lawrence and suddaby - 2006 - institutions and institutional work

7/23/2019 Lawrence and Suddaby - 2006 - Institutions and Institutional Work.

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1 .6 In stitutions and In stitutiona l Work

THOMAS B. LAWREN CE AN D ROY SUD DABY

Introduction

Institutional approaches to organization studiesfocus attention on the relationships among organi-

zations and the elds in which they operate, high-lighting in particular the role of rational formalstructures in enabling and constraining organiza-tional behaviour A key contribution of institutionalstudies has been the development of strongaccounts of the processes through which institu-tions govern action This has been accomplished inpart through theoretical statements which havedelineated key sets of concepts and relationshipsthat tie institutional structures and logics to o rgani-zational forms and conduct (Meyer and Rowan

1977; DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Greenwood andHinings 199 6) . Also key in the development of insti-tutional understandings of organizational actionhas been the large set of empirical studies that havedocumented the connections among institutions,elds and organizations These studies have cata-logued the impact of institutional forces in a widevariety of sectors and geographic contexts, and atvarying levels o f analysis including intraorganiza-tional (Zilber 2002), interorganizational (Leblebiciet a!. 199 1 ) and international (Keohane 19 89; Meyer

et a! 19 97 ) Finally, there has emerged an inuentialset of reviews of institutionalism in organizationstudies that have summarized and synthesized themajor work in the area into coherent frameworks(DiMaggio and Powell 1991; Tolbert and Zucker199 6; Scott 200 1; Schneiberg and Clemens 2006)

Although the traditional emphasis of institu-tional approaches to organization studies has beenon the explanation of organizational similaritybased o n institutional conditions, there has over thepast 10 15 years emerged a new emphasis in institu-tional studies on understanding the role of actors ineffecting, transforming and maintaining institutions

and elds. The role of actors in creating new insti-tutions has been examined primarily under therubric of institutional entrepreneurship (Eisenstadt1980; DiMaggio 1988) DiMaggio (1988: 14) argues

that institutional entrepreneurs are central to insti-tutional processes, since new institutions arisewhen organized actors with sufcient resources(institutional entrepreneurs) see in them an oppor-tunity to realize interests tha t they value highly'. Theconcept of institutional entrepreneurship is impor-tant because it focuses attention on the m anner inwhich interested actors work to inuence their insti-tutional contexts through such strategies as techni-cal and market leadership, lobbying for regulatorychange and discursive action (Suchman 1995;

Fligstein 1997; Hoffman 1999; Garud et a! 2002;Maguire et a! 200 4). The role of actors in the trans-format ion o f existing institutions and elds has alsorisen in prominence within institutional research.Institutional studies have documented the ability ofactors, particularly those with some key strategicresources or other forms of power, to have signi-cant impacts on the evolution of institutions andelds (Clemens 19 93; Holm 199 5; Oakes et a!. 199 8;Greenwood et a!. 200 2) , including both institutionaltransformation and deinstitutionalization (Oliver

1992; Ahmadjian and Robinson 2001) Finally, amore modest amount of research has begun toexamine the role of actors in maintaining institu-tions: although denitions of institution emphasizetheir enduring nature (Hughes 1936), institutionsrely on the action of individuals and organizationsfor their reproduction over time (Berger andLuckmann 196 6; Giddens 19 84).

In this chapter, we aim to provide a summary andsynthesis of research on what we refer to as institu-tional work' the purposive action of individualsand organizations aimed at creating, maintainingand disrupting institutions. Thus far, research on

Thomas B. Lawrence and Roy Suddaby (2006) Institutions and institutional work. In Stewart R.

Clegg, Cynthia Hardy, Thomas B. Lawrence & Walter R. Nord (Eds.) Sage Handbook of

Organization Studies, 2nd Edition: 215-254. London: Sage.


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Hand book of Organization Studies

institutional work ha s been largely unconnected a ssuch literatures on institutional entrepreneurshipand deinstitutionalization have emerged as semi-coherent research streams, but the overall focus hasremained largely unarticulated Thus, a key contri-

bution of this chapter will be the provision ofa framework that connects previously disparatestudies of institutional work and the articulation ofa research agenda for the area By focusing onempirical work that has occurred in the past 15years and mapping i t in terms of the forms of insti-tutional work that it has examined, we are able toboth provide a rst cataloguing of forms of institu-tional work and point to issues and areas that havebeen underexamined.

The structure of the chapter is as follows: {1) adenition and discussion of the concept of institu-tional work; (2) a map of empirical studies of insti-tutional work; and { 3 ) a discussion of emerging andillustrative approaches to the study of institutionalwork

The Concept of I nstitutional

Work

The concept of an institution is at the heart of allinstitutional approaches to organizational research:

central to both theoretical and empirical examina-tions of organizational phenomena that adopt aninstitutionalist perspective is the idea that there areenduring elements in social life institutions thathave a profound effect on the thoughts, feelings andbehaviour of individual and collective actors Theliterature is replete with denitions of institutionsScott { 200 1: 48) describes institutions as consistingof culturedco gnitive, normative and regulativeelements that provide stability and meaning tosocial life . . . Institutions are transmitted by various

types of carriers, including symbolic systems, rela-tional systems, routines and artifacts' and theyoperate at multiple levels of jurisdiction Fligstein{2001: 108) echoes Scott's emphasis on regulationand human cognition in dening institutions asrules and shared meanings that dene so cialrelationships, help dene who occupies what posi-tion in those relationships and guide interactionby giving actors cognitive frames or sets of mean-ings to interpret the behaviour of others The neo-institutional view of institutions has been criticized

for privileging the role of cognition in conceptualizing

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institutional action (G reenwood and Hinings 1996 ;Hirsch 1997; Hirsch and Lounsbury 1997).Institutional economists, by contrast, emphasize therole of human agency in devising institutions.North { 1990: 97), for example, describes institutions

as humanly devised constraints that structure polit-ical, economic and socia l interact ion They consist ofboth informal constraints (sanctions, taboos, cus-toms, traditions and codes of conduct) and formalrules (constitutions, laws and property rights)'.Jepperson's {1991: 1435) denition comes closestto the position we adopt here; that institutions arethe product (intentional or otherwise) of purposiveaction. Institutions, he argues, are an organized,established procedure' that reect a set of standard-ized interaction sequences In contrast to previousdenitions of institutions, which view them as therelatively passive construction of meaning by part ic-ipants, Jepperson points toward the possibility ofviewing institutions as patterns of sequenced inter-action suppo rted by specic mechanisms o f controlInstitutions, in this view, are the product o f specicactions taken to reproduce, alter and destroy them.

Jepperson's approach points to an emerging focuswithin institutional studies. Along with understand-ing the processes through which institutions affectorganizational action, research has become increas-ingly concerned with the effects of individual and

organizational action on institutions. This concernseems to us to represent an important part of theture of institutional studies in management andorganization theory. In this section, we introducethe concept of institutional work' to represent thebroad category of purposive action aimed at creat-ing, maintaining and disrupting institutions We doso by discussing two sets of writing, one that articu-lated the core elements of the study of institutionalwork and motivated organizational researchers topursue this direction, and a second that has the

potential to provide a robust theoretical foundationfor the concept of institutional work.

Agency in I nstitutional Stud ies

Our conception of institutional work is rooted in asmall set of articles that articulate a broad theoreticaloutline for the study of institutional work, parallelto the way in which the art icles by Meyer and Rowan{1977) and DiMaggio and Powell {1983) providedthe underpinnings for the new institutionalism in

organization studies. The rst of these articles is


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In sttutions and In stitutional Work

DiMaggio's {1988) essay on Interest and agencyin institutional theory' Here, DiMaggio describesthe concept of institutional entrepreneurship asa means of understanding how new institutionsarise This essay not only reintroduced strategy

and power into neoinstitutional explanations(Eisenstadt 1980; DiMaggio 1988), but also pro-vided the foundation for a shi in the attention ofinstitutional researchers toward the eects of actorsand agency on institutions The concept of institu-tional entrepreneurship focuses attention on themanner in which interested actors work to inuencetheir institutional contexts through such strategiesas technical and market leadership or lobbying forregulatory change (Fligstein 1997; Hoffman 1999;Rao et a!. 2000; Maguire et a!. 2004). Thus, it high-lights the impo rtance of the practices of individualsand organizations in the creation of new institu-tions. We believe, however, that such practices gowell beyond those of institutional entrepreneurs the creation of new institutions requires institu-tional work on the part of a wide range of actors,both those with the resources and skills to act asentrepreneurs and those whose role is supportive orfacilitative of the entrepreneur's endeavours(Leblebici et a!. 1 99 1 )

