Theorizing Institutional Entrepreneuring: Arborescent and rhizomatic assembling

Organization Studies ◽

Assemblage Theory ◽

Grand Challenges ◽

Growing Body ◽

Institutional Action ◽

Institutional Entrepreneur

A growing body of research has cataloged the myriad actors involved in tackling persistent institutional problems. Yet we lack a theoretical toolkit for explicitly conceptualizing and comparing diverse modes of institutional entrepreneuring—the processes whereby actors are created and equipped for institutional action—capable of ameliorating grand challenges. Drawing on assemblage theory, we articulate two ideal-typical modes of assembling actorhood: arborescent and rhizomatic. We differentiate each mode along four principles: association, combination, division, and population. Building on our theorization, we propound an arborescent-rhizomatic space comprising clusters of arborescent, rhizomatic, and hybrid actorhood. To explore the generativity of our framework, we revisit selected research at the intersection of institutional entrepreneurship and grand challenges. We close by articulating how our concept of assembling actorhood reorients research toward institutional entrepreneur ing and contributes to the application of assemblage theory within organization studies.

Grand Challenges, Feminist Answers

Organization Theory ◽

10.1177/26317877211020323 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2 (3) ◽

pp. 263178772110203

Author(s):

Yvonne Benschop

Keyword(s):

Knowledge Production ◽

Ways Of Knowing ◽

Natural World ◽

Value Systems ◽

Situated Knowledge ◽

Feminist Ethics ◽

Organization Studies ◽

Grand Challenges ◽

Knowing That ◽

Feminist Organization

Feminist organization theories develop knowledge about how organizations and processes of organizing shape and are shaped by gender, in intersection with race, class and other forms of social inequality. The politics of knowledge within management and organization studies tend to marginalize and silence feminist theorizing on organizations, and so the field misses out on the interdisciplinary, sophisticated conceptualizations and reflexive modes of situated knowledge production provided by feminist work. To highlight the contributions of feminist organization theories, I discuss the feminist answers to three of the grand challenges that contemporary organizations face: inequality, technology and climate change. These answers entail a systematic critique of dominant capitalist and patriarchal forms of organizing that perpetuate complex intersectional inequalities. Importantly, feminist theorizing goes beyond mere critique, offering alternative value systems and unorthodox approaches to organizational change, and providing the radically different ways of knowing that are necessary to tackle the grand challenges. The paper develops an aspirational ideal by sketching the contours of how we can organize for intersectional equality, develop emancipatory technologies and enact a feminist ethics of care for the human and the natural world.

Business Strategies and the Law: Three Types of Entrepreneurial Processes from a Legal History Perspective

Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte ◽

10.1515/zug-2021-0007 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 66 (2) ◽

pp. 161-189

Author(s):

Louis Pahlow ◽

Sebastian Teupe

Keyword(s):

Economic History ◽

Legal History ◽

Historical Perspective ◽

Business Strategies ◽

Organization Studies ◽

Modern Capitalism ◽

Rule Breaking ◽

The Law ◽

The Relationship

Abstract The relationship between business strategies and legal institutions is important for understanding the historical dynamics of modern capitalism. While legal history and economic history have remained distinct disciplines, a growing number of studies now populates a vibrant «borderland» between the two. Building on frameworks of legal history, organization studies, and «new entrepreneurial history», our contribution systematizes the relation of entrepreneurship and the law from a historical perspective of change. This paper explains how an analysis of this specific relation contributes to our understanding of economic change and addresses the question of synthesis and interdisciplinary connectivity by offering a conceptual triad that focuses on the problems of agency and change at the intersection of businesses and the law. This paper argues that economic actors have used, sought, and avoided laws to transform their legal and economic environments. Each of these interactions combined a distinct set of variables conceptualized as legal business creativity, legal-institutional entrepreneurship, and Schumpeterian rule-breaking.

Government as Institutional Entrepreneur: Extending Working Life in the UK and Japan

Journal of Social Policy ◽

10.1017/s0047279414000075 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 43 (3) ◽

pp. 535-553 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

MATTHEW FLYNN ◽

HEIKE SCHRÖDER ◽

MASA HIGO ◽

ATSUHIRO YAMADA

Keyword(s):

United Kingdom ◽

Older Workers ◽

Working Life ◽

Light Touch ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Welfare Systems ◽

The Government ◽

The Uk

AbstractThrough the lens of Institutional Entrepreneurship, this paper discusses how governments use the levers of power afforded through business and welfare systems to affect change in the organisational management of older workers. It does so using national stakeholder interviews in two contrasting economies: the United Kingdom and Japan. Both governments have taken a ‘light-touch’ approach to work and retirement. However, the highly institutionalised Japanese system affords the government greater leverage than that of the liberal UK system in changing employer practices at the workplace level.

Caste and Organization Studies: Our Silence Makes Us Complicit

Organization Studies ◽

10.1177/0170840620964038 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 017084062096403

Author(s):

Snehanjali Chrispal ◽

Hari Bapuji ◽

Charlene Zietsma

Keyword(s):

Caste System ◽

Institutional Work ◽

Organization Studies ◽

Precarious Work ◽

Grand Challenges ◽

Modern Slavery ◽

The World ◽

Scant Attention

The caste system has received scant attention in organization studies, despite persisting over thousands of years, influencing the socioeconomic lives of over a billion people around the world and subjecting over 300 million people to severe socioeconomic discrimination. By overlooking caste, scholars risk conforming subaltern empirics to imperialist knowledge and miss the nuance and complexity that caste can bring to organization studies. We argue that the caste system is an institution that affects the workplace, yet it is difficult to dismantle because of its rooting in bodies and the sacred, which strips away agency. As an institution that is deeply embodied, caste has implications for institutional work, precarious work and modern slavery. We conclude with a call for scholarly engagement with caste to study its implications in the pursuit of grand challenges and inclusive organizations.

Collaborative Governance in a Developing Non-Democracy: Uganda's Organizational Success Fighting HIV/AIDS

The American Review of Public Administration ◽

10.1177/02750740211059113 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 027507402110591

Author(s):

Michael P. Ryan

Keyword(s):

Developing Countries ◽

Public Administration ◽

Social Problems ◽

Social Power ◽

Collaborative Governance ◽

Network Control ◽

Organization Studies ◽

Organization Model ◽

Grand Challenges ◽

Hiv Aids

Organization and management scholars seek theory-grounded and theory-building research regarding establishing and structuring organization forms to tackle large, intractable problems, especially grand challenges of poverty, disease, and hunger. Developing countries tend to have intractable social problems of rampant poverty and poor health and struggle with epidemics. The case of HIV/AIDS in Uganda contributes new understanding regarding public organization and state capacity in developing countries, especially regarding grand challenges of intractable social problems. Field research study of HIV/AIDS action in Uganda contributes unexpected insights regarding collaborative governance in an institution context under-explored in public administration and organization studies, the developing non-democracy. Ugandan public executives innovated a participatory organization model of cross-sector collaborative governance to fight their intractable social problem of HIV/AIDS during their start-up era. The participatory organization model innovated by the Ugandan public chief executive, called a best practice by WHO/UNAIDS and influential with PEPFAR designers, yields a construct of network coordination and network control for study of the organization of cross-sector collaborative governance. Integration of public administration and organization studies with development and international relations studies informs study of tensions between efficiency and inclusiveness and between social power and social legitimacy with respect to collaborative governance outcomes of network effectiveness and participatory accountability in the institution context of a developing non-democracy. Is non-democracy meaningful or meaningless to collaborative governance?

Investigating the role of celebrity institutional entrepreneur in reducing the attitude-behavior gap in sustainable consumption

Management of Environmental Quality An International Journal ◽

10.1108/meq-09-2021-0226 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Pallavi Chaturvedi ◽

Kushagra Kulshreshtha ◽

Vikas Tripathi

Keyword(s):

Anthropogenic Activities ◽

Qualitative Interviews ◽

Sustainable Consumption ◽

Environmental Issues ◽

Consumption Pattern ◽

Content Type ◽

Consumption Practices ◽

Attitude Behavior ◽

Institutional Entrepreneur

PurposeAnthropogenic activities such as unsustainable consumption pattern is one of the reasons responsible for the ongoing environmental issues. Although, consumers are becoming increasingly aware and concerned about environmental problems their attitudes are not resulting in sustainable consumption behavior (SCB). Celebrity institutional entrepreneurs can engage and inspire the public at large and contribute to institutional change. Hence, this study aims to explore the potential of celebrity institutional entrepreneurship in galvanizing mainstream SCB by increasing the awareness of environmental issues and their consequences.Design/methodology/approachThis study examines the actor's influence by conducting a netnographic analysis of Leonardo DiCaprio's Instagram account. Further, qualitative interviews of account followers were also conducted to evaluate the influence of account on their awareness levels and consumption practices.FindingsOur findings indicate that account had a significant impact on consumers' environmental awareness and engagement with environmental issues. However, a partial impact was seen in case of their sustainable consumption practices. Our study concludes that celebrity institutional entrepreneurship can help in addressing the attitude-behavior gap in sustainability research.Originality/valueThis study is amongst the few studies that attempted to explore the ways to reduce the attitude-behavior gap in SCB. It examines the potential of celebrity institutional entrepreneurship to galvanize mainstream sustainable consumption. The results of this study are useful to key stakeholders (policymakers, marketers, social-environmental groups etc.) in the development of more effective strategies for sustainable development.

Emerging Institutions: Pyramids or Anthills?

Organization Studies ◽

10.1177/0170840609102282 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 30 (4) ◽

pp. 423-441 ◽

Cited By ~ 107

Author(s):

Barbara Czarniawska

Keyword(s):

Actor Network Theory ◽

London School ◽

Garbage Can Model ◽

Institutional Entrepreneurs ◽

Sociology Of Translation ◽

London School Of Economics ◽

Present Text ◽

The Way

In the present text, an institution is understood to be an (observable) pattern of collective action, justified by a corresponding norm. By this definition, an institution emerges slowly, although it may be helped or hindered by various specific acts. From this perspective, an institutional entrepreneur is an oxymoron, at least in principle. In practice, however, there are and always have been people trying to create institutions. This article describes the emergence of the London School of Economics and Political Science as an institution and analyzes its founders and its supporters during crises as institutional entrepreneurs. A tentative theory of the phenomenon of institutional entrepreneurship is then constructed by combining elements of sociology of translation, actor-network theory and garbage can model. The article concludes with a suggestion that the way institutional enterprises are narrated may differ from the way they are built, and a genre analysis can be of further help in understanding this phenomenon.

`Healing the Scars of History': Projects, Skills and Field Strategies in Institutional Entrepreneurship

Organization Studies ◽

10.1177/0170840607078116 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 28 (7) ◽

pp. 1101-1122 ◽

Cited By ~ 89

Author(s):

Markus Perkmann ◽

André Spicer

Keyword(s):

Organizational Form ◽

Institution Building ◽

Building Projects ◽

Political Skills ◽

Institutional Entrepreneurs ◽

Analytical Skills ◽

New Organizational Forms ◽

Cultural Skills

We explore what institutional entrepreneurs do to propagate new organizational forms. Our findings are derived from a longitudinal study of the `Euroregion', an organizational form used by local authorities situated close to European borders for co-ordinating policies across borders. We find that the institutional entrepreneurs behind the Euroregion engaged in several types of institution-building projects, with a changing focus over time. While the initial emphasis was on interactional projects, this was followed by a focus on technical projects and finally cultural projects. The skills that the institutional entrepreneurs deployed changed accordingly. While in a first phase, predominantly political skills were used, later, analytical skills and finally cultural skills were added. Furthermore, the institutional entrepreneurs propagated the organizational form by switching their institution-building projects between different fields. We interpret these findings by outlining a process theory of institutional entrepreneurship that conceptualizes the institutional entrepreneur in light of its development as an innovating organization.

Performance Analysis and Science Mapping of Institutional Entrepreneurship Research

Administrative Sciences ◽

10.3390/admsci10030069 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 69

Author(s):

Victor Tiberius ◽

Meike Rietz ◽

Ricarda B. Bouncken

Keyword(s):

Large Body ◽

Social Institutions ◽

Organization Studies ◽

Entrepreneurship Research ◽

Radical Innovations ◽

Scholarly Publications ◽

Entrepreneurship Theory ◽

Specific Implementation ◽

Conceptual Research

Institutional entrepreneurship comprises the activities of agents who disrupt existing social institutions or create new ones, often to enable diffusion, especially of radical innovations, in a market. The increased interest in institutional entrepreneurship has produced a large number of scholarly publications, especially in the last five years. As a consequence, the literature landscape is somewhat complex and scattered. We aim to compile a quantitative overview of the field within business and management research by conducting bibliometric performance analyses and science mappings. We identified the most productive and influential journals, authors, and articles with the highest impact. We found that institutional entrepreneurship has stronger ties to organization studies than to entrepreneurship research. Additionally, a large body of literature at the intersection of institutions and entrepreneurship does not refer to institutional entrepreneurship theory. The science mappings revealed a distinction between theoretical and conceptual research on one hand and applied and empirical research on the other hand. Research clusters reflect the structure–agency problem by focusing on the change agent’s goals and interests, strategies, and specific implementation mechanisms, as well as the relevance of public agents for existing institutions, and a more abstract process rather than agency view.

The Institutional Entrepreneur as Modern Prince: The Strategic Face of Power in Contested Fields

Organization Studies ◽

10.1177/0170840607078109 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 28 (7) ◽

pp. 971-991 ◽

Cited By ~ 226

Author(s):

David Levy ◽

Maureen Scully

Keyword(s):

Mode Of Action ◽

Theoretical Framework ◽

Field Structure ◽

The Political ◽

Organizational Fields ◽

Institutional Entrepreneurs ◽

Collective Agent

This paper develops a theoretical framework that situates institutional entrepreneurship by drawing from Gramsci's concept of hegemony to understand the contingent stabilization of organizational fields, and by employing his discussion of the Modern Prince as the collective agent who organizes and strategizes counter-hegemonic challenges. Our framework makes three contributions. First, we characterize the interlaced material, discursive, and organizational dimensions of field structure. Second, we argue that strategy must be examined more rigorously as the mode of action by which institutional entrepreneurs engage with field structures. Third, we argue that institutional entrepreneurship, in challenging the position of incumbent actors and stable fields, reveals a `strategic face of power', particularly useful for understanding the political nature of contestation in issue-based fields.