermines the current meanings of 221 practices and cognitions. ...
... Theorizing and problematizing processes require the attention of businesses and their members (Maguire & Hardy, 2009). Ocasio (1997) ...
Businesses have to deal with the unpredictable, uncertain and often the unknown. Even when things are running smoothly and in stable times, important and unexpected events effect on political or market changes, which creates uncertainty and causes problems for businesses. There can be an unforeseen devastating change in businesses at any time through a sudden virus outbreak (for example, for the reflection of Covid19, which emerged in Wuhan province of China in 2020 and was declared a pandemic, on SMEs, see Fairlie, 2020) or a nuclear accident (For the effects of Japan's Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident on the operations of the businesses in the region, see Gulati, Casto, & Krontiris, 2014). Whereas, businesses generally tend to maintain their current status and settled to established business models. However, when businesses are subjected to severe pressure, they have to change their current position.
In general, the decrease in energy resources in the world increases the uncertainty and the obligation of change for organizations and requires them to develop new policies for the future. At the same time, it is of great importance to use existing energy resources more effectively and efficiently for all businesses. In the next few decades, businesses may face many consequences, from severe climate impacts to negative energy. Besides to rising global temperatures, rising sea levels, and the rottenness of extraordinarily weather events, there are incremented risks to infrastructure, human health and agriculture (Maiorano, 2019). For this reason, businesses need to determine important strategies in the field of energy efficiency to gain advantage over their competitors (Angels, Kunkis, & Altstaedt, 2020). These strategies include decreasing the emission of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, largely associated with the burning of fossil fuels, in order to reduce climate change around the world (Maiorano, 2019).
While there is still a gap in the world in formulating climate mitigation targets and implementing de-carbonization targets, businesses have started to anticipate a phasing out of fossil fuel-based power generation. In these important developments, creating a common vision for the future of businesses is an important strategy. De-carbonization of energy producing enterprises in the energy sector infers renewal carbon-containing fuels with non-fossil alternatives. Fossil fuels are old energy storage vehicles that manufacturers have produced for thousands of years. Economic system is contingent on energy produced from fossil fuels, complete de-carbonization could lead to a radical change in terms of economy and society. It is possible to say that they should be aware of the concept of de-carbonization in their businesses and start taking the necessary measures and applications from this area. Businesses should formulate the carbon-free future in advance, anticipate legal regulations and adjust their corporate goals accordingly. Therefore, climate policy is a basic element in creating future strategies (Angels et al., 2020).
Conventional energy providers show the major changes in energy systems in the coming years as a requirement of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and these changes are in an uncertain situation in affecting profitability and long-term survival of businesses. Electricity generating companies experience management task complexity in this sense and they have to develop important strategies for themselves and their future (Angels et al., 2020).
A traditional economic view suggests that workers are less stimulated to save energy in their job than outside job since monetary rewards are more indirect at job. Nevertheless, leader enterprises have linked the success of the individual to the success of the organization by making energy performance a urgency for everybody. At the same time, they find ways to take advantage of their employees' intrinsic motives to increase productivity, reduce pollution, and innovate by going beyond external monetary rewards. Many employees find that when asked for making a difference in this way, they respond with energetic and creative solutions that result in significant savings in resources and energy (Prindle & Finlinson, 2011).
The increase in environmental awareness due to consumer, society and government regulations, and the concerns of business partners and management for this cause the necessity of energy efficiency because of a sustainable competition. The aim of this chapter is to explain what kind of policies and strategies should be followed in order to ensure energy efficiency for a sustainable environment. Which types of applications should be included in accordance with these strategies constitute the sub-objective of the chapter. In this context, the fight against uncertainty due to the energy transformation of the organizations that follow certainty is explained, and then applications of the policies and strategies followed for ensuring energy efficiency are discussed. The theories that reflect the perspectives of researchers in the analysis of organizations’ practices in relation to energy efficiency are examined in the next heading. Finally, the strategies that corporates can follow in the implementation of energy efficiency are listed as sub-headings.
... At least two organizational approaches can be suggested during the misconduct using an adaptation of institutional theory. First, representatives from groups who were not directly involved in the misconduct may attempt to maintain or restore the legitimacy of their field by creating texts, statements, or other forms of discourse that convey comforting details about the disputed practices or other similar events (Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005;Maguire & Hardy, 2009; Global Economics Review (GER) Barnett & King, 2008). Such attempts might, for example, refute charges that questioned techniques are improper, contest allegations of unfavourable incidents, place the responsibility on individuals outside of the sector, or offer assurances that continuing operations are more trustworthy than is commonly assumed (Maguire & Hardy, 2009;Suchman, 1995). ...
... First, representatives from groups who were not directly involved in the misconduct may attempt to maintain or restore the legitimacy of their field by creating texts, statements, or other forms of discourse that convey comforting details about the disputed practices or other similar events (Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005;Maguire & Hardy, 2009; Global Economics Review (GER) Barnett & King, 2008). Such attempts might, for example, refute charges that questioned techniques are improper, contest allegations of unfavourable incidents, place the responsibility on individuals outside of the sector, or offer assurances that continuing operations are more trustworthy than is commonly assumed (Maguire & Hardy, 2009;Suchman, 1995). ...
... The institutional theory is proposed to investigate how audience perceptions of the strength of an innocent company's ties to a deviant company are influenced by firm-level institutional signals. Furthermore, defensive actions taken by corporations not involved directly in crises carry danger, thus it's crucial to check whether businesses take such actions (Maguire & Hardy, 2009;Barnett & King, 2008). The existing study advances that purpose by developing a theory to anticipate whether and which organizations actively try to safeguard an organizational field when problems do arise. ...
According to a new study on stigma spillover, the crisis spillover effect spreads from one firm to the next within an industry. However, the impact and contributing factors to the crisis spillover remain unknown. We enhance this research by investigating two related questions: What influence does an accused firm's wrongdoing have on the performance of industry peers in the same industry? What influence do product similarity and distance have on this spillover effect? Using panel data from 240 companies in Pakistan, our linear model results reveal that product similarity negatively affects the cumulative abnormal returns on the industry peers while there is a positive effect of distance on the performance of industry peers, as measured by the duration of crisis spillover. Our findings make significant contributions to both the literature and practice.
... Finally, the institutional perspective is robust and well-elaborated, collecting more than four decades of theoretical effort, resulting in a refined vocabulary (Greenwood et al., 2017). To navigate this elaborative richness, we mobilized a particularly well-developed conceptual apparatus, namely that of Scott (2013), which defines institutions as regulative, normative, and cognitive elements (Hoffman, 1999;Maguire & Hardy, 2009). While it may not be as contemporary as the institutional logics-perspective (Thornton et al., 2012), it has the advantage of being well-known outside organizational studies, that is, allowing for communication with sustainability scholars (Geels, 2004;Mont, 2004). ...
... Here, regulative elements refer to laws and rules backed up by a coercive state, which can include prescriptions of stakeholders' legal privileges and responsibilities (Hoffman, 1999). Normative elements refer to the values that prevail in a context, what is considered right or morally appropriate (Maguire & Hardy, 2009), embedded in professional codes of conduct (Scott, 2001), but also in generic norms, such as sustainability, a new moral theme within business (Hengst et al., 2020). Cognitive elements refer to "shared conceptions that constitute the nature of social reality" (Scott, 2001, p. 57). ...
Research points to public-private collaboration’s importance for supporting the transformation from linear to circular business models. As little is known of such collaboration, we conducted a 4-year in-depth case study to answer how transformation is affected by two types of tensions: between linear and circular elements and between public and private partners. We find that tensions shape the transformational process into a dialectical pattern, as partners’ institutional differences initially cause them to conflict over whether to focus on linear or circular elements but, over time, arrive at a synthesis. Our findings contribute to circular business model research by illustrating the usefulness of understanding transformational challenges as linear-circular tensions and by illuminating the dialectics of transformational processes.
... In order to maintain institutions, actors may try to (i) ensure obedience to the existing institutional system by creating rules that support them, safeguarding compliance to the system, or generating obstacles to institutional change (e.g., enabling, policing, deterring) or (ii) to reproduce norms and beliefs by mythologizing the past, providing examples associated to the normative basis of an institution, or routinizing practices. In addition to the typology, Maguire and Hardy [43] add another category: defensive work. Defensive work is implemented purposefully to counteract disruptive work, with an ultimate goal of maintaining institutions [44]. ...
... Defensive work is implemented purposefully to counteract disruptive work, with an ultimate goal of maintaining institutions [44]. Actors may attempt to defend institutions by opposing the assertions and demands of actors who seek changes [43,45]. While defensive and maintaining work have similarities [44], we treat them as separate concepts. ...
How do niche actors navigate after “hype” is gone? A better understanding of the motivations and actions of technology advocates during a disillusionment phase can inform policymakers in dealing with technology and advocates facing negative expectations. Building on the conceptual notion of institutional work, we explain how biogas interest groups in Germany attempted to influence institutions when positive expectations about the technology were overwhelmed by negative ones. We shed light on their efforts to influence the Renewable Energy Act, which has provided state support for biogas generation for electricity supply, and their discursive justifications. Our analysis reveals that the interest groups predominantly drew on maintaining and creating work with the goal of protecting government support for biogas while accepting and introducing incremental changes towards enhanced economic and environmental sustainability. The narratives employed by the biogas actors addressed a broader range of stakeholders over time. Furthermore, we show that their institutional work practices were influenced by macro-level conditions, as well as by the resources and skills within the sector and actors. We identified instances of interaction between maintaining and creating work: creating work demonstrated the positive potential of technology, justified the continuation of support and helped adapt the support system to enhanced sustainability. Our work contributes to a nuanced understanding of agency in sociotechnical transitions by highlighting actors who do not engage in the typical activities of niche or incumbent actors.