The other major articles in which agency was rstrecognized as central in the new institutional theory

were Oliver's {1991) discussion of strategicresponses to institutional processes, and her (Oliver19 92 ) account o f deinstitutionalization In the rstof these articles, Oliver {1991) presented a frame-work for understanding the range of responsesavailable to organizations facing institutional pres-sures , and the contexts under which these differentresponses would be most likely to occur Oliver{1991: 145) argued that what the institutional liter-ature was lacking to that point was explicit atten-tion to the strategic behaviours that organizations

employ in direct response to the institutionalprocesse s that aect them'. In r esponse to this gap inthe literature, Oliver proposed a vepart typologyof such strategic responses that varied in the degreeto which they involved active agency' on the part ofthe o rganization: from most to least passive, the veresponses are acquiescence, compromise, avoidance,deance and manipulation. While the potential foractors to respond to institutional processes andpressures in a variety of ways had been recognizedin early institutional theory (S elznick 19 49 ), Oliver

{1991) represented the rst systematic attempt at

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articulating the range o f potential responses. Thisarticle has since provided the theo retical foundationfor numerous empirical studies and theoreticalextensions (Rao et a!. 2001; Seo and Creed 2002;Thornton 2002; Zilber 2002; Lawrence 2004;

Washington and Zajac 2005; Greenwood andSuddaby 2006 )The second key article by Oliver examined the

antecedents of deinstitutionalization Oliver { 19 92:564) argued that deinstitutionalization representsthe delegitimation of an established organizationalpractice or procedure as a result of organizationalchallenges to or the failure of organizations toreproduce previously legitimated or takenfor-granted organizational actions'. Although notexplicitly focused on action, Oliver's discussion ofdeinstitutionalization highlights two important cat-egories of institutional work First, the notion ofdeinstitutionalization points to the potential fororganizational actors to actively engage in the dis-ruption o f institutions to engage in institutionalwork aimed not at creating or supporting institu-tion but at tearing them down or rendering themineffectual. Oliver { 19 92: 567) describes this work asthe rejection' of an institution: a direct assault onthe validity of a longstanding tradition or estab-lished activity As an example, Oliver {1992: 567)points to the example of direct challenges to the

appropriateness of traditional job classications onthe basis of stereotypical gender roles [which] haveled to the deinstitutionalization of this practice inmany organizations

The second category of institutional workpointed to by Oliver's discussion o f deinstitutional-ization is the work done by individuals and organi-zations in order to maintain existing institutions.Oliver {1992: 564) highlights this form of institu-tional work indirectly when she mentions the failureof organizations to reproduce previously legitimated

or takenforgranted organizational actions Thus,the reproduction and continuation of institutionscannot be taken for granted, even the most highlyinstitutionalized technologies, structures, practicesand rules require the active involvement of individ-uals and organizations in order to maintain themover time (Lawrence et a!. 2001) Zucker {1988)argues that even among institutions, entropy is anatural tendency that needs to be overcome by orga-nized action. Despite the potential importance ofthis category of institutional work, it has gained rel-

atively little attention As Scott {200 1 : 1 10 ) notes,


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most institutional scholars accord little attentionto the issue of institutional persistence, and thosewho do disagree over what mechanisms underliestabilit

Of course, the articles by DiMaggio {1988) and

Oliver {1 99 1; 199 2) are by no means the only onesthat deal with institutional work Each of these arti-cles has themselves spawned a host of articles andbook chapters in which the empirical dynamics andtheoretical implications of their ideas has beenexplored, and that have consequently added consid-erably to our understanding of institutional workThere have also been a number of attempts to pro-vide more general descriptions of the relationshipbetween action and institutions (DiMaggio andPowell 199 1; Beckert 1 999 ; Lawrence 1 999; Fligstein2001). DiMaggio and Powell {1991), for instance,describe a model of practical action' in which theyemphasize a number of shis which have occurredbetween the old and new institutionalisms:

from objecreaions o cogniive heoy, fromcatexis to ontological anxiey, fom discusive to

pactcal eason, fom ntenazation to mitation,

fom commitmen o etnomethoologca ts,fom sa ncton ing to ad ho ng, rom noms to scipts

an schemas, fom values to accons, fom consis

ency an ntegation to oose coupng, and fom

roles to outnes (DMaggi o an Powel 1 991 26-7).

Together, these shis lead to an image of action asdependent on cognitive (rather than affective)processes and structures, and thus suggests anapproach to the study of institutional work thatfocuses on understanding how actors accomplishthe social construction o f rules, scripts, schemas andcultural accounts.

Beckert {1 999 ) extends this emphasis on the cog-nitive links between action and institutions, arguing

that institutional rules and strategic agency' both actas coordinating mechanisms in market situationswhere actors are attempting to pursue (perhaps insti-tutionalized) goals of prot or competitive advan-tage. Beckert argues that institutions can provideactors with the ability to act when the complexity ofthe situation and the informational constraints donot allow them to assign probabilities to the possibleconsequences of choices'; at the same time, however,institutions come under pressure om agents whorecognize their constraining qualities for more e-

cient outcomes' (Beckert 19 99: 779 )

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Consistent with this general approach isLawrence's { 19 99 ) concept of institutional strategy,which he describes as: patterns of organizationalaction concerned with the formation and transfor-mation o f institutions, elds and the rules and stan-

dards that control those structures The concept ofinstitutional strategy describes the manipulation ofsymbolic resources, particularly membership accessand the denition of standards, which are keyaspects of the type of work necessary in the earlystages of an institutionalization project. Fligstein{2001), in a related fashion, uses the construct ofsocial skill' to describe th e various tactics that socialactors use to gain the cooperation of others.Fligstein {2 00 1 : 106) rther observes that the socialskills used to reproduce elds are different fromthose used in conditions of crisis or change Theselat ter skills are used by entrepreneurs who nd waysto get disparate groups to cooperate precisely byputting themselves into the positions of others andcreating meanings that appeal to a large numberof actors

We believe that the theoretical pieces byDiMaggio {1 988 ) and Oliver { 199 1 ; 1 99 2) representa signal shi in the attention of institutionalresearchers toward the impact of individual and col-lective actors on the institutions that regulate theelds in which they operate From these early works

has emerged an important tradition within institu-tional theory that explores theoretically and empir-ically the ways in which actors are able to create,maintain and disrupt institutions

Soci ology of Practice

The second major foundation for the concept ofinstitutional work comes from research in the tradi-tion of and inspired by the sociology of practice{Bourdieu 1977; 1993; de Certeau 1984; Giddens

19 84; Lave and Wenger 1 99 1 ) . This tradition under-stands practices as embodied, materially mediatedarrays of human activity centrally organized aroundshared practical understanding' (Schatzki et a!.200 1 : 2 ). Thus, studies of practice focus on the situ-ated actions of individuals and groups as they copewith and attempt to respond to the demands oftheir everyday lives (de Certeau 1984). Practicetheory and research are most easily understood incontrast to processoriented studies: as Brown andDuguid {2000: 95) argue, to focus on practice is to

focus on the internal life of process Whereas a


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processoriented theory articulates a sequence ofevents that leads to som e outcome, a practice theorydescribes the intelligent activities of individuals andorganizations who are working to effect those eventsand achieve that outcome 1

In organizational research, an interest in practicehas begun to be seen in a variety of domains, includ-ing organizational learning (Brown and Duguid199 1 ; Lave and Wenger 1 99 1 ) , strategy (Whittington200 3; Whittington et al. 200 3) , technology manage-ment ( Orlikowski 2000 ), accounting (Hopwood andMiller 1 994 ; Miller 200 1 ) , o rganization t heory(Pentland 1992; Dutton et al 2001) and time inorganizations (Orlikowski and Yates 2002). In all ofthese areas, researchers have begun to examine o rga-nizational actors as knowledgeable and practical intheir affairs (Giddens 1984) The central tenets ofpractice theory are consistent with and have thepotential to contribute substantially to institutionalresearch. As in institutional theo ry, the practice per-spective locates the concept of a eld' as central toall things social. Summarizing this issue, Schatzkiet al. (2001: 3) argue that practice approachespromulgate a distinct social ontology: the social isa eld of embodied, materially interwoven prac-tices centrally organized around shared practicalunderstandings'.

Our concept of institutional work follows in thispractice tradition: we view institutional work asintelligent, situated institutional action. A practiceperspective on institutional work is made clearer inits contrast with a process perspective on institu-tions. The focus of processual descriptions of insti-tutionalization (e.g. Greenwood and Hinings 1996;Tolbert and Zucker 1996) has been on the institu-tions: what happens to them; how they are trans-formed; what states they take on and in what orderIn contrast, a practice orientation focuses on theworld inside the processes (Brown and Duguid

2000; Whittington 200 3) the work of actors asthey attempt to shape those processes, as they workto create, maintain and disrupt institutions. Thisdoes not mean that the study of institutional work isintended to move back to an understanding ofactors as independent, autonomous agents capableof lly realizing their interests through strategicaction; instead, a practice perspective highlights thecreative and knowledgeable work of actors whichmay or may not achieve its desired ends and whichinteracts with existing social and technological

structures in unintended and unexpected ways. As

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Orlikowski (2000: 407) argues with respect totechnology, for example, a practice perspective:

acknowledges that while uses can an do se

echn ologes as ey wee esigned, they also ca nand do cicumven inscbe ways of sing e

echnologes - ethe gnong certain propetes o

e techno logy, woking aoun d them, o inventingnew ones that may g o beyon o even contadict

es gnes' expectations and n sciptons

Thus, adopting a practice perspective on institutionspoints research and theory toward understanding theknowledgeable, creative and practical work of indi-vidual and collective actors aimed at creating, main-taining and transforming institutions.

