scholarly journals Overcoming Inaction through Collective Institutional Entrepreneurship: Insights from Regime Theory

2007 ◽  
Vol 28 (7) ◽  
pp. 1079-1100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Wijen ◽  
Shahzad Ansari
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Kyoto Protocol ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Regime Theory ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneurship ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneurs

Studies on institutional change generally pertain to the agency-structure paradox or the ability of institutional entrepreneurs to spearhead change despite constraints. In many complex fields, however, change also needs cooperation from numerous dispersed actors with divergent interests. This presents the additional paradox of ensuring that these actors engage in collective action when individual interests favor lack of cooperation. We draw on complementary insights from institutional and regime theories to identify drivers of collective institutional entrepreneurship and develop an analytical framework. This is applied to the field of global climate policy to illustrate how collective inaction was overcome to realize a global regulatory institution, the Kyoto Protocol.

Rethinking Collective Action: The Co-Evolution of the State and Institutional Entrepreneurs in Emerging Economies

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tricia D. Olsen
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Emerging Economies ◽  
Group Formation ◽  
The State ◽  
Passive State ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneurship ◽  
Organizational Fields ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneurs ◽  
Distribution Of Power

Why do groups form to influence policy outcomes? Classic notions of collective action tell us that a small number of homogeneous individuals are more likely to organize and thus achieve their preferred policy outcomes. Yet, this is not always reflected in the empirical record as external factors, such as the state, influence the costs of organizing. Instead, the traditional collective action literature largely assumes a purely rational or passive state. While the institutional entrepreneurship literature highlights the key role these actors can play in shaping institutions and, at times, organizational fields, it does not seek to explain why change agents appear in some instances and not others. This article seeks to fill this theoretical gap by drawing on the co-evolution literature, which helps explain the variation in group formation by underscoring how the state and institutional entrepreneurs shape one another. Utilizing rich qualitative data from the microfinance industry in Brazil and Mexico, this research asserts that the formation of microfinance associations is a function of actors’ ability to access the state, which results in distinct processes: co-evolution by isolation or co-optation. This process has subsequent implications for institutional change, policy outcomes, and, ultimately, the distribution of power and prospects of development within emerging economies.

Institutional entrepreneurs on opportunity formation and exploitation in strategic new industry

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuanwei Cao ◽  
Yipeng Liu ◽  
Chunhui Cao
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneurship ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneurs ◽  
Market Opportunities ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneur ◽  
New Industry

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of institutional entrepreneurship in opportunity formation and opportunity exploitation in developing emerging strategic new industries. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews the focal literature focussing on institutional entrepreneurs’ role in opportunity formation with special attention to opportunities for institutional entrepreneurs in emerging economy. A multi-method approach consisting of historical case studies and event sequencing is applied to track the historical development of the solar energy industry in two case contexts and to investigate the role of institutional entrepreneurs in this process. Findings – Investigation of two cases illustrates that different types of institutional entrepreneur, as represented by individual entrepreneurs and local government, in the context of massive institutional change – such as the Grand Western Development Program and the Thousand Talents Program in China – have varied effects on triggering and inducing institutional change and innovation to explore and exploit opportunities in emerging new industries. Practical implications – The significance of local context for the nature and scope of institutional entrepreneurship in emerging economy is worthy of further research. The top-down process of institutional innovation dominated by local government might cause myopic outcome and distortion of market opportunities. Indigenous individual entrepreneurs with well-accumulated political capital and strong perceived responsibility could be the main actors to introduce incremental institutional change by combining bottom-up and top-down processes and promoting sustained new industry development through creating and seizing institutional opportunities and market opportunities. Originality/value – This paper illustrates the close relationship between institutional environment and opportunity formation in emerging economies, contributes to the understanding of contextualizing institutional entrepreneurs in different regional contexts and discloses the problems involved in local government acting as an institutional entrepreneur.

