lawrence, suddaby_2006_institutions and institutional work

7/27/2019 Lawrence, Suddaby_2006_Institutions and Institutional Work

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Thomas B. Lawrence and Roy Suddaby (2006) lnstitutions and institutionalwork. In 5. R. Clegg, C. Hardy, T. B. Lawrence, & W. R. Nord (Eds.) Handbook oforganization studies, 2ndEdition: 215-254. London: Sage.

1.6 Institutionsand InstitutionalWorkTHOMAS B. LAWRENCE AND ROY SUDDABY

Introduction~ ~ s t i t u t i o n a lpproaches to organization studiesfocus attentio n on the relationships amo ng organi-zations an d th e fields in w hich they op erate, 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 an d logics to org ani-zational forms and conduct (Meyer and Rowan1977; DiMaggio an d Powell 1983; Greenwood an dHinings 1996). Also key in the dev elopment of insti-tutional understandings of organizational actionhas been the large set of emp irical studies tha t havedocumented the connections among institutions,fields and organizations. These studies have cata-logued the imp act of institutional forces in a widevariety of sectors and geographic contexts, and atvarying levels of analysis including intra-organiza-tional (Zilber 20 02), interorganizational (Leblebiciet al. 199 1) an d inter nation al (Keohane 1989; Meyeret al. 1997 ). Finally, there h as em erged a n influentialset 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 Zucker1996; Scott 2001; Schneiberg and Clemens 2006).

Although the traditional emphasis of institu-tional approaches to organization studies has beenon the explanation of organizational similaritybased on 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 an d m aintaining institutions

and fields. The role of actors in creating new insti-tutions has been examined primarily under therubric of institutional entrepreneurship (Eisenstadt1980; DiM aggio 1 988). DiM aggio (1988: 14) arguesthat institutional entrepreneurs are central to insti-tutional processes, since 'new institutions arisewhen organized actors with sufficient resources(institutional entrepreneurs) see in them an oppo r-tun ity to realize interests tha t they value highly'. Th econcept of institutional entrepreneurship is impo r-tant because it focuses attention o n the m anner inwhich interested actors work to influence their insti-tution al contexts throu gh such strategies as techni-cal and market leadership, lobbying for regulatorychange and discursive action (Suchman 1995;Fligstein 1997; Hoffman 1999; Garud et al. 2002;Maguire et al. 2004). The role of actors in the tr ans-form ation of existing institutio ns an d fields has alsorisen in prominence within institutional research.Institutional studies have docum ented th e ability ofactors, particularly those with some key strategicresources or othe r form s of power, to have signifi-cant impacts on the evolution of institutions andfields (Clemens 1993; Ho lm 1995; Oakes et al. 1998;Greenwood et al. 2002), including both institutionaltransformation and deinstitutionalization (Oliver1992; Ahmadjian an d Robinson 2001). Fin dy , amore modest amount of research has begun toexamine the role of actors in maintaining institu-tions: althoug h d efinitions of institution emphasizetheir endu ring nature (Hughes 1936), institutionsrely o n th e action of individuals a nd organizationsfor their reproduction over t ime (Berger andLuckrnann 1966; Giddens 1984).

In this chapter, we aim to provide a s um ma ry andsynthesis of research o n wh at we refer to as 'institu-tional work' - the purposive action of individualsand organizations aimed at creating, maintainingand disrupting institutions. Thus far, research on


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institutional work has been largely unconn ected assuch - iteratures on institutional entreprene urshipand deinstitutionalization have emerged as semi-coherent research streams, bu t th e overall focus hasremained largely unarticulated. T hus, a key contri-bution of this chapter will be the provision ofa framework that connects previously disparatestudies of institutional work and th e articulation ofa research agenda for the area. By focusing onempirical work that has occurred in the past 15years and m apping it in term s of the form s of insti-tutional work that it has examined, we are able toboth provide a first cataloguing of forms of institu-tional work a nd p oint to issues and areas that havebeen under-examined.

The structure of the chapter is as follows: ( 1 ) adefinition and discussion of the conce pt of institu-tional work; (2) a m ap of empirical studies of insti-tutional work; and (3) a discussion of emerging andillustrative approaches to th e s tudy of institutionalwork.

The Concept of InstitutionalWorkThe 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 areend uring elements in social life- nstitutions - hathave a profound effect on the thoughts, feelings an dbehaviour of individual an d collective actors. Th eliterature is replete with definitions of institutions.Scott (2001: 48) describes institutions as consistingof 'cultured-cognitive, norm ative an d regulativeelements that . provide stability and meaning tosocia l life . Institutions are transm itted by varioustypes of carriers, including symbolic systems, rela-tional systems, routines and artifacts' and they'operate at multiple levels of jurisdiction'. Fligstein(2001: 108) echoes Scott's emphasis on regulationand human cognition in defining institutions as

institutional action (Greenwood a nd Hinings 1996;Hirsch 1997; Hirsch an d Lounsb ury 1997).Institutional economists, by contrast, em phasize therole of human agency in devising institutions.No rth (1990: 97), for example, describes institutionsas huma nly devised constraints that struc ture polit-ical, econom ic a nd social interaction. T hey consist ofboth informal constraints (sanctions, taboos, cus-toms, traditions and codes of conduct) and formalrules (constitutions, laws and property rights)'.Jepperson's (1991: 143-5) definition com es closestto the position we adopt here; that institutions arethe product (intentional or otherwise) of purposiveaction. Institutions, he argues, are 'an organized,established procedure' th at reflect a set of 'stand ard-ized interaction sequences'. In contrast to previousdefinitions of institutions, which view them as therelatively passive construc tion o f m ean ing by partic-ipants, Jepperson points toward the possibility ofviewing institutions as patterns of sequenced inte r-action supp orted by specific mechanisms of control.Institutions, in this view, are the product of specificactions taken to reproduce, alter and destroy them.

Jepperson's approach points t o a n emerging focuswithin institutional studies. Along with un ders tand -ing the processes thro ugh which institutions affectorganizational action, research has become increas-ingly concerned with the effects of individual andorganizational action o n institutions. This conc ernseems to us to represent an important part of thefuture of institutional studies in management andorganization theory. In this section, we introducethe concept of 'institutional work' to represent thebroad category of purposive a ction aimed a t creat-ing, maintaining an d disrupting institutions. We doso by discussing two sets of writing, one th at a rticu-lated the core elements of the study of institutionalwork and motivated organizational researchers topursue this direction, and a second that has thepotential to provide a robust theoretical founda tionfor the concept of institutional work.

Agency in lnstitutional Studies'rules and shared meanings . that define social Our conception of institutional work is rooted in arelationships, help define who occupies what posi- small set of articles tha t articulate a broa d theoreticaltion in those relationships and guide interaction outline for the study of institutional work, parallelby giving actors cognitive frames or sets of mean - to the w ay in which the articles by Meyer and Rowanings to interpre t the behaviour of others'. The neo - (1977) and DiMaggio and Powell (1983) providedinstitutional view of institutions has been criticized the underpinnings for the new institutionalism infor privileging the role of cogn ition in co nceptualizing organization studies. The first of these articles is


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Institutions an d 11 stitutionalWork

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 re-introduced strategyand power into neo-insti tutional explanations(Eisenstadt 1980; DiMaggio 1988), bu t also pro-vided the foundation for a shift in the attention ofinstituti onal researche rs toward the effects of actorsand agency o n institutions. The concept of institu-tional entrepreneurship focuses attention on thema nne r in which interested actors work to influencetheir institutional contexts through such strategiesas technical and market leadership o r lobbying forregulatory chan ge (Fligstein 1997; Hoffm an 1999;Rao e t al. 2000; Maguire et al. 2004). Thu s, it high-lights the importance 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 asentrepreneu rs an d those whose role is supportive orfacilitative of the entrepreneur's endeavours(Leblebici et al. 19 91).