Key Elements of the Study of

In stitutiona l Work

We believe that bringing together the interest inagency within institutional theory spawned byDiMaggio (1988) and Oliver (1991; 1992) with thepractice turn in social theory provides a solid concep-tual foundation for the emerging study of institu-tional work Together, they suggest an approach to thestudy of institutional work with three key elements.

First, the study of institutional work would high-light the awareness, skill and reexivity of individualand collective actors Some versions of institutionaltheory strongly emphasize the takenforgranted-edness' of institutions, and thus have the potentialto construct actors as cultural dopes (Hirsch andLounsbury 1997). In contrast, the concept of insti-tutional work suggests culturally competent actorswith strong practical skills and sensibility who cre-atively navigate within their organizational elds.This is not to suggest, however, a return to the ratio-nal actor model Rather, we draw on an understand-

ing of actors as rational in the sense that they areable to work with institutionallydened logics ofeffect or appropriateness (March 1994), and thatdoing so requires culturallydened forms of com-petence and knowledge, as well as the creativity toadapt to conditions that are both demanding anddynamic (Giddens 19 84; Cassell 19 93 ).

Th e second element is a n understanding of insti-tutions as constituted in the more and less con-scious action of individual and collective actors Inan essay exploring the ontological status of macro-

sociological phenomena, including institutions,


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Barnes {2 00 1 ) argues that , from a p ractice perspec-tive, these phenomena are located in the sets ofpractices people engage in as a part of those macro-phenomena, rather than, for instance, emergingfrom those practices and existing at some other

level Democracy, for instance, resides in the acts ofpolling, campaigning and related activities thatpeople do as citizens of a democratic society, ratherthan describing some emergent property of thesociety that is separate from those practices. Thisleads us to suggest that the study of institutionalwork be centrally concerned with understandingboth the sets of practices in which institutionalactors engage that maintain institutions, and thepractices that are associated with the creation ofnew institutions and the disruption of existing ones

Finally, a practice perspective on institutionalwork suggests that we cannot step outside of actionas practice even action which is aimed at changingthe institutional order of an organizational eldoccurs within sets of institutionalized rulesGiddens {1984: 21) describes rules as techniques orgeneralizable procedures applied in the enact-ment/reproduction of social practices' to this wewould add that there are techniques and generaliz-able procedures that are applied in the disruption/transformation of social practices This in no waysuggests a lack of potential innovation in institu-

tional elds, but merely that the practices whichmight lead to institutional innovations are them-selves institutionally embedded and so rely on setsof resources and skills that are specic to the eld orelds in which they occur In the remainder of thischapter, we work from this perspective to begin tooutline the terrain of institutional work the sets ofpractices through which individual and collectiveactors create, maintain and disrupt the institutionsof organizational elds.

Institutiona l Work in

Organizations

In this section, we examine empiricallybased insti-tutional research in order to provide an overview ofwhat we do and do not understand about institu-tional work. In order to do this, we draw primarilyfrom empirical research published since 1990 inthree major organizational journals in which insti-tutional research appears Administrative Science

Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal andOrganization Studies. Our intention here is not to

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conduct an exhaustive overview, nor to provide adenitive schema of institutional work. Rather, ourobjective is to reveal and illustrate the sediment ofinstitutional work in the existing literature and,thereby, outline the terrain of an emerging object of

insti tutional inquiry. Although relatively few articleswithin the now voluminous body of empiricalresearch in neoinstitutional theory focus solely oninstitutional work, a signicant number of themprovide descriptions of institutional work, somedirectly as they examine the rise and fall of variousinstitutional arrangements, and others in the con-text of background empirical material intendedto aid understanding of institutional processes.Together these studies reveal considerable insightinto the oen overlooked constituent elements ofinstitutional work.

We organize our analysis around three broad cat-egories of institutional work creating, maintainingand disrupting institutions. Together these cate-gories describe a rough lifecycle of institutionalwork that parallels the lifecycle of institutionsdescribed by Scott {2001) and Tolbert and Zucker{1996) Our review suggests a set of insights intocreating, maintaining and disrupting institutionswith which we end each discussion

Creating In stitutionsOf the three b road categories o f institutional workwe examine, the work aimed at creating institutionshas received the most attention by organizationalscholars. Building particularly on the notion ofinstitutional entrepreneurship (Eisenstadt 1980;DiMaggio 1988), signicant efforts have beenundertaken to describe and explain the role of inter-ested actors in the formation of institutions (Dacinet al. 2002). The primary focus of much of thisresearch, however, has been to elabo rate the charac-

teristics of, and the conditions that produce, institu-tional entrepreneurs Somewhat less evident in theseaccounts are detailed descriptions of precisely whatit is that institutional entrepreneurs do.

In the empirical research we reviewed, weobserved ten distinct sets of practices throughwhich actors engaged in actions that resulted in thecreation of new institutions. While we do not sug-gest that the practices we identi provide anexhaustive list of the kind of institutional work usedto create institutions, we observe that they reect

three broader categories of activities The rst threetypes of institutional work, vesting', dening' and


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Table 1. 6.1 Creating Institutions

Forms of

institutional

work

Advocac

Defining

Vesting

Constructing

identities

Changing

normative

associations

Constructing

normative

networs

Mimicr

Theorizing

Educating

Definition

The mobil ization of political and regulator supportthrough direct and deliberate techniques of social suasion

The construction of rul e sstems that confer status or

identit, define boun daries of membershi p or create

status hie rarchies with in a field

The creation of rule structures that confer propert rights

Definin g the relationship between an actor and the field in

wh ic h that actor operates

Re-maing the connections between sets of practices and

the moral a nd cu ltural u ndations for those practices

Constructing of interorganizational connections through

which practices become normativel sanctioned and

whic h form the relevant pee r group with respect to

compliance, monitoring and evaluation

Associating new practices with existing sets of

taen-for-granted practices, technologies and rules

in order to ease adoption

The development and specification of abstract categories

and t he elaboration of cha ins of cause and effect

The educating of actors in sills and nowledge

necessar to support the new institution

Key references for

empirical examples

Elsbach and Sutton (1 992);Galvin (2002)

Fox-Wolfgramm

et al . (1 998)

Russo (2001 )

ounsbur (2001) ;

Oaes et al . (1 998)

Townle (1 997);

Zilber (2002)

awrence et al. (2002);

Orssatto et al. (2002)

argadon and

Douglas (2001) ;

Jones (2001 )

Kitchener (2002);

Orssatto et al. (2002)

ounsbur (2001) ;

Wowode (2 002)

advocacy', reect overtly political work in whichactors reconstruct rules, property rights and bound-aries that dene access to material resources. Thesecond set of practices, constructing identities',changing norms' and constructing networks',emphasize actions in which actors' belief systems arerecongured. The nal group of actions, mimicry',theorizing' and educating', involve actions designedto alter abstract categorizations in which the bound-

aries of meaning systems are altered We discuss andillustrate each of these in turn. See Table 1 6 1 for asummary of the forms of institutional work associ-ated with creating institutions.

which the collective action of sherman and theirmobilization of state power behind their institu-tional project was key to the ultimate success of thesherman Holm (1995: 4056) observes that it was [b ] ecause of the close ties between the Fisherman'sAssociation and the Labour party' that the HerringAct was ultimately successl in preserving the sh-ermen's interests in the impending reengineeringof the Norwegian shing industry Advocacy is an

important component of the institutional work ofinterest associations or organizations that are for-mally established to make claims for to represent important constituencies in an organizational eld'(Galvin 2002: 673) One form of advocacy workidentied by Galvin involves deliberate and directrepresentation of the interests of specic actors.This work entails lobbying for resources, promotingagendas and proposing new or attacking existinglegislation It is similar to the forms of institutionalwork accomplished by political regimes (Carroll

et a!. 19 88 ) or by social movements (Clemens 19 93 )Th e object of such institutional work is to redene

Advocacy

The rst type of work important for the creation ofinstitutions is advocacy - th e mobilization of politi-cal and regulatory support through direct and delib-erate techniques of social suasion. Holm ( 19 95 )

provides an excellent illustration of th e importanceof advocacy work in his description of the way in

