Managing the grand challenge of biological threats to food production: The importance of institutional logics for managing Australian biosecurity

This article argues that an institutional logics framework is critical for developing a shared responsibility approach to managing the grand challenge of biosecurity in Australian agriculture. We identify the dominant logics evident in the Australian biosecurity context. In doing so, we draw attention to how a shared responsibility approach is compromised by tensions created by multiple logics, such as varying interpretations of biosecurity roles and responsibilities that different actors hold. However, in reframing such tensions from an institutional ambidexterity framework, we argue that a shared responsibility approach is achievable and, through examples from the Australian context, highlight the sites and spaces through which it may be fostered. We argue that identifying these sites and spaces requires that scholars conceptualise logics as blended rather than as discrete modes of operation. JEL Classification: M19

Institutional ambidexterity and management control

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate in depth how an organisation is able to achieve its economic objectives in a situation of institutional complexity through being institutionally dexterous. The study also investigates how this is done through overriding formal controls and concentrating on socio-political and communal-based controls. Design/methodology/approach Theoretically, the study draws on the perspectives of institutional complexity and ambidexterity to link higher-order institutions with mundane labour control practices observed at the micro level of the case company. Methodologically, the study adopts an interpretive – case study – approach. Empirical data were solicited in an Egyptian village community, where sugar beet farming and processing constitutes the main economic activity underlying its livelihood. Data were collected through a triangulation of interviews, documents and observations. Findings The study concludes that, especially in socio-political contexts such as Egypt, the organisational environment can better be understood and perceived as institutionally complex situation. To manage such complexity and to effectively meet its economic objectives, the organisation needs to be institutionally dextrous. Thereby, this study presents an inclusive view of management control (MC) which is based not only on rational economic practices, but also on social, religious and political aspects that are central to this institutional environment. Originality/value The study contributes to MC and logics literature in a number of respects. It extends the institutional logics debate by illustrating that logics get re-institutionalised by the “place” through its cultural, political and communal identities that filter logics’ complexities to different ends. Further, it extends the cultural political economy of MC by illustrating that MC in socio-political settings is also an operational manifestation of the logics prevailing in the context. These logics produced an informal MC system that dominated the formal known MCs.