The other major articles in which agency was firstrecognized as central in the new institutional theorywere Oliver's (1991) discussion of strategicresponses to institutional processes, an d her (Oliver1992) account of deinstitutionalization. In t he firstof these articles, Oliver (1991) presented a frame-work for understanding the range of responsesavailable to organizations facing institutional pres-sures, an d the contexts und er w hich these differentresponses would be most likely to occur. Oliver(1991: 145) argued tha t what the institutional liter-atur e was lacking to tha t p oint was 'explicit atten-tion to the strategic behaviours that organizationsemploy in direct response to the insti tutionalprocesses tha t affect them'. In response to this gap inthe literature, Oliver proposed a five-part typologyof such strategic responses that varied in th e degreeto which th ey involved active agency' o n the p art ofthe org anization: fr om m ost to least passive, the fiveresponses are acquiescence, comp romise, av oidance,defiance and manipulation. While the potential foractors to respond to institutional processes andpressures in a variety of ways had been recognizedin early institutional theory (Selznick 1949), Oliver(1991) represented the first systematic attempt at

articulating the range of potential responses. Thisarticle has since provided the theoretical found ationfor numerous empirical studies and theoreticalextensions (Rao et al. 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 theantecedents of deinstitutionalization. Oliver (1992:564) argued that deinstitutionalization represents'the delegitimation of an established organizationalpractice or procedure as a result of organizationalchallenges to or the failure of organizations toreproduce previously legitimated or taken-for-granted organizational actions'. Although notexplicitly focused on action, Oliver's discussion ofdeinstitutionalization highlights two im por tant cat-egories of institutional work. First, the notion ofdeinstitutionalization points to the potential fororganizational actors to actively engage in the dis-ruption of institutions - o engage in institutionalwork aimed not at creating or supporting institu-tion but at tearing them down or rendering themineffectual. Oliver (1992: 567) describes this work asthe 'rejection' of an institution: a 'direct assault onthe validity of a long-standing tradition or estab-lished activity'. As an example, Oliver (1992: 567)points to the example of 'direct challenges to theapprop riateness of trad itional job classifications onthe basis of stereotypical gender roles [which] haveled to the deinstitutionalization of this practice inmany organizations'.

The second category of institutional workpoin ted t o by Oliver's discussion of deinstitutional-ization is the work d on e by individuals an d organi-zations in order to maintain existing institutions.Oliver (1992: 564) highlights this form of institu-tional work indirectly when she m entions'the failureof organizations to reproduce p reviously legitimatedor taken-for-granted organizational actions'. Thus,the reproduction and continuation of institutionscannot be taken for granted, even the most highlyinstitutionalized technologies, structures, practicesan d rules require the active involvement of individ-uals and organizations in order to maintain themover time (Lawrence et al. 2001). Zucker (1988)argues that even among institutions, entropy is anatural tendency th at needs to be overcome by orga-nized action. Despite the potential importance ofthis category of institutional w ork, it has gained rel-atively little attention. As Scott (2001: 110) notes,


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

Of course, the articles by DiMaggio (1988) andOliver (1991; 1992) are by no m eans th e 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, an d that have consequently added consid-erably to our understanding of institutional work.There have also been a num ber of attem pts to pro-vide more general descriptions of the relationshipbetween action and institutions (DiMaggio andPowell 1991; Beckert 1999; Lawrence 1999; Fligstein2001). DiMaggio and Powell (1991), for instance,describe a model of 'practical action' in which theyemphasize a num ber of shifts which have occurredbetween the old an d new institutionalisms:

from object-relations to cognitive theory, fromcathexis to ontological anxiety, from discursive topractical reason, from internalization to imitation,from commitment to ethnomethodological trust,from sanctioning to ad hocing,from norms to scriptsand schemas, from values to accounts, from consis-tency and integration to loose coupling, and fromroles to routines (DiMaggio and Powell 1991: 26-7).

Together, these shifts 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 of rules, scripts, schemas an dcultural accounts.

Beckert (1999) extends this emphasis on the cog-nitive links between action and institutions, arguingthat institutional rules an d 'strategic agency' both actas co-ordinating mechanisms in market situationswhere actors are attempting to pu rsue (perhaps insti-tutionalized) goals of profit or competitive advan-tage. Beckert argues that institutions can provideactors with the ability to act when the 'complexity ofthe situation and the informational constraints dono t allow the m to assign probabilities to th e possibleconsequence s of choices'; at the same tim e, however,institutions 'come under pressure from agents whorecognize their constraining qualities for more effi-cient outcom es' (Beckert 1999: 779).

Consistent with this general approach isLawrence's (1999) concept of institutional strategy,which he describes as: 'patterns of organizationalaction concerned w ith the formation a nd transfor-mation of institutions, fields and the rules an d stan-dards that control those structures'. The concept ofinstitutional strategy describes the m anipulation ofsymbolic resources, particularly membership accessand the definition 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 of'social skill' to describe th e vario us tactics that socialactors use to gain the co-operation of others.Fligstein (2001: 106) furth er observes that the socialskills used to reproduce fields are different fromthose used i n co nditions of crisis or change. Theselatter skills are used by entrep rene urs wh o 'find waysto get disparate groups to co-operate precisely byputting themselves into the positions of others a ndcreating meanings that appeal to a large numberof actors'.

We believe that the theoretical pieces byDiMaggio (1988) a nd Oliver (1991; 1992) representa signal shift in the attention of institutionalresearchers toward the im pact of individual an d col-lective actors on the institutions that regulate thefields in wh ich they operate. Fro m these early workshas emerged an important tradition within institu-tional theory t hat explores theoretically an d em pir-ically the ways in which actors are able to create,maintain a nd disrupt institutions.Sociology o f PracticeThe 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; Giddens1984; Lave and Wenger 1991). This trad ition under-stands practices as 'embodied, materially mediatedarrays of h um an activity centrally organized ar oun dshared practical understanding' (Schatzki et al.2001: 2). Thus, studies of practice focus on th e s itu-ated actions of individuals an d grou ps 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 process-oriented studies: as Brown a ndDug uid (2000: 95) argue, to focus o n practice is tofocus on the 'internal life of process'. Whereas a


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process-oriented theory articulates a sequence ofevents that leads to some outcom e, a practice theorydescribes the intelligent activities of individuals a ndorganizations w ho are working to effect those eventsan d achieve that outcome.'

In organizational research, an interest in practicehas begun t o be seen in a variety of dom ains, includ-ing organizational learning (Brown and Duguid1991; Lave and W enger 1 991), strategy (W hitting ton2003; W hitting ton et al. 2003), technology m anage-men t (Orlikowski 2000), accounting (Hopwoo d an dMiller 1994; Miller 2001), organization theo ry(Pentland 1992; Dutton et al. 2001) and time inorganizations (Orlikow ski an d Yates 2002). In all ofthese areas, researchers have begun t o exam ine orga-nizational actors as knowledgeable an d practical intheir affairs (Giddens 1984). The c entra l tenets ofpractice theory are consistent with and have the

to c ontribute substantially to institutionalresearch. As in in stitutio nal theory, the practice pe r-spective locates the co ncept o f a 'field' as centr al toall things social. Summarizing this issue, Schatzkiet al. (2001: 3) argue that 'practice approachespromulgate a distinct social ontology: the social isa field of embodied, materially interwoven prac-tices centrally organized around shared practicalunderstandings'.O ur 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 an d 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 o n an d in what order.In contrast, a practice orientation focuses on theworld inside the processes (Brown and Duguid2000; Whittington 2003) - he work of actors asthey atte mp t to shape those processes, as they workto create, maintain and disrupt institutions. Thisdoes not m ean that the study of institutional work isintended to move back to an understanding ofactors as independent, autonomous agents capableof fully realizing their interests through strategicaction ; instead, a practice perspective highlights thecreative and knowledgeable work of actors whichmay o r may n ot achieve its desired ends and w hichinteracts with existing social and technologicalstructures in unintended and unexpected ways. As

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

acknowledges that while users can and do usetechnologies as they were designed, they also canand d o circumvent inscribed ways of using thetechnologies -eith er ignoring certain properties ofthe technology, working around th em, or inventingnew ones that may go beyond or even contradictdesigners'expectationsand inscriptions.Thus, ado pting a practice perspective on institutionspoints research a nd th eory toward understanding theknowledgeable, creative and practical work of indi-vidual a nd collective actors aimed at creating, main-taining and transforming institutions.