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the allocation of material resources or social andpolitical capital needed to create new institutionalstructures and practices

We identi advocacy as a form of institutionalwork associated with the creating of institutions

because it is a key element by which marginal actorsinitially acquire the legitimacy they may need to effectnew institutions Suchman {1995) observes that dif-ferent forms of advocacy, such as lobbying, advertis-ing and litigation, allow less powerl institutionalactors to actively shape their institutional environ-ment and, ultimately, acquire cognitive legitimacyElsbach and Sutton ( 1992) identi extreme examplesof how advocacy offers marginalized actors theopportunity to create institutions by manipulatingcognitive legitimac The authors demonstrate howtwo social movements, Earth First and the AIDSCoalition to Unleash Power, employed controversialforms of advocacy, including coercion and illegiti-mate activities, to gain legitimacy by rst violatingexisting norms and then articulating awareness oftheir marginalized position Advocacy, thus, is a pow-erl form of institutional work that permits actors toinuence when and how institutional norms are per-ceived. Used eectively, advocacy can determinewhich norms are followed and which may be vio-lated, both of which are key elements in the cognitivelegitimacy of new institutions

Dening

A second form of institutional work involves activitydirected toward denin the construction of rule sys-tems that confer status or identity, dene boundariesof membership or create status hierarchies within aeld At the societal level, an illustration of thisprocess is the way in which citizenship rules and pro-cedures confer status and membership (Meyer et a!19 97 ) More generally, Lawrence { 19 99) describes the

dening of membership rules and practice standardsas the two broad categories of institutional strategy.

A rich example of dening comes from Fox-Wolfgramm et al.'s {1998) analysis of institutionalchange in a sample of banks Here, a key element ofinstitutional work involved the formalization of rulesystems, by bank examiners, to construct deni-tional categories of compliance The examiners con-structed 12 criteria for categorizing banks asoutstanding, satisfactory, need to improve or sub-stantial noncompliance; formal categories that

would, ultimately, determine differential access to

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resources. Denitional work, thus, extends toformal accreditation processes, the creation of stan-dards and the certication of actors within a eld.Certication was the primary form of denitionalwork identied by Guer et a!. {2002) in the emer-

gence and difsion of ISO practices globally. Russo{200 1 ), similarly, points to the formalization of con-tract standards and the denition of standardexchange rates between utilities by the federal gov-ernment as a key component of the success of theemerging independent power industry Advocates ofthe new industry were clearly reliant upon the abil-ity of the state to impose standardized cost deni-tions and contract terms on industry participants.

From the empirical research we examined, itseems that most dening work focuses actors on thecreation of constitutive rules' (Scott 200 1 ) or rulesthat enable rather than constrain institutionalaction. In contrast to the prohibitive nature of mostregulatory activity, dening is directed more oentoward establishing the parameters of ture orpotential institutional structures and practicesRules of membership, accreditation and citizenshipengage actors in processes directed toward dening(and redening) boundaries and frameworkswithin which new institutions can be formed

VestingVesting refers to institutional work directed towardthe creation of rule structures that confer propertyrights (Roy 19 8 1 ; Russo 2 00 1 ) Vesting occurs whengovernment authority is used to reallocate propertyrights, such as occurred in the edgling indepen-dent powerproduction industry (Russo 2 00 1 ) Theindustry was created by US federal mandate thatlarge established utilities had to purchase electricityfrom independent producers. Previously, largepower producers held state enforced monopolies

over the generation of electricity. Such monopolieswere an historical artifact of the large risks andcapital costs required to build and maintain massivehydroelectric projects To counterbalance the monop-olistic power of utilities, state governments conferredthe right to set prices on public utility commissions.In this early example ofvesting, thus, the governmentsimultaneously divided two elements of exchange{production and pricing) between two distinct sets ofactors (utilities and utility commissions) Althoughthis division of vested rights and interests worked

well for a time, the oil crisis of the 1970s focused


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r

attention on the need to develop alternative sourcesof electricity. A second round of vesting legislation,therefore, created a new set of actors and redenedthe exchange relations between them A compre-hensive energy plan introduced by President Jimmy

Carter required large utilities to purchase powerfrom qualiing independent producers By chang-ing the pricing formula for energy, the legislationgave immediate status and legitimacy to smallpower producers that, previously, were shut out ofthe industry by established energy corporationsVesting, as illustrated in this case, refers to themicroprocesses of creating new actors and neweld dynamics by changing the rules of marketrelations.

A common element of vesting is the negotiationof a regulative bargain' between the state or anothercoercive authority and some other interested actorThis was particularly evident in the compact' thatdeveloped between large utilities and public utilitycommissions described by Russo {2001) The vest-ing process yoked' these two sets of actors togetherin an implicit contract that required one to producepower and the other to set prices that would covercosts and generate a reasonable rate of return Theintroduction of independent power producers inthis relationship required the creation of a newimplicit contract in which exchange relationship

was based on the avoidance of risk, rather thanassumptions of reasonable returns

Such regulative bargains also commonly occur inprofessional elds, where the state, in exchange forthe grant o f an economic monopoly over a particu-lar jurisdiction, expects the profession to support itsown project of statebuilding (Abbott 19 88 ; Cooperet al. 1994) While vesting is most apparent in thepublic duty' obligations of established professionssuch as law and auditing, it has also been demon-strated in less established professions such as per-

sonnel professionals (Baron et al. 19 86 ) and nance{Lounsbury 20 02 ) Ultimately, the process o f vestinginvolves some degree of sharing of coercive or regu-latory authority.

Several general observations can be made regard-ing these rst three forms of institutional workFirst, they appear to potentially constitute a mutu-ally reinforcing cycle Advocacy work is an impor-tant precursor to the dening of rules that conferstatus and privilege, which in turn provide the foun-dation for vesting work; vesting, in turn, cons trains

and constitutes those actors with preferential ability

223

to advocate. Secondly, the forms of institutionalchange that result from this type of institutionalwork oen involve the dramatic, wholesale recon-struction of institutions or institutional structuresand practices revolutionary rather than evolution-

ary institutional change (Greenwood and Hinings1996) Thirdly, while the preceding discussionclearly privileges the role of the state in this form ofinstitutional work, the state is not the only actorwith coercive or regulatory authority. Thornton{20 02; 2004) describes the work of exogenous actorsin the college textbook publishing industry wherecoercion was expressed nancially rather thanthrough regulatory authority. Fligstein {1990: 19),similarly, describes the ability of the emerging eldof large industrial multinationals to construct theirown coercive mechanisms of governance, albeit as aresult of strategic interaction between actors in thestate and actors in rms

Constructing Identities

The construction of identities as a form of institu-tional work is central to the creating of institutionsbecause identities describe the relationship betweenan actor and the eld in which that actor operates{Bourdieu and Wacquant 19 92 ) A powerl exampleof this form of work comes from Oakes et al's

{1998) study of institutional change in the eld ofAlberta historical museums In this case, the gov-ernment department responsible for museumsworked to reorient the identities of museumemployees:

people the organizatios were] encoaged o

see them selves, pera ps fo t he fist ime, as wok

ng n businesses rather tan wong n musemsat ae un n a bsnessl ie manne The desirable

positional detty [was] o oge solely cuato,

reseacher, ntepee, o educato It [was alsoentepeeu, ofen descibed as being 'realistic

and becom ng chan geagents and 'is takes

(Oaes et al 998: 279-80)

The institutional work o f providing new identities isnot, however, an unproblematic accomplishment: asOakes et al { 19 98: 277 ) describe it,

some people to ty to emae themselves, while

othes may stop conribuing o wthaw completely Some, paticulaly hose with curatoial

bacgouns, elt ucomortable and tede o


10/40


become less nvolved as they no long e unde rsoode ues o the game; othes not ony embaced

e new ield bt helpe give sape.

In institutional theory, the construction of identi-ties as a form of institutional work has been primar-ily associated with the development of professions,as illustrated in studies o f both the emergence of newprofessions and the transformation of existing ones(Covaleski et al 1998; Brock et al. 1999 ) In the liter-ature we reviewed for this chapter, the constructionof professional identities was engaged in both fromoutside of the professional groups in questions(Oakes et al. 19 98 ) and by the groups themselves, asin Lounsbury's (200 1 ) examination o f recyclers. Thislatter study highlights the importance of collectiveaction in accomplishing the construction of identi-

ties as a form of normative institutional work:

statuscreaton ecycles began o orge a new and

istinct occupatonal dentity that was connected

o e deals o e broade envionmental movemen n the ealy 1990s, statuscreaton ecycles

began to dent each other though thei joint

particpation n e National Recycing Coalition(NRC) .. . In 1 993, a goup of ul ltme ecyclng

coodinatos fome e College and Univesty

Recycling Coodinatos (CURC) occupaional association [which} ... established procedues o elect

oicals and developed commttees to study measrement standards, by ecycled campaigns,coopeaion between niversiy opeatons and

acaemcs, an ohe ssues eaed to the con

suction of campus recycl ing pogammes(onsby 2001 : 33)

Changing Normative Associations

A different form of work aimed at creating newinstitutions involved the reformulating of norma-

tive associations: remaking the connectionsbetween sets o f practices and the mo ral and culturalfoundations for those practices This form of insti-tutional work oen led to new institutions whichwere parallel or complementary to existing institu-tions and did not directly challenge the preexistinginstitutions but, rather, simultaneously supportedand led actors to question them An interestingexample of such work comes from Zilber's (2002)institutional account of a rape crisis centre in IsraelZilber provides a detailed analysis of the means by

which founding practices, based upon feminist

224

logics and assumptions, were maintained butreinterpreted from an alternative normativeperspective that of therapeutic professionalismWhile training routines and rotation procedureswere kept more or less intact 20 years aer the

centre's founding, members no longer rememberedthe feminist origins and readily accepted the exten-sion of meaning of these practices to incorporate anew ideological understanding of the institution.Practices such as consensus decisionmaking androtation o f speakers, which were originally adoptedby feminists to avoid domination and promote anopen, respectl dialogue' (Zilber 2002: 243) wereextended by therapeutic professionals to promotethe recreation of the centre as a medical rather thana political institution. Feminist practices of consen-sus decisionmaking and speaker rotation wererelatively easily extended to promote psychothera-peutic practices of open or closed group counsellingor interventions

One version of this form of institutional workthat has been observed across a wide variety ofdomains is the substitution of generalized private-sector, for prot norms for eldspecic no rms thatfocus on such issues as human welfare or profes-sional autonomy (Townley 1997; Hinings andGreenwood 1 98 8; Kitchener 2002; Amis et al. 2004 ).Townley { 19 97 ), for instance, documents the insti-

tutional work of university administrators and gov-ernment agencies as they attempted to institute aprivatesector approach to HR in UK universities.A critical piece of work in this regard was theReport of the Steering Committee for EciencyStudies in Universities (Jarratt) ': For Jarratt, the keyto more dynamic and ecient universities lay in thepractices and policies associated with private sectororganizations, the latter commanding ideologicalovertones of eciency and effectiveness' (Townley1997: 265). Kitchener (2002: 401) describes similar

forms of institutional work in the eld of US health-care in the 1980s: in that arena, a group of politicalreformers' wrote a series of policy papers thatrenewed calls for healthcare o rganizations to adopt"businesslike structures and managerial practices'

Constructing Normative Networks

Another form of work aimed at creating institutionsinvolves the construction of what we refer to here asnormative networks', which are the interorganiza-

tional connections through which practices become


11/40


normatively sanctioned and which form therelevant peer group with respect to normativecompliance, monitoring and evaluation. A detailedillustration of this process comes om Lawrenceet al.'s {2002) description of how a protoinstitution'

emerged in the eld of child nutrition in Palestinefrom the construction of a normative networkincluding CARE, the University of Oslo, theAustralian embassy, a government agency andothers Although each actor had independent moti-vations and interests, the emerging protoinstitution'became a repository for each actor's preexistinginstitutionalized practices for addressing issues ofmalnutrition Thus, the new structure or proto-institution was established in parallel with existinginstitutional structures, including those of theMinistry of Health, CARE and other organizations,designed to address the same p roblem

A number of other studies provide similaraccounts o f how groups o f actors construct no rma-tive networks that provide the basis for new institu-tions. Leblebici et al. { 199 1 ) describe the role playedby patent pooling arrangements in the early stagesof radio, in which networks of prominent and pow-erl actors such as General Electric, AT&T andothers, created a new institutional structure (RCA)that effectively separated the manufacturing andbroadcasting activities of the industry Guler et al

{2002) analyse the difsion of ISO 9000 practices,and document the early difsion of ISO 9000 inmanufacturing occurring through the work of engi-neers and production managers in creating a nor-mative network aimed at promoting manufacturingstandards and practices Orssatto et al. {2002: 6748)describe the way in which the institutionalization ofrecycling in the European auto industry dependedupon industry groups, such as Renault, the PSAGroup and CFF' who believed that industrywidecooperation, collective liability, and commercial

relations between the various parties involved, werebetter principles from which to solve the wasteproblem of shredder residues

The key observation in these accounts is that for-mery loose coalitions of somewhat diverse actorsconstruct normative networks which eect new insti-tutions, oen alongside preexisting institutionalactivities and structures In some cases, the newlyformed institution mimics regulatory activities thatone might expect would be performed by the state,such as in the separation of industry activities or the

creation of manufacturing and process standards. In

225

other cases, as in the formation of a protoinstitution,the new institutional structure simply supplementsand supports activities that were once performed bythe state (and by other actors).

The three forms of institutional work identied

above share the common attribute of focusing onthe normative structure of institutions. That is, theyeach attend to the roles, values and norms thatunderpin institutions The types of institutionalwork differ, however, in the contextual relationshipsthat dene the normative structure of institutions.Constructing identities, for example, is a form ofinstitutional work that concentrates attention onthe relationship between an actor and the institu-tional eld or elds in which they function.Changing normative associations, by contrast,involve work that manipulates the relationshipbetween norms and the institutional eld in whichthey are produced. Finally, constructing normativenetworks describes a form of institutional work thatalters the relationship between actors in a eld bychanging the normative assumptions that connectthem We, thus, observe three different types ofinteractions (actoreld; normeld; actoractor)that provide the foundation for new institutionalformation. More signicant, perhaps, is theobserved need for greater analytic attention to bepaid by ture research to the ways in which actors

work to make these interactions cohere into a con-sistent and enduring institutional structure

Mimicry

Actors attempting to create new institutions havethe potential to leverage existing sets of takenfor-granted practices, technologies and rules, if they areable to associate the new with the old in some waythat eases adoption One way in which this is doneis through mimicry In Hargadon and Douglas'

{20 0 1: 479) rich historical account o f Edison'sefforts to institutionalize electric light, they arguethat, [b]y designing the incandescent light aroundmany of the concrete features o f the alreadyfamiliargas system, Edison drew on the public's preexistingunderstandings of the technology, its value, and itsuses' Despite the many practical and technicaladvantages of electric light, [Edison] deliberatelydesigned his electric lighting to be all but indistin-guishable from the existing system, lessening ratherthan emphasizing the gaps between the old insti-

tutions and his new innovation' (Hargadon and


12/40


Douglas 200 1 : 489 } Th is mimicry was accomplished,in part, through the clever use of skeumorphs design elements that symbolically connected previ-ous and current technologies such as bulbs thatmimic the shape of ames in gas lamps Edison

engaged in this mimicry to the extent that he inten-tionally undermined the practical effectiveness ofelectric light in order to make it mo re similar to gas:gas jets produced light equivalent to a 1 2watt bulb;Edison's designed his bulbs to produce 13 watts,despite having early prototypes that would p roducetwo or three times this amount of light Similarly,Edison mimicked the gas companies' undergroundpipes, despite the fact than when buried, the barecopper wires leaked electricity and blew out entirecircuits' (Hargadon and Douglas 2001: 490}

Mimicry was also an important form of institu-tional work in the development of the earlyAmerican motion picture industry, where one groupof entrepreneurs, referred to as immigrant contententrepreneurs' by Jones (2001: 925}, imitated highculture symbols and formats of Broadway theatresto evoke accepted cognitive heuristics from con-sumers, such as providing uniformed ushers, plushchairs, 2hour shows, and elaborate buildings'This strategy was in contrast to those entrepreneurswho relied primarily on technical and regulatorystrategies, and whose lms were primarily short

pieces shown in nickelodeons. In order to establishthe feature lm as an institution in this emergingindustry, these entrepreneurs, including AdolphZuckor and Jesse Lasky, who later formed FamousPlayers Lasky, the forerunner of Paramount Studio,specialized in lming established Broadway playsor novels with prominent Broadway actors' (Jones200 1 : 925}

Part of the success of mimicry in creating newinstitutional structures is that the juxtaposition ofold and new templates can simultaneously make the

new structure understandable and accessible, whilepointing to potential problems o r shortcomings ofpast practices. This was the ob servation by Townley(200 2} on changes in Alberta cultural organizationsLayering new business techniques, such as budget-ing or performance measurement, on traditionalprofessional practices, actors developed an acuteawareness of how past routines became problema-tized when viewed through the lens of businessrationality Townley (2002: 173} notes that the tech-nique of demonstrating problems of eciency by

juxtaposing old and new templates of organizing,

226

ultimately, succeeded as actors succumbed,cognitively, to conformity:

The 'cases of he ntodction of these measues,

e appeal to eiciency, an ence the legtimacy

of government, wee not qestioned, nor was eegitimacy of the govenment n making these

changes ... mited atempts at potecng o

ecoplng nernal wok actvities om fomalsrctures, althog ntialy successul, wee nhib

ted as business planning and peformance mea

ses had o be ntoduced a the nceasinglyowe uni levels o the dvision an the stes, and

eventually a the nivdal evel

Theorizing

Theorizing is the development and specication of

abstract categories, and the elaboration o f chains ofcause and effect' (Greenwood et al 2002: 60} Animportant aspect o f theorizing is the naming of newconcepts and practices so that they might become apart of the cognitive map of the eld. In their studyof business planning in Alberta historical museums,for instance, Oakes et al { 1 998 : 2767} describe theimportance and diculty associated with suchwork:

The meanng of eveyday wos ike 'goals' and

'objectives' became precaos. The difficulty nremembeing a new languag e and a l s categoes -

goal s, objectves, measu res, etc - was expressedseveral imes. .. . Some deparmens pesented

eir completed bsness plans o e Legslatue

only to be told that wha they escbe as objecives were really goals and tha what they defned

as outcomes wee reall y pocesses o outpus

Naming represents a critical rst step that pro-vides the foundation for rther theorizing, asdescribed by Orssatto et al (2002: 646} in their

study of the evolution o f recycling in the Europeanauto industry. A critical naming was by VD, theGerman automobile industry, which in October1990 coined the notion a concept for the tureprocessing of endoflife vehicles This namingallowed both the communication of the conceptand its elaboration through rther theorizing:the car manufacturers elaborated rther on the"VDA concept, communicated it to the BMU andthe general public, and engaged in technical andmarket research to prepare for its implementation

Naming and theorizing does not, however, necessarily


13/40

r

indicate agreement: in this case, Orssatto et a!(2002: 6467} argue that the common conceptshould be seen more as a political stake than a tech-nical document, since all automakers endorsed theproposal, despite their preferences for different

solutions at the technical levelSimilarly, Kitchener's (2 002: 402} study of health-care mergers describes the way in which namingand theorizing can have an impact on an entiresector

members of the Jackson ole group helped o

anslate the deology of maketmanageralismno US healt policy n te eay 1970s, tey

cone the tem healt maneance ogaizato

(HMO), labeed ts orgazatonal chaaceistcs,an successfuly lobbied he ixon aminstra

ion to edorse t as a means of encouagigsavngs (by managers) a s opposed to spedn g (bypoessioas)

Kitchener's study also highlights the narrativecomponent of theorizing (Bruner 1987} in whichactors articulate the causal and consequently tem-poral relationships among institutional elementsKitchener describes the way in which a variety ofactors engaged in storying in support of the adop-tion of mergers by healthcare organizations: the

popular business press (e.g. the Wall Street Journal,Fortune, Business Week and Forbes ) conveys tales ofindustrialists who merge organizations to achievespectacular turnarounds'; standard economics andmanagement texts . . . propose mergers as a rationalstrategic response to increasingly competitivemarket conditions'; and the management consul-tancy industry . . . added advice on mergers to thelist of services that it offers to health executives'(Kitchener 2002: 40 3}

Educating

The nal instance of institutional work we foundthat was aimed at creating institutions involved theeducating of actors in skills and knowledge neces-sary to support the new institution This was animportant form of cognitive work because the cre-ating of new institutions oen involves the develop-ment o f novel practices as well as connecting thosepractices to control mechanisms. This form ofcognitive work was evidenced in several studies,

including Hargadon and Douglas' (200 1) discussion

227

of Edison's electric light, which demanded thedevelopment of signicant new skills on the part o fworkers:

To wie a bu ild ing o electicity, Edison had to pu llp floos an snae wies aoud dooways, a sill

at tha ime known oly, ad ncompletey, to

nstalles of bgla alams ove the fist fewyears, Eison l obbied loca l sc oos to develop rain

ng programmes n electical egineeig a,

when that tiaive fel sho, staed s own rainng pogamme (Hagadon and Dog as 2001 :487)

Similarly, the institutionalization o f recycling pro-grammes in American universities demanded a newset of skills and knowledge on the part of a largepopulation. Consequently, a key role of the SEAC

was as an educator: As Lounsbury (2001: 367}describes, It sponsors annual student conferencesand maintains an elaborate network of experiencedstudent organizers who travel to campuses and holdworkshops, provide training and support work onactivities such as campus solid waste audits

One key strategy employed by the SEAC to edu-cate a large population of students and universitieswas to create templates ameworks that providedother actors with an outline, or template, for actionThe SEAC facilitated the institutionalization of

recycling by providing access to key informationsuch as case studies of other socially similar schoolsthat helped student environmental organizationsshape their arguments to administrators' (Lounsbury2001: 37} Moreover, the SEAC provided studentgroups with evidence from comparable schools [which] was communicated in formal documentscreated by student environmental groups that werepresented to school administrators in support oftheir claims' (Lounsbury 200 1 : 50} .

Templating also includes work do ne less directly

One important such case involved the creation of atemplate that helped foster the global quality move-ment Wowode (2002: 5067} examines the intro-duction of working groups as a formal structuralcomponent in the European auto industry, and con-cludes that:

The decision o ntodce worig goups coincided moe o less wi e date o publcaton o

e MIT sdy by Womack et al n 1990, which

praised e Japanese meod of podctio Thisboo, The Machine that Changed the World,of wh ch,

accordng o the coauor Daniel T Jones, moe


14/40


an 500,000 copies wee sold, as of Jun e 2000, hasbeen tanslate nto 1 1 deent angages

Seveal ntevewees om French a s well a s fom

Geman plants explciy state that top manageso proction specialists of thei ca companies

ad gone to vsit Japanese ca manufactuing

pants prior to the decision to ntoduce the wonggou p concept n the home conry, an ad

mae repeaed visits thereaer Two companes

even ed Japanese consultng fms to elp themntoduce e oginal Toyoa podction concept

n hei company

These nal three forms of institutional workaimed at creating institutions focus primarily on thecognitive side of institutions the beliefs, assump-tions and frames that inform action by providingmeaningl and understandable interaction pat-terns to b e followed Mimicry draws on existing pat-terns of action in order to articulate and legitimatenew practices and structures; theorzing developsconcepts and beliefs that can support new institu-tions; educatingprovides actors with the knowledgenecessary to engage in new practices o r interact withnew structures Each form of institutional worksupports the creating of new institutions by leverag-ing the costs that actors might bear if they seek toengage in new practices or develop new structureson their own; mimicry, theorizing and educating

provide actors with alternatives to the effort and riskassociated with isolated innovation.

Insights into Creating Institutions

The existing literature on institutional change pro-vides some usel insights into the institutionalwork necessary to create institutions In enumerat-ing these forms of institutional work, our intentionhere is not to suggest that we have uncoveredany exhaustive list, but rather to sketch the terrain

associated with the creating of institutions byinterested actors. As with all of our observations inthis section, we draw our insights regarding institu-tional work associated with the creating of institu-tions from a small sample of research, primarilycase studies, and have been unable to gauge theirgeneralizability

The concept of institutional work highlights theeffortl and skilll practices of interested actors,and so our sketch provides several insights regard-ing the actors involved in the creation of institu-

tions, the skills and resources on which they draw in

228

order to create institutions, and the institutionaldynamics associated with each form of work Key tocreating institutions is the ability to establish rulesand construct rewards and sanctions that enforcethose rules. Only some actors in any given eld will

have that ability tied directly to their position; inmany elds, such a role is restricted to the state o r adelegate of the state, such as a professional body.That ability can however be gained through po liticaland economic processes in which an actor estab-lishes a superior position in the eld. This positionmight be based either on the resource dependenceof other actors (Pfeffer and Salancik 197 8} . It mightalso reect a specialized identity relative to an issue,and thus emerge out of the normative workdescribed above in terms o f constructing identities

An important insight with respect to the differ-ences between forms of institutional work thatfocus on rules (ie. vesting, dening and advocacy)and forms of institutional work that effect changesin norms and belief systems (ie. constructing iden-tities, changing norms and constructing normativenetworks}, in terms of creating institutions, is thefar greater potential for rulesbased work to lead tothe de novo construction of new institutions. Unlikethe remaining types of institutional work, work thatfocuses on rule systems is much more likely to beassociated with the relatively wholesale construction

of new institutions: vesting and dening, in partic-ular, can lead to the relatively immediate institu-tionalization of practices, technologies and rules, solong as the putative agent has the authority toenforce those institutions.

In contrast, work that focuses on changing normsor belief systems is more oen associated with cre-ating of institutionalized rules, practices and tech-nologies that parallel or complement existinginstitutions. This may be because this type of workis the most coop erative' of the three approaches to

creating institutions. Unlike rulesbased work,which depends on the ability of some actor toenforce compliance, normative work relies on cul-tural and moral force, which is embedded in com-munities of practice. Consequently, the forms ofnormative work all depend signicantly on thecoop eration of those communities to make real theintended new institutions The clearest example ofthis is the forming of normative networks which arecrucial to lending an institution some cultural ormoral force; these networks are by their nature a

cooperative enterprise and so creating them involves


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a form of institutional work tha t depends heavily onthe ability of actors to establish and maintaincooperative ties This does not mean that norma-tive institutional work can not b e highly conictualas competing communities vie for legitimacy and

inuence with respect to a particular issue ( Zietsmaet a!. 2002 ). The constructing of identities as a typeof institutional work, for instance, is also oen ahighly cooperative endeavour since the actor whoseidentity is being constructed will oen dependon others to sanction, formally or informally, thatidentity Along with the social connections that co-operation requires, normative work is also facilitatedby discursive legitimacy (Hardy and Phillips 1998), aperceived right' to speak on a particular issue; this isin contrast to the authority and material resourcesthat make possible ruleoriented institutional work.

From our review of the empirical literature, itseems that creating institutions through work thatchanges abstract categories of meaning (i.e mim-icry, theorizing and educating) may involve well-established actors in a eld, but at the same timehold the greatest potential for institutional entre-preneurship on the part of relatively small, periph-eral or isolated actors. Less powerl actors areparticularly associated with this type of work whichinvolves associating new practices with existinginstitutions. Mimicry can provide a powerl meansfor new entrants into a domain to legitimate andinstitutionalize new practices, rules and technolo-gies employ: Edison's imitation of gas lighting; thecultural mimicry of Zuckor and Lasky as theyentered the motion picture industry. Theorizingand educating, on the other hand, seem to be asso-ciated primarily with larger, central actors in a e ld those actors with the resources and legitimacy toarticulate cause and effect relations provide periph-eral actors with templates for action and educatewhatever publics are relevant to an institution

While marginal actors do, on occasion, mobilize theresources and social capital necessary to engage intheorizing, templating and educating, this can onlyoccur when they act collectively, in the form of asocial movement, thereby elevating their positionfrom atomistic marginal players to a unied andcentral actor (Clemens 1993; Lounsbury et a!2003). Templating, theorizing and educating formsof institutional work, in contrast to work thatfocuses on reconstructing rule systems, are associ-ated more strongly with the extension and elabora-

tion of institutions than with the creating of

229

strikingly new institutions; as Edison's exampleillustrates, even when a new technology represents abreakthrough advance, reliance on cognitive workto institutionalize may mean highlighting its conti-nuities with the past as much as its distinctiveness.

Templating and theorizing, in particular, appear toincorporate elements of bricolage, or the makeshi,improvisatory and creative' (Gabriel 2002) capacityof entrepreneurs to use existing social material torecongure structures and institutions (Clemensand Cook 1999)

Mainta in in g Inst itut ions

The issue of how institutions are maintained byactors in organizational elds has received signi-cantly less attention than how institutions are cre-ated (Scott 200 1: 1 10 ) Nevertheless, the question ofwhat forms of institutional work are associated withmaintaining institutions is an important one:although institutions are associated with automaticmechanisms of social control that lead to institu-tions being relatively selfreproducing (Jepperson199 1 ) , relatively few institutions have such powerlreproductive mechanisms that no ongoing mainte-nance is necessary. As an example, consider theinstitution of democracy'. Jepperson ( 1991) arguesthat democracy is highly institutionalized in the USand relatively less institutionalized in some othercountries: taking the recent example of the 2004national election in Afghanistan (the country'srst), the low level of institutionalization was evi-denced by the large amount of work necessary by arange of governmental and nongovernmentalactors in order to mount the election In contrast,Jepperson (1991) argues, democratic elections inthe US are not exceptions but rather takenfor-granted parts of contemporary life. However, thisdoes not mean that the maintenance of democracy,

or even of democratic elections, goes on withoutsignicant institutional work One example of suchwork is the organizing of voter registration drives,which are an important example of institutionalwork aimed not at creating or disrupting institu-tions, but at ensuring that elections remain democ-rati c processes Voter registration drives have been ahistorically important form of institutional worktoward maintaining democracy in the US, with the1964 Freedom Summer' campaign being among themost famous. Voter registration drives are not, how-

ever, simply a remnant of a less democratic time in


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Table 1 .6.2 Maintainin g Insitutions

Forms of

insitutional

work Definition

K references for

empirical examples

Enab ling work The creation of rules that facil i tate sup pleent andsupport institutions such as the creation of authorizing

agents or d iverting resources

Leblebici et al . ( 1 991 )

Pol icing Ensuring coplianc e through enforceent audit ing

and onitoring

Fox-Wolfgra et al (1 998);

Schuler (1 996)

Deterring

Valourizing and

deonizing

Establi shing coercive barriers to institutional change

Providing for public consuption positive and

negative exaples that illustrates the norative

foundations of an institution

Hol (1 995) ; Townley (2002)

Angus (1 993)

Mythologizing

Ebedding

and routinizing

Preserving the norative underpinnings of an institution

by creating and su staining yths regarding its history

Actively infusing the n orative foundations of an

institution into the partici pants' day to day routines

Angus (1 993)

Townley (1 997); Zilber (2002)

and organizational practices

the US: as we wrote this chapter, the US was preparingfor a presidential election in the fall of 2004, with voterregistration drives being organized by a wide varietyof organizations, om the League of Women Voters o fMonroe Township (Harvie 2004} t o local chapters ofth e NAACP (Campbell 2004}. These drives remain an

important means through which individual and col-lective actors are able to bolster the institution ofdemocracy, and more importantly represent just oneof a wide range of forms of institutional work that arenecessary to maintain democracy as an institution inany democratic state, including technical work thatensures the validity of vote collecting and counting,etc Thus, a large amount of institutional work isneeded to maintain even highly institutionalized phe-nomena such as democratic elections in the US andother Western democracies. Considering the sorts of

institutions that are typically examined in organiza-tional research, we expect that even greater amounts ofinstitutional work are necessary for their maintenance

In general, institutional work aimed at maintain-ing institutions involves supporting, repairing orrecreating the social mechanisms that ensure compli-ance. Thus, in reviewing the empirical institutionalliterature for instances o f such work, we searched forany concrete description of an actor engaged in someactivity that was intended to maintain the controlswhich underpinned an institution As with our

review of the descriptions of creating institutions, thedescriptions we found of maintaining institutions

230

were o en located as o en in the sections providingbackground and context for an empirical study as inthe results' sections. Overall, we identi six typesof institutional work devoted to maintaining insti-tutions. The rst three, enabling', policing' anddeterring', primarily address the maintenance of

institutions through ensuring adherence to rule sys-tems. The latter three, valourizing/demonizing',mythologizing' and embedding and routinizing',focus efforts to maintain institutions on reproduc-ing existing norms and belief systems. Each o f thesetypes are elaborated below See Table 1.6.2 for asummary of the forms of institutional work associ-ated with maintaining institutions

Enabling Work

Enabling work refers to the creation of rules thatfacilitate, supplement and support institutions Thismay include the creation of authorizing agents ornew roles needed to carry on institutional routinesor diverting resources (i.e taxation) required toensure institutional survival. Examples of enablingwork come from Leblebici et al's ( 1 99 1 } study of theradio industry and Guler et al's (2002} study of theinternational difsion of ISO 9000 A key set ofinstitutions in the eld of radio transmissioninvolves the legitimate use of the radio spectrum: in

order to maintain the legislated institutional frame-work that governs the spectrum, the US federal


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government has, since 1925, created regulatoryagencies with the power to control the allocation,use, and transfer of spectrum rights' (L eblebici et a!1991: 341}. Similarly, the ISO authorizes variousorganizations to act as registrars', including govern-

ment laboratories, private testing organizations,rms that were early adopters of I SO, industry tradegroups, and accounting rms': these organizationsare qualied to conduct audits and award certi-cates' with respect to ISO 9000 compliance Theseexamples illustrate the importance of distributedauthority and responsibility for maintaining institu-tions in large or geographically dispersed elds.Enabling work also maintains institutions by intro-ducing certainty into institutional arrangementswhich allows actors to avoid intrainstitutionalconict. Professional associations oen engage inthis type of work with the construction and main-tenance o f intraprofessional agreement over bound-aries, membership and behaviour' (G reenwood et a!.2002}. By introducing constitutive rules (of mem-bership, standards or identity}, associations nc-tion in a primarily regulatory capacity as theyenable the formation, dissemination and reproduc-tion of shared meanings and understandings in anorganizational arena' (Galvin 2002: 67 7}

Policing

A second category of work aimed at maintaininginstitutions involves ensuring compliance throughenforcement, auditing and monitoring. We termthis form of institutional work policing' Policingcan involve the use of both sanctions and induce-ments (Scott 1994; Russo 2001}, oen simultane-ously and by the same agents, as illustrated by theUS government's attempts to stabilize labour duringthe war effort (Baron et a! 1 98 6} , and the state's useof both penalties and incentives in maintaining

common economic institutions such as propertyrights, corporate status and control over economicproduction (Campbell and Lindbergh 1991}. Anexample of a nonstate actor engaged in policingwork comes from the early years of the Americanlm industry, when key technologies were institu-tionalized through patents and copyrights, many ofwhich were held by Thomas Edison: as a means ofenforcing compliance, Edison initiated 33 suits onpatent rights and copyrights at federal level between1897 and 1905' (Jones 2001 : 9 33} This use of state

apparatus by a nonstate actor to police an institu-tion is similar to what Schuler (1996} describes in

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his analysis of political strategies in the carbon steelindustry: an important strategy of these rms formaintaining institutions was the launching of peti-tions to international trade bodies appealing tohave a regulation or agreement enforced In a very

different context, managers of a coal mine inNewfoundland enforced institutionalized butunsafe work practices by punishing those whoresed to co mply: one worker who resed to workin these types of unsafe conditions [was]assigned more denigrating tasks such as working onthe roof or at th e coalface'; another was suspendedfor resing to stay in the mine because his col-leagues were using torches in unsafe conditions'(Wicks 200 1: 672}.

