Institutional Logics in Action 9781781909195, 9781781909188

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INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS IN ACTION, PART A

RESEARCH IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF ORGANIZATIONS Series Editor: Michael Lounsbury Recent Volumes: Volume 19:

Social Structure and Organizations Revisited

Volume 20:

The Governance of Relations in Markets and Organizations

Volume 21:

Postmodernism and Management: Pros, Cons and the Alternative

Volume 22:

Legitimacy Processes in Organizations

Volume 23:

Transformation in Cultural Industries

Volume 24:

Professional Service Firms

Volume 25:

The Sociology of Entrepreneurship

Volume 26:

Studying Difference between Organizations: Comparative Approaches to Organizational Research

Volume 27:

Institutions and Ideology

Volume 28:

Stanford’s Organization Theory Renaissance, 1970–2000

Volume 29:

Technology and Organization: Essays in Honour of Joan Woodward

Volume 30A:

Markets on Trial: The Economic Sociology of the US Financial Crisis: Part A

Volume 30B:

Markets on Trial: The Economic Sociology of the US Financial Crisis: Part B

Volume 31:

Categories in Markets: Origins and Evolution

Volume 32:

Philosophy and Organization Theory

Volume 33:

Communities and Organizations

Volume 34:

Rethinking Power in Organizations, Institutions, and Markets

Volume 35:

Reinventing hierarchy and bureaucracy – from the bureau to network organisations

Volume 36:

The Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice – Looking Forward at Forty

Volume 37:

Managing ‘Human Resources’ by Exploiting and Exploring People’s Potentials

Volume 38:

Configurational Theory and Methods in Organizational Research

RESEARCH IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF ORGANIZATIONS VOLUME 39A

INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS IN ACTION, PART A EDITED BY

MICHAEL LOUNSBURY Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

EVA BOXENBAUM

Centre for Management Studies, E´cole des Mines ParisTech, Paris, France; Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark

United Kingdom – North America – Japan India – Malaysia – China

Emerald Group Publishing Limited Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK First edition 2013 Copyright r 2013 Emerald Group Publishing Limited Reprints and permission service Contact: [email protected] No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-78190-918-8 ISSN: 0733-558X (Series)

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CONTENTS LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

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ADVISORY BOARD

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL 2 VOLUME SET INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS IN ACTION Michael Lounsbury and Eva Boxenbaum

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META-THEORETICAL ISSUES AND PERSPECTIVES GOD, LOVE, AND OTHER GOOD REASONS FOR PRACTICE: THINKING THROUGH INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS Roger Friedland

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THE IMMATERIALITY OF MATERIAL PRACTICES IN INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS Candace Jones, Eva Boxenbaum and Callen Anthony

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INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS AND INSTITUTIONAL WORK: SHOULD THEY BE AGREED? Tammar B. Zilber

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INSTITUTIONAL LOGIC PROCESSES A TALE OF TWO COUNTRIES: HOW DIFFERENT CONSTELLATIONS OF LOGICS IMPACT ACTION Susanne Boch Waldorff, Trish Reay and Elizabeth Goodrick v

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CONTENTS

PROCESSES FOR RETRENCHING LOGICS: THE ALBERTA OIL SANDS CASE, 2008–2011 Patricia J. Misutka, Charlotte K. Coleman, P. Devereaux Jennings and Andrew J. Hoffman INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS AS STRATEGIC RESOURCES Rodolphe Durand, Berangere Szostak, Julien Jourdan and Patricia H. Thornton FROM AGENTS TO PRINCIPLES: THE CHANGING RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HOSPITALIST IDENTITY AND LOGICS OF HEALTH CARE Vanessa Pouthier, Christopher W. J. Steele and William Ocasio LEGACIES OF LOGICS: SOURCES OF COMMUNITY VARIATION IN CSR IMPLEMENTATION IN CHINA Mia Raynard, Michael Lounsbury and Royston Greenwood LOST IN TRANSPOSITION? (A CAUTIONARY TALE): THE BANK OF NORTH DAKOTA AND PROSPECTS FOR REFORM IN AMERICAN BANKING Marc Schneiberg

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Callen Anthony

Management & Organization Department, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA

Rebecca Bednarek

Cass Business School, London, UK

Ame´lie Boutinot

Institut Supe´rieur de Gestion, Paris, France Centre for Management Studies, E´cole des Mines ParisTech, Paris, France; Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark

Eva Boxenbaum

Gary Burke

Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK

Charlotte K. Coleman

Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

Lærke Højgaard Christiansen

Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark

Thibault Daudigeos

Grenoble Ecole de Management, Grenoble, France

Rodolphe Durand

HEC Paris, Paris, France

Samantha Fairclough

School of Business Administration, University of Mississippi, University, MS, USA; Saı¨ d Business School, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

Vince Feng

Department of Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Roger Friedland

Religious Studies and Sociology, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA; Social Research and Public Policy, NYU Abu Dhabi, UAE

Mary Ann Glynn

Carroll School of Management, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA

Elizabeth Goodrick

College of Business, Florida Atlantic University, Davie, FL, USA

Royston Greenwood

Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

Kathryn L. Heinze

School of Kinesiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Shilo Hills

Department of Strategic Management & Organization, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

C. R. (Bob) Hinings

Department of Strategic Management & Organization, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

Andrew J. Hoffman

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Markus A. Ho¨llerer

Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Dennis Jancsary

WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Vienna, Austria

Paula Jarzabkowski

Cass Business School, City University, London, UK/ Science & Technology Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA

Ste´phane Jaumier

Grenoble Ecole de Management, Grenoble, France

P. Devereaux Jennings

Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

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List of Contributors

Candace Jones

Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA

Julien Jourdan

Bocconi University, Milan, Italy

Michael Lounsbury

Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta and National Institute for Nanotechnology, Edmonton, Canada

Renate E. Meyer

WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Vienna, Austria; Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark

Evelyn R. Micelotta

School of Business, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

Patricia J. Misutka

Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

William Ocasio

Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

Anne-Claire Pache

ESSEC Business School Cergy Pontoise, France

Hetal Patel

Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

Kim Pernell-Gallagher

Department of Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

Vanessa Pouthier

Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

Ryan Raffaelli

Harvard Business School, Boston, MA, USA

Mia Raynard

Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

Trish Reay

Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Filipe Santos

INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship Initiative, INSEAD, Fontainebleau Cedex, France

Marc Schneiberg

Department of Sociology, Reed College, Portland, OR, USA

Michael Smets

Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK

Paul Spee

University of Queensland Business School, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

Christopher W. J. Steele

Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

Berangere Szostak

Universite´ Lyon 2, Lyon Cedex, France

Patricia H. Thornton

Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA; Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

Oliver Vettori

WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Vienna, Austria

Shawna Vican

Department of Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

Maxim Voronov

Goodman School of Business, Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada

Susanne Boch Waldorff

Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark

Klaus Weber

Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

Tammar B. Zilber

Jerusalem School of Business Administration, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

ADVISORY BOARD SERIES EDITOR Michael Lounsbury Associate Dean of Research Thornton A. Graham Chair University of Alberta School of Business and National Institute for Nanotechnology, Alberta, Canada ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS Howard E. Aldrich University of North Carolina, USA

Royston Greenwood University of Alberta, Canada

Stephen R. Barley Stanford University, USA

Mauro Guillen The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, USA

Nicole Biggart University of California at Davis, USA

Paul M. Hirsch Northwestern University, USA Brayden King Northwestern University, USA

Elisabeth S. Clemens University of Chicago, USA Jeannette Colyvas Northwestern University, USA

Renate Meyer Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Austria

Barbara Czarniawska Go¨teborg University, Sweden

Mark Mizruchi University of Michigan, USA

Gerald F. Davis University of Michigan, USA

Walter W. Powell Stanford University, USA

Marie-Laure Djelic ESSEC Business School, France

Hayagreeva Rao Stanford University, USA

Frank R. Dobbin Harvard University, USA

Marc Schneiberg Reed College, USA xi

INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL 2 VOLUME SET

INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS IN ACTION Michael Lounsbury and Eva Boxenbaum ABSTRACT This double volume presents state-of-the-art research and thinking on the dynamics of actors and institutional logics. In the introduction, we briefly sketch the roots and branches of institutional logics scholarship before turning to the new buds of research on the topic of how actors engage institutional logics in the course of their organizational practice. We introduce an exciting line of new works on the meta-theoretical foundations of logics, institutional logic processes, and institutional complexity and organizational responses. Collectively, the papers in this volume advance the very prolific stream of research on institutional logics by deepening our insight into the active use of institutional logics in organizational action and interaction, including the institutional effects of such (inter)actions. Keywords: Institutional logics; institutional complexity; practice; institution

Institutional Logics in Action, Part A Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 39A, 3–22 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X(2013)0039A&B004

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Research on institutional logics has become one of the most rapidly growing intellectual domains in organization theory. Testifying to this trend is the growing proliferation of logics articles in top sociology and management journals (e.g., American Journal of Sociology, Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review), the growing citations to these works, and the fact that logics research has become one of the largest submission topic areas at the Organization and Management Theory Division of the Academy of Management (in 2012, it was second only to the topical area of corporate governance and strategy). Since the initial Friedland and Alford (1991) statement on institutional logics, there has been steady growth in the development of theory and empirical research. The Institutional Logics Perspective (Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012) integrates this line of inquiry into a multidimensional, cross-level model and framework, offering a focal point for the gathering of scholars forging a new wave of institutional theorizing. Encounters among scholars of institutional logics manifest at varied conferences, including the ‘‘European Group on Organization Studies’’ and the ‘‘Academy of Management.’’ Logics research includes that which is qualitatively as well as quantitatively oriented and embraces macro-historical as well as micro-processual approaches to social life. The papers assembled in this special two-volume edition of Research in the Sociology of Organizations were seeded by a conference held in Banff, Alberta (Canada) in June 2012 entitled ‘‘Organizing Institutions: Creating, Enacting and Reacting to Institutional Logics.’’ The conference was the third in a series of conferences sponsored by the ABC Network1 – a broad group of institutional scholars co-organized by the Copenhagen Business School, Harvard University, and University of Alberta. The conference itself was premised on the integration of North American and Scandinavian institutional ideas and research communities. Research on institutional logics, seeded in North America but with contributions now regularly produced by both European and North American scholars (almost equally), has broadened over the past decade or so to focus not only on the effects of shifts in dominant logics, but also on understanding the implications of plural logics and how organizations respond to institutional complexity. This development reflects a growing recognition that conflicting and overlapping pressures stemming from multiple institutional logics create interpretive and strategic ambiguity for organizational leaders and participants (Greenwood, Raynard, Kodeih, Micelotta, & Lounsbury, 2011). These directions articulate well with Scandinavian