... Thus, individuals can work on organizational practices to confront ethnic discrimination with the aim of shaping their boundaries while building, reinforcing and maintaining them as legitimate within a domain (e.g., Zietsma & Lawrence, 2010). They can also engage in work that contests and disrupts these practices (e.g., Maguire & Hardy, 2009), particularly vivid and oppressive ones (i.e., Nazi oppression and the Holocaust, dehumanization of immigrants moving to North America and Europe) (e.g., Martí & Fernández, 2013;McLaren, 2003). The literature indicates that when individuals do not completely adhere to institutional arrangements, they perform small acts of resistance. ...
... Overall, then, we show how the conditions for workplace inequality are steadily maintained for the sake of business, preserving professionals' élite identities and reinforcing a positive image of the focal organizations and their practices through the different forms of work professionals perform, 'on the ground,' to maintain the status quo (Acker, 2012;Amis et al., 2020;Benschop, 2021). However, we have observed increasing episodes of professionals working to contest these systems through their identities by debating the implications of organizational practices for individuals (and not just 'the business') (Maguire & Hardy, 2009;Martí & Fernández, 2013). First, we have elaborated a social-symbolical perspective of ethnic discrimination in organizations. ...
In Western societies and organizations, episodes of discrimination based on individual demographic and social characteristics still occur. Relevant questions, such as why ethnic discrimination is perpetuated and how people confront it in the workplace, remain open. In this study, we adopt a social-symbolic work perspective to explore how individuals confront workplace ethnic discrimination by both upholding and challenging it. In doing so, we incorporate the perspectives of those directly experiencing, observing and neglecting discrimination. Specifically, we focus on the Italian branches of North American professional service firms (PSFs), performing a qualitative investigation of the worlds of concern among professionals regarding the topic of ethnic discrimination to explore how different backgrounds motivate social-symbolic work. We find that different forms of work are enacted to support the status quo, shape the boundaries of existing organizational practices, and balance professional identities, emotions, and careers to silence episodes of ethnic discrimination. We also highlight cases of ‘soft,’ yet increasing, work that contests the status quo. Finally, we discuss our results in light of neo-institutional and critical management research to ultimately inspire our focal firms and societies to find alternatives to the rhetoric in the established approaches to inequality.
... Looking across the literature on institutional change, one can see that shifts in dominant institutional logics have been shown to follow from exogenous changes (Berman, 2012;Sine & David, 2003), institutional entrepreneurship (Hardy & Maguire, 2017;Misangyi, Weaver, & Elms, 2008), and gradual accumulation of new practices (Smets, Aristidou, & Whittington, 2017). Changing societal and political conditions, for example, can create opportunities for 'challengers' to mobilize and potentially upend longstanding institutional arrangements that privilege 'incumbents' (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012;Levy & Scully, 2007;Maguire & Hardy, 2009). Similarly, institutional entrepreneurs have been shown to strategically negotiate the constraints and affordances of the institutional context to effect change at various levels (Battilana, Leca, & Boxenbaum, 2009;Garud, Hardy, & Maguire, 2007). ...
... The presence of uniquely powerful actors has important theoretical and methodological implications. One such implication is that the complexity and messiness of institutional change may be less overt than portrayed in much of the literature (e.g., Fligstein & McAdam, 2012;Maguire & Hardy, 2009). An example from China's transition can be seen in the decade-long negotiation and drafting of the Property Law, which in 2007 granted equal protection to public and private properties (Chen, 2007;Zhang, 2008). ...
Haveman, Joseph-Goteiner, and Li's (2023) perspective article contributes important insights into China's transition away from central planning and redistribution toward greater market coordination of economic exchange. In our commentary on their insightful article, we build on and extend their arguments in three main ways. First, we discuss how future studies might extend the authors’ work by leveraging the ‘messiness’ of institutional change to explore the cross-level dynamics involved in transforming institutional logics. Second, we build on the authors’ call for more historically grounded, contextualized research on institutional logics to argue that the conditions surrounding logic emergence have important implications for inter-logic dynamics and organizational responses. Third, we build on the authors’ suggestions for future research to underscore the broader consequences of institutional logics and their potential to perpetuate or exacerbate social inequalities and other societal challenges.
... Such inquiry is essential because distinct actors shape opportunities for action in differing ways through their discursive engagements Meyer and Höllerer 2010;Maguire and Hardy 2009;Nielsen et al., 2024), and the adoption of AI depends on how people view its benefits (Nambisan et al. 2017). As Miranda and colleagues note (2022a, p. 1422), through discourse, actors "collectively interpret the innovation, legitimate it, and mobilize the collective action necessary for its diffusion". ...
Artificial intelligence (AI) has captured the interest of multiple actors with speculations about its benefits and dangers. Despite increasing scholarly attention to the discourses of AI, there are limited insights on how different groups interpret and debate AI and shape its opportunities for action. We consider AI an issue field understood as a contested phenomenon where heterogeneous actors assert and debate the meanings and consequences of AI. Drawing on computational social science methods, we analyzed large amounts of text on how politicians (parliamentarians) consultancies (high reputation firms), and lay experts (AI-forum Reddit users) articulate meanings about AI. Through topic modeling, we identified diverse and co-existing discourses: politicians predominantly articulated AI as a societal issue requiring an ethical response, consultancies stressed AI as a business opportunity pushing a transformation-oriented discourse, and lay experts expressed AI as a technical issue shaping a techno-feature discourse. Moreover, our analysis details the hopes and fears within AI discourses, revealing that sentiment varies by actor group. Based on these findings, we contribute new insights about AI as an issue field shaped by the discursive work performed by heterogeneous actors.
... In addition, when the under-representation of women in maledominated HEIs is questioned, stakeholders may engage in "defensive institutional work" to maintain existing power relationships and gender norms (Maguire andHardy 2009, cited in Roos et al. 2020, 468). This resistance, compounded by a scarcity of expertise in GM (Benito and Verge 2020), indifference from department heads toward gender equality, and a perceived threat or confusion (True and Parisi 2013), impede the translation of GM policy into practice (Peterson and Jordansson 2022). ...
This qualitative study explores the perspectives of senior leadership on gender equality within higher education institutions (HEIs) in Kazakhstan, addressing a gap in the literature on the agency of senior leaders in mainstreaming gender equality in post‐Soviet contexts. Kazakhstan is a significant case due to its high ranking on gender indicators in Central Asia and its unique blend of modernization and traditional gender discourses. We interviewed 13 leaders across 10 universities to analyze how they perceive the relationship between gender and education and their potential role in advancing gender equality. Utilizing Butler's theory of performativity, our analysis reveals that senior leaders disregard structural or institutional gender‐related concerns. They tend to uphold and embody traditional gender norms and attribute existing gender inequalities to cultural norms which limit their agency. While leaders acknowledge the role of higher education in promoting gender equality, they perceive gender issues as resistant to change, which creates obstacles to effective gender mainstreaming. The findings provide insights into reimagining gender mainstreaming strategies in HEIs in post‐Soviet contexts and beyond.
... An important discussion in the literature about institutional work concerns the actions through which institutions are defended against disruptive activities. Although the underlying aim of these actions is the maintenance of institutions, defend it sometimes proposed as a separate form of institutional work (Maguire & Hardy, 2009;Park & Grundmann, 2025), next to create, maintain and disrupt. This discussion brings attention to the overlap and interplay between different types of institutional work. ...
The aim of this paper is to provide further insights on the influence of institutions and institutional conditions on societal transformations and systemic change and to illustrate how institutional conditions for transformative capacity of policy arrangements can be assessed in the context of environmental governance and sustainability transformations.
... (2) Strategies of normalization pertain to the invocation of established procedures or prospective futures, emphasizing desirable historical or forward-looking perspectives (Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005;Vaara et al., 2006). (3) Strategies of moralization underscore conduct aligned with societal norms and values, encompassing widely endorsed ideals like national identity and environmentalism (Joutsenvirta & Vaara, 2015;Maguire & Hardy, 2009;Vaara, Tienari & Koveshnikov, 2021;Vaara et al., 2006). (4) Strategies of authorization draw upon those aspects that have social authority (Elsbach, 1994;Van Leeuwen & Wodak, 1999), such as regulations, legislations or recognized institutional figures (Bitektine & Haack, 2015). ...
Land grabbing intensified as a global phenomenon between 2007 and 2009, driven by entities from major economic centers acquiring vast parcels of land in low-income regions across Africa, Asia, and South America. Proponents argue that large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) deliver significant socioeconomic and environmental benefits by replacing inefficient smallholder practices and supporting climate change initiatives. Critics, however, contend that these acquisitions often seem speculative, lack robust justifications, and fail to consult or fairly compensate local communities. Recent evidence suggests that this commodification has disproportionately harmed marginalized communities, especially in areas lacking robust regulatory frameworks, leading to displacement, deforestation, and unfulfilled promises. We explore the mechanisms by which proponents of LSLAs justify these acquisitions despite significant local resistance. Our analysis focuses on the rhetorical strategies these actors use to construct land as an economic commodity available for exchange. We identify four key strategies: rhetorical axiomatization, rhetorical commensuration, rhetorical impersonation, and rhetorical dystopianization. These strategies illustrate the paradoxical use of language by LSLA proponents, ostensibly aimed at addressing grand challenges, yet often leading to collective action problems. We conclude with considerations of the practical and policy implications of our findings.
... Ces études appréhendent plus en détail la manière dont les grossistes en fruits et légumes aspirent à maintenir le statu quo de l'intermédiation et d'une position centrale.Parmi les trois formes de travail institutionnel initialement décrites parLawrence & Suddaby (2006), le travail de maintien concerne l'ensemble des efforts pour maintenir une institution ou la position des acteurs au sein de l'institution. Différents efforts de maintien ont ainsi été identifiés allant de la réparation de l'institution jusqu'à la défense d'une position lorsque deux groupes d'acteurs s'affrontent dans des luttes de légitimité, soit pour changer les institutions soit pour défendre le statu quo(Maguire & Hardy, 2009). En prenant l'intermédiation B2B comme une forme d'institution, les grossistes cherchent justement à maintenir cette institution et le statu quo selon lequel ils seraient les acteurs légitimes de l'intermédiation en opposition à d'autres formes telles que les centrales d'achats (cf..Cependant, le maintien du statu quo n'est ni synonyme de reproduction ni de résistance au changement(Michel & Ben Slimane, 2017). ...
... Using STM, we identified how the discursive struggles between the stigmatizers (i.e., antitobacco) and the industry and its allies (i.e., the protobacco forces) evolved over time. We then used a discursive analysis perspective to trace specific strategies within these struggles (Vaara and Tienari 2008, Maguire and Hardy 2009, Vaara 2014. ...
Despite extensive research on stigma, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of how industry stigmatization progresses when constantly contested by resourceful incumbents. To shed light on this issue, we focus on the revealing case of the U.S. tobacco industry between 1980 and 2016. Combining structural topic modeling and discourse analysis to explore the extensive media discussions surrounding the industry, we find that stigmatization unfolds through three phases. These were each characterized by discursive struggles, which resulted in contested stigma extensions about establishing harm (1980–1992), assigning responsibility (1993–2010), and creating new norms (2011–2016). We develop a process model highlighting three key mechanisms in stigmatization processes: attention, which shifts focus to new issues and discussions; stigma construction work, where the stigmatizers use discursive strategies to establish stigma; and resistance work, where targets use discursive strategies to slow down stigmatization. The interplay of these mechanisms reveals that stigmatization is neither linear nor complete but characterized by partial and contested stigma extensions. While acknowledging the limitations of our case, our study advances research by showing how industry stigmatization persists even when challenged, opening new avenues for future research in related settings.
Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.16145 .
... Scrutiny refers to burdensome attention directed toward a firm (Desai, 2011;Fiss & Zajac, 2006). Unlike other types of negative evaluation following an organizational crisis, ongoing scrutiny suggests that audience members may presume that other organizations within a given market segment may be involved in similar misbehavior (Deephouse & Heugens, 2009;Maguire & Hardy, 2009). Such negative consequences of centrality might include the intensity of the public attention it generates following the misconduct (Graffin et al., 2013). ...
Building on social network theory and incorporating insights from the literature on corporate misconduct, this study examined how a firm’s centrality within a social network influences terminations of its strategic alliances following public allegations of corporate misconduct. Utilizing a sample of 264 publicly listed companies operating within the global computer industry, the study found an inverted U-shaped relationship between an accused firm’s centrality and terminations of its strategic alliances following corporate misconduct. This relationship was found to be influenced as well by media coverage and an accused firm’s brokering position. The findings underscore the multifaceted nature of centrality in the context of a corporate crisis, emphasizing its critical role in shaping the dynamics of inter-organizational partnerships.
... Similarly, Ferns and Amaeshi (2019) documented how the merging of frames by opposing actors led to field settlement. Looking more broadly into the relationship between discourse and actors, Maguire and Hardy (2009) explicated how changes in discourse led to the emergence of new actors and altered power relationships among them, leading to the abandonment of a contested field practice. Second, focusing on framing as a mechanism through which field settlements develop, scholars have considered both the content and characteristics of relevant frames. ...
We investigate how issue fields with increasing levels of contestation can develop into fields characterized by echo chambers. Studying the introduction of a controversial new approach to addiction services – harm reduction – we explain how proponents’ and opponents’ rhetorical arguments changed over time, transitioning the issue field through different configurations. Our findings reveal how field actors were initially differentiated by moral convictions, and as their expression of moral emotions became more intense, the two groups became increasingly divided and polarized in their views, leading to an issue field characterized by echo chambers. Through our analysis of archival materials and interview data, we explicate this process by identifying three phases of issue field transition: (1) Creating a moral emotional divide; (2) Intensifying antagonization; (3) Insulating against the other side. We contribute to the literature by presenting a model of change explaining how emotional rhetoric, together with different types of triggering events, can fuel increasing levels of contestation and drive the field toward developing echo chambers. Second, by taking a discursive view of issue fields with particular attention to rhetorical arguments, we provide foundational work for an institutional perspective on echo chamber – that echo chambers result from ongoing social processes where people encapsulate themselves based on a sense of right and wrong, in contrast to the predominant view of becoming trapped in an enclosed space. Third, through our focus on the role of moral emotions and how they can escalate in situations of contestation, we advance knowledge regarding the importance of emotions in field dynamics.
... Additionally, practice work consists of individuals' efforts to influence legitimate organizational and institutional practices within a domain (Zietsma and Lawrence, 2010). Some research studies have examined how these practices are contested and disrupted and how they are maintained and supported (Maguire and Hardy, 2009). Such studies propose that by linking self, organization, and institutional levels through individual actions aimed at personal self and collective benefit, broader institutional changes can be inspired. ...
Purpose
This manuscript explores the evolving roles of HR professionals amidst global megatrends and organizational transitions, focusing on the Italian context, which has experienced disruptive adoption of new forms of work such as remote and hybrid work. In this challenging scenario, our research aims to uncover if and how HR professionals are transforming their roles or maintaining the status quo in navigating organizational changes, dealing with the upcoming working scenario, and challenging conventional perceptions of HR practitioners.
Design/methodology/approach
The study employs the social-symbolic work lens, that contributes to a deeper understanding of how HR professionals work to construct organizational life, the identities of employees, and the societal norms and assumptions that provide the context for organizational action. This perspective highlights HR professionals’ personal efforts, consisting of the emotional labor entailed in steering organizational transformations and, eventually, maintenance in a context where remote work has become prevalent. Data was collected through 16 online focus groups involving 76 HR professionals from Italian organizations.
Findings
Our research offers two interrelated contributions to HR literature. First, we provide pieces of evidence on how HR practitioners act as agents of change in two emerging roles: the “Wannabe Hero” and the “Ordinary Hero”. This challenges the prevailing rhetorical discourse about the so-called HR business partner. Secondly, we delve into the persistent obstacles that hinder HR professionals from making a substantial impact in addressing radical changes. These findings will provide useful insights into effectively engaging HR practitioners as agents of change in organizational transformation, shedding light on praxis, structures, and their emotional work.
Originality/value
The paper analyzes HR professionals’ social-symbolic work, which offers an original contribution to the comprehension of the activities they carry on in practice and the emotions they have been experiencing. These influence both the way HR professionals play their role and the organizational and institutional environment.
... Similarly, practices can become deinstitutionalized through changing discourses, which can be toxic to the legitimacy of a venture, as shown in the case of DDT and its decline by Maguire and Hardy (2009). Garud et al. (2023) (2014) illustrate how the setting of expectations through entrepreneurial storytelling-a nd later failure to reach them-functions as another potential device for losing legitimac y. ...
New venture legitimation has become an increasingly active topic of scholarly inquiry over the last two decades. Considering the lack of an up-to-date, wide-spectrum review on the issue, an integrative literature review is conducted to take stock of the current empirical and conceptual knowledge. The present study continues the work started by Überbacher (2014), and the classification developed in that review is now used to review scholarly output until February 2024.
The present study reviews 245 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 1985 and February 2024 on new venture legitimation. The articles are classified with the perspective typology developed by Überbacher (2014). Shifts in the structure and substance of the literature are analyzed by comparing periods 1985–2012 and 2013–2/2024, which is in alignment with the cutoff year of Überbacher’s review.
The findings illustrate a formidable, continuing expansion of the scholarly new venture legitimation literature. Most of the growth has stemmed from the burgeoning of empirical work, particularly over the last two decades. The most common type of study has been qualitative research with institutional theory as the theoretical framework. On the other hand, novel contributions based on organizational ecology have diminished. There has been only moderate activity in the conceptual proceedings on new venture legitimation, particularly towards the end of the period reviewed.
Based on the review, an updated research agenda is proposed. The avenues identified as potential for further inquiry are 1) developing a unified legitimation strategy framework, 2) reaching consensus on legitimacy thresholds, 3) conceptualizing liabilities on a general level, 4) theorizing performative new venture legitimation, 5) explicating the metaphysical foundations of organizational legitimacy, and 6) aiming at more interdisciplinary legitimacy research. These six research streams align with understudied aspects of new venture legitimation identified by the present study.
... This insight contrasts with the finding that a practice can be preserved by keeping its underlying meanings consistent and relatively stable through forms of "defensive institutional work" (Maguire & Hardy, 2009). Differently, our model emphasizes that the diversity and multivocality of meanings (Ferraro, Etzion, & Gehman, 2015;Furnari, 2014), materials and competences can benefit preservation by enabling different practitioners across multiple generations to renew and reinvent the practice. ...
... Regime destabilisation then translates to full or partial decline of the policy goal order and its associated policy instruments. Such deinstitutionalisation is the result of "pressure fronts", which need to be mobilised by resourceful actors, and of counter-movements to them (Turnheim 2023, p. 45;Novalia et al., 2022;Maguire and Hardy, 2009). Fig. 1 illustrates our conceptual approach. ...
In sustainability transitions research, the deliberate destabilisation of socio-technical regimes is increasingly recognised as a central intervention point. Absent, however, are granular approaches for assessing whether regime destabilisation actually occurs in processes of systemic change. We propose to assess regime destabilisation through shifts in the institutionalisation of field logics. Methodologically, we employ Socio-Technical Configuration Analysis to map changes over time in the composition and alignment of institutional and technological concepts embedded in sec-toral policy. Empirically, we assess the extent to which post-Brexit agricultural policy reform in the United Kingdom marks the destabilisation of an unsustainable regime. Assessing legislative debate transcripts, we find that the previously dominant regime is only partly destabilised, as pre-existing development trajectories along established configurations of field logics, policy goals and instruments remain. These findings support the validity of our conceptual approach. Moreover , they nuance expectations about large-scale policy change as windows of opportunity for regime shifts.
... Perkmann and Spicer (2008: 811) examine the role of institutional work in the institutionalization of management fashions, arguing that "fashionable management practices acquire permanence when they are anchored within fieldwide institutions", and identifying "political work", "technical work" and "cultural work" as being critical to this process. Maguire and Hardy (2009) explore the institutional work associated with the deinstitutionalization of DDT, showing how actors engage in "disruptive" and "defensive" institutional work, and Zietsma and Lawrence (2010) explore institutional work in the context of field-level change, arguing that two kinds -"practice work" and "boundary work" -are critical to this process. ...
For a long time, inter-organizational networks have been considered either to be a hybrid form of governance mixing elements of markets and hierarchies, or as a unique form beyond market and hierarchy. From both points of view, inter-organizational project networks, also known as project networks or project network organizations, assume a specific type of network governance in which project-based organizing dominates. In the meantime, several types of network governance are being differentiated: lead-organization or shared form, with or without a network administrative organization that takes on the task of coordinating the organizations collaborating in the network. Both levels, the network and the project level, may additionally be supported by project management offices which not only cause additional complexities, but also chances in terms of their governance. This chapter will present that the types of governance are also relevant for understanding and managing inter-organizational project networks. Despite its emphasis on governance, the chapter will argue for a practice-based perspective that considers not only governance, but also governing.
... When market institutions are weak, it becomes difficult to achieve desired outcomes such as efficiency, transparency, and service guarantees. This is because institutions govern the behavior of organizations and individuals through the enforcement of rules, and regulations as well as the alignment of behavior with moral obligations, social expectations, and norms (Maguire & Hardy, 2009;North, 1990). Businesses, their executives, and employees often engage in behavior that is unethical and irresponsible because of multiple reasons, which I discuss next. ...
High performing businesses around the world have realized that business ethics, and more specifically ethical business culture is central to competing and performing effectively in the market. Being ethical and responsible necessitates firms to fulfill all their responsibilities towards stakeholders. Unfortunately, Nepali businesses have fallen short of their obligations. In line with this, the purpose of the study is to examine the status quo on ethics and social responsibility for Nepali businesses. Methodology utilized includes empirical scrutiny of both qualitative and quantitative data. Data from multiple sources also point to the fact that Nepali institutions generally lag far behind their peers in promoting a culture of ethics. Based on scrutiny of the largest Nepali banks, this article makes the sober finding that Nepali businesses have talked the talk on ethics and responsibility, but have failed to translate much of that talk into action. More specifically, top management teams (TMTs) say endearing things on corporate social responsibility that is not followed through with CSR actions downstream. Although the implication of this study is primarily towards Nepal’s banks, it can easily extend to other Nepali businesses with similar business culture. Therefore, it is high time that Nepali businesses ingrain ethics and responsibility into their culture so that they too can minimize missed opportunities and become serious contenders in this competitive world.
... How can we think of an innovation dynamic that does not proceed through the progressive extension of socio-technical networks, but rather through a durable rupture of established links? The theme is central today, as shown by the literature devoted to discontinuation, deconstruction, de-institutionalization [Maguire & Hardy, 2009] or the destabilization of socio-technical systems [Stegmaier et al., 2014;Stirling, 2019;Turnheim & Geels, 2013;Koretsky et al. (eds) 2022]. ...
The climate crisis and other global challenges make it clear that not only are new value cocreation practices (VCPs) needed, but some current VCPs must be discontinued. Prior service literature assumes that VCPs can be disrupted by reforming the institutions that govern them. However, empirical observations show that VCPs may persist even when targeted by institutional work, and recent organizational research points to contested practices that continue to be enacted even when challenged or criticized. To understand this phenomenon in value cocreation, we conducted an embedded case study of exotic pet-keeping—a set of VCPs that continue despite intervention efforts. Our findings reveal that when exotic pet-keepers became reflexive of contestation in the symbolic elements of their VCPs, they modified their material elements, leading to four types of contested VCP reconfiguration. Two of these types—conforming and confining—resulted in the dissipation of the contested VCPs, while the other two—converting and circumventing—led to their persistence. We contribute to service research by introducing the concept of contested VCPs and developing a typology and a theoretical framework of their reconfiguration. Our work offers practitioners and policymakers a new approach to designing interventions to discontinue VCPs and evaluating their outcomes.
We advance a novel perspective to study how field actors co‐develop field governance through continuous interactions. Field governance determines the formal and informal rules of a field, defining membership boundaries and core practices. Prior research has mostly studied the establishment of top‐down regulations or the work of advocacy and social movement organisations to influence or overthrow existing regimes. We review 147 previously disconnected articles on field governance and institutional work and identify interactional governing activities (IGAs), the concept we advance and define as the strategic and interactional activities actors deploy to develop, disrupt and maintain field governance. Depending on field conditions, we propose that actors combine IGAs in various interaction modes to either oppose the existing order, lobby for change or collaborate to jointly develop field governance. We contribute to the scholarly understanding of field governance development by proposing a continuous process that extends beyond influencing regulatory decision‐making to include knowledge‐building and interactional infrastructure‐development activities. Our study provides novel insights on collaborative institutional work for field governance co‐development by heterogeneous actors. By defining and categorising IGAs, we contribute to both a more integrative theoretical understanding of field governance as well as a playbook for practitioners, collective interest organisations and regulators engaged in field‐building work.
Zusammenfassung: Dekarbonisierung, Dezentralisierung und Digitalisierung verändern die grundlegenden Regeln, sozialen Beziehungen und Organisationsformen der zukünftigen Energieversorgung und multiple Akteure aus Wirtschaft, Politik und Zivilgesellschaft beanspruchen deren (Mit-)Gestaltung. Die soziale Innovationsforschung bietet vielfältige Anknüpfungspunkte, um die damit verbundenen Transformationsdynamiken besser zu verstehen. In diesem Beitrag wird das Konzept der sozialen Innovation genutzt und unter Rückgriff auf Forschungsarbeiten zur Analyse sozialer Innovationsprozesse im Energiekontext (SIE) aufgezeigt, wie soziale Innovationsakteure darauf abzielen, institutionellen Wandel voranzutreiben. Im Zentrum stehen dabei die Formen der Institutionalisierungsarbeit ("institutional work"), die soziale Innovationsakteure betreiben, um neuen Denk-und Handlungsweisen und neuen Organisationsformen im Energiesystem Legitimität zu verschaffen. Der Beitrag spannt einen konzeptionellen Rahmen, um Zusammenhänge zwischen sozialer Innovation und Institutionalisierungsprozessen zu erklären und illustriert dies anhand empirischer Forschungsergebnisse von zwei Fallstudien von SIE in Deutschland.
Summary: Decarbonisation, decentralisation, and digitalization entail the potential to change the fundamental rules, social relations, and organizational structures of future energy systems. Social innovation research offers a variety of starting points for better understanding the associated transformation dynamics, including multiple actors from the state, market, and civil society that aim to (co-)shape these developments. This article draws on the concept of social innovation in Energy (SIE) and on research aimed at analyzing social innovation processes to show how social innovation actors are involved in activities aimed at creating, disrupting, or maintaining institutions , i.e. institutional work. Conceptual insights from social innovation research and institutional theory offer points of reference. In doing so, the focus is on the forms of institutional work in which social innovation initiatives engage to create legitimacy for new ways of thinking, doing, and organizing in the energy system. The paper provides a conceptual framework for explaining the interrelations between institutional change and social innovation and illustrates this through empirical research based on two case studies in Germany.
Purpose
This work makes a case for legitimacy as a framework with which to examine how educators made decisions about implementing entrepreneurship education (EE) in higher education institutions (HEIs) to better understand the educator within the educational ecosystem. It then uses a new legitimacy framework that includes self-legitimacy to examine the issues a group of educators in China encountered when implementing new constructivist entrepreneurship modules in their non-entrepreneurship curricula.
Design/methodology/approach
The researchers utilized focus groups to collect data from 24 groups of educators at HEIs in 4 regions of China. The researchers used a bottom-up thematic analysis process to identify themes and used legitimacy as a lens to analyze the data.
Findings
The results are presented in three main categories: theorization, or how the practice aligns with existing practice; diffusion, or how the practice is perceived by stakeholders; and self-legitimacy, or how the practice impacts the educator’s image of the self. The data show that legitimization of their constructivist EE practice has not occurred at each of these stages, leaving educators struggling to rationalize how the new practice fits into their existing ecosystem.
Originality/value
Using legitimacy as an approach, the research adds to an understanding of how and why entrepreneurship educators adopt practice and how they are empowered to change practice within their existing institutional structures. It brings different legitimacy theories into one framework to examine changes to EE practice and it applies self-legitimacy to education, an area previously only examined in high power distance situations like law enforcement, but which is appropriate for high power distance educational cultures like China.
Purpose
This research analyzes accountants’ perception of the normative legitimacy of accounting reforms in local governments across Latin America.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 accountants from seven Latin American countries. This qualitative, inductive and interpretive study employs a comparative thematic analysis.
Findings
The results show that accountants in the analyzed Latin American countries have different perceptions about convergence to IPSAS and accounting standards legitimacy, which may affect IPSAS implementation and application in the countries.
Originality/value
The research focuses on the accountant’s perception as one of the agents of change in accounting reform. It offers an in-depth analysis of the IPSAS adoption process and highlights factors to consider in the development of the accounting reform.
Purpose
This conceptual paper aims to present a new, integrated model for change readiness that focuses on affective sensemaking among intra-organizational members. Change processes are often hindered by lack of preparedness, which can be justified by organizational members' emotional resistance to change and divergent understandings of its meaning. Our paper proposes a normative model depicting the interactive process between middle-managers and employees until convergence of meaning is achieved and the organization is ready to change.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors offer a conceptual process model that describes how employees prepare for organizational change. The model illustrates how emotionally laden narratives enable employees to make sense of organizational change communicated by middle managers.
Findings
The sensemaking process is initiated by the negative emotions employees often experience when organizational change is first presented. Then middle managers must transform the negative felt emotions into positive valence via the strategic use of narratives that contain an affective component. This is done to increase the likelihood that convergent sensemaking takes place. Until this stage, intra-organizational members holding different perspectives about the need to change, engage in discussions in which the conflicting views are supported by the instrumental and systematic use of emotional tools with different valence.
Research limitations/implications
First, we contribute to the change readiness literature by offering a detailed process for managers to influence individual readiness for change in their organizations. Our paper proposes a normative model depicting the interactive process between middle-managers and employees until convergence of meaning is achieved and the organization is ready to change. Future work needs to empirically test our model.
Practical implications
We contribute to the sensemaking literature by integrating positive and negative valence into the process for understanding organizational change. Finally, we contribute to our practical understanding of convergent sensemaking processes through the strategic use of narratives in organizations.
Social implications
Our paper proposes a normative model depicting the interactive process between middle-managers and employees until convergence of meaning is achieved and the organization is ready to organizational and social change.
Originality/value
Our main contributions are three-fold. First, we contribute to the change readiness literature by offering a detailed process for managers to influence individual readiness for change in their organizations. Secondly, we contribute to the sensemaking literature by integrating positive and negative valence into the process for understanding organizational change. Finally, we contribute to our understanding of convergent sensemaking processes through the strategic use of narratives.
This study explores the translation of agile management practices (agile) into a traditional industry context. Using a case study of agile adoption in a development project in a large traditional company of the aerospace and defense industry, this research investigates how the translation process unfolds by studying how both idea and context are adapted to create shared meaning. This research makes two main contributions. First, this research introduces translation theory to the innovation management literature and details its applicability in explaining variations in outcomes of applying management practices in new organizational contexts. Our research suggests that this constitutes a complementary theoretical lens to diffusion theory, enabling the explanation of the process to create shared meaning when idea and recipient context have a low level of compatibility. Second, this research shows the process of translating agile into a traditional context through a non‐linear joint creation of meaning. The process was shaped largely by the experience and resolution of project‐external (i.e., with the surrounding organization) and project‐internal conflicts, which in turn motivated the idea or context to adapt. The study identifies two central concepts, namely isolation, and shielding, which determine how the translation process unfolds and how meaning is created. Managerial implications based on these contributions are presented and discussed.
My thesis studies how senior actors respond *in the unconscious* to three paradoxes, those of belonging, performing and learning. It finds there is a rich and overlooked substrate to the actor's conscious struggles with paradox. It argues that a rationalist fantasy benefits both the case organisation, a global tech firm, and organisation/ management studies. And it draws on Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic ideas to suggest how the senior manager might resist this fantasy, and why paradox scholars should too.
Résumé
Cette recherche examine l'utilisation du Big Data, en particulier des algorithmes de trading basés sur l'intelligence artificielle, dans le domaine de la finance de marché. À travers une analyse lexicométrique d'un corpus de données provenant de la presse financière sur une période de 10 ans, nous avons identifié quatre acteurs qui contribuent à l'institutionnalisation de l'utilisation du Big Data dans la finance de marché: les experts issus du secteur bancaire et financier, les intellectuels (académiques, journalistes, écrivains), les gestionnaires à la recherche de ressources et les institutions publiques. Alors que les dilemmes éthiques et les problèmes de qualification sont une réalité, seules les institutions publiques les mettent en avant dans leur discours, contribuant ainsi au processus d'institutionnalisation.
Dans cet article conceptuel, nous examinons le processus de façonnement des marchés numériques d’un point de vue institutionnel. Nous concevons les marchés numériques comme étant construits autour de dispositifs numériques qui offrent de nouvelles affordances aux acteurs du marché pour effectuer de nouveaux types de travail institutionnel. La digitalisation des marchés s’articule autour de trois dimensions principales : la définition des rôles, des objets et des activités du marché. Notre objectif est d’étudier les types de travail institutionnel qui se rapportent à chacune des trois dimensions de la digitalisation et du façonnement du marché numérique. Notre contribution repose sur l’identification de six types de travail institutionnel : l’évolution de la relation producteur-consommateur, l’accroissement du pouvoir du consommateur, la dématérialisation des objets du marché, la normalisation des plateformes numériques, la création de nouvelles activités de marché et de nouveaux modes de consommation, et la personnalisation de l’expérience du client.
Angesichts einer großen Zahl von Schriften und umfangreichen Übersichtswerken zur
qualitativen Sozialforschung ist es für den „Neueinsteiger“ oft schwierig, einen Einstieg
in die Materie der Hermeneutik zu finden [St03]. Dieses Arbeitspapier soll einen groben Überblick über Ausrichtung, Quellen und Methoden dieser Wissenschaftsströmung der qualitativen Sozialforschung geben, um diese ersten Schritte zu erleichtern. Der vorliegende Beitrag verfolgt dabei das Ziel, durch eine Einführung in die Elemente und Konzepte der Hermeneutik, wissenschaftlichem „Nachwuchs“ und Wissenschaftlern unterschiedlicher betriebswirtschaftlicher Disziplinen einen Einblick in die Potentiale aber auch in Grenzen von Hermeneutik als Methode für die (eigene) betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung zu vermitteln. Insbesondere sollen die vielschichtigen Nutzenaspekte von Hermeneutik für die wissenschaftliche Forschung in der Betriebswirtschaftslehre herausgearbeitet,
diskutiert und durch Beispiele unterstützt werden. Der Schwerpunkt der Ausführungen liegt dabei vorwiegend auf Hermeneutik als Methode in der Betriebswirtschaft und weniger auf der philosophischen Hermeneutik, die dem Methodenrepertoire der Geisteswissenschaften zugeordnet wird [In91, Jo09, Po09]. Gleichwohl sind diese Grenzen idealtypischer bzw. theoretischer Natur, da, aufgrund des grundlegenden Charakters der philosophischen und methodenorientierten Hermeneutik, in der einschlägigen Literatur auch „grenzüberschreitend“ argumentiert und folglich zwischen diesen Grenzen auch „gewechselt“ wird. Einerseits verfolgt der Beitrag das Ziel, diese Grenzen zu verdeutlichen, andererseits aber auch deren Verflechtungen Rechnung zu tragen.
Open Source Software (OSS) development has attracted numerous developers. As a typical complex sociotechnical system, an OSS project often forms a hierarchical social structure where a few developers are elite while the rest are non-elite. Differences in social status may result in distinct language use behaviors in interpersonal communication. Characterizing such behaviors is critical for supporting efficient and effective communication among developers with different social statuses. This study empirically compared elite and non-elite developers' language behaviors in their communication. We compiled a corpus of - 216,000 discourses collected from 20 large projects on GitHub. We investigated the linguistic differences in three aspects, namely, linguistic styles and characters, main concerns, and sentence patterns. Our findings reveal that elite and non-elite developers showed different linguistic patterns and had different concerns in their discourses. Their discourses also reflect the variation of the main focuses in the development process. Furthermore, elite and non-elite developers exhibited noticeable patterns in their linguistic behaviors in accordance with their roles and corresponding divisions of labor in the production process, no matter which semantic contexts. These findings provide implications for supporting communication that crosses social statuses in OSS development.
This study aims to investigate whether companies engage high-quality assurance in response to legitimacy threats caused by media coverage of negative sustainability events. Since responsive strategies designed to maintain or repair legitimacy directly emanate from boards, the paper also analyses whether board effectiveness reinforces defensive strategies to maintain a company’s reputational capital and public image under environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns by supporting high-quality sustainability assurance. Using a sample of STOXX Europe 600 index firms from 2015 to 2020, the empirical results confirm the substantive role of assurance. When a company’s legitimacy is at risk due to media coverage of ESG misconduct, the assurance of sustainability information is employed as an instrument to aid in repairing the company’s legitimacy. In addition, our results confirm that boards with desirable attributes of independence and activity act jointly with assurance quality to legitimise companies. In addition, this paper also brings evidence about the mediating effect of board effectiveness; the impact of negative media ESG coverage on sustainability assurance quality appears to be justified by the effectiveness of the board. The evidence also points to interesting findings concerning controversial industries and countries with tight cultures, where the assurance quality seems not to respond to the legitimacy threats associated with media coverage of undesirable ESG. However, and after studying how the European Directive 2014/95/EU affected the symbolic use of assurance, results confirm that there are no significant differences in the legitimising use of assurance quality after irresponsible ESG actions before and after the directive, and neither, depending on the level of sustainability performance or public enforcement.