Key Elements of the Study ofInstitutional WorkWe believe that bringing together the interest inagency within institutional theory spawned byDiMaggio (1988) and Oliver (1991; 1992) with thepractice turn in social theo ry provides a solid concep -tual foundation for the emerging study of institu-tional work. Together, they suggest an approach t o th estudy of institutional work with three key elements.First, the study of institutional work w ould high-light th e aw areness, skill an d reflexivity of ind ividualan d collective actors. Some versions of institutio naltheory strongly emphasize the 'taken-for-granted-edness' of institutions, and thus have the potentialto construct actors as cultural dopes (Hirsch andLoun sbury 1997). In contrast, the concept of insti-tutio nal work suggests culturally com petent actorswith strong practical skills an d sensibility who cre-atively navigate within their organizational fields.This is not to suggest, however, a re turn to th e ratio-nal actor model. Rather, we draw o n an understand-ing of actors as rational in the sense that they areable to work with institutionally-defined logics ofeffect or appropriateness (M arch 1994), an d thatdoing so requires culturally-defined forms of com-petence and knowledge, as well as the creativity toadapt to conditions that are both demanding anddynam ic (Giddens 1984; Cassell1993).

The second element is an understan ding 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 (2001) argues that, from a practice perspec-tive, these phenomena are located in the sets ofpractices people engage in as a pa rt of those macro-phenomena, rather than, for instance, emergingfrom those practices and existing at some other'level'. Dem ocracy, for instance, resides in the acts ofpolling, campaigning and related activities thatpeople d o as citizens of a demo cratic 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 an d the disr upti on of existing ones.

Finally, a practice perspective on institutionalwork suggests that we c ann ot step outside of actionas practice - ven action which is aimed at changingthe institutional order of an organizational fieldoccurs within sets of institutionalized rules.Giddens (1984: 21) describes rules as 'techniques orgeneralizable procedures applied in the enact-mentlrepro duction of social practices' - o this wewould ad d that there are techniques an d generaliz-able procedures that are applied in the disruption1transformation of social practices. This in no waysuggests a lack of potential innovation in institu-tional fields, but merely that the practices whichmight lead to institutional innovations are them-selves institutionally embed ded an d so rely o n setsof resources and skills that are specific to the field o rfields in which they occur. In the rem ainder of thischapter, we wo rk fro m this perspective to begin t ooutline the terrain of institutional work - he sets ofpractices through which individual and collectiveactors create, maintain and disrupt the institutionsof organizational fields.Institutional Work inOrganizationsIn this section, we examine empirically-based insti-tutional research in order t o provide an overview ofwhat we do and do not understand about institu-tional work. In o rder to do this, we draw primarilyfrom empirical research published since 1990 inthree major organizational journals in which insti-tutional research appears - Administrative ScienceQuarterly, Academy of Management Journal andOrganization Studies. Our intention here is not to

conduct an exhaustive overview, nor to provide adefinitive 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 em erging object ofinstitutio nal inquiry. Althoug h relatively few articleswithin the now voluminous body of empiricalresearch in ne o-institutional theo ry focus solely o ninstitutional work, a significant 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 often overlooked constituent elements ofinstitutional work.We organize ou r analysis arou nd thre e broa d cat-egories of institutional w ork - reating, m aintainingand disrupting institutions. Together these cate-gories describe a rough life-cycle of institutionalwork that parallels the life-cycle of institutionsdescribed by Scott (2001) and Tolbert and Zucker(1996). Our review suggests a set of insights intocreating, maintaining and disrupting institutionswith which we e nd each discussion.

Creating InstitutionsOf th e three broad categories of institutional workwe examine, the w ork aime d at creating institutionshas received the most attention by organizationalscholars. Building particularly on the notion ofinstitutional entrepreneurship (Eisenstadt 1980;DiMaggio 1988), significant efforts have beenundertaken to describe and explain the role of inter-ested actors in the fo rmation of institutions (Dacinet al. 2002). The primary focus of much of thisresearch, however, has been t o elaborate th e charac-teristics of, an d the conditions that produce , institu-tional entrep reneurs. Somewhat less evident in theseaccounts a re detailed descriptions of precisely wh atit is that institutional entrepreneurs do.

In the empirical research we reviewed, weobserved ten distinct sets of practices throughwhich actors engaged in actions tha t resulted i n th ecreation of new institutions. While we d o no t sug-gest that the practices we identify provide anexhaustive list of the kind of institutional w ork usedto create institutions, we observe that they reflectthree broad er c ategories of activities. The first threetypes of institutional work, 'vesting', 'defining' and


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Table 1.6.1 Creating InstitutionsForms ofinstitutional Key references forwork Definition empirical examplesAdvocacy The mobilization of political and regulatory support Elsbach and Sutton (1 992);through direct and deliberate techniques of social suasion Galvin (2002)Defining The construction of rule systems that confer status or Fox-Wolfgramm

identity, define boundaries of membership or create et al. (1998)status hierarchies within a fieldVesting The creation of rule structures that confer property rights Russo (2001)Constructing Defining the relationship between an actor and the field in Lounsbury (2001);identities which that actor operates Oakes et al. (1998)Changing Re-making the connections between sets of practices and Townley (1997);normative the moral and cultural foundations for those practices Zilber (2002)associationsConstructing Constructing of interorganizational connections through Lawrence et al. (2002);normative which practices become normatively sanctioned and Orssatto et al. (2002)networks which form the relevant peer group with respect tocompliance, monitoring and evaluationMimicry Associating new practices with existing sets of Hargadon and

taken-for-grantedpractices, technologies and rules Douglas (2001);in order to ease adoption Jones (2001)Theorizing The development and specification of abstract categories Kitchener (2002);

and the elaboration of chains of cause and effect Orssatto et al. (2002)Educating The educating of actors in skills and knowledge Lounsbury (2001);necessary to support the new institution Woywode (2002)

'advocacy', reflect overtly political work in whichactors reconstruct rules, property rights and bound-aries that define access to material resources. Thesecond set of practices, 'constructing identities','changing norms' and 'constructing networks',emphasize actions in which actors'belief systems arereconfigured. The final group of actions, 'mimicry:'theorizing' and 'educating', involve actions designedto alter abstract categorizationsin 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.

AdvocacyThe first type of work important for the creation ofinstitutions is advocacy- the mobilization of politi-cal and regulatory support through direct and delib-erate techniques of social suasion. Holm (1995)provides an excellent illustration of the importanceof advocacy work in his description of the way in

which the collective action of fisherman and theirmobilization of state power behind their institu-tional project was key to the ultimate success of thefisherman. Holm (1995: 405-6) observes that it was'[blecause of the close ties between the Fisherman'sAssociation and the Labour party' that the HerringAct was ultimately successful in preserving the fish-ermen\ interests in the impending re-engineeringof the Norwegian fishing industry. Advocacy is animportant component of the institutional work ofinterest associations or organizations 'that are for-mally established to make claims for - o represent-important constituencies in an organizational field'(Galvin 2002: 673). One form of advocacy workidentified by Galvin involves deliberate and directrepresentation of the interests of specific 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 (Carrollet d. 1988) or by social movements (Clemens 1993).The object of such institutional work is to redefine


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the allocation of material resources or social andpolitical capital needed to create new institutionalstructures a nd practices.