The Birth of the 'Kodak Moment': Institutional Entrepreneurship and the Adoption of New Technologies

2005 ◽  
Vol 26 (11) ◽  
pp. 1665-1687 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamal A. Munir ◽  
Nelson Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneurship ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneurs

In this paper, we adopt a discourse analytic methodology to explore the role of institutional entrepreneurs in the process of institutional change that coincides with the adoption of a radically new technology. More specifically, we examine how Kodak managed to transform photography from a highly specialized activity to one that became an integral part of everyday life. Based on this case, we develop an initial typology of the strategies available to institutional entrepreneurs who wish to affect the processes of social construction that lead to change in institutional fields. The use of discourse analysis in analysing institutional change provides new insights into the processes through which institutional fields evolve as well as into how institutional entrepreneurs are able to act strategically to embody their interests in the resulting institutions.

scholarly journals Prisoners of the Wrong Dilemma: Why Distributive Conflict, Not Collective Action, Characterizes the Politics of Climate Change

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 4-27
Author(s):  
Michaël Aklin ◽  
Matto Mildenberger
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
Distributive Conflict

Climate change policy is generally modeled as a global collective action problem structured by free-riding concerns. Drawing on quantitative data, archival work, and elite interviews, we review empirical support for this model and find that the evidence for its claims is weak relative to the theory’s pervasive influence. We find, first, that the strongest collective action claims appear empirically unsubstantiated in many important climate politics cases. Second, collective action claims—whether in their strongest or in more nuanced versions—appear observationally equivalent to alternative theories focused on distributive conflict within countries. We argue that extant patterns of climate policy making can be explained without invoking free-riding. Governments implement climate policies regardless of what other countries do, and they do so whether a climate treaty dealing with free-riding has been in place or not. Without an empirically grounded model for global climate policy making, institutional and political responses to climate change may ineffectively target the wrong policy-making dilemma. We urge scholars to redouble their efforts to analyze the empirical linkages between domestic and international factors shaping climate policy making in an effort to empirically ground theories of global climate politics. Such analysis is, in turn, the topic of this issue’s special section.

Examining Institutional Entrepreneurship in the Passage of Youth Sport Concussion Legislation

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Landy Di Lu ◽  
Kathryn L. Heinze
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Change ◽  
Youth Sport ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sport Organizations ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneurship ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Sport Policy ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneurs ◽  
Sport Concussion

New sport policies often prompt organizations in the field to alter their structures and processes. Little is known, however, about the tactics of those leading institutional change around sport policy. To address this gap, the authors draw on the concept of institutional entrepreneurship—the activities of actors who leverage resources to create institutional change. Using a qualitative case study approach, the authors examine how two coalitions that served as institutional entrepreneurs in Washington and Oregon created and passed the first youth sport concussion legislation in the United States. The analysis of this study reveals that these coalitions (including victims’ families, sport organizations, advocacy groups, and concussion specialists) engaged in political, technical, and cultural activities through the use of specific tactics that allowed them to harness expertise and resources and generate support for the legislation. Furthermore, the findings of this study suggest a sequencing to these activities, captured in a model of institutional entrepreneurship around sport policy.

scholarly journals Legitimacy in an Era of Fragmentation: The Case of Global Climate Governance

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 56-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia I. Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen ◽  
Jeffrey McGee
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Regime Theory ◽  
Climate Governance ◽  
United Nations Framework Convention ◽  
Institutional Fragmentation

Studies grounded in regime theory have examined the effectiveness of “minilateral” climate change forums that have emerged outside of the UN climate process. However, there are no detailed studies of the legitimacy of these forums or of the impacts of their legitimacy on effectiveness and governance potential. Adopting the lens of legitimacy, we analyze the reasons for the formation of minilateral climate change forums and their recent role in global climate governance. We use Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen and Vihma's analytical framework for international institutions to examine three minilateral climate forums: the Asia-Pacific Partnership, the Major Economies Meetings, and the G8 climate process. These forums have significant deficits in their source-based, process-based, and outcome-based legitimacy, particularly when compared to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. If assessed purely on grounds of effectiveness, the minilateral forums might be easily dismissed as peripheral to the UN climate process. However, they play important roles by providing sites for powerful countries to shape the assumptions and expectations of global climate governance. Thus, the observed institutional fragmentation allows key states to use minilateral forums to shape the architecture of global climate governance.