The purpose of this study is to explore women knowledge workers’ experiences of the intersectionality of the gender pay gap and to scrutinize the reasons behind gender pay gap. The study problematizes the gender pay gap phenomenon by using intersectionality theory. The study describes how the gender pay gap varies based on ethnical differences besides being women and reveals how this situation deinstitutionalizes women’s careers. The study employed descriptive analysis based on the qualitative research paradigm conducted in Germany and Türkiye with purposefully sampled participants. The study’s empirical material was generated through semi-structured interviews with women knowledge workers who differ in ethnicity and generally work in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. The study results indicated that ethnicity should be considered among other intersectional factors to analyze the gender pay gap comprehensively. The reasons behind the gender pay gap are found to be the lack of transparency in the workplace, gender-based occupational segregation, culture, the glass ceiling, the existence of male-dominated informal communication channels, and the fact that women workers are more easily preferred in organizational downsizing initiatives.
Inertia is known as a fundamental and effective phenomenon in nature, humans and human (social) institutions. This phenomenon is woven into their warp and weft. In this chapter, inertia and its place in physical and non-physical structures is studied by examining the history of this concept and phenomenon as a mental model. There are two main viewpoints on inertia, i.e., Newton’s point of view about inertia (as a virtual force and a resistance factor to changes in motion), and Mach and Graneau’s point of view about inertia (as a real force and a preservative factor for the structure of bodies and universe). By reviewing the literature and taking this subject into contemplation, it is concluded that inertia consists of positive and negative aspects: the positive aspect works as a structure preservative and stabilizing force (Endurance Force), and the negative aspect works as a resistant force to structure change and dynamic state (Resistance Force). These two aspects of inertia have a fundamental and vital role in institutions’ structure, dynamics, and preservation. Furthermore, topics such as angular momentum and moment of inertia, wide applications of inertia, the origin of inertia, inertia as a mental model, cognitive inertia, inertia in society, phylogenetic inertia and ecological pressure in institutional evolution, and entropic inertia in institutional evolution are also studied. Finally, the institutional renewal time function is introduced and proposed, and the result of the balance between inertia and overcoming it, that is, the evolution of structural preservation, is also considered, emphasizing future research on the application of institutional renewal time function to different institutions and economies, and especially comparative studies on economies at different levels of development for a deeper understanding of institutional inertia.
This chapter emphasizes the critical need for a textbook on sustainable marketing, entrepreneurship, and strategy in the contemporary business landscape. It highlights the importance of incorporating the 17 United Nations (UN) sustainability goals to foster sustainable change processes. The interconnectedness of social, environmental, and economic factors is emphasized, stressing the significance of synergizing these dimensions for long-term sustainability. The chapter underlines the textbook’s aim to guide readers in formulating strategies that integrate internal and external factors, culminating in a holistic approach to sustainability. Its inclusion in educational curricula is deemed essential for preparing future leaders to contribute to a sustainable future.
Institutional theorists have recently been moving towards a notion that nonisomorphic institutional change is precipitated by significant events or 'jolts'. In this paper, we argue that in doing so theorists have tended to move away from the social constructivist roots of institutional theory towards an understanding which implies the emergence of new organizational forms or practices in response to functional imperatives. In this context, we examine the ongoing institutional change from photography to digital imaging. Our analysis suggests that attributing institutional change to a single event or 'jolt' leads to a flawed understanding of institutional change processes. We demonstrate that, rather than causing institutional change, events are a pan of the change process, and only become significant as actors bring them to our notice and 'theorize' around them (Greenwood et al. 2002). This social construction process determines the scope, significance and relevance of events, leading to the development of new artifacts and the enrolment of new stakeholders in the field. Situating events within the theorization process, rather than outside it, underlines the importance of focusing on social construction processes in accounts of institutional change.
This article discusses management research and what makes it interesting. In a well-known paper, “That’s Interesting!” Murray Davis argued that what most makes scholarly work interesting is that it disconfirms some (but not all) of the assumptions held by its audience. Davis’ arguments about what constitutes interesting research are summarized, including something that engages readers’ attention, something that stands out for readers “in contrast to the web of routinely taken-for-granted propositions which make up the structure of their everyday life.” Some perspectives from a Brazilian scholarly journal, “Revisita de Administracao de Empresas,” are also presented.
We explore the relationship between discourse and interorganizational collaboration, arguing that interorganizational collaboration can be understood as the product of sets of conversations that draw on existing discourses. Specifically, we argue that effective collaboration, which we define as cooperative, interorganizational action that produces innovative, synergistic solutions and balances divergent stakeholder concerns, emerges out of a two-stage process. In this process conversations produce discursive resources that create a collective identity and translate it into effective collaboration.
The study of business interests adds an important dimension to our understanding of the development of international environmental agreements. The contrasting role of business interests in the cases of ozone depletion and climate change is critical to explaining why climate change is a much more difficult issue for the international community to tackle. In the case of ozone depletion, industry concentration and the technological factors provided incentives for industry leaders to invest in alternative products and processes. By contrast, fossil fuel substitutes present a long-term strategic threat to the major sectors that produce and use these fuels. Where relatively few actors were involved in ozone depletion, it will be much more difficult to craft an agreement that is acceptable to the broad range of industries affected by climate change. However, business does have substantial influence over the timing and shape of international environmental agreements, even when there is considerable disunity within the business ranks.
Through an analysis of an entire institutional history of pricing on-line database field during 1971-94, this study documents and explains institutional development in emerging and turbulent fields. The dialectic process model developed and illustrated here suggests - that inherent contradictions and. opposition, generated and reinforced by institutionalization, serve as internal sources of continuous dialectic contest. Fused with external developments, the process by which these. endogenous potentials develop is path-dependent and is central to their realization in the form of overt institutional stability or change.
This study measured changes in the constituency of an organizational field centered around the issue of corporate environmentalism in the period 1960-93, correlating those changes with the institutions adopted by the U.S. chemical industry to interpret the issue. The article develops the ideas that fields form around issues, not markets or technologies; within fields, competing institutions may simultaneously exist; as institutions evolve, connections between their regulative, normative, and cognitive aspects arise; and field-level analyses can reveal the cultural and institutional origins of organizational impacts on the natural environment.
We conceptualize discourse as a duality of communicative actions and deep structures, mediated by the modality of interpretive schemes, and develop a discourse analysis methodology based on the fields of hermeneutics and rhetoric. We then explore the role of discourse in shaping organizational change processes through its influence on actors' interpretations and actions, using a longitudinal field study of electronic trading implementation in the London Insurance Market. We conclude with some theoretical and practical contributions on discourse-practice links, the illumination of multiple perspectives in change processes, and implications for electronic data interchange implementation.
Language and power are central to an understanding of control. This paper uses the work of Pierre Bourdieu to argue that an enriched view of power, in the form of symbolic violence, is central. We examine the pedagogical function business plans played in the provincial museums and cultural heritage sites of Alberta, Canada. The struggle to name and legitimate practices occurs in the business planning process, excluding some knowledges and practices and teaching and utilizing other knowledges and ways of viewing the organization. We show that control involves both redirecting work and changing the identity of producers, in particular, how they understand their work through the construction of markets, consumers, and products. This process works by changing the capital, in its multiple forms-symbolic, cultural, political and economic-in an organizational and institutional field.
In a qualitative study of the emerging field of HIV/AIDS treatment advocacy in Canada, we found that institutional entrepreneurship involved three sets of critical activities: (1) the occupation of "subject positions" that have wide legitimacy and bridge diverse stakeholders, (2) the theorization of new practices through discursive and political means, and (3) the institutionalization of these new practices by connecting them to stakeholders' routines and values.
In 1980, the conglomerate firm, a firm composed of several unrelated businesses, was perhaps the dominant corporate form in the US. Yet, by 1990 this form had in effect become deinstitutionalized. Using comprehensive time-series data from the 1980s on a population of the largest industrial firms in the US, it is demonstrated that this deinstitutionalization was effected by two processes: First, diversified firms were taken over at a high rate and their unwanted parts were typically sold off, and second, the less diversified firms that survived shunned the strategy of conglomerate growth. The aggregate result was that by 1990 the largest industrial firms in the US became considerably less diversified. It is argued that an unintended consequence of the successful spread of the conglomerate form was to replace the conceptualization of the corporation as a sovereign actor with a reductionist view of the firm as a network without boundaries or a nexus-of-contracts among separate individuals. The implications of this conceptualization for organization theory are discussed. -from Authors
Many perceive the predominantly command-and-control structure of regulatory policy to be overly restrictive and inefficient in achieving America's emerging environmental goals. In response, the U.S. government has introduced several voluntary programs to develop innovative, beyond-compliance environmental management solutions through the collaboration between government agencies and regulated entities. Yet, these programs have not gained widespread acceptance. This article analyzes the cognitive and institutional barriers to that acceptance by looking specifically at two programs-Project XL and Habitat Conservation Plans. These barriers act out of force of habit, creating a resistance to change and a rejection of new forms of regulatory policy. The authors argue that policy change requires a shift in how individuals think and how institutions guide that thinking.