We identify advocacy as a form of institutionalwork associated with the creating of institutionsbecause it is a key element by which marginal ac torsinitially acquire the legitimacy hey ma y need t o effectnew institutions. Suchman (1995) observes that dif-ferent form s of advocacy, such as lobbying, advertis-ing and litigation, allow less powerful institutionalactors to actively shape their institutional environ-ment and, ultimately, acquire cognitive legitimacy.Elsbach and Sutton (1992) identify extreme examplesof how advocacy offers marginalized actors theopportunity to create institutions by manipulatingcognitive legitimacy. The authors dem onstrate howtwo social movements, Earth First and the AIDSCoalition to Unleash Power, employed co ntroversialforms of advocacy, induding coercion and iuegiti-mate activities, to gain legitimacy by first violatingexisting norms and then articulating awareness oftheir marg inalized position. Advocacy, thus, is a pow -erful form of institutional work tha t permits actors toinfluence when a nd how institutional norm s are per-ceived. Used effectively, advocacy can determinewhich norms are followed and which may be vio-lated, bo th of w hich are key elements in the cognitivelegitimacy of new institutions.

DefiningA second form of institutional w ork involves activitydirected toward defining:he construction of rule sys-tems tha t confer status or identity, define bound ariesof membership or create status hierarchies within afield. At the societal level, an illustration of thisprocess is the way in w hich citizenship rules an d pro-cedures confer status and m embership (Meyer et al.1997). More generally, Lawrence (1999 ) descr ibes thedefining of mem bership rules and practice standardsas the two br oad categories of institutional strategy.

A rich example of defining comes from Fox-Wolfgramm e t d.'s (1998) analysis of institution alchange in a sample of banks. H ere, a key element ofinstitutiona l work involved the fo rma lization of rulesystems, by bank examiners, to construct defini-tional categories of compliance. The exam iners con -structed 12 criteria for categorizing banks asoutstanding, satisfactory, need to improve o r sub-stantial non-compliance; formal categories thatwould, ultimately, determine differential access to

resources. Definitional work, thus, extends toform al accreditation processes, the creation of s tan -dards and the certification of actors within a field.Certification was the primary form of definitionalwork identified by Guler et al. (2002) in the emer-gence and diffusion of IS0 practices globally. Russo(2001), similarly, points to the form alization of c on-tract standards and the definition of standardexchange rates between utilities by th e federal gov-ernm ent as a key component of the success of theemerging indep ende nt power industry. Advocates ofthe new indus try were clearly reliant u pon the abil-ity of the state to impose standardized cost defini-tions an d contract terms o n industry participants.

From the empirical research we examined, itseems that most defining work focuses actors o n thecreation of 'constitutive rules' (Scott 2001) or rulesthat enable rather than constrain institutionalaction. In contrast to the prohibitive na ture of m ostregulatory activity, defining is directed more oftentoward establishing the parameters of future orpotential institutional structures and practices.Rules of membership, accreditation and citizenshipengage actors in processes directed toward defining(and re-defining) boundaries and frameworkswithin which new institutions can be formed.

VestingVesting refers to institutiona l work directed tow ardthe creation of rule structures that confer propertyrights (Roy 1981; Russo 2001 ). Vesting occu rs whengovernment author ity is used to reallocate prope rtyrights, such as occurred in the fledgling indepen-dent po wer-production industry (Russo 2001). Theindustry was created by US federal mandate thatlarge established utilities had to pu rchas e electricityfrom independent producers. Previously, largepower producers held state enforced monopoliesover the generation of electricity. Such mon opolieswere an historical artifact of the large risks andcapital costs required to build and maintain massivehydroelectricprojects. To counterbalance the m ono p-olistic power of utilities, state governme nts conferredthe right to set prices on public utility commissions.In th is early exam ple of vesting, thus, the governmentsimultaneously divided two elements of exchange(produ ction an d pricing) between two distinct sets ofactors (utilities an d utility commissions). A lthoughthis division of vested rights and interests workedwell for a time, the oil crisis of the 1970s focused


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Institutions and institutional Work

attention o n the need to develop alternative sourcesof electricity. A second rou nd of vesting legislation,therefore, created a new set of actors and redefinedthe exchange relations between them. A compre-hensive energy plan introduced by President Jimm yCarter required large utilities to purchase powerfrom qualifying indepen dent producers. By chang-ing the pricing formula for energy, the legislationgave immediate status and legitimacy to smallpower p roducers that, previously, were shut o ut ofthe industry by established energy corporations.Vesting, as illustrated in this case, refers to themicro-processes of creating new actors and newfield dynamics by changing the rules of marketrelations.

A co mm on element of vesting is the negotiationof a 'regulative bargain' between the state o r anoth ercoercive auth ority an d some other interested actor.This was particularly evident in the 'compact' thatdeveloped between large utilities and public utilitycommissions described by Russo (2001). The vest-ing pro cess 'yoked' these two sets of actors tog etherin an implicit contract that required o ne to producepower and the other to set prices that would covercosts an d generate a reasonable rate of re turn. T heintroduction of independent power producers inthis relationship required the creation of a newimplicit contract in which exchange relationshipwas based on the avoidance of risk, rather thanassumption s of reasonable returns.

Such regulative bargains also comm only occur inprofessional fields, where the state, in exchange forthe gran t of an econom ic monopoly over a particu-lar jurisdiction, expects the profession to sup por t itsow n project of state-building (Abbott 1988; Coop eret al. 1994). While vesting is most apparent in th e'public duty' obligations of established professionssuch as law and auditing, it has also been demon-strated in less established professions such as per-sonn el professionals (Baron et al. 1986) an d finance(Lounsb ury 2002). Ultimately, the process of vestinginvolves som e degree of sha ring of coercive or regu-latory authority.

Several general observations can be mad e regard-ing these first three forms of institutional work.First, they appea r to potentially constitute a mu tu-ally reinforcing cycle. Advocacy work is an impor-tant precursor to the defining of rules that conferstatus a nd privilege, which in turn provide the foun-dation for vesting work; vesting, in tur n, constrainsan d constitutes those actors with preferential ability

to advocate. Secondly, the forms of institutionalchange that result from this type of institutionalwork often involve the dramatic, wholesale recon-struction of institutions or institutional structuresand practices - evolutionary rather tha n 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. Tho rnto n(2002; 2004) describes the w ork of exogenous actorsin the college textbook publishing industry wherecoercion was expressed financially rather thanthrough regulatory authority. Fligstein (1990: 19),similarly, describes the ability of th e em erging fieldof large industrial m ultinationals to co nstruct theirown coercive mechanisms of govern ance, albeit 'as aresult of strategic interaction between actors in thestate an d actors in firms'.Constructing IdentitiesThe 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 field in which that actor operates(Bourdieu an d Wacquant 1992). A powerful exampleof this form of work comes from Oakes et al.'s(1998) study of institutional change in th e field ofAlberta historical museums. In this case, the gov-ernment department responsible for museumsworked to reorient the identit ies of museumemployees:

people in th e organizations [were] encouraged t osee them selves, perhaps for the first time, as work-ing in businesses rather than working in museumstha t are run in a businesslike manner.The desirablepositional identity [was] no longer solely curator,researcher, interpreter, or educator. It [was] alsoentrepreneur, often described as being 'realistic'and becoming 'change-agents' and 'risk-takers'(Oakes et al. 1998:279-80).

The institutional wo rk of providing new identities isnot, however, an unp roblema tic accomplishment: asOakes et al. (1998: 277) describe it,

some people to try to remake themselves, whileothers may stop contributing or withdraw com-pletely. Some, particularly those with curatorialbackgrounds, felt uncomfortable and tended to


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becom e less involved as they no longer understoodthe rules of the gam e; othe rs not only embracedthe new field but helped give it shape.In institutional theory, the co nstruc tion of identi-

ties as a form of institu tional work has been prima r-ily associated with the dev elopment of professions,as illustrated in studies of both t he emergence of newprofessions and the transformation of existing ones(Covaleski et al. 1998; Brock e t 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. 1998) and by the grou ps themselves, asin Lounsbury's (2001) examination of recyclers. Thislatter study highlights the importance of collectiveaction in accomplishing the construction of identi-ties as a form of normative institution al work:

status-creation recyclers began to forge a new anddistinct occupational identity tha t was connectedto the ideals of th e broader environmental move-ment. In the early 1990s, status-creation recyclersbegan to identify each other through their jointparticipation in the National Recycling Coalition(NRC) ... In 1993, a group of full-time recyclingco-ordinators formed the College and UniversityRecycling Co-ordinators (CURC) occupational asso-ciation [which] ... established procedures to electofficials and developed com mittees to study mea-surement standards, 'buy recycled' campaigns,co-operation between university operations andacademics, and other issues related to th e con-struction of campus recycling programmes(Lounsbury 2001 :33).