Institutional entrepreneurship as emancipating institutional work

2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Smothers ◽  
Patrick J. Murphy ◽  
Milorad M. Novicevic ◽  
John H. Humphreys
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Strategic Alliances ◽  
Resistance To Change ◽  
Interaction Process ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneurship ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneurs ◽  
The Social ◽  
Process Framework

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to propose an action-interaction-process framework to extend research on institutional entrepreneurship. The framework examines an actor's characteristics, interactions in an institutional context, and the process by which entrepreneurial action is accomplished. Design/methodology/approach – Via a sociohistorical archival method of narrative analysis, the action-interaction-process framework is applied to an exemplary case of institutional entrepreneurship – the case of James Meredith and the integrationist movement at the University of Mississippi in the 1960 s. Findings – The findings show that institutional entrepreneurs who maintain little power and influence over the institutional field must form strategic alliances to mobilize constituents and capitalize on the convergence of resources in the social setting. Practical implications – Through the process of collective action, institutional entrepreneurs can overcome resistance to change and displace inequitable institutional policies, while establishing new practices and norms. Originality/value – This research provides a stronger approach to examining institutional entrepreneurship and institutional entrepreneurs, the interaction between the institutional entrepreneur and the social context in which the individual operates, and the process by which inequitable institutionalized norms are reformed through collective action. This approach is useful to researchers examining institutional entrepreneurship or any area in which power disparity plays an important role.

scholarly journals Global Climate Policy and Collective Action: A Comment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Kennard ◽  
Keith Schnakenberg
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Action Model ◽  
International Climate

In a recent issue of Global Environmental Politics, Aklin and Mildenberger (2020) argue against the prevailing characterization of climate change cooperation as a problem of free riding or collective action. The authors argue that models of collective action imply (1) policy reciprocity and (2) inaction in the absence of formal agreements to limit free riding. They argue that neither empirical implication is supported by an review of states' climate policy to date. In this comment we note that standard collective action models imply neither of the above hypotheses. As a result the empirical tests advanced in the original article are uninformative as to the explanatory power of the collective action model for international climate politics.

scholarly journals Preparing the Playing Field. Climate Club Governance of the G20, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition and the Under2 Coalition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Unger ◽  
Sonja Thielges
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Climate Governance ◽  
Global Challenge ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
Clean Air ◽  
International Climate

Abstract International climate policy is increasingly shaped by alternative forms of governance. Coalitions of national, subnational and/or non-state actors have the potential to address the global challenge of climate change beyond the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process. While initially such ‘clubs’ spurred hope that they could be an option to achieve climate action more effectively than the UNFCCC, more recently their role has been seen as preparing and orchestrating climate policy. In spite of its conceptual proliferation, literature on climate clubs stops short in examining practical evidence and conducting analyses beyond categorization and labelling of climate clubs. This article aims at contributing to filling this gap with a comparative perspective on three specific governance initiatives that act on different governance levels: The G20, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) and the Under2 Coalition. What contribution do these club-like initiatives make to global climate governance and how does it relate to existing structures such as the Paris Agreement and the UNFCCC process?Our paper applies central aspects of clubs research, namely membership, public goods, and the provision of additional benefits as an analytical framework to examine the three cases. We find that these club initiatives, though highly diverse in their origin and membership, make a similar contribution to international climate governance. Their largest contribution lies in preparing emissions reductions through raising awareness, orchestrating different actors and actions, and establishing a large cooperation network. They complement the UNFCCC and especially the Paris Agreement.

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