Building on Scott's (1995) institutional theory framework, this article uses a microinstitutional approach to develop a model of the institutionalization of mindsets in a differentiated institutional field. This model is grounded in textual data involving the 1992 explosion at Westray Mines, illustrating how regulative, normative and cognitive elements contributed to the institutionalization of a harmful mindset of invulnerability that clouded individual perceptions of the inherent risks in daily work practices. This process culminates in organizational crisis.
This paper attempts to develop a new approach to the study of corporate strategy. It draws on the methodology of Michel Foucault to suggest that corporate strategy can be seen as a discourse which has its own specific conditions of possibility. These are traced historically to various exercises of power within the conduct of war and the development of business organizations. Strategy is located as an emergent set of practices which has distinctive power effects on organizations and subjectivity. Analyses of strategy cannot be reduced either to rationalist accounts of markets and environments nor interpretive understandings of actors' frames of reference. The emergence and reproduction of 'strategy' as an essential element in managerial discourse needs to be located in specific changes in organizations and managerial subjectivity, because it is a mechanism of power that transforms individuals into particular kinds of subjects who secure a sense of well-being through participation in strategic practices. Conflict over 'strategy' is therefore more than just a question of career politics and market competition. It touches on the very sense of what it is to be human as well as having effects that readily legitimize prevailing relations of inequality and privilege in contemporary organizations and institutions.
In this chapter, we aim to provide a summary and synthesis of research on what we refer to as 'institutional work' - the purposive action of individuals and organizations aimed at creating, maintaining and disrupting institutions. Thus far, research on institutional work has been largely unconnected as such - literatures on institutional entrepreneurship and deinstitutionalization have emerged as semi-coherent research streams, but the overall focus has remained largely unarticulated. Thus, a key contribution of this chapter will be the provision of a framework that connects previously disparate studies of institutional work and the articulation of a research agenda for the area. By focusing on empirical work that has occurred in the past 1 5 years and mapping i t i n terms of the forms of institutional work that it has examined, we are able to both provide a first cataloguing of forms of institutional work and point to issues and areas that have been under-examined.
A challenge facing cultural-frame institutionalism is to explain how existing institutional logics and role identities are replaced by new logics and role identities. This article depicts identity movements that strive to expand individual autonomy as motors of institutional change. It proposes that the sociopolitical legitimacy of activists, extent of theorization of new roles, prior defections by peers to the new logic, and gains to prior defectors act as identity-discrepant cues that induce actors to abandon traditional logics and role identities for new logics and role identities. A study of how the nouvelle cuisine movement in France led elite chefs to abandon classical cuisine during the period starting from 1970 and ending in 1997 provides wide-ranging support for these arguments. Implications for research on institutional change, social movements, and social identity are outlined.
This paper proposes that processes of institutional change vary depending on the form taken by the three factors that define them: agency, resource mobilization, and opportunity. The paper builds on a conceptualization of agency that considers that change may result from diverse forms of agency (i.e. strategic, routine, and sensemaking). It develops the concept of resource mobilization, focusing on the process as opposed to the skills required for mobilization. It then suggests that the mobilization of resources, support and acceptance, accompanying the diffusion and legitimation of institutional changes may follow leverage, partaking, or convening processes. Finally, the paper defines institutional opportunity as an objective condition of organizational fields, suggesting that fields may be opportunity opaque, transparent, or hazy. Opportunities, of course, only become real when perceived by actors. Building on current sociological work, the paper suggests that actors' perception of the opportunity transparency of fields varies with their temporal orientation and social networks. Considering the possible variations of agency, resource mobilization, and opportunity, and how they may combine, the paper defines three profiles of institutional change: entrepreneurship, partaking, and convening.
We are delighted to introduce this special issue of Organization Studies ,t he purpose of which is to develop a deeper understanding of the concept of institutional entrepreneurship and to offer new avenues for future research. This concept has been attracting considerable attention in recent years, as was reflected in the record number of papers that were submitted ‐ the largest number that this journal has received for any of its special issues to date. As a result, the selection process has been stringent and we are very pleased to present the eight articles in this special issue, all of which survived the demanding review process. Each of these articles contributes important insights to our understanding of institutional entrepreneurship and, collectively, they provide an important benchmark for subsequent research on this phenomenon. In different ways, they explore how actors shape emerging institutions and transform existing ones despite the complexities and path dependences that are involved. In doing so, they shed considerable light on how institutional entrepreneurship processes shape ‐ or fail to shape ‐ the world in which we live and work The term institutional entrepreneurship refers to the ‘activities of actors who have an interest in particular institutional arrangements and who leverage resources to create new institutions or to transform existing ones’ (Maguire, Hardy and Lawrence, 2004: 657). The term is most closely associated with DiMaggio (1988: 14), who argued that ‘new institutions arise when organized actors with sufficient resources see in them an opportunity to realize interests that they value highly’. These actors ‐ institutional entrepreneurs ‐ ‘create a whole new system of meaning that ties the functioning of disparate sets of institutions together’ (Garud, Jain and Kumaraswamy, 2002). Institutional entrepreneurship is therefore a concept that reintroduces agency, interests and power into institutional analyses of organizations. It thus offers promise to researchers seeking to bridge what have come to be called the ‘old’ and ‘new’ institutionalisms in organizational analysis (Powell and DiMaggio, 1991; Greenwood and Hinings, 1996). We preface these papers with some of our own observations on institutional entrepreneurship stemming from its paradoxical nature. Research on institutions has tended to emphasize how organizational processes are shaped by institutional forces that reinforce continuity and reward conformity. In contrast, the literature on entrepreneurship tends to emphasize how organizational processes
This study tests a theory of how a craft- and profession-based industry adopted multidivisional organization, examining higher education publishing from 1958 through 1990. 1 combined interviews and historical analysis to identify two institutional logics, an editorial and a market logic. Hazard rate models of differences in the effects of these logics showed a decrease in the importance of professional determinants of organization structure and an increase in the salience of its market determinants, The covariates explaining the rate at which firms divisionalized changed as a consequence of their strategic and structural conformity with the prevailing institutional logic.
In this article the authors discuss an article published in a pervious issue that presented an approach to building better theory through the use of case studies. The authors suggest that the paper does not do enough to support the claim that the methods used surpass pervious methods for conducting case studies. They compare the author's approach with various case studies and discuss the limitations of the author's work. Their main concerns fall into three areas; the in-depth study of a single case, deep vs. surface description and the telling of good stories vs. the creation of good constructs. They assert that by not conducting the in-depth research applied in a traditional case study the author is depriving the research of the insight one receives from that depth of study.
The work of Michel Serres has not found a great audience within Anglophone Social Science, despite his substantial influence on modem Science Studies. This article offers an introduction to his thought. Serres is a global thinker who describes his work as 'structuralist'. The notion of translation as a way of describing the communication and movements between different forms of knowledge and cultural practice is central. Serres offers a philosophy of science that is in stark opposition to the Bachelardian tradition of 'epistemic ruptures'. In order to make a break with 'breaks', Serres offers an account of science and cultural practice as multiplicities that are immersed within noise. Structure, when it emerges, comes about in acts of parasitism. Serres then explores how human relations obey a 'parasite logic' which contains an attendant risk of sacrifice. This risk is managed through the circulation of 'quasi-objects'. Serres' later work poses the question of what we can hope for when this circulation itself begins to falter.
Using the discourse of high tech in Israel around the millennium as a case study, I explore institutionalization as translation. Whereas the meanings attached to high tech were derived from broad cultural frameworks, they were reconstructed in the context of high tech. Differences in construction were manifested at two times and at two levels: before the high-tech economic bubble and after it, and at the societal and organizational field levels. Thus, institutionalization involves the translation of generic rational myths into specific ones, which change over time in relation to material fluctuations and depend on the dynamics of local institutional spheres.
The research reported here explores how institutional practices change over time in an interorganizational field, in the historical context of the U.S. radio broadcasting industry. It identifies three endogenous mechanisms of change: analogies that are used to make sense of and manage new phenomena, private agreements between identifiable parties, and conventions, the practices adopted by some constituents to solve coordination problems. The use of each mechanism is associated with the nature of the goods transacted within a field and triggers change in established practices as actors attempt to realize value from their transactions. After describing each mechanism as found in the radio broadcasting industry, we focus our historical analysis on conventions. It reveals that conventions were introduced into the broadcasting field by fringe players to deal with shifting coordination problems and competitive pressures. Once they were adopted by the central players, these conventions transformed the organization of the industry by changing the basis of transactions and became its new institutional practices. We conclude that the organization of a field is not permanent, but is contingent upon institutionalized definitions of what is being transacted.
In this article, I present an analysis of institutionalization as an interplay between three interrelated yet separate components - actors, actions, and meanings. Drawing on ethnographic data of a rape crisis center in Israel, where the entry of therapeutically oriented members resulted in the infusion of new meanings into originally feminist practices, I examine the role of organization members as carriers of institutions and their (possible) agency in infusing actions with meanings through interpreration; how meanings connect actors with actions; and institutional meanings as political resources.
An ethnographic field study in Big Six public accounting firms, where management by objectives and mentoring are used as techniques of control, examines how organizations transform professionals into disciplined and self-disciplining organizational members whose work goals, language, and lifestyle come to reflect the imperatives of the organization. The study shows that the scope and effect of these techniques shaped the identities of organizational participants but that the discourse of professional autonomy fueled resistance to these pressures toward conformity. Implications of these results are discussed as they relate to conflict between professionals and organizations and to the critical study of organizations.
This article draws on the work of the French philosopher, Michel Foucault, in order to problematize conventional approaches to the study of management and organizations that have been thought of as informed by a positive epistemology. Such a methodology encourages researchers to produce positive knowledge in the form of representations of what they consider to be the real world of management. This involves a concentration on what may be seen as the outcome of human activity in the form of second-order constructs, such as markets, demand and supply schedules, company accounts, selection techniques, or collective bargaining. Although those who conduct positive studies claim merely to report or represent the reality they observe, it is argued here that positive studies actually constitute the "subjectivity" of management through their representations. In so doing, these studies treat the subject, whether this be an individual, a group, or a class of activities (such as an organization) as if it were no different from an object in the natural sciences. But unlike those objects, "subjectivity" can never be finally fixed in knowledge. One reason for this is that once knowledge of the social world enters the public domain, the human conditions which rendered it possible are changed, thus undermining the original validity of such knowledge. Accordingly, positive knowledge is as precarious as the conditions (i.e., the social, political, and philosophical discourses and practices) that make it possible.
I have on my desk several reviews written in criticism, in analysis, in rebuttal, or in praise of Silent Spring. As far as I can make out, if spring comes it will be anything but silent. The shudders of anguish, the enthusiasm of applause, and the violent reactions on all hands indicate that Rachel Carson has got hold of a tooth which, while it may not be too firmly anchored to its moorings, has a live and wonderfully sensitive root. Is the tooth viable? Anybody who reads Silent Spring as a scientific document simply does not understand the difference between testimony and evidence. Furthermore, a person who cannot tell a tract from a testament must be impervious to the history of Western man and science over the last 500 years. Since the printing press has been in a position to disseminate all manner of information, misinformation, propaganda, and scientific material
This study examines the role of professional associations in a changing, highly institutionalized organizational field and suggests that they play a significant role in legitimating change. A model of institutional change is outlined, of which a key stage is "theorization," the process whereby organizational failings are conceptualized and linked to potential solutions. Regulatory agencies, such as professional associations, play an important role in theorizing change, endorsing local innovations and shaping their diffusion.
This study examines change initiated from the center of mature organizational fields. As such, it addresses the paradox of embedded agency — that is, the paradox of how actors enact changes to the context by which they, as actors, are shaped. The change examined is the introduction of a new organizational form. Combining network location theory and dialectical theory, we identify four dynamics that form a process model of elite institutional entrepreneurship.
This article examines the clash between stakeholder- and shareholder-based business systems resulting from an increase in foreign portfolio investment in the Japanese economy during the 1990s. An analysis of 1,108 firms between 1991 and 2000 shows that as foreign institutional investors, who were more interested in investment returns than in long-term relationships, replaced domestic shareholders, one fundamental pillar of Japan's stakeholder capitalism began to crack. Japanese firms began to adopt downsizing and asset divestiture, practices more characteristic of Anglo-American shareholder economies. The influence of foreigners, however, was weaker in firms more deeply embedded in the local system through close ties to domestic financial institutions and corporate groups. Thus, foreign investors were influential primarily in firms less embedded in the existing stakeholder system. This research contributes to debates on globalization and convergence of business systems, institutional change, and corporate governance systems.
This article examines the diffusion of a novel governance structure, the so-called partner-associate structure, among a population of Dutch professional services firms during the period 1925-90. An institutional change emerged out of an interaction between selection at the level of sector and imitative adoption at the firm level. We argue that market feedback regarding the novel structure fostered its legitimacy. Furthermore, the effect of market feedback is conditional upon three diffusion filters: social networks, propinquity, and strategic group membership. Diffusion as a legitimization process unfolds, therefore, at both the sectoral and the firm level of analysis.
In this paper we outline a key mechanism through which organizational fields are constituted. We suggest that in competitive fields, the market serves as a magnet around which groups of actors consolidate, and that cognition of markets occurs through the creation, distribution, and interpretation of a web of information about the "market." To illustrate our theory, we present a case study of the Billboard music chart from the commercial music industry to show that changes in either scope, methodology, or political tone with which market information is presented can provide a major jolt to the participants' understanding of their field.
Deinstitutionalization refers here to thc erosion or discontinuity of an institutionalized organizational activity or practice. This paper identifies a set of organizational and environmental factors that are hypothesized to determine the likelihood that institutionalized organizational behaviours will be vulnerable to erosion or rejection over time. Contrary to the emphasis in institutional theory on the cultural persistence and endurance of institutionalized organizational behaviours, it is suggested that, under a variety of conditions, these behaviours will be highly susceptible to dissipation, rejection or replacement.
Product substitution is an important discontinuity in technology evolution. Conventional accounts draw on rational, linear models of change and emphasize that the process is driven by the appearance and adoption of new artifacts. This article adopts a constructivist approach to address the question of whether the social reconstruction of incumbent artifacts can trigger their substitution, even in the absence of new alternatives. Drawing on a case study of the insecticide DDT and employing a discourse analytical perspective, four artifact-constituting discourses which have been employed to construct and reconstruct DDT are identified, and their implications for product substitution discussed.
We examine how a new discourse shapes the emergence of new global regulatory institutions and, specifically, the roles played by actors and the texts they author during the institution-building process, by investigating a case study of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and its relationship to the new environmental regulatory discourse of 'precaution'. We show that new discourses do not neatly supplant legacy discourses but, instead, are made to overlap and interact with them through the authorial agency of actors, as a result of which the meanings of both are changed. It is out of this discursive struggle that new institutions emerge.
Faced with increasing real-time dislocation of institutionalized practices in empirical studies, it has become clear that neo-institutional theory is still ill-equipped to elucidate strategies of change in institutional fields. In this article, I endorse the claim that neo-institutional theory can both become more strategic and give a richer meaning to the strategy-formation process by integrating issues of ideology, power and agency in a political-cultural rhetoric of legitimation. Using the social movement metaphor to describe institutional change, I study incumbents and challengers as potentially antagonistic social movement organizations (SMOs) that strive to hegemonize entrepreneurship in fields. After having outlined a model linking institutional change to the strategy-formation process, I identify four archetypes of SMOs and strategic propensities, and illustrate the presented propositions about the incumbent SMO-challenger SMO dynamic using the case of emerging Internet challengers in the music industry.
In this paper we develop a theoretical model that helps to understand change in mature organizational fields by emphasizing the role of competing institutional logics as part of a radical change process. Our investigation into a large-scale, government-led health reform initiative in Alberta, Canada, is based upon a qualitative case study approach to understanding the process of field recomposition. This study focuses on the later portions of change in an organizational field - that is, rather than explaining the sources of change, we investigate how a field becomes re-established after the implementation of a radical structural change.
This paper describes the methods being used by the Minnesota Innovation Research Program to develop and test a process theory of innovation which explains how and why innovations develop over time and what developmental paths may lead to success and failure for different kinds of innovations. After a background description of the longitudinal field research, this paper focuses on the methods being used to examine processes of innovation development. These methods pertain to the selection of cases and concepts, observing change, coding and analyzing event data to identify process patterns, and developing theories to explain observed innovation processes. We believe these methods are applicable to other studies that examine a range of temporal processes, including organizational startup, growth, decline, and adaptation.
This study examines the role of downsizing in the deinstitutionalization of permanent employment among publicly listed companies in Japan between 1990 and 1997. We found that although economic pressure triggered downsizing, social and institutional pressures shaped the pace and process by which downsizing spread. Large, old, wholly domestically owned, and high-reputation Japanese firms were resistant to downsizing at first, as were firms with high levels of human capital, as reflected by high wages, but these social and institutional pressures diminished as downsizing spread across the population. We argue that this breakdown of social constraints was due to a safety-in-numbers effect: as downsizing became more prominent, the actions of any single firm were less likely to be noticed and criticized, and the effect of the institutional factors that once constrained downsizing diminished.
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This paper describes the role of rhetoric in legitimating profound institutional change. In 1997, a Big Five accounting firm purchased a law firm, triggering a jurisdictional struggle within accounting and law over a new organizational form, multidisciplinary partnerships. We analyze the discursive struggle that ensued between proponents and opponents of the new organizational form. We observe that such rhetorical strategies contain two elements. First are institutional vocabularies, or the use of identifying words and referential texts to expose contradictory institutional logics embedded in historical understandings of professionalism, one based on a trustee model and the other based on a model of expertise. A second element of rhetorical strategies is theorizations of change by which actors contest a proposed innovation against broad templates or scenarios of change. We identify five such theorizations of change (teleological, historical, cosmological, ontological, and value-based) and describe their characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Administrative Science Quarterly is the property of Administrative Science Quarterly and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
This paper considers the role of design, as the emergent arrangement of concrete details that embodies a new idea, in mediating between innovations and established institutional fields as entrepreneurs attempt to introduce change. Analysis of Thomas Edison's system of electric lighting offers insights into how the grounded details of an innovation's design shape its acceptance and ultimate impact. The notion of robust design is introduced to explain how Edison's design strategy enabled his organization to gain acceptance for an innovation that would ultimately displace the existing institutions of the gas industry. By examining the principles through which design allows entrepreneurs to exploit the established institutions while simultaneously retaining the flexibility to displace them, this analysis highlights the value of robust design strategies in innovation efforts, including the phonograph, the online service provider, and the digital video recorder.