NEOINSTITUTIONAL THEORIES CONTEMPORARY FRONTIERS

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NEO-INSTITUTIONAL THEORIESCONTEMPORARY FRONTIERS
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CONTEMPORARY FRONTIERS

• Role of actors and agency
• Emergence
• Process
• Change
• Open institutional systems (horizontally) and
  multilevel interactions (vertical)
• Power AND hegemony
• Beyond the notion of decoupling ideas of
  translation, hybridization or co-existence of
  multiple institutional frames
• Extremely vibrant field with a lot of theoretical
  innovation and movement

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CONSTANT CALLS FOR BRINGING IN THE ACTOR

• The notion of  Institutional Entrepreneur  -
  risk of incoherence and theoretical contradiction
  (beware of rational choice and rational action
  models)
• The notion of  soft actors  - all actors are
  inscribed, embedded themselves within
  institutional frames. No actor is  external  to
  institutional structuring. This embeddedness does
  not only mean  constraints  it also represents
  action opportunities as it provides a
  repertoire,a tool-kit
• Scandinavian institutionalists have developed a
  more action- and actor-grounded institutionalism
  that combines the notions of  soft actors  and
  of  translation
• Another way to go is to explore the literature on
  social movements (Fligstein and McAdam. A
  Political-Cultural Approach to the Problem of
  Strategic Action)
• Methodologically this implies to work on
  particular  action fields  with longitudinal
  methods and tools making it possible to 1)
  identify institutional and normative constraints
  2) the strategies of actors and their use of
  institutional repertoires 3) networks of action
  and mobilization. Bringing in Giddens, Bourdieu,
  Crozier/Friedberg, network theory, social
  movement literature

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EMERGENCE

• Where do institutions come from? How are
  structural and normative frames built?
• Historical follow-up of a particular
  institutional scheme or set (ie antitrust
  regulation, consulting industry, IFRS..)
• Intellectual genealogy of a normative scheme (ie.
  Money, market, competition.)
• Work that looks at both corporate social
  responsibility central banks.

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PROCESS

• Moving from a preoccupation for institutions as
  independent variables (looking at their action on
  behaviours).Going back to older versions of
  institutionalism??
• To a focus on institutions as dependent variables
  and more exactly to a focus on processes of
  institutionalization, de-instituionalization,
  re-institutionalization. Transformations through
  time of a particular institution.
• See the work on asset management, the work on the
  consulting industry and its transformation the
  work on the transformation of Universities.

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CHANGE

• West coast evolutionary change,  quasi
  natural 
• East coast /NBS, Voc no change or so little
  (path dependencies) or else very radical points
  of rupture
• Towards models of change that see change as
  incremental but consequential, Stalactite
  change
• Multiplicity of pressures through time
• Some ruptures followed by reinforcing pressures
• Interactions between pressures external to the
  system and pressure providing from inside
  (relays)
• Persistence of alternative sets of institutions
  layers,  garbages  laying around.to be seized
  upon, possibly, later on.

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Opening the borders

• Focus on  meeting points  and institutional
  frontiers.
• Encounter between institutional frames stemming
  from different national spaces
• Impact of transnational frames on national ones
• Impact of national institutional frames on the
  construction of transnational institutional
  frames.

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POWER AND HEGEMONY

• From a preoccupation for Power (as associated
  with resources and the capacity to constrain
  East Coast)
• To a preoccupation for Hegemony (West Coast)
• To, finally, an acknowledgment of their
  articulation and interaction how do power games
  set themselves within particular hegemonic frames
  or constructions. Do they work in the same
  direction or on the contrary do they work against
  each other? There is a necessity to look at both
  dimensions in parallel

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BEYOND DECOUPLING

• Translation and hybridization
• Actors
• Mechanisms
• Innovation? Divergence? Contextualized
  convergence? Steps towards ultimate convergence?

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IMITATION AND INNOVATION

• Imitation is a basic social mechanism (Tarde,
  Sevon, Czarniawska)
• Organizations and individuals develop and change
  through processes of imitation
• Imitation may lead to increased homogenization
  and to more of the same but also to variation
  and innovation
• Many innovations are performed through imitation

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IMITATION AS COPYING AND AS TRANSLATION

• Imitation as copying, a diffusion perspective
• Imitation is expected to lead to increased
  homogenization
• Imitation as active processes of translation
• Imitation may lead to similarities and variation,
  to more of the same or to innovation

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THREE MODES OF IMITATION

• Broadcasting
• Chain
• Mediated

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A precision of the translation perspective
Imitation as editing

• Practice and experience as such cannot be
  circulated, but it is the accounts, presentations
  and representations of such practices and
  experiences that are being imitated and
  circulated.
• Accounts may be shaped differently in different
  settings - accounts are edited.
• Such editing is done in several steps. It may
  concern details as well as more general ideas.
  There are many, sometimes intertwined, editors.
• The context restricts and guides the editing.
  This infrastructure of editing may be understood
  as sets of editing rules.

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EDITING MODES

• Sorting
• partial imitation
• mixed models, hybrids
• Some aspects are left out, others are added. Some
  ideas and aspects are easier to transfer than
  others.
• Packaging
• Categories direct attention, ways of presenting,
  and sort out ideas to be circulated.
• Reshaping programs and techniques and the
  relation between them

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THREE SETS OF EDITING RULES

• Rules concerning context
• Rules concerning logic
• Rules concerning formulation
• The infrastructure, and thus the editing rules,
  differ between situations and contexts.

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OUTCOMES OF EDITING

• Prototypes (models to imitate)
• Templates (models to use for assessing)
• Regulations standards and rules
• Identities

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The early years of organizational
institutionalism - 1983 - 1991

• Processual studies
• Diffusion (e.g. Tolbert and Zucker)
• Cross category comparisons
• Public organizations and business
• Cross national comparisons
• Means of transmission (e.g. professional networks)

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Tendencies and Ambiguities

• Broadened view of institutionalized settings, not
  only public org. E.g. markets as institutions
• The concept of isomorphism still somewhat
  ambiguous and often equaled with homogeneity
• Institutions remained largely undefined
• What basic questions does the theory seek to
  answer?
• Rationalization and or institutionalization or.
• Institutionalization still treated largely as a
  default option

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Expanding horizons 1991 - present

• Institutional isomorphism why are organizations
  more or less receptive to institutional
  pressures?
• Structural explanations position in the network,
  ties, centrality, status..
• Intraorganizational factors demography, gender,
  professionalism
• Organizational identity
• Legitimacy how do organizations aquire, manage
  and use legitimacy?
• Conceptual clarifications and better measures
• Less focus on effects on survival etc.
• More focus on organizations as driving
  institutional change, rather than as adapting to
  institutional change)
• Soft regulations
• Limited research on de-institutionalization