Changing Normative AssociationsA different form of work aimed at creating newinstitutions involved the reformulating of norma-tive associations: re-making the connectionsbetween sets of practices and the m oral an d culturalfoundations for those practices. This for m of insti-tutional work often led to new institutions whichwere parallel or co mplem entary to existing institu-tions a nd did no t directly challenge the pre-existinginstitutions but, rather, simultaneously supportedand led actors to question them. An interestingexample of such work comes from Zilber's (2002)institutional accoun t of a rap e crisis centre in Israel.Zilber provides a detailed analysis of the means bywhich founding practices, based upon feminist

logics and assumptions, were maintained butreinterpreted from an alternative normativeperspective - that of therapeutic professionalism.While training routines and rotation procedureswere kept more or less intact 20 years after thecentre's foun ding, members n o longer rem embere dthe feminist origins and readily accepted the exten-sion of mean ing of these practices to incorporate anew ideological understanding of the institution.Practices such as consensus decision-making androtation of speakers, which w ere originally adoptedby feminists to 'avoid domination and promote anopen, respectful dialogue' (Zilber 2002: 243) wereextended by therapeutic professionals to promotethe re-creation of the centre as a medical rathe r tha na political institution . Feminist practices of consen-sus decision-making and speaker rotation wererelatively easily extended to promote psychothera-peutic practices of open or closed grou p counsellingor interventions.

One version of this form of institutional workthat has been observed across a wide variety ofdom ains is the substitution of generalized private-sector, for-profit norm s for field-specific norm s thatfocus on such issues as human welfare or profes-sional autonomy (Townley 1997; Hinings andGreenw ood 1988; Kitchener 2002; Am is et al. 2004).Townley (1997), for instance, documents the insti-tutional work of university administrators a nd gov-ernment agencies as they attempted to institute aprivate-sector app roach t o H R in UK universities.A critical piece of work in this regard was the'Report of the Steering Committee for EfficiencyStudies in Un iversities (Jarratt)': 'For Jarr att, the keyto more dynamic a nd efficient universities lay in thepractices and po licies associated with private sectororganizations, the latter commanding ideologicalovertones of efficiency and effectiveness' (Townley1997: 265). Kitchener (2002: 401) describes similarforms of institutional work in the field of US health-care in the 1980s: in tha t a rena , a gro up of 'politicalreformers' wrote a series of policy papers that'renewed calls for healthcare organizations t o ado pt"business-like" structu res a nd managerial practices'.

Constructing Normative NetworksAnother form of work aimed a t creating institutionsinvolves the c onstru ction of what we refer to here as'normative networks', which are the interorganiza-tional connections throug h which practices become


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normatively sanctioned and which form therelevant peer group with respect to normativecompliance, monitoring an d evaluation. A detailedillustration of this process comes from Lawrenceet alls (2002) description of how a 'proto-institution'emerged in the field 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 an d interests, the em erging proto-institution'became a repository for each actor's pre-existinginstitutionalized 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 problem.

A number of other studies provide similaraccounts of how groups of actors construct norm a-tive networks th at provide th e basis for new in stitu-tions. Leblebici et al. (1991) describe th e role playedby patent pooling arrangem ents in the early stagesof radio, in which networks of prom inen t and pow-erful 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 diffusion of IS0 9000 practices,and document the early diffusion of IS0 9000 inmanu facturing occurring through the work of engi-neers and production managers in creating a nor-mative network aimed at prom otin g manufacturingstandards a nd practices. Orssatto et al. (2002: 6748)describe the way in w hich the institutionalization ofrecycling in the European auto industry dependedupon 'industry groups, such as Renault, the PSAGroup and CFF' who believed that 'industry-wideco-operation, collective liability, and commercialrelations between t he various parties involved, werebetter principles from which to solve the wasteproblem of shred der residues'.

The key observation in these accoun ts is that fo r-merly loose coalitions of somewhat diverse actorsconstruct normative networks which effect new insti-tutions, often alongside pre-existing 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 indu stry activities or thecreation of manufacturing an d process standards. In

othe r cases, as in the formation of a proto-institution,the new institutional structure simply supplementsan d sup ports activities that were once performed bythe state (and by other actors).

The three forms of institutional work identifiedabove share the common attribute of focusing onthe n ormative stru cture of institutions. That is, theyeach attend to the roles, values and norms thatunderpin institutions. The types of institutionalwork differ, howev er, in th e contextual relationshipsthat define 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 field or fields in which they function.Changing normative associations, by contrast,involve work that manipulates the relationshipbetween norms and the institutional field in whichthey are produced. Finally, constructing normativenetworks describes a form of in stitutional work thatalters the relationship between actors in a field bychanging the normative assumptions that connectthem. We, thus, observe three different types ofinteractions (actor-field; norm-field; actor-actor)that provide the foundation for new institutionalformation. More significant, perhaps, is theobserved need for greater analytic attention to bepaid by futu re research to the ways in which actorswork to make these interactions cohere into a con-sistent and e ndu ring institutional structure.MimicryActors attempting to create new institutions havethe potential to leverage existing sets of taken-for-gran ted practices, technologies a nd rules, if they areable to associate the new with th e o ld in some waythat eases adoption. O ne way in which this is doneis through mimicry. In Hargadon and Douglas'(2001: 479) rich historical account of Edison'sefforts to institutionalize electric light, they arguethat, '[bly designing the incandescent light aroundma ny of the con crete features of the already-familiargas system, Edison d rew o n the public's pre-existingunderstanding s of th e 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 rathe rthan emphasizing the gaps between the old insti-tutions and his new innovation' (Hargadon and


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Doug las 2001: 489). This mimicry was accomplished,in part, through the clever use of skeumorphs -design elements that symbolically connected previ-ous and current technologies - uch as bulbs thatmimic the shape of flames in pas lamps. Edisonengaged in this mim icry to the extent that he inten-tionally undermined the practical effectiveness ofelectric light in o rder to make it mo re similar to gas:gas jets pro duced light equivalent to a 12-wa tt bulb;Edison's designed his bulbs to prod uce 13 watts,despite having early prototyp es tha t would prod ucetwo o r three times this a m oun t of light. Similarly,Edison mimicked the gas companies' undergroundpipes, despite the fact than 'when buried, the barecopper wires leaked electricity and blew out entirecircuits' (Hargado n a nd D ouglas 2001: 490).

Mimicry was also an important form of institu-tional work in the development of the earlyAmerican motion picture industry, where on e groupof entrepren eurs, referred to as 'immigrant conte ntentrepreneurs' 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, 2-hour shows, and elaborate buildings'.This strategy was in contrast to those entrepreneurswho relied primarily on technical and regulatorystrategies, and whose films were primarily shortpieces shown in nickelodeons. In order to establishthe feature film 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 filming established Broadway playsor novels with p rom inent Broadway actors' (Jones2001: 925).Part of the success of mimicry in creating newinstitution al structures is tha t the juxtaposition ofold an d new templates can simultaneously make th enew structure understandable and accessible, whilepointing to potential problems or shortcomings ofpast practices. This was the observ ation by Townley(2002) on changes in Alberta cultural organizations.Layering 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 t hat the tech-nique of demonstrating problems of efficiency byjuxtaposing old and new templates of organizing,

ultimately, succeeded as actors succumbed,cognitively, to conform ity:

The 'causes'of the introduction of these measures,the appeal to efficiency, and hence the legitimacyof government, were no t questioned , nor was thelegitimacy of the government in making thesechanges ... Limited attempts at protecting ordecoupling internal work activities from formalstructures, although initially successful, were inhib-ited as business planning and performance mea-sures had to be introduced at the increasinglylower unit levels of the division and the sites, andeventually at the individual level.

TheorizingTheorizing is 'the developm ent a nd specification ofabstract categories, an d the elab oration of chains ofcause and effect' (Greenwood et al. 2002: 60). Animp ortant aspect of theorizing is the naming of newconcepts an d practices so that they might become apart of the cognitive m ap of the field. In their stud yof business plann ing in Alberta historical museu ms,for instance, Oakes et al. (1998: 2 7 6 7 ) describe theimportance and difficulty associated with suchwork:

The meaning of everyday words like 'goals' and'objectives' became precarious. The difficulty inremembering a new language and all its categories -goals, objectives, measures, etc. - was expressedseveral times. ... Some departments presentedtheir completed business plans to the Legislatureonly to be told that what they described as objec-tives were really goals and that what they definedas outcomes were really processes or outputs.Naming represents a critical first step that pro-

vides the foundation for further theorizing, asdescribed by Orssatto et al. (2002: 646) in theirstudy of the evolution of recycling in the Europeanau to industry. A critical na ming was by 'VDA', theGerman automobile industry, which in October1990 coined the notion a 'concept for the futureprocessing of end-of-life vehicles'. This namingallowed both the communication of the conceptand its elaboration through further theorizing:'the car manufacturers elaborated further on the"VDA concept", comm unicated it to the BMU andthe general public, and engaged in technical andmarket research to prepare for its implementation'.Naming an d theorizing does not, however, necessarily


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indicate agreement: in this case, Orssatto et al.(2002: 646-7) argue that the 'common conceptshould be seen more as a political stake than a tech-nical docum ent, since al l auto-makers endorsed theproposal, despite their preferences for differentsolutio ns a t th e technical level'.

Similarly, Kitchener's (2002: 402) study of hea lth-care mergers describes the way in which namingand theorizing can have an impact on an entiresector.

mem bers of the Jackson Hole group helped totranslate the ideology of market-managerialisminto US health policy. In the early 19705, theycoined the term health main tenance organization(HMO), labelled its organizational characteristics,and successfully lobbied the Nixon administra-tion to end orse it as a means of encouragingsavings (by managers) as opposed t o spend ing (byprofessionals).

Kitchener's study also highlights the narrativecomponent of theorizing (Bruner 1987) in whichactors articulate the causal an d consequently tem-poral relationships among institutional elements.Kitchener describes the way in which a variety ofactors engaged in storying in supp ort of the adop -tion of mergers by healthcare organizations: 'thepop ular business press (e.g. the Wall Street Journ al,Fortu ne, 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: 403).

EducatingThe final instance of institutional work we foundthat was aimed at creating institutions involved theeducating of actors i n skills and knowledge neces-sary to support the new institution. This was animp ortan t form of cognitive work because the cre-ating of new institu tions often involves the d evelop-me nt of novel practices as well as conne cting thosepractices to control mechanisms. This form ofcognitive work was evidenced in several studies,including Hargadon an d Douglas' (2001) discussion

of Edison's electric light, which demanded thedevelopment of significant new skills o n the pa rt ofworkers:

To wire a building for electricity, Edison had to pullup floors and snake wires around doorways, a skillat th at time known only, and incompletely, toinstallers of burglar alarms ... over the first fewyears, Edison lobbied local schools to develop tra in-ing programmes in electrical engineering and,when that initiative fell short ,star ted his own train-ing programm e (Hargadon and Douglas 2001:487).Similarly, the institutionalization of recycling pro -

grammes in Am erican universities deman ded a newset of skills and knowledge on the part of a largepopulation. Consequently, a key role of the SEACwas as an educator: As Lounsbury (2001: 36-7)describes, 'It spon sors annu al stude nt conferencesand maintains an elaborate network of experiencedstudent organizers wh o travel to campuses and holdworkshops, provide training and support work onactivities such as cam pus solid waste audits'.

One key strategy employed by the SEAC to edu-cate a large population of students an d universitieswas to create templates - rameworks that providedother actors with an outline, or template, for action.The SEAC facilitated the institutionalization ofrecycling by providing 'access to key informationsuch as case studies of o the r socially similar schoolsthat helped student environmental organizationsshape their arguments to administrators' (Lounsbury2001: 37). Moreover, the SEAC 'provided studentgroups with evidence from c omparab le schools .[which] was com municated in formal documentscreated by student environm ental groups that werepresented to school administrators in support oftheir claims' (Lo unsb ury 2001: 50).

Templating also includes w ork do ne less directly.On e imp ortan t such case involved the creation of atemplate tha t helped foster the global quality move-ment. Woywode (2002: 506-7) examines the intro-duction of working groups as a formal structuralcom ponent in the European auto industry, and con-cludes that:

The decision to introduce working groups coin-cided more or less with the date of publication ofth e MIT study by Womack et at. in 1990, whichpraised the Jap anese method of production. Thisbook, The Machine that Changed the World, of which,according to the co-author Daniel T. Jones, more


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than 500,000 copies were sold, as of Ju ne 2000, hasbeen translated into 1 1 different languages. .Several interviewees from French as well as fromGerman plants explicitly stated that top managersor production specialists of their car companieshad gone to visit Japanese car manufacturingplants prior to the decision to introduce the work-ing-group concep t in their home country, and hadmade repeated visits thereafter. . Two companieseven hired Japan ese consulting firms to help themintroduce the original Toyota production conceptin their company.These final three forms of institutional workaimed at creating institutions focus primarily o n the

cognitive side of institutio ns - he beliefs, assum p-tions and frames that inform action by providingmeaningful and understandable interaction pat-terns to be followed. Mimicry draws o n existing pat-terns of action in order to articulate an d legitimatenew practices and structures; theorizing developsconcepts and beliefs that can support new institu-tions; educatingprovides acto rs with th e knowledgenecessary to engage in new practices or interact withnew structures. Each form of institutional worksupp orts 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 educatingprovide actors with alternatives to the effort an d riskassociated with isolated innov ation.Insights into Creating Ins titutionsThe existing literature on institutional change pro-vides some useful insights into the institutionalwork necessary to create institutions. In enum erat-ing these forms of institutional work, our intentionhere is not to suggest that we have uncoveredany exhaustive list, but rather to sketch the terrainassociated with the creating of institutions byinterested actors. As with all of our observations inthis section, we draw ou r 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 theeffortful and skillful 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 d raw in

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 so me actors in any given field willhave that ability tied directly to their position; inman y fields, such a role is restricted to th e state o r adelegate of the state, such as a professional body.That ability can however be gained throu gh politicaland economic processes in which an actor estab-lishes a supe rior position in th e field. This positionmight be based either on the resource dependenceof other actors (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978).It mightalso reflect a specialized identity relative to an issue,and thus emerge out of the normative workdescribed above in term s of construc ting identities.An important insight with respect to the differ-

ences between forms of institutional work thatfocus on rules (i.e. vesting, defining and advocacy)and forms of institutional work that effect changesin no rm s an d belief systems (i.e. constructin g iden-tities, changing no rms and constructing normativenetworks), in term s of creating institutions, is thefar greater potential for rules-based wo rk t o lead t othe de novo constructio n of ne w institution s. Unlikethe rem aining types of institutional work, work thatfocuses on rule systems is much more likely to beassociated with th e relatively wholesale constructionof new institutions: vesting and defining, in partic-ular, can lead to the relatively immediate institu-tionalization of practices, technologies an d rules, solong as the putative agent has the authority toenforce those institutions.

In con trast, work that focuses o n changing nor msor belief systems is more often 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 m ost 'co-operative' of the three app roach es tocreating institutions. Unlike rules-based work,which depends on the ability of some actor toenforce compliance, normative work relies on cul-tural an d mo ral force, which is embedded in co m-munities of practice. Consequently, the forms ofnormative work all depend significantly on theco-operation of those com munities to make real theintended new institutions. The clearest example ofthis is the form ing of norm ative networks which arecrucial to lending an institution some cultural ormoral force; these networks are by their nature aco-operative enterprise an d so creating them involves


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Institutions and InstitutionalWork

a form of institutional work that d epends heavily onthe ability of actors to establish and maintainco-operative ties. This does not mean that norma-tive institutional work can n ot be highly conflictualas competing communities vie for legitimacy andinfluence with respect to a particular issue (Zietsmaet al. 2002). The co nstru cting of identities as a typeof institutional work, for instance, is also often ahighly co-operative endeavou r since the actor wh oseidentity is being constructed will often 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 an d Ph illips 1998), aperceived 'right' t o speak on a particular issue; this isin contrast to the authority and material resourcesthat make possible rule-oriented 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 field, but at the same timehold the greatest potential for institutional entre-preneursh ip o n the p art of relatively small, periph-eral or isolated actors. Less powerful actors areparticularly associated with this typ e of w ork whichinvolves associating new practices with existinginstitutions. Mimicry can provide a powerful 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 h and, seem to be asso-ciated primarily w ith larger, central actors in a field-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 m arginal actors do, o n occasion, mobilize theresources a nd social capital necessary to engage intheorizing, temp lating and educating, this can onlyoccur w hen they act collectively, in th e for m of asocial movement, thereby elevating their positionfrom atomistic marginal players to a unified andcentral actor (Clemens 1993; Lounsbury et al.2003). Templating, theorizing an d educating fo rmsof institutional work, in contrast to work thatfocuses on reconstructing rule systems, are associ-ated mor e strongly with th e extension and elabora-tion of institutions than with the creating of

strikingly new institutions; as Edison's exampleillustrates, even wh en a new technolog y represents abreakthrough advance, reliance on cognitive workto institutionalize may m ean h ighlighting its conti-nuities with the past as much as its distinctiveness.Templating an d theorizing, in particular, ap pear toincorporate elements of bricolage,or the 'makeshift,improv isatory an d creative' (Gabriel 2002) capacityof entrepreneurs to use existing social material toreconfigure structures and institutions (Clemensand Cook 1999).Maintaining lnstitutionsThe issue of how institutions are maintained byactors in organizational fields has received signifi-cantly less attention than how institutions are cre-ated (Scott 2001: 11 0). Nevertheless, the q uestio n ofwhat form s of institutional w ork are associated withmaintaining institutions is an important one:although institutions are associated with au tomaticmechanisms of social control that lead to institu-tions being relatively self-reproducing (Jepperson1991), relatively few institutio ns h ave suc h powerfulreproductive 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 (th e country'sfirst), the low level of institutionalization was evi-denced by the large am ou nt of wo rk necessary by arange of governmental and non-governmentalactors in order to mount the election. In contrast,Jepperson (1991) argues, democratic elections inthe US are not exceptions but rather taken-for-granted parts of contemporary life. However, thisdoes not m ean that the maintenance of democracy,or even of democratic elections, goes on withoutsignificant institutional work. O ne exam ple of suchwork is the organizing of voter registration drives,which are an important example of institutionalwork aimed not at creating or disrupting institu-tions, bu t at ensuring th at elections remain dem oc-ratic processes. Voter registration drives have been ahistorically important form of institutional worktoward m aintaining dem ocracy in the US, with the1964 Freedom Sum mer' campaign being among themo st famou s. Voter registration drives are not, how-ever, simply a rem nan t of a less democratic time in


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Table 1.6.2 Maintaining InstitutionsForms ofinstitutionalwork Definition

Key references forempirical examples

Enabling work

PolicingDeterringValourizing anddemonizingMythologizingEmbeddingand routinizing

The creation of rules that facilitate, supplem ent an d Leblebici et al. (1991)support institutions, such a s the creation of authorizingage nts or diverting resourcesEnsuring compliance through enforcement, auditing Fox-Wolfgramm et al. (1998);and monitoring Schule r (1996)Establishing coercive barriers to institutional ch an ge Holm (1995); Townley (2002)Providing for public consumption positive and Angus (1993)negative exam ples that illustrates the normativefoundations of an institutionPreserving the normative underp innings of an institution Angus (1993)by crea ting an d susta ining myths regarding its historyActively infusing the normative foundations of an Townley (1997); Zilber (2002)institution into the participants' day to day routinesand organizational practices

th e US: as we wrote th is chapte r, the US was preparingfor a presidential election in the fall of 2004, with vo terregistration drives being organized by a wide varietyof organizations,from the League of Wom envoters ofMonroe Township (Harvie 2004) to local chapters ofthe NAACP (Campbell 2004). These drives remain animportant 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 a renecessary to maintain democracy as an nstitution 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 an dother Western democracies. Considering the sorts ofinstitutions that are typically examined in organiza-tional research, we expect that even greater am oun ts ofinstitutional work are necessary for their maintenance.

In general, institutional work aimed at maintain-ing institutions involves supporting, repairing orrecreating the social mechanisms tha t ensure com pli-ance. Thus, in reviewing the empirical institutionalliterature for ins tances of such work, we searched forany concrete description of a n actor engaged in som eactivity that was intended to maintain the controlswhich underpinned an institution. As with ourreview of the descriptions of creating institutions, thedescriptions we found of maintaining institutions

were often located as often in th e sections providingbackground an d context for an empirical study as inthe 'results' s ections. Overall, we identify six typesof institutional work devoted to maintaining insti-tutions. The first three, 'enabling', 'policing' an d'deterring', primarily address the maintenance ofinstitutions through ensuring adherence to rule sys-tems. The latter three, 'valourizing/demonizing','mythologizing' and 'embedding and routinizing',focus efforts to m aintain institutions o n reproduc-ing existing norm s a nd belief systems. Each of thesetypes are elaborated below. See Table 1.6.2 for asum ma ry of the forms of institutional work associ-ated with maintaining institutions.

Enabling WorkEnabling work refers to the creation of rules thatfacilitate, supplement an d sup port 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 com e from Leblebici et alls (1991) study of theradio in dus try and Guler et al.'s (2002) study of theinternational diffusion of IS0 9000. A key set ofinstitutions in the field of radio transmissioninvolves the legitimate use of the rad io spectrum : inorder t o m aintain th e legislated institutional frame-work that governs the spectrum, the US federal


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institutions and Institutional Work

gove rnme nt has, since 1925, created regula toryagencies with the power 'to control the allocation,use, and transfer of spec trum rights' (Leblebici et al.1991: 341). Similarly, the IS0 authorizes variousorgani zations to act as registrars', includ ing govern-ment laboratories, private testing organizations,firms that were early adopte rs of ISO, industry trad egroups, and accounting firms': these organizationsare 'qualified to conduct audits and award certifi-cates' with respect to IS0 9000 compliance. Theseexamples illustrate the importance of distributedauthority and responsibility for maintaining institu-tions in large or geographically dispersed fields.Enabling work also maintains institutions by intro-ducing certainty into institutional arrangementswhich allows actors to avoid intra-institutionalconflict. Professional associations often engage inthis type of work with the 'construction an d main-tenance of intraprofessional agreement over bou nd-aries, membership and behaviour' (Greenwood et al.2002). By introducing constitutive rules (of mem-bership, standards or identity), associations 'func-tion in a primarily regulatory capacity ... as theyenable the formation, dissemination an d reproduc-tion of shared meanings and understandings in anorganizational arena' (Galvin 2002: 677).PolicingA second category of work aimed at maintaininginstitutions involves ensuring compliance throughenforcement, auditing and monitoring. We termthis fo rm of institutio nal wo rk 'policing'. Policingcan involve the use of bo th sanctions and induce-ments (Scott 1994; Russo 2001), often simultane-ously and by the same agents, as illustrated by theUS government's attem pts to stabilize labou r duringthe war effort (Baron et al. 1986),an d the state's useof both penalties and incentives in maintainingcommon economic institutions such as propertyrights, corporate status and control over economicproduction (Campbell and Lindbergh 1991). Anexample of a non-state actor engaged in policingwork comes fro m the early years of the Americanfilm industry, when key technologies were institu-tionalized th rough patents a nd copyrights, many ofwhich were held by Thomas Edison: as a means ofenforcing compliance, Edison 'initiated 33 suits onpatent rights a nd copyrights at federal level between1897 an d 1905' (Jones 2001: 933). This use of stateapparatus by a non-state actor to police an institu-tion is similar to what Schuler (1996) describes in

his analysis of political strategies in the carbo n steelindustry: an important strategy of these firms formaintaining institutions was the launching of peti-tions to international trade bodies appealing tohave a regulation or agreement enforced. In a verydifferent context, managers of a coal mine inNewfoundland enforced institutionalized butunsafe work practices by punishing those whorefused to comply: on e worker wh o 'refused to w orkin these types of unsafe conditions ... [was]assigned more denigrating tasks such as working onthe roof or at th e coal-face'; ano ther w as 'suspendedfor refusing to stay in the mine because his col-leagues were using torches in unsafe conditions'(Wicks 2001: 672 ).

Less overtly con flic tud enfo rcem ent strategies formaintaining institutions have also been described,particularly in professionalized fields where audit-ing and monitoring are often enough to ensurecompliance. Fox-Wolfgramm et al. (1998), forinstance, describe the role of auditing in the field ofbanking when new regulation was established toensure non-discriminatory lending procedures:

In mid-1987, th e bank was given an official [regula-tory] compliance examination, due to its holdingcompany starting the process of acquiring anotherbank in the Southwest. ... A full crew was sent tothe bank, and several weeks were spent assessingcompliance.The bank was found 'below average'in[regulatory] compliance and was prohibited fromfurther branching until compliance was shown'(Fox-Wolfgramm et al. 1998: 107-8).Similarly, Guler et a1.k (2002) stu dy of I S 0 9000

diffusion documents the importance of regularmonitoring as a means of maintaining institutional-ized practices: the IS0 9000 'certificate is typicallyawarded for a pe riod of 3 years', with regular audits'conducted after awarding a certificate to m ake surethat the firm is in compliance with the standards'(Guler e t al. 2002: 209-10). As well as period icauditing, actors working to maintain institutionsmay dem and ongoing disclosure of information o nthe pa rt of those participating in the institution: inresponse to the concerns of record producers,recording agents and artists that records played onthe radio would hurt their record sales, ' theSecretary of Com merce sanctioned large stations forusing records and required stations to disclosewhether their programmes were transcribed'(Leblebici et al. 1991: 347).


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DeterrenceA final category of work aim ed a t 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 thre at of coercion to inculcate theconscious obedience of institutional actors. Th e bestexample of this category comes from Hargadon andDouglas' (2001: 485) study of Edison's intro duc tionof e lectric lighting, and th e responses by politicianswho were interested in m aintaining th e institutional-ized lighting system based o n n atural gas:

When Edison first applied for an operating license,the mayor of New York flatly opposed even grant-ing the company an operating franchise.When thatopposition failed ... the Board of Aldermen pro-posed Edison pay $1000 er mile of wiring and 3%of the gross receipts ...Gas companies, by compar-ison, were permitted to lay their mains for free andpaid only property tax to the city.

Another example of such tactics comes from Holm's(1995) study of the Norwegian fisheries, in whichthe Fisherman's Association was able to subvert th egovernment's attem pt to industrialize the industry,and hence maintain the institutions of system ofsmall-scale fishermen an d coastal comm unities.Effective deterrence is highly depe ndent up on t helegitimate authority of the coercive agent. Townley(2002: 173) describes the effective deterrence workof the Alberta government in ensuring complianceof actors in provincial cultural institu tions:

Formally, there was acquiescence or compliancewith the requests to introduce strategic perfor-mance measurement systems.This took the form ofconscious obedience rather than incorporation ofnorms of the institutional requirements. Althoughthe planning exercise was of some use in clarifyingorganizational goals, performance measures wererejected as being valuable in evaluating the out-comes of organizations ... Although there wascompliance with coercive isomorphism, there wasresistance to mimetic isomorphism.Deterrence may also derive from the threat of eco-nomic coercion. Thornton (2002: 87) describes thepolicing work of parent corporations in the collegetextbook publishing industry in which policing wasprimarily accomplished through accounting prac-tices. Annual profits of the college divisions were

closely mon itored an d each year's profits ha d to 'bebetter t han the previous year'.

Looking across the categories of rules-based w orkthat maintains institutions, we see that such work isconcerned with preserving the mechanisms throughwhich rewards a nd sanctions were associated withinstitutional compliance on the part of actors in afield. Enabling work, policing and deterrence acttogether to make real the coercive underp innings ofan institution: without such work, the coercivefoundations for institutions are likely to crumble,becoming empty threats or promises rather thanself-activating means of institutional control.Notably, the coercive work used to m aintain institu-tions is more visible and apparent th an cognitive ornormative equivalents. Those actors wh o engage insuch work, as well as the actors t hat comply, are co n-scious of the effects of such work and its purpose i nmaintaining a nd preserving institutions.Valourizing and Demon izingThis work maintains institutions by providing forpublic consumption especially positive and espe-cially negative examples that illustrates the nor ma -tive foundations of an institution. Good examplesof this category com e from Angus' (1993) study of aChristian Brothers College in Australia - a boy'sschool 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 a nd what was wrong. Successes in athleticcom petition , for instance, 'were publicly recognizedat CBC and formed a large part of the agenda forschool assemblies' (Angus 1993: 241); this publicrecognition provided a clear indica tion to all partic-ipants of what it m eant t o be a proper CBC boy. Incontrast, students who failed to live up to the com -petitive and macho ethic of the school were widelydemonized: 'The greatest insult a pupil co uld deliverto ano ther was to dou bt his masculinity by referringto h im as a "poofter" o r as a "girl''. At a ll year levelsthere was continual joking about "poofters", bothinside and outside classrooms, by male teachers aswell as by boys' (Angus 1993: 242). Valou rizing an ddemonizing represent institutional work in whichactors identify an d evaluate the m oral status of par-ticipants in the field, both as an enactm ent of insti-tutionalized beliefs and as a way of ma intainin g thepower of those beliefs.


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MythologizingA related category of institutional work focuses onthe past, rather th an the present: a key way in whichactors work to preserve the normative und erpinningsof 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 an d an occasion to tell it: Brother Cas M anion

in his editorial to the hundredth issue of theChristian Brothers' journal, Studies, in which hereflects upon the Brothers' schools of the 1930s:'The objective of the school was to hand on theFaith intact and ready to figh t; to raise the workingclass boy to a level of prestige in Public Service orProfession; and to attain high levels of examinationsuccess in open competition' (Angus 1993: 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 th e school's culture. Similarly, Angus (1993)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 B rothers' schools - ireless, dedi-cated an d inspiring leaders who have followed in thefootsteps of the Irish founder of the O rder' (Angus1993: 251-2).Embedding and RoutinizingWhereas, valourizing, dem onizing an d mythologiz-ing provide discursive resources, this category ofinstitutio nal w ork involves actively infusing th e no r-mative foundations of an institution into the partic-ipants' day-to-day routines and organizationalpractices. Institutions, thus, are maintained andreproduced through the stabilizing influence ofembed ded routines an d repetitive practices such astraining, education, hiring and certification rou-tines and ceremonies of celebration. In Townley's(1997) 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 docum ent:

The university has a general responsibility tothe community for the provision of high quality

teaching and research within the funds allocatedfrom the public purse. ... By considering theachievements and needs of each of its staff on anindividual basis it can build up at department,faculty and university levels an assessment of whatsteps are needed to motivate and retain staff ofhigh quality (University document, quot

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