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research that has simultaneously pursued a long-standing interest in how organizations respond to institutional pressures (Boxenbaum & Jonsson, 2008; Boxenbaum & Strandgaard Pedersen, 2009; Westenholz, Strandgaard Pedersen, & Dobbin, 2006). For instance, Scandinavian scholars have illuminated how sensemaking (Lefsrud & Meyer, 2012; Westenholz, 2006) and identity construction (Meyer & Hammerschmid, 2006; Strandgaard Pedersen & Dobbin, 2006) processes relate to the integration of multiple institutional logics in organizational practice (Borum & Westenholz, 1995; Byrkjeflot, Strandgaard Pedersen, & Svejenova, 2013; Waldorff & Greenwood, 2011; Westenholz, 2012), sometimes with an explicit aim of shielding organizations from institutional pressures (Alvarez, Mazza, Strandgaard Pedersen, & Svejenova, 2005), or shifting the balance of logics in their organizational and institutional environments (Boxenbaum, 2006; Boxenbaum & Battilana, 2005; Meyer & Ho¨llerer, 2010). Efforts to integrate these two complementary streams of research, coupled with the recent formulation of theory (e.g., Thornton et al., 2012), led to a call for papers that embraces a view of logics that is more fluid and loosely coupled to actors and their identities and practices – to focalize attention on institutional logics in action. While the institutional logics literature has been fast moving, there is no need here to provide an extensive literature review since there are many good recent review and theory papers (e.g., Greenwood et al., 2011; Pache & Santos, 2010; Thornton & Ocasio, 2008), as well as a comprehensive book on the topic (Thornton et al., 2012), which provide key sources for those wanting to have a more encompassing understanding of the terrain. Thus, in this brief introduction, we simply sketch in broad contours how the papers in this double volume are situated in relation to the recent development of institutional logics research. We then provide an overview of the individual papers, highlighting how they each propel the logics research agenda forward. What emerges clearly from the papers in this double volume is that the institutional logics perspective provides a widely resonant and generative set of ideas that speak to many of the problems that have been plaguing neo-institutional theory for decades (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991; Scott, 1995). Relative to the early neoinstitutional emphases on isomorphism, institutional logics scholars have embraced a wider set of core foundations than those undergirding the initial neo-institutional project (e.g., social constructivism and a focus on culture and meaning making). Like predecessors such as W. Richard Scott, a ‘‘big tent’’ approach is maintained, welcoming criticism and scholarly diversity as a way to drive institutional theorizing forward with renewed vibrancy.

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INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS: FROM CRITIQUE TO MAINSTREAM PERSPECTIVE Like the legitimation and diffusion of an initially heretical or marginal practice (Strang & Soule, 1998), institutional logics research was seeded by a rogue, but now highly cited, paper – the Friedland and Alford (1991) paper in the so-called ‘‘Orange Book’’ edited by Powell and Dimaggio – that was an explicit critique of the then-dominant neo-institutional approach centered on organizational fields (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). An outsider to the main gatherings (workshops, conferences, etc.) of neo-institutionalists, Friedland had not previously been invited to an institutionalist gathering until the 2012 Banff conference. It is a credit to the cosmopolitanism of DiMaggio and Powell that they invited the Friedland and Alford piece as a way to test the boundaries of the conversation. The Friedland and Alford paper is entitled ‘‘Bringing Society Back in: Symbols, Practices, and Institutional Contradictions.’’ It begins with a critique of approaches that have retreated from theorizing the role of broader social forces. These not only include the rational choice approaches in economics, sociology, and political science that focus attention on instrumental behavior and rational action, but also include organization theories that either isolate organizations from their broader societal contexts (e.g., resource dependence) or reduce society to an abstract environment (e.g., population ecology) or an organizational field (e.g., neo-institutionalism). This critique motivates the development of an institutional logics approach that provides a ‘‘nonfunctionalist conception of society as a potentially contradictory interinstitutional system’’ (Friedland & Alford, 1991, p. 240). They go on to talk about the importance of three levels of analysis that involve the study of ‘‘individuals competing and negotiating, organizations in conflict and coordination, and institutions in contradiction and interdependency’’ (pp. 240–241). At the center of the imagery laid out is the notion of institutional contradiction and the fact that institutional logics must be understood as simultaneously material and symbolic. Citations to the Friedland and Alford paper began right after its publication, and grew through the 1990s. However, it was not until the 1997 publications by Townley and by Haveman and Rao, as well as the 1999 publication by Thornton and Ocasio, that the concept of institutional logic advanced by Friedland and Alford began to be a focus of theoretical and empirical development, spawning a broader intellectual movement around an institutional logics perspective (see Thornton et al., 2012). And even

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though there was a smattering of papers in the early 2000s, intellectual activity began to grow dramatically by the later part of the decade. While there is still much work that needs to be done to understand where new logics come from, and how they change and affect various behaviors and outcomes, the rising volume of theoretical and empirical work on institutional logics suggests that it has become a mainstream area of active scholarly development. Several papers in this double volume speak to the wide theoretical scope of institutional logics research. Much of the initial empirical research on logics tended to feature industry- and field-level analyses with a broader historical flavor, documenting the effects of logics as they shifted over time (e.g., Haveman & Rao, 1997; Lounsbury, 2002; Thornton, 2002; Thornton & Ocasio, 1999; but see Townley, 1997 on logics as sources of resistance). However, the literature expanded its scope quickly to include a focus on the complexity of plural logics as well as more fine-grained studies of how logics affect the behavior of individuals and groups in and across organizations. For instance, Borum and Westenholz (1995) showed how an organization continuously integrated elements of new institutional logics into its organizational practice without fully discarding old ones, which allowed the organization to maintain its operational efficiency while also assuring legitimacy over time and with different constituents. Alvarez et al. (2005) found that filmmakers tended to couple artistic pressures for distinctiveness (i.e., the logic of art) with business pressures for profits (i.e., the logic of business) in order to achieve optimal distinctiveness in the field of cinema. Elaborating on the processes by which organizations manage institutional complexity, Greenwood, Dı´ az, Li, and Lorente (2010) showed how potentially incompatible demands stemming from plural institutional logics are perceived and get worked out inside organizations. Greenwood et al. (2011) provide a theoretical framework to capture how the structural dimensions of fields and organizational attributes affect organizational responses to institutional complexity. This double volume contains numerous works that contribute to advancing insight into how organizations respond to multiple logics across an array of institutional fields. Research has also explored how actors and interaction patterns affect the overall balance of logics in organizational fields. For instance, Rao, Monin, and Durand (2003) highlighted the relationship between social movements and logics in the context of the rise of nouvelle cuisine in France. They showed how identity movements can lead to the abandonment of traditional logics and role identities and the embrace of new ones. In general, the

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literature that has developed at the interface of organizational theory and social movements (Davis, McAdam, Scott, & Zald, 2005) has provided an important motor for a richer theorization of agency and micro-mechanisms in institutional logics research (see Schneiberg & Lounsbury, 2008 for a review; see also Schneiberg, 2007; Schneiberg & Clemens, 2006). An additional approach to studying actions and interactions with institutional effects is reflected in the institutional entrepreneurship and work literatures (e.g., Battilana, Leca, & Boxenbaum, 2009; Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006). Engaging the theoretical conversation on logics, scholars have focused on how actors negotiate environments that are constituted by plural logics (Boxenbaum, 2006; Kraatz & Block, 2008). For instance, Battilana and Dorado (2010) showed how organizations can successfully hybridize two logics by attending to their human resource selection and socialization processes. Lawrence, Suddaby, and Leca (2009) further draw attention to the potentially unintended institutional effects of actors’ behaviors and interactions in contexts characterized by multiple logics. Identity represents another important analytical focal point for studying processes and institutional effects of (inter-)actions in multiple logic environments. For instance, process-based studies by Reay and (Bob) Hinings (2005, 2009) documented how competing logics relate to actors and their identities, showing how rivalry between logics is actively managed through collaborative relationships among actors. Waldorff and Greenwood (2011) further show the importance of actors’ professional identity and political affiliation in shaping their conception of a new health care organization in local communities. Institutional logics offer not only frames of reference, argue Meyer, Egger-Peitler, Ho¨llerer, and Hammerschmid (2013), but also social identities and vocabularies of motives for actors. More generally, research on how organizations and other groups establish or alter their identities and core practices under conditions of plural institutional logics has begun to form a scholarly stream (e.g., Dunn & Jones, 2010; Glynn & Lounsbury, 2005; Jones, Maoret, Massa, & Svejenova, 2012; Lok, 2010; Lounsbury, 2007; Marquis & Lounsbury, 2007; Meyer & Hammerschmid, 2006; Nigam & Ocasio, 2010; Pache & Santos, 2010; Purdy & Gray, 2009; Smets, Morris, & Greenwood, 2012; Tracey, Phillips, & Jarvis, 2011). Thornton et al. (2012) provide theoretical models to integrate and guide research on the dynamics of practice and identities in and across organizations. Extending their development of microfoundations for the institutional logics perspective, they highlight how decision making, sensemaking, and collective mobilization play a key role in linking more

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micro-social interactions to efforts to somehow alter extant organizational identities and practices. Building on Lounsbury and Crumley (2007), they direct attention to how anomalous practices can provide a trigger for not only the refashioning of identities and practices, but also the spawning of new organizations and organizational communities. Thornton et al. (2012) additionally lay out theoretical guideposts for the study of the interinstitutional system, the emergence and evolution of field-level logics, with implications for the historical and comparative analysis of institutions, strategy, and international business, and the study of organizations and society more generally. The papers in this volume extend these developments further, contributing not only to our understanding of logics in action, but also to the continuing fleshing out of the institutional logics perspective.