Le ss overtly conictual enforcement strategies formaintaining institutions have also been described,particularly in professionalized elds where audit-ing and monitoring are oen enough to ensurecompliance. FoxWolfgramm et a! ( 19 98 }, forinstance, describe the role of auditing in the eld ofbanking when new regulation was established toensure nondiscriminatory lending procedures:

1 987, he bak was gven a ocal [egulaory] copance examnao, due o s oldng

company sarng he pocess o acq g anoe

bak n e Souwes . . . A ll cew was sent to

e bank, and seveal weeks wee spent assessngcompl ance. Te ban k was ound 'beow aveage' n

[egulatoy] complance ad was probed omue bachng n complance was sown

(FoxWolgam m e a 1 998: 1 07-8).

Similarly, Guler et al.'s (20 02} study of ISO 9000difsion documents the importance of regularmonitoring as a means of maintaining institutional-ized practices: the ISO 9000 certicate is typicallyawarded for a period of 3 years', with regular audits

conducted aer awarding a certicate to make surethat the rm is in compliance with the standards'(Guer et a!. 2002: 20910}. As well as periodicauditing, actors working to maintain institutionsmay demand ongoing disclosure o f informatio n onthe part of those participating in the institution: inresponse to the concerns of record producers,recording agents and artists tha t records played onthe radio would hurt their record sales, theSecretary of Commerce sanctio ned large stations forusing records and required stations to disclose

whether their programmes were transcribed'(Leblebici et a!. 199 1: 347 }


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Deterrence

A nal category of work aimed at maintaining insti-tutions by compliance with rules focuses on estab-lishing coercive barriers to institutional change. Wecall this category of institutional work deterrence',

which involves the threat of coercion to inculcate theconscious obedience of institutional actors The bestexample of this category comes from Hargadon andDouglas' {2001: 485) study of Edison's introductionof electric lighting, and the responses by politicianswho were interested in maintaining the institutional-ized lighting system based on natural gas:

When Ed son fst app ed for a opeatng l cense,

e mayo of New York ay opposed even gan

ng e compay a opeatg fancse Wen that

opposton faled ... e Boa of Aleme proposed Edson pay $1 000 pe m e of wng and 3%

ofte goss ecepts . . . Gas compaes, by compason, wee pemtted to ay the mans fo fee ad

pa d o nl y poperty tax o the cty.

Another example of such tactics comes from Holm's{1995) study of the Norwegian sheries, in whichthe Fisherman's Association was able to subvert thegovernment's attempt to industrialize the industry,and hence maintain the institutions of system ofsmallscale shermen and coastal communities

Effective deterrence is highly dependent upon thelegitimate authority o f the coercive agent. Townley{2002: 173) describes the effective deterrence workof the Alberta government in ensuring complianceof actors in provincial cultural institutions:

Fomaly, tee was acqescence or complance

wt the reqests to ntoduce stategc pefo

ma ce meas uement systems Ths ook e fom ofcoscous obeence ate than ncopoaon of

oms of e n stuonal eq remets Alog

e pla nng execse was of some use n cla ngoganzatona goals, pefomance measures were

rejecte as beng valable n evalatng te out

comes of organzatons .. . Altou g t ee wascomplance wth coercve somopsm, ee was

resstance to mmetc somophsm

Deterrence may also derive om the threat of eco-nomic coercion. Thornton {2002: 87) describes thepolicing work of parent corporations in the collegetextbook publishing industry in which policing was

primarily accomplished through accounting prac-tices. Annual prots of the college divisions were

232

closely monitored an d each year's prots had to bebetter than the previous year

Looking across the categor ies of rulesbased workthat maintains institutions, we see that such work isconcerned with preserving the mechanisms through

which rewards and sanctions were associated withinstitutional compliance on the part of actors in aeld. Enabling work, policing and deterrence acttogether to make real the coercive underpinnings ofan institution: without such work, the coercivefoundations for institutions are likely to crumble,becoming empty threats or promises rather thanselfactivating means of institutional control.Notably, the coercive work used to maintain institu-tions is more visible and apparent than cognitive ornormative equivalents. Those actors who engage insuch work, as well as the actors that comply, are con-scious o f the effects o f such work and its purpose inmaintaining and preserving institutions.

Va/ourizing and Demon izing

This work maintains institutions by providing forpublic consumption especially positive and espe-cially negative examples that illustrates the norma-tive foundations of an institution. Good examplesof this category come from Angus' { 19 93 ) study of aChristian Brothers College in Australia a boy's

school in which competition, machismo and vio-lence were key institutions An important way inwhich the Brothers' the ordained teachers whodominated the school maintained these institu-tions was through public demonstrations of whatwas right and what was wrong. Successes in athleticcompetition , for instance, were publicly recognizedat CBC and formed a large part of the agenda forschool assemblies' (Angus 1993: 241); this publicrecognition provided a clear indication to all partic-ipants of what it meant to be a proper CBC boy. In

contrast, students who failed to live up to the com-petitive and macho ethic of the school were widelydemonized: The greatest insult a pupil could deliverto another was to doubt his masculinity by referringto him as a "pooer or as a "girl' At all year levelsthere was continual joking about "pooers, bothinside and outside classrooms, by male teachers aswell as by boys' (Angus 1993: 242) Valourizing anddemonizing represent institutional work in whichactors identi and evaluate the mo ral status of par-ticipants in the eld, both as an enactment of insti-

tutionalized beliefs and as a way of maintaining thepower o f those beliefs.


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Mythologizing

A related category of institutional work focuses onthe past, rather than the present: a key way in whichactors work to preserve the normative underpinningsof institutions is by mythologizing their history

Again, key examples of this category of work comefrom Angus' (1993} study of the Christian BrothersSchool. To create and sustain a myth, one needs astory and an occasion to tell it: Brother Cas Manion

n s edtoal to the undedth sse of theChsan Botes joua, Studies, n whch e

reflecs u po the Bothes schools of te 1 930s:

'The objectve of te school was to ad on theFath ntact and eady to fgt; to ase te wokng

cass boy to a level of pestge Publc Sevce o

Pofesson; ad o aan g leves of exam natosuccess open competo (Ags 993: 242).

This mythologizing work provides to all those con-cerned with the school a normative understandingof why competition is and should be such a centralfacet of the school's culture. Similarly, Angus ( 19 93 )describes the ways in which teachers in the schoolmythologized the school's principals: one soonbecame aware of legends of "great men who havebeen principals of Brothers' schools tireless, dedi-cated and inspiring leaders who have followed in thefootsteps of the Irish founder of the Order' (Angus1993 : 25 12) .

Embedding a nd Routinizing

Whereas, valourizing, demonizing and mythologiz-ing provide discursive resources, this category ofinstitutional work involves actively insing t he nor-mative foundations of an institution into the parti c-ipants' daytoday routines and organizationalpractices. Institutions, thus, are maintained and

reproduced through the stabilizing inuence ofembedded routines and repetitive practices such astraining, education, hiring and certication rou-tines and ceremonies of celebration. In Townley's( 19 97 } study of the implementation of performanceappraisal in UK universities, for example, the insti-tutionalized myth of appraisal and accountabilitywas maintained by the universities, particularly intheir formal, documented rhetoric , as in this univer-sity document:

Te vesty as a geneal esponsb y toe communy for the povson of hgh qualty

233

eacng an eseach wth he fuds aocaed

fom he pblc puse. . . . By co n s d er ng t he

acevements and needs of eac of ts sa o anndvdual bass t can buld up at department,

facuty and nversty levels an assessment of what

seps ae eeded o movate and retan sta of

gh q

lawrence and suddaby - 2006 - institutions and institutional work

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