PAPERS IN THIS SPECIAL DOUBLE VOLUME As a whole, the papers gathered in this special double volume cover a tremendous amount of theoretical and empirical terrain. They are assembled under three main headers: ‘‘Meta-theoretical Issues and Perspectives’’ and ‘‘Institutional Logic Processes’’ in the first volume, and ‘‘Institutional Complexity and Organizational Responses’’ in the second volume. The section on ‘‘Meta-theoretical Issues and Perspectives’’ contains three papers by: (1) Friedland, (2) Jones, Boxenbaum, and Anthony, and (3) Zilber. The paper by Friedland (2013) entitled, ‘‘God, Love and Other Good Reasons for Practice: Thinking Through Institutional Logics,’’ is based upon his keynote address at the 2012 Banff conference. While the Friedland and Alford (1991) piece is quite well known, Friedland has continued to develop further his notion of logics (e.g., Friedland, 2002, 2009, 2011), and in this paper extends his thinking even further by engaging the relationship between institutional logics and Max Weber’s polytheistic theory of value spheres. It provides a profound reflection and provocation, urging us to engage wide-ranging ideas in the sociology of religion and contemporary theory. Friedland argues that ‘‘institutional life does not operate based solely on a cognitivism, through differentially activated schemas, a takenfor-grantedness y It demands myriad moments of located passion.’’ This passion or love is for a ‘‘substance’’ or ‘‘godhead’’ (Weber, 1968/1946), which provides the underlying foundation for the operability and power of logics. While Friedland raises the issue of materiality as a key theoretical issue that requires further exploration, Jones, Boxenbaum, and Anthony (2013),

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in ‘‘The Immateriality of Material Practices in Institutional Logics,’’ point to the absence of material objects in the existing formulations and empirical literature on institutional logics. Their literature review shows that the material dimension of logics, which Friedland and Alford (1991) emphasized as coexisting with symbolic features, has been interpreted narrowly as referring only to practices and social structure. Calling for attention to material objects, they point to adjacent lines of inquiry from sociology and anthropology that may be helpful to illuminate this dimension of institutional logics and its potential role in institutional dynamics. The last paper in the ‘‘Meta-theoretical Issues and Perspectives’’ section by Zilber (2013), entitled ‘‘Institutional Logics and Institutional Work: Should They Be Agreed?’’ addresses the relationship between the institutional logics perspective (e.g., Thornton et al., 2012) and the literature on institutional work (e.g., Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006). She provides a critical reflection on these two streams of institutional scholarship, pointing out their similarities and differences, as well as their respective strengths and weaknesses. Complaining that ‘‘each school sees itself as sufficient to colonize the field and to allow scholars to inquire fruitfully into the entire gamut of issues covered by institutional theory,’’ Zilber makes the case for an analytic division of labor between them. We think there is certainly enough intellectual terrain available for such cohabitation, but echoing Thornton et al. (2012, pp. 179–180), we would encourage efforts to bridge these communities and develop more integrative scholarly conversations and projects. The subsequent section on ‘‘Institutional Logic Processes’’ contains six empirical papers that provide analyses of fields with varied scopes. The paper by Waldorff, Reay, and Goodrick (2013), ‘‘A Tale of Two Countries: How Different Constellations of Logics Impact Action,’’ analyzes mechanisms by which logics can simultaneously constrain and enable action as exemplified by a comparative case study of health care initiatives in Denmark and Canada. They find that the presence of an influential logic and an additive relationship between logics constrained action, while action was enabled under conditions where alternative logics gained in strength, where logics were segmented and relationships among logics were facilitative. This paper importantly adds to our understanding of the conditions under which logic plurality can afford discretion on the part of actors, suggesting that the ‘‘partial autonomy of actors from logics’’ (Thornton et al., 2012) is a matter for empirical investigation. Misutka, Coleman, Jennings, and Hoffman (2013) focus attention on issues of power and resistance in their study, ‘‘Processes for Retrenching

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Logics: The Alberta Oil Sands Case, 2008–2011.’’ They puzzle about the conditions under which significant anomalies may not generate fundamental changes in practices, identities, and institutional logics, which extend the process models forwarded by Lounsbury and Crumley (2007) and Thornton et al. (2012). They highlight three retrenchment processes, cultural positioning, behavioral resistance, and feedback shaping, which impede innovation. Their paper signals the fruitfulness and need for the more direct incorporation of power and politics in institutional logics research, as well as the need to delineate the mechanisms that propel as well as inhibit change. In ‘‘Institutional Logics as Strategic Resources,’’ Durand, Szostak, Jourdan, and Thornton (2013) argue that institutional logics can provide key resources for organizational strategy. Drawing on a study of the French industrial design industry, they show how firms may strategically embrace additional logics, and possibly abandon ones once held dear, as a result of their more cosmopolitan awareness of available logics. Their arguments help to importantly link research in strategic management to the institutional logics perspective, highlighting the utility of exploring how logic dynamics are interpenetrated with and can influence the strategic choices of firms. Pouthier, Steele, and Ocasio (2013) track the intertwining of institutional logics in collective identities in their paper, ‘‘From Agents to Principles: The Changing Relationship between Hospitalist Identity and Logics of Health Care.’’ In particular, they attend to changes in the strength, content, and permanence of logic-identity associations, and explore the conditions under which such associations might be eschewed. Drawing on an inductive case study of the development of the hospitalist identity in the U.S. health care field, they propose several mechanisms through which logic-identity associations may be weakened. Clearly, much more research is required to understand the relationship of logics and identities (collective and individual), especially how they become fully or partially coupled/decoupled, and how these different kinds of situations may affect social interaction and associated behavioral outcomes. In ‘‘Legacies of Logics: Sources of Community Variation in CSR Implementation in China,’’ Raynard, Lounsbury, and Greenwood (2013) employ a cross-level comparative research design to explore how the legacies of previously dominant logics might be shaping organizational behavior. Focusing on the spread of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives among Chinese corporations, important imprinting effects as well as regional variations from the East, West, and South are identified. The

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authors argue that these are linked to the legacies of state logics associated with former leaders Mao and Deng. While this paper contributes to our understanding of how Western frames and practices (e.g., CSR) are variously penetrating Chinese firms, it raises provocative questions about which aspects of once-dominant logics might be more likely to endure and which are likely to fade away. We know very little about the legacies of logics and the mechanisms by which they continue to shape organizational behavior. Schneiberg (2013) provocatively explores the utility of more or less agentic focused institutionalisms in ‘‘Lost in Transposition? (A Cautionary Tale): The Bank of North Dakota and Prospects for Reform in American Banking.’’ The case of the Bank of North Dakota is a fascinating tale of various efforts to transpose a model state-community hybrid institution, that helped the people of North Dakota weather the recent financial crisis better than most, to other states interested in constructing more communityoriented solutions to finance. Schneiberg highlights how many conditions identified in the literature as favorable to institutional entrepreneurship were present, yet all efforts to transpose this model failed. Schneiberg’s paper highlights the need to study failure cases more intently – something that has been woefully missing in the literature on agency and institutional dynamics. He argues for scholarship that more carefully situates actors in their contexts and engages more structuralist imageries and approaches, which takes seriously the multilevel nature of institutional systems (see also Schneiberg, 2007). Schneiberg’s call resonates with the institutional logics perspective (Thornton et al., 2012). The second volume comprises 11 papers that thematically address ‘‘Institutional Complexity and Organizational Responses.’’ In ‘‘Embedded in Hybrid Contexts: How Individuals in Organizations Respond to Competing Institutional Logics,’’ Pache and Santos (2013) develop novel theory about how individuals inside organizations experience and react to competing institutional logics. They theorize how the degree of adherence to a logic relates to different kinds of responses (ignorance, compliance, resistance, combination, or compartmentalization) to situations involving competing logics. Their aim is to contribute further to the microfoundations of the institutional logics perspective by focalizing the behavior of individuals and to catalyze further research on how the actions of individuals in an organization contribute to the saliency and dominance of particular logics in an organization as well as the construction of hybrid forms. These are all important issues that require systematic scholarly attention.

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Jarzabkowski, Smets, Bednarek, Burke, and Spee (2013) call for more attention to practice and practice theories in their paper, ‘‘Institutional Ambidexterity: Leveraging Institutional Complexity in Practice.’’ They challenge the literature on institutional ambidexterity, including how it is invoked in theorizing how organizations respond to institutional complexity (e.g., Greenwood et al., 2011), and provide a practice-based conceptual framework to more appropriately guide the study of ambidexterity under conditions of novel or routine institutional complexity. Since the study of practice is central to the institutional logics perspective (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Thornton et al., 2012), it would be particularly fruitful to engage such wider conversations and ideas on practice to reimagine and guide research on the dynamics of institutional complexity. In their paper, ‘‘Beyond the Family Firm: Reasserting the Influence of the Family Institutional Logic across Organizations,’’ Fairclough and Micelotta (2013) argue that the institutional logics literature, and organization theory more generally, has not yet accounted for the profound and pervasive effects of the institutional logic of family. They document how in the highly professionalized Italian law firm field, firms continue to be influenced by the family logic and resist foreign capitalist intrusions. Given that, they examine a country where one would expect the family logic to be particularly pronounced, more comparative country research is required to assess whether and how the family logic has similar effects in other settings. Hills, Voronov, and Hinings (2013) ‘‘Putting New Wine in Old Bottles: Utilizing Rhetorical History to Overcome Stigma Associated with a Previously Dominant Logic,’’ explore how Ontario wineries try to project a modern, high-quality image. Drawing on rhetorical history analysis, they highlight the challenges of adhering to a new dominant, fine winemaking logic, as the Ontario wine industry tried to shift from a focus on low-quality mass production to a high-quality craft. As part of this process, wineries also had to try to distance themselves from their original, but now stigmatized, low-quality, mass production logic, by telling stories that selectively and creatively depicted their historical origins. Such forms of cultural entrepreneurship (Lounsbury & Glynn, 2001) require much more detailed attention, and future research should detail in more depth how stories are creatively constructed with vocabularies associated with different logics (Loewenstein, Ocasio, & Jones, 2012), and how that relates to outcomes such as industry and firm legitimation and performance. The next three papers shed varied light on CSR, a topic that has attracted much scholarly interest as of late. In ‘‘Imageries of Corporate Social Responsibility: Visual Recontextualization and Field-Level Meaning,’’

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Ho¨llerer, Jancsary, Meyer, and Vettori (2013) study how Austrian firms use visual artifacts, which they label ‘‘imageries-of-practice’’, to translate CSR, a globally theorized practice model. Marshaling evidence based on over 1,600 images in corporate CSR reports, they argue that shared visual language plays a crucial, and largely unexplored, role in the management of institutional complexity as well as the emergence and reconfiguration of field-level logics. Expanding the range of cultural entrepreneurship research beyond verbal vocabularies, the study ‘‘imageries-of-practice’’ provides an interesting new direction for research on institutional logics and organizational behavior (see also Meyer, Ho¨llerer, Jancsary, & van Leeuwen, 2013). The study of ‘‘imageries-of-practice’’ also connects to rhetorical history as the translation of abstract global ideas into concrete local knowledge can link the past to the present and future. Glynn and Raffaelli (2013), in ‘‘Logic Pluralism, Organizational Design, and Practice Adoption: The Structural Embeddedness of CSR Programs,’’ draw on a survey and archival data from 161 Fortune 500 firms to explore how CSR programs get instantiated. Investigating core claims about institutional complexity, Greenwood et al. (2011) find that firms segment practices into units that align with the logic emphasized by the CSR practice being adopted. CSR practices with a perceived business benefit (consistent with a market logic) tended to be housed in mainline business units, while CSR practices lacking a business case (and justified via a community logic) are more likely to be located in corporate or philanthropic foundations. Future research should probe in more depth how institutional logics shape the adoption and implementation of practices inside organizations, and how these processes reinforce or perhaps provide opportunities for the alteration of organizational design. In Strange Brew: Bridging Logics via Institutional Bricolage and the Reconstitution of Organizational Identity, Christiansen and Lounsbury (2013) explore how institutional complexity may be resolved through what they label ‘‘institutional bricolage,’’ which they define as the process by which actors inside an organization combine elements from different logics to construct new artifacts. Drawing on an illustrative case study of the Carlsberg Brewery group and their development of a Responsible Drinking Guide Book, they argue that institutional bricolage requires the problematization and renegotiation of an organization’s identity. They document how the Responsible Drinking Guide Book relied on the integration of elements from social responsibility and market logics, which required the creative use of organizational resources differentially located across time and space. This study highlights the fruitfulness of bridging the literatures

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on institutional logics and organizational identity, and suggests the need for more penetrating intra-organizational studies of how institutional complexity is perceived and resolved. The paper by Vican and Pernell-Gallagher, ‘‘Instantiation of Institutional Logics: The ‘Business Case’ for Diversity and the Prevalence of Diversity Mentoring Practices,’’ develops a process theory of logic instantiation based on a study of the field of corporate diversity management. Focusing on explaining variation in the adoption of diversity mentoring practices, they find that logic instantiation was influenced by various factors including the characteristics and perceptions of diversity managers, and organizational goals. They highlight that issues related to power and social skill influence interpretive work and new practice adoption. Echoing other studies in the volume, they point out that organizational design importantly affects how organizations cope with institutional complexity. This study also points to the need to account for the role of key individual actors within an organization, including how they are able to mediate between external demands and opportunities related to plural logics, and the internal dynamics of organizing. We expect to see much more research in this direction in the future expanding our understanding of sources of practice variation as well as the management of institutional complexity. Feng’s (2013) study, ‘‘The Internal Complexity of Market Logics: Financial Sophistication and Price Determination,’’ shifts the study of complexity beyond individual firms to explore variability within institutional orders – in this paper, that of the market. Drawing on interviews with investment bankers who underwrite initial public offerings (IPOs), Feng explores the multiplicity of market logics and their relationship to pricing outcomes. He argues that market logics are internally complex and can support a variety of pricing orientations, and shows that underwriters construct different hybrid market logics through the deceptive use of market logic vocabulary to mask their own power and interests. Thus, logic hybridity for Feng stems from the power and status associated with particular investment banks and investment bankers. Demonstrating the fruitfulness of the institutional logics perspective to core questions in economic sociology, this paper paves a road for future research on market logics and pricing. The last two papers provide key methodological contributions to the study of institutional logics. In their provocative study, ‘‘Taking Stock of Institutional Complexity: Anchoring a Pool of Institutional Logics into the Interinstitutional System with a Descendent Hierarchical Analysis,’’ Daudigeos, Boutinot, and Jaumier (2013) focus attention on how logics evolve in a field over time. They employ a novel methodology, descendent

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hierarchical classification modeling, for measuring field-level institutional complexity, and track the composition and change of six logics over a period of one century in the French construction industry. This important study highlights a critical focal point for future institutional logics research, namely the process of how logics evolve over time (see also Chapter 7 of Thornton et al., 2012). In exemplifying a novel methodology, it also points to the need to perhaps develop new kinds of methodological approaches in order to better study such phenomena. Finally, Weber, Patel, and Heinze (2013), in ‘‘From Cultural Repertoires to Institutional Logics: A content-Analytic Method,’’ propose a systematic method, rooted in a repertoire view of culture (Swidler, 1986; Weber, 2005), for studying logics over time. Their approach embraces quantitative text analytic methods and focuses on identifying the cultural categories or elements that comprise logics as well as the dimensions that indicate whether a cultural system is more or less structured. They draw on illustrative data from the field of alternative livestock agriculture, and detail a seven-step research process for analyzing logic construction. Methodological advances, such as those signaled in the final two papers of this volume, will no doubt provide a key motor for the next wave of scholarship on institutional logics.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS In the 1980s, the new institutionalism burst on the scene and provided a foundation for the development of scholars and scholarship through the study of isomorphism and diffusion using event history modeling techniques. Since then, institutional theory has been rejuvenated, invigorated, and expanded in multiple ways. Extending this tradition, institutional logics research promises to renew the institutional approach to organizations by providing an integrative and coherent theoretical foundation for a new line of institutionalist scholarship; though theoretically diverging from early new institutionalist statements (e.g., DiMaggio & Powell, 1983) in fundamental ways, the institutional logics perspective retains important continuities with its intellectual roots, including the embrace of foundational intellectual commitments, a cosmopolitan orientation toward scholarship, and a profound sense of community that W. Richard Scott and many other scholars have built, cherished, and nurtured since the late 1970s. It is clear that research on institutional logics is providing a generative and energizing focal point for scholarly development, one that enhances our

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understanding of society and organizing processes. We believe that the papers in this special double volume reflect this generativity, providing a variety of novel contributions to knowledge, pointing to many fruitful avenues for future research and helping to consolidate key lines of development while simultaneously expanding the scope of institutional logics research. To wit, this volume signals the vibrancy of the institutional logics perspective – institutional theory is indeed alive and well!

NOTE 1. The ABC conferences were financed through a network grant from the Danish Council for Independent Research – Social Sciences in collaboration with participating institutions.

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META-THEORETICAL ISSUES AND PERSPECTIVES

GOD, LOVE, AND OTHER GOOD REASONS FOR PRACTICE: THINKING THROUGH INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS Roger Friedland ABSTRACT Based on the keynote address given at the conference on ‘‘Organizing Institutions: Creating, Enacting and Reacting to Institutional Logics’’ held at the Banff Springs Hotel in June 2012, this essay analyzes the relationship between Max Weber’s polytheistic theory of value spheres and institutional logics, proposing that the latter project entails studying institutional logics through a framework of comparative religions. I argue that God, love, transcendence, and immanence are all potentially useful analytic categories by which to understand institutional logics. Keywords: Institutional logics; institutional complexity; practice; institution

I am both honored and humbled by this invitation. As a scholar who studies seemingly atavistic and sometimes arcane politicized religions, I am honored to find my ideas of use to scholars of business which rules our world. I am Institutional Logics in Action, Part A Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 39A, 25–50 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X(2013)0039A&B005

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humbled because you use them to analyze phenomena embedded in research traditions about which I have little knowledge. So I am fearful that I will both misstep delineating your terrain and what I have to say will seem an idiosyncratic fancy, a conceptual retrograde. It is only because Michael Lounsbury keeps asking me to write things that I know anything at all. Today I intend to talk God to business scholars. While this prospect makes me nervous, I ride on the powerful wings of Max Weber and, after reading Thornton, Ocasio, and Lounsbury’s new and important book (2012), dare imagine that I might intellectually instantiate an analogue to the institutional agency of J.C. Penney who transposed the love of Christ to mass retailing. I will both look back and forward. First, as requested by the organizers, I want to say something autobiographically about where my approach to institutional logics came from. Second, I want to explore what it might mean for theorizing institutional logics if we take seriously Max Weber’s polytheistic theory of value spheres. And third, I want to use an imagined religious sociology to say something both about works that extend, modify, and apply the institutional logic perspective, as well as those that offer alternatives to it, sometimes agonistically suggesting that the institutional logics approach is fundamentally flawed, nonagentic, apolitical, and hence ultimately useless. I offer then both personal genealogy and polemical dialectic.

ORIGINS I have developed my understanding of institutional logic through the modern state, the gates of Jerusalem, and my wife’s womb, figures respectively of power, divinity, and love. The notion of institutional logics immanent in nested ‘‘symbolically defined’’ practices was first put forward in Powers of Theory, an examination with my mentor Robert Alford, of the capitalist, democratic, and bureaucratic aspects of the modern state (Alford & Friedland, 1985, p. 432). Powers have, we argued, an institutional specificity and theories a home domain. There we spoke of the ways in which institutional logics are tied to vocabularies of both motive and belief, and the ways in which the very appearance of interests is conditioned by those logics.1 That work in political sociology was being completed in the wake of my fieldwork on the vexed, and sometimes violent, relation of religion and nationalism in Jerusalem, whose lessons I sought both to apply to and align

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with our institutional understanding of the democratic, capitalist state, even though religion per se was almost entirely absent from that text.2 In Jerusalem I had been struck by the fact that struggles over space and time were simultaneously struggles over their meanings, that cosmological commitments conditioned social movement strategies (Friedland & Hecht, 1996). I quickly understood that my explanatory habits would have to be complemented by interpretive moves. The instrumental categories of power and interest, in which I had been schooled at the University of Wisconsin sociology department through which I had sought to parse the social world, did not suffice in this thrice holy, multiply cleaved, cosmic navel. What was most vexing were my intellectual colleagues and friends who insisted that any effort to take religious motive and meaning seriously was a reactionary diversion from the materialist battles at hand in the heat of the Reagan years. In their eyes I was both analytically and politically misguided. It was whispered that I must have become religious. In any event I had been taken in by a world which did not qualify as one. During the last quarter of a century I have been exploring a domain apparently far from your own, the other real fiction that shakes our world these days, not property or money, which is in – but not of – all things, but the other god who claims the word as His proper name. As the work on Jerusalem progressed, I began to study the religious politicizations that by the late 1970s were already remaking our world – helping elect Reagan and bring down the Soviet Union – in Iran, the United States, Israel, Palestine, Algeria, India, Pakistan, and Turkey. Again, I noticed that my colleagues tended to look for what was behind these movements, offering instrumental explanations in terms of power – of citizens, men, or political elites; control of territory; access to jobs or income (Friedland, 2011a, 2011b). Politicized religion was usually understood as a mediation for something else, often a rational response to powerlessness (Borradori, 2003; Lincoln, 2003). That people understood themselves as instruments of the divine did not figure in their accounts, that they were willing to die for the cause difficult to explain. The elemental thing about contemporary religious nationalism, or politicized religions if you prefer, is that they seek to change institutional boundaries between religion and nation-state. Religious nationalisms variously aim at transforming the identity, the ground of authority, and the cosmological or salvific significance of nation-states (Friedland & Moss, forthcoming). Rather than building from the material and political interests of groups, the social as an agonistic struggle over culturally contentless means, I wanted to understand the logic of their political practice from within the institutional space of religion out of which they were operating in

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a vocabulary hermeneutically adequate to their politico-religious projects, not unlike the way we analyze markets or democratic electoral contests. My primary intellectual object was the internal institutional order of their practices, not the external conditions of their possibility.3 It was in the midst of this effort that I wrote ‘‘Bringing Society Back In’’ with Robert Alford in 1991 (Friedland & Alford, 1991). On the one hand, it was aimed at the reduction of the social to individual and organizational decisions, whether rational choice theory regnant in political science or transaction cost or principle-agent in the study of business firms. On the other hand the essay sought to marry the interpretive turn to a nontotalizing understanding of the social as a tense order of interdependent and contradictory, heterologous institutional fields. That meant further eroding the sociological realism of Powers of Theory and exploring the conjointly ontologically subjective and objective order of institutional life. Using categories like ‘‘symbolic’’ and ‘‘ritual,’’ I was struggling to develop an adequate conceptual language. Institutions, we argued, ‘‘are symbolic systems which have non-observable, absolute, transrational referents and observable social relations which concretize them.’’ (Friedland & Alford, 1991, p. 249).4 What I wanted that essay to show was that you didn’t have to travel to Jerusalem to live there, that all institutions had metaphysical foundation beyond sense and reason. It implied that a trans-institutional understanding of instrumental rationality was likely a misspecification and that we had to make preferences endogenous in institutional theory. It implied that subject formation and object formation are co-implicated. And it intimated that every institution is religious, that we are the secular priesthood of modernity outing modernity’s fetishisms on a selective basis. This work on politicized religion brought me to God, not just as a reason, but quite unexpectedly, as an analytic category. Rather than just seek to explain religion, I increasingly imagined that one might also look to religion as a template for studying institution itself. One finds such intimations in the philosophical works of Jacques Derrida and Martin Heidegger, for instance, but more importantly for our project, in the sociology of Max Weber. Weber, who famously proclaimed the modern world’s ‘‘disenchantment,’’ asks us to think of the social order as composed of a multiplicity of ‘‘value spheres,’’ each a domain that of a ‘‘god.’’ This brings me to where we must perforce begin. After our twin daughters were born, almost 20 years ago now, and I had first carried them and placed them in my wife’s arms, I called up my best friend, who happens to be a social theorist, Jeff Alexander, and told him: ‘‘You know what’s wrong with social theory? There’s no love in it – anyplace.’’

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The utter lovelessness of social theory has increasingly disturbed me. There is something spooky, even perverse, about a field in which a theorist like Michel Foucault, to whom my understanding of institutional logics is indebted, can put the details of torture on display, but cannot conjure a single caress, even when he talks about Greek erotics!! The barriers to the figure of love are just as entrenched as those that preclude thinking God as a conceptual tool. This is, in part, because of the way we imagine the partition of public and private, wherein human love is declared publicly inadmissible. ‘‘Because of its inherent worldlessness,’’ Hannah Arendt writes in The Human Condition, ‘‘love can only become false and perverted when it is used for political purposes such as the change or salvation of the world’’ (1958, p. 52).5 It is staggering when you think about it that a practice, category, and experience without which most of us would not find it worth living cannot be made to appear in our thinking of the social. Again it was Max Weber, that stern diagnostician of rationalization, whose account is saturated with the problem of love and with traces of the erotic, who suggested to me that we might want to reconsider that absence and that the logic of institutions might be a site in which to do it.

MAX WEBER’S VALUE SPHERES AND INSTITUTIONAL THEORY My effort to understand politicized religions brought me to Max Weber. I came late to Weber. When I read Weber’s extraordinary essay ‘‘Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions’’ I saw that he had, a century before, laid out a way to conceptualize institutional logics (Weber, 1958d, p. 324). The paradox is that by examining the religious modalities of worldly abnegation Weber not only developed an institutional portrait of the world, he conceptualized that world as religious. Weber, who famously proclaimed the modern world’s ‘‘disenchantment,’’ asks us to think of the social order as composed of a multiplicity of ‘‘value spheres,’’ each a domain of a ‘‘god.’’ Weber’s theory suggests a religious sociology, one that applies to modern science as much as it does to pre-modern monotheisms, to political leaders of nation-states and professionals as much as priests and other kinds of religious specialists. If we take Weber’s god-talk seriously, institutional theory becomes a genre of comparative religions. It may sound like a naive confection, but I wish to argue that God and love – two categories subject to

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endless sociological reduction – are immanent in institution. I want to take up Max Weber’s institutional polytheism as an exercise in religious sociology and a potential resource for a theory of institutional logic. Weber distinguished instrumental and value rationality: In the former, actors are instrumentally and cognitively oriented to observable external objects and persons through which they seek to serve their own purposes extrinsic to those means. In the latter they are passionately and expressively oriented to unobservable values they have internalized and in whose unconditional requirements they believe. Value rationality involves an orientation toward an internally binding subjective value, to a ‘‘cause,’’ of which the act is presupposed to be an expression or ‘‘relevant’’ to its ‘‘possession.’’ (Alexander, 1983, pp. 22–29; Weber, 1958b, pp. 151–154). In the former actors are oriented to observable and determinate consequences, to causal relations; in the latter to a value from which ‘‘practical stands’’ can ‘‘be derived with inner consistency’’ (Weber, 1958b, p. 151) or ‘‘a way of life’’ which actors presuppose has an inherent relationship to the possession of that value (Weber, 1958b, pp. 153–154). The one aligns purpose and consequences, the other value and action: Weber thereby splits the rational pursuit of consequences without respect to value from the realization of value without regard to consequences. Value rationality is regionalized into what Weber calls ‘‘value spheres,’’ relatively autonomous domains of action oriented toward determinate, incommensurable, ultimate values: divine salvation in religion, aesthetics in art, power in politics, property in capitalist markets, erotic love, knowledge in science. Weber’s value spheres each have an institutional logic. Each value sphere, he argues, has a ‘‘logical or teleological ‘consistency’,’’ a consistency that exercises a ‘‘power over man’’ (Weber, 1958d, p. 324). The logical is driven by intellectual elaboration, whereas the teleological is located in the relationship – a ‘‘sublimation’’ or a ‘‘direct appropriation’’ Weber calls it – between practice and value, in the case of religion, for example, between magic, orgy, contemplation, asceticism on the one hand, and various religious or ‘‘holy’’ states on the other, which are ‘‘meant to take possession of the entire man and of his lasting fate’’ (Weber, 1958c, pp. 278–279). For Weber all value rationalities are religious. Value rationalities are socially grounded in ‘‘value spheres’’ or ‘‘life-spheres, each of which is governed by different laws’’ (Weber, 1958a, p. 123, 1958d, pp. 323–324, 328). Judgment of the ‘‘validity of such values,’’ Weber writes, ‘‘is a matter of faith’’ (Weber, 1949, p. 55). Like Kant’s categorical imperative, which rests on the autonomy of will, value rationality depends on autonomous, conscious judgment independent of one’s relationship to external objects,

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but unlike the categorical imperative, there is no rational ground for this value judgment and its universalization as a law (Rutgers & Schreurs, 2006). Religious values can neither ground themselves in reason nor the senses. The value rationality of religion depends on intellectual unreason, what Weber calls ‘‘the sacrifice of the intellect’’ (1958d, p. 352). In their respective spheres, values function as ‘‘gods of the various orders,’’ or ‘‘godheads,’’ which in their plurality must be considered a ‘‘polytheism’’ (Weber, 1958b, pp. 148–149). Weber saw divinity in the social, unlike Durkheim, who saw the social in divinity. Durkheim and Weber both understood the sacred and value respectively as involving an irrational passion beyond reason, exceeding, indeed undoing, the autonomous and instrumental individual (Friedland, 2005). As Durkheim’s account of effervescent rite makes clear the category of the sacred has no cultural content, it being the transmuted form of the social, deriving its authority from the collectivity, known through the groups who form around it and sanction its violation. The Weberian category of value, in contrast, has a cultural content, a substantive value with a ‘‘determinate content’’ which derives its authority from the will of those who value it, known through the particular discourse and practices through which it and its constituting conflict with other values are affected. Value spheres all depend not on what Boltanski and Thevenot reduce to the creativity of ‘‘inspiration,’’ but on what Weber terms ‘‘illumination.’’ A religious person receives the meaning of the world not through intellectual abstraction, nor through his senses, but by ‘‘reception,’’ by ‘‘virtue of a charisma of illumination’’ (Weber, 1958d, pp. 352–353). Every value sphere hinges – in its formation, its defense and extension, its differentiation and elaboration – on such irrational illumination. No value sphere can justify the ultimate value upon which it depends. Each depends on an intellectual sacrifice. This is clear even in Weber’s understanding of science. For Weber all value rationalities not only are religious; each value rationality is a kind of love. The god of salvation religions, upon which he modeled his value spheres, is a god of love, indeed a personal god distinguished by His love. To believe in this god is to believe in a god who loves, indeed it is to believe in a love which has an eternal – if unobservable and unknowable – object. Value rationality depends on passionate choice. Not surprisingly, then, there is a conceptual kinship between value rationality and what Weber termed ‘‘affectual’’ action, one of his four types of social action, here action determined by ‘‘the actor’s specific affects and feeling states’’ (Weber, 1978, p. 25). Each of these two forms of rationality – value and affective – is done ‘‘for its own sake,’’ the difference

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between them located in the former’s ‘‘self-conscious formulation’’ and its ‘‘planned orientation’’ (Weber, 1978, p. 25). Moreover values are themselves affectual, not simply ideas that have validity. Weber understood values as feelings, repeatedly invoking the notion of ‘‘value feelings’’ (2012, p. 182).6 One must love to order loves. To be a political leader, Weber argues, one must both love and be willing to fight for one’s love. For Weber the political decision on violence was secondary to the violence of decision, between values, between gods, and, he implied, between lovers. Weber moved effortlessly from politics to war, suggesting the homology between a defeated people like the Germans, a defeated party, and finally a rejected beloved.7 The last, the lover, is compared to ‘‘world views among which in the end one has to make a choice.’’ ‘‘Rarely will you find,’’ Weber wrote in this context, ‘‘that a man whose love turns from one woman to another feels no need to legitimate this before himself by saying: she was not worthy of my love y (Weber, 1958a, pp. 117–118).

THE NATURE OF INSTITUTIONAL DEITIES Weber’s polytheistic analysis of value spheres figures the task of institutional theory as a kind of comparative religion. What manner of deity do we worship in the nonreligious value spheres? How does Weber’s institutional polytheism align with his sociology of religion? The answer is: It doesn’t. Weber distinguishes between the immanent, impersonal God who anchors mysticism, and the transcendent, personal creator God who anchors salvation religions (1958d, p. 325). In the first, one seeks to possess the divine in the moment, hungering for a sign that one possesses the divine in the now. In the second, one is an instrument of the divine, seeking evidence through practice that one is loved by God for all time. Weber’s value spheres do not line up on one side or the other of this sociology of religion. They are ordered around a polytheistic pantheon of immanent gods, in which there is a ‘‘having,’’ an apparent ‘‘possession,’’ of the sacred value (Weber, 1958d, p. 328). Yet, consistent with a transcendental god, each of the value spheres involves a kind of world mastery, no matter how small the world. Immanent and transcendent, instrumental and ethical, polytheistic and monotheistic: The value spheres do not line up neatly on one side or the other. The solution I want to suggest is that there is an inherent, ongoing oscillation of transcendence and immanence in each institutional sphere, a possibility toward which Weber himself gestures – however briefly, when

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he argues that disenchanted domains of modernity appear as impersonal forces, but in reality, operate as immanent divinities, animating the causal order of the social world. Weber claims that people do not want to become aware of the irresolvable conflicts between these values, because they do – implicitly or explicitly – choose which value to serve in a world with neither the one god, nor a prophet to guide and ground that choice (1958b, p. 153). We do not want to face up to the fact that we serve values as though they were deities, and groundless ones at that. We rather imagine that our choices are externally constrained by the causal nature of an object world. As the claims for and the scope of religious ethical systems have been challenged and attenuated, we moderns fail to recognize that the ‘‘routines of everyday life’’ are likewise grounded in their respective ‘‘gods.’’ Today the routines of everyday life challenge religion. Many old gods ascend from their graves; they are disenchanted and hence take the form of impersonal forces. They strive to gain power over our lives and again they resume their eternal struggle with one another. (Weber, 1958b, p. 149)

Dominant forms of instrumental rationality screen operative value rationalities, enabling us to occlude value as interest. Whether auto-critique or not, given his predominantly objectivist reading of capitalist development, Weber is here arguing that disenchanted domains of modernity appear as impersonal forces, but in reality, operate as immanent divinities, animating the causal order of the social world.8 By understanding values as gods we can destabilize the subject–object schemas that undergird our understanding of social life, making social objects into subjects and people into their instruments or objects. Each institutional sphere is characterized by two complementary moments of possession. Pushing Weber’s intellectual architecture I would argue that an institutional value operates as though it were a transcendental, eternal ‘‘subject’’ that can bind humans for its own sake (Weber, 1958d, p. 354). Weber’s institutional values operate as inner-worldly salvational gods, in that they are singular, transcendent sources of orientation, invoked as unobservable ‘‘subjects’’ who make demands, of which individuals seek and claim to be instruments. One seeks to know oneself as being loved by a god, of being its instrument. If institutional values are salvation gods in this sense, then value rational action in a sphere is animated by and organized around the problem not of having the value, but of being had by it, of being chosen or possessed by it, not of loving the value, but of being loved by it.9 Institutional values can

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neither be derived from the senses nor intellectual abstraction, but they are that for which the religious man makes ‘‘himself ready for the reception’’ (Weber, 1958c, p. 280, 1958d, p. 353). A ‘‘religious state’’ is one that ‘‘is meant to take possession of the entire man and of his lasting fate’’ (Weber, 1958c, p. 279). Value rationality appears as an act of will, of judgment, but, in reality, it is an active passivity, enabling oneself to be possessed, a possession over which in ascetic Protestantism – as ‘‘grace’’ – one has no influence.10 In Weber’s value spheres the world can love us in a plurality of ways.

VALUES, SUBSTANCES, AND INSTITUTIONAL GODS What Weber calls the ‘‘gods’’ of the value spheres I have termed institutional ‘‘substances,’’ the unobservable, but essential, ‘‘value’’ anchoring an institutional logic (Friedland, 2011b). The category of substance derives from Aristotelian metaphysics where substance, or substantial form, is the foundation, or essence, of a thing that cannot be reduced to its accidental properties, which attach to it nor to the materiality of its instances (Aristotle, 1998). For Aristotle, substance is not matter, but the form that makes matter a ‘‘this,’’ ‘‘that by virtue of which the matter is in the state it is in’’ (Aristotle, 1998, pp. 167, 229). A substance exceeds its attributes, cannot be reduced to a thing’s materiality, and thus cannot be described, only pointed to and named. While the category of substance is epistemologically problematic, it captures institutional reality rather well. Like Aristotle’s soul as the substance of human, an institutional substance does not exist; it is rather an absent presence necessary to institutional life. Thinking of institutional logics as an exercise in comparative religions helps clarify their nature. Substances, like ‘‘hidden’’ or transcendent gods, are invoked by name, as though they are eternal subjects who act in this world or as though they refer to knowable objects or states to which one has an instrumental or possessive relation. But a substance is not a subject. Nor can it be an observable object, had or even known. Substances are unknowable, not, for example, unknown ‘‘epistemic objects,’’ (Arjalies, 2011). Substances are, however, enacted through material practices organized around objects, through things and bodies, and the words by which they are named and constituted. Property is enacted through one’s physical access to and transfer of all kinds of objects, God in the prayers for birth, death or healing, popular sovereignty through electoral votes, love through intimate sharing of voice, body and babies, knowledge in the

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experimental observation, or abstract logical representations such as these. Through these practical ontologies, substance is transfigured into real objects, the metaphysical into the physical. Substances possess; they cannot be possessed. They center each institutional domain. We are made and make ourselves in their image. An institutional logic is a trinitarian order of production. In the institutional logic framework, which counter-intuitively has had most impact in that domain where instrumentally rational understandings of social action have primacy, namely business and management schools, I posit socially regionalized orders of practice, which are simultaneously orders of subjectification and objectification. These orders of practice depend on particular identities of subjects and ontologies of objects, which in turn depend on these same orders of practice (Friedland, 2009, 2011a, 2011b). A substance is the metaphysical foundation of the institutional logic, which provides the telos of the subject, the basis of her identity, and an ontology of the objects deployed in her practice. Institutional logics join subjects, practices, and objects into bundled sets that have an inner referentiality, orders in which the substance – the central ‘‘object’’ – is unobservable, while being endlessly invoked by name and enacted in practice, whether God, love, sovereignty, or property. Institutional logics are virtual production functions, not values per se, but ideas of material world-making. Substances create resources, they are the ground of powers, not as exterior legitimations, but as interior constitutions. An institutional logic presumes that institutional meanings, on the one hand, and individual or organizational interests and powers on the other, are interdependent. It is not just, as Thornton, Ocasio, and Lounsbury argue, that institutional logics posit ‘‘different interpretation of how to use power’’ or that power is exercised in particular ways in response to conditions of ‘‘cultural heterogeneity’’ (Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012, pp. 64–65). Institutional logics differently constitute what power is. Power carries the force of an institutional logic. An institutional value, or substance, finds the ontology of the central object or state of being through which normatively enforced practices are organized and hence constitute the resources through which powers are afforded and upon which those practices depend. Power is interior to practice. The value of knowledge, for instance, grounds facts or results produced by practices of scientific representation by scientists whose access to the production of those facts is a source of power. The value of God grounds salvation produced by practices of piety by believers whose access

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to that salvation is a source of power. The value of freedom grounds popular sovereignty produced by practices of electoral representation by voters and parties whose access to the production of that representation is a source of power. The value of property grounds priced commodities produced by practices of production and market exchange by their owners, whose relative power derives from their access to the monetary flows that follow from their exchange. The value of love grounds marriage by couples whose practices of sexual fidelity, cohabitation, and sexual reproduction generate family solidarities to which both gendered and generational powers attach. Institutional logics must have some measure of practical specificity. Material practices operate through and on objects, whose ontology is both necessary to and affected through these practices. A large and growing body of research shows how new institutional logics involve the transformation of practices through which objects are handled as they are reformed and/or get taken up by one logic or another, as, for example, in the case of higher education textbooks as they move from professional editorial to corporate profitability (Thornton & Ocasio, 1999), art as it moves from aesthetic works appreciated by curators and collectors in community museums to scholarly objects knowable by museum professionals (DiMaggio, 1991), money as it moves from a stock of wealth to be preserved through passive investment trusteeship to a speculative portfolio of capital assets to be maximized by mutual fund money managers (Lounsbury, 2007; Lounsbury & Crumley, 2007), recycled goods as they move from activists who speak in the name of the community and nature to commercially employed professional technocrats who constitute it as a commodity in their work for profit-making firms (Lounsbury, Ventresca, & Hirsch, 2003), software as it is located in corporate and open source community (O’Mahony & Ferraro, 2007), knowledge as it moves from the results of academic science to patented commercial property (Colyvas & Powell, 2006), or a restaurant meal as it moves from the ambit of the restaurant proprietor to a nouvelle cuisine chef (Rao, Monin, & Durand, 2003). While not necessarily raising to the level of a substance, most do and all involve transformations in the ontology, or the nature, of the object, what it is and what it can do. Institutional logics all bind value, practice, and object. Institutional logics are, one might say, practical forms of value rationality. Weber made a fateful analytic choice, refusing to locate value rationality in material practice, but rather in the conjunction of value and commitment, sign, and subjectivity.11 Institutional logics presuppose an immanent relation between value and practice, not as in Weber, a conscious, increasingly

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rationalized ‘‘deduction’’ of ‘‘practical postulates’’ (Weber, 1958d, p. 324), but a transcendence that requires immanentization as its condition of social possibility. Substances, the god-terms of institutional life, are immanenitized through material practice. Unobservable substances must be transmuted into observable objects – nested and interlocked – which are the means by which practices are anchored, affected, and oriented.12 An institutional substance requires not only the repeated calling out of its name, a discursive renewal of commitment and belief, a pretense that an unknowable substance functions like a knowable object, but enactment through routinized practical conventions. Unobservable substances must be transmuted into observable objects – nested and interlocked – which are the means by which practices are anchored, affected, and oriented. These are the dual sociological grounds of its eternality. Values must be both exteriorized as material practices that deploy objects as they are interiorized as possessions that possess their practitioners. Catholic rite is not a residue of magical instrumentalism, as Weber contends, but of performative material practice that inhabits every institutional sphere, although we may, as Weber himself noticed, fail to notice it. This transom between transcendence and immanence suggests that the material world – its objects and the practices that depend on them – may be a constituent, not a substrate, of institutional life, that the materialistidealist divide is a false, forced choice. Not just idealism, but a relentless materialism can be a carrier of false-consciousness, things themselves the veils. Instrumental rationalities may contain and conceal value rationalities, which are their foundation. I think of institutional substance as the ground of many of the dimensions that Thornton, Ocasio, and Lousnbury elaborate in their micro- and organizational specification of institutional logics, as the X-axis of the ideal types in the inter-institutional system, certainly the source of legitimacy, but also the basis of strategy and source of identity (Thornton et al., 2012, p. 56).13 The idea of a substance seems to transport us back to the old institutionalism, with its emphasis on the internalization of values as the normative basis of stability (Thornton et al., 2012, pp. 32–42). I think of it rather as a bridge. It is cognitive, a basis for classifying actionable objects, and normative, as a transcendental value which specifies what ought to be desired, thus a good in both senses. It does not order social life around culturally contentless solidarities or structures of domination. It does not block agency and variation as Thornton et al. understand Parsonian value terms to do (2012, p. 44), but enables them on the one side because they contingently form agents who accept and identify, or reject and disidentify,

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with the ultimate reality of the substance, and on the other, because of the contingent form of its immanentization, that different constellations of objects and material practices can be deployed in its name. Subjectification and objectification can be contested and transformed because there is a certain ‘‘modularity,’’ the term used by Thornton and her co-authors, such that logics can be transposed from their home domain into others thereby transforming the material practice and its meaning (Thornton et al., 2012, pp. 60–62). The limits of that decomposability remain to be specified. While the relation between an institutional logic and its practical order may vary, it is not, however, arbitrary. Institutional language does not operate as just a sign system, it helps produce that to which it refers. It is not a grammar, nor a vocabulary. It is performative and it approximates or mimes symbolization in that the relation between language and the signified is interior, not exterior. It is, I suspect, material practice – something about which we have as yet very little to say – that helps make the language of institutional life symbolic. As theorists of objects have shown us, their meaning and function depend on the practices conducted through and with them (Nicolini, Mengis, & Swan, 2012). Might it be that those practices depend on the objects through which they proceed? The notion of an institutional logic also bridges voluntarism and structuralism. A substance not only grounds and is grounded in the formation of subjects, but in material practices whose objective order, its routine organization of practice through objects, allows for institutional reproduction without internalization or consensus. Institutional logics undo the conceptual heterogeneities separating the rational and the nonrational, the technical and the cultural, the material and the ideal. They put into question the autonomy of Richard Scott’s institutional pillars – the regulative, normative, and cognitive (Thornton et al., 2012, pp. 36–39, 51). I read Scott’s three pillars as rules establishing the right, a value establishing the good, and an ontology constituting the real (pp. 36–39). An institutional logic is ordered around regimes of practice, constituted by specific congeries of rule, role, and category. Rules enforced by different forms of coercion, roles grounded in the production of particular values, and categories delineating the real are co-implicated in each logic. Institutional logics do not parse easily into cognitive, normative, or coercive orders. They are productive, obligatory, and performative. Institutional logics yoke the performativity of language with the productivity of material practice. Institutional logics do not negate agency. There is much criticism of institutional theory for its lack of agency and contest in institutional accounts, about the ‘‘paradox of embedded agency’’ or a ‘‘consensual

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frame’’ or ‘‘a truly consensual ‘taken for granted’ reality,’’ as Fligstein and McAdam (2012, p. 89; 2011, p. 11) put it. This criticism of institutionalism as nonagentic derives from the original problem of isomorphism, why organizations in particular fields have such similar attributes. Institutional logics both require and enable a fulsome individuality, requiring individuals to identify with its substance and enact its logic in practice under changing circumstances with uncertain reference, enabling them to choose the basis of their identification and to ‘‘transpose’’ its elements to other domains of practice (Thornton et al., 2012, p. 60). A social world composed of multiple institutional logics entails five moments of potential agency: identification or dis-identification with the substance of the institution, the contingent and contested conjunction of substance and material practice, the distributive struggles for the objects at stake within a field, the offensive and defensive possibilities of expanding or protecting the social scope or reference of an institutional logic, and the prospect of combining or even transforming institutional logics.14 The conditions for and the relations between these forms of agency, both within and between organizations and institutional fields, all require specification. If anything an institutional logic requires too much agency, an agency for which its theorization cannot yet account, an accounting complicated by the assumption that agency itself – the nature of the subject, the manner of his action, and the forms of his practical rationality – are likely to be contingent upon the institution in which he operates. This is something to which MacIntyre pointed in the co-implication of forms of practical rationality and understandings of justice, and to which Thornton et al. point in their conception of ‘‘bounded intentionality’’ (2012, pp. 78–83). Institutional logics both require and enable a fulsome individuality. There is no ‘‘paradox of embedded agency’’ (Holm, 1995). The paradox would be a dis-embedded agent.

STRATEGIC ACTION FIELDS Institutional logics posit a social world that is a world of purposes and the powers they found before it is a world of powers and the purposes that legitimate them. It is a world of complementary and contradictory orders of value production in determinate social locations before it is a world of transposable conventions. It is, in other words, a different social world, or a different part of the world, than the strategic action fields imagined by Neil Fligstein and Doug McAdam or the polities of worth elaborated by

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Luc Boltanski and Laurent The´venot. I want to question the ways in which each duo aligns power and culture. If the first American pair posits a culturally poor power, making its distribution the homogenous purpose of social life, the second French one posits mechanisms of valuation whose politics have been dislodged from institutional space and their register of powers thereby reduced. Both center around observable contestations animated by the question of distribution. The first operates at a structural level, the second at a situational level. Institutional logics, in contrast, posit a systemic level of production, which may allow us to wend our way between a power without culture and a culture without power. Fligstein and McAdam creatively marry social movement and field theory taking as their object episodes of contention where collective actors mobilize and build coalitions using innovative forms of action and new identities. Although Fligstein and McAdam define strategic action fields as domains of interaction among actors who share ‘‘common understandings about the purposes of the field,’’ these purposes are analytically irrelevant to field dynamics. Those purposes, they contend, are not to be found in something like an institutional logic. The concept of institutional logic, they write, ‘‘is too broad and too amorphous to really capture the set of shared meanings that structure field dynamics’’ (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012, p. 10). Meanings for them, however, are actually derivative political instruments because strategic action, they affirm, is about control (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012, p. 17). A field, they write, ‘‘is really an arena where individuals, groups, or organizations face off to capture some gain (Fligstein & McAdam, 2010, p. 42). Both the coherence and the dynamism of a strategic action field derive from actor competition for ‘‘what is at stake,’’ over ‘‘the division of spoils in the field.’’ Their social world is a Bourdieusian space of interlocked fields each now populated by group actors whose relative positions are secured through settlements and unsettled by exogenous shocks deriving from other – usually proximate – fields, that shift resource dependencies and open political opportunities. Fligstein and McAdam correctly point to a defect of the institutional logic approach, that it never theorized how institutional domains structure the distribution of resources or objects, when and with what consequences distributional conflicts emerge, including their capacity to reshape an institutional logic.15 But this is not a warrant to reduce institutions to domains organized around an institutionally homogenous project of sustaining unequal distributions. The goal of incumbents, they argue, is ‘‘to preserve or expand their power in the field by using the structures and meaning in the field to full advantage’’ (Fligstein & McAdam, 2010, p. 27).

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Powers have been unhinged from field-specific purposes and practices. Field ‘‘purposes’’ are ‘‘adapted,’’ in their view, to the ‘‘interests’’ of dominant groups that derive from their positions, positions ‘‘defined by their claim on the lion’s share of material and status rewards’’ (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012, p. 13). Identities are likewise understood as devices used by actors to ‘‘promote the control’’ of others, as bases for the construction of a ‘‘new conception of control’’ which affords redistributions of resources (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012, p. 17, 2010, p. 36). ‘‘Challengers have sold themselves on some collective identity to justify their position as challengers,’’ they write (Fligstein & McAdam, 2010, p. 35). Understanding culture as an instrument in the struggle for institutionally homogenous powers leads the authors to understand the American civil rights movement primarily as a shift in power structure as opposed to a shift in the institutional scope of liberal democracy. This may help one discern how inter-field dependencies establish political opportunities, but it brackets how the nature of the focal field both offers identities and values pursued for their own sake, as well as conditions the strategies both challengers and incumbents can use. It is no wonder they end their earlier article with the ‘‘fundamental’’ question: ‘‘if the modes of collective action are similar in markets and politics then what makes them different?’’ (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012, p. 23).

THE CONVENTION OF WORLDS Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thevenot’s De La Justification – published in the very same year as ‘‘Bringing Society Back In’’ – fashioned a theory of conventions, which in its very anti-institutionalism, deserves our careful and constructive engagement. Conventions are bundled practices of qualification of ‘‘beings,’’ both humans and things, according to a standard of worth. Conventions work by establishing equivalence among people and things, according to which they have more or less worth – ‘‘states’’ of worth – with respect to a metaphysical ‘‘common principle’’ (Boltanski, 2011, p. 27; Boltanski & Thevenot, 2006, p. 141). Each order of worth is a polity held together not by domination – still less by the prospect of or the past incidence of violence – but by the ‘‘fundamental equality’’ or ‘‘humanity’’ of its members and their agreement on the value of its value, on its kind of worth as a common good (Boltanski & Thevenot, 2006, pp. 13, 25). Conventions of worth and the principles that underlay them are not ‘‘legitimations’’ a` la Weber (Boltanski & Thevenot, 2006, p. 37). Justification and critique are

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interior to institutional life, a process missing in much institutional theorizing (Daudigeos & Valiorgue, 2010). Boltanski and Thevenot invert the social universe of Pierre Bourdieu. Rather than structured fields, for instance, they center on situations. Instead of an unconscious doxa inferred from regularities of social practice observed and interpreted, their evidentiary base is composed of orthodoxies distilled from the texts of philosophers and manuals for practice. Canonical political philosophies offer ‘‘grammars of the political bond.’’ The practice of logic here is the logic of practice. If oppositions to Bourdieu abound in conventions of worth, so do consonances with institutional logic. But there are major differences as well. Unlike institutional logics, conventions of worth are not tied to institutional spaces or fields, but are ‘‘embedded in situations’’ (Boltanski & Thevenot, 2006, pp. 145, 150). Boltanski and Thevenot seek, wherever they can, to strip their polities of particular institutional meanings so that they can serve as all-purpose grammars. They describe principles of worth and their respective qualification practices so that they can be applied to any institutional field. While that allows them to identify the ways in which orders of worth situationally comingle and combine in ‘‘compromises’’ – here in the business world – it not only understates the primacy of a central value in the field in which the situation takes place, the conventions’ very generality can end up evacuating, if not violating, the institutional specificity of that order of worth in its home domain.16 To secularize divine grace as human inspiration, for example, is to make man into God and to suggest that those who seek grace seek participation, in small, in divine creation. The grammar is worse than meaningless: It is blasphemy. Orders of worth are selectively de-institutionalized. Domestic worth, although ‘‘always constructed in the image of the father, whose state of worth is highest because he is the incarnation of the tradition’’ is neither limited to procreation nor the household, applying equally to hierarchies of dependence to ‘‘important persons,’’ whether boss or king (Boltanski & Thevenot, 2006, pp. 165, 168). Due to this anti-institutionalism there is neither the making of life nor love in domestic worth.17 Some conventions, however, have fixed, determinate institutional moorings, such as civic worth, which depends entirely upon a state, upon legal rights and electoral representation (Boltanski & Thevenot, 2006, pp. 192–193). Boltanski and Thevenot ground their theory in the practice and language of the institutional site of civic worth – a republic. Their decision to ‘‘politify’’ the orders of worth is not unrelated to their move from a critical sociology to a sociology of critique. Institutional combinations and conflicts

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are conducted through arguments – critique, denunciation, and justification – which issue in test purifications, generalizations, and compromises. Their polities accordingly do not admit the exercise of power, let alone violence. Indeed they treat the operation of power (and interest), both in sociological explanation and as a social form of stepping outside of all polities to establish a ‘‘general equivalent,’’ as a relativism that ‘‘aims at abolishing y the very possibility of the existence of a common good’’ (Boltanski & Thevenot, 2006, p. 341).18 For them, in this exercise, power is neither structural, nor systemic, never inherent in mechanisms and operations that do not pass through justification and decision, the ‘‘motives and causes invoked by the actors’’ (Boltanski & Thevenot, 2006, p. 344). Not surprisingly while the analysis is replete with modalities of critique and compromise between orders of worth, they do not have much to say about conflicts of worth that do not resolve themselves through agreements about higher, more general principles of common good, through privatization of one of the goods or through an agreed suspension of judgment (Boltanski & Thevenot, 2006, pp. 336–340). Boltanski has recently recanted both the anti-institutionalism and the repudiation of power. The pragmatics of critique, he admits, presumed too much capacity for agreement on the part of actors. The pragmatics of practice alone can neither stabilize convention nor generate critique in any given situation. Social interaction can neither generate value nor normative test formats (Boltanski, 2011, pp. 80–81). Boltanski now points to a level of analysis above the test-determined reality of situations, that of institutions which secure ‘‘the whatness of the what is’’ (Boltanski, 2011, p. 55). ‘‘What are we doing exactly? (Boltanski, 2011, p. 71). If conventions operate as qualifications of people, institutions operate as qualifications of action and the quasi-objects they entail. Thus the property or capital necessary to market value is the result not of a convention, but of ‘‘[i]nstitutional operations’’ (Boltanski, 2011, p. 77). Institution is required to fix a type of action and its referential relation to a situation as a token of that type (Boltanski, 2011, pp. 68–70). This normative fixing is the core of institution, a primordially semantic function. This appears to undercut the previous insistence that orders of worth should not be socially located either in a group or a sector. Boltanski aligns the institutional level with the exterior, totalizing logic of domination, as opposed to the interior, pragmatic logic of power operative in disputes at the situational level. Domination operates through institutions whose semantic function, the fixing of a type of action, a bodiless institutional being securing an immaterial state of ‘‘being,’’ depends on the

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use of coercion (Boltanski, 2011, p. 75). As he says, ‘‘semantic work and police work go together’’ (Boltanski, 2011, p. 79). The institution as a bodiless being has replaced the principle of equivalence; coercion stabilization by things, violence immanent in the hermeneutic contradiction the agreement at a higher level of common worth. The bright bodily republic of worth has been lodged under the dark, disembodied state.

LOVE AND THE INSTITUTIONAL LIFE OF MORTAL GODS Institutional theory is a terrain in which it is not only possible to develop a religious sociology, a theory of passionate fields. An institutional value or substance is a mortal god, one that repeatedly risks death, who is forever dying, becoming inert, dead letter, only to be brought to life again as it is enacted in practice. Death’s possibility is systemic, there in financial collapse, the erosion of marriage, the repudiation of scientific truth, the evacuation of the practical scope of sovereignty. But the elemental death is in the heart of the believer. I have cast institutional substances as institutional gods, which one loves and by which one is authorized as a lover, and hence formed into particular kinds of individual and collective subjects. Love follows the logic of identification. Institutional life does not operate based solely on cognitivism, through differentially activated schemas, a taken-for-grantedness (Thornton et al., 2012, p. 90). It demands myriad moments of located passion, an order of desire to which Max Weber once attended and we appear to have forgotten. Love is a being given oneself through a relation with an other. I think it is worth returning to the nonKantian aspect of Weber’s value rationality, not just the passionate irrationality of will, but its nonautonomy and its inevitable incompletion in enactment. Value rationality never completes us; it is a pleasurable agony to which we aspire over and over again, corporate titan no less than the composer, the pilgrim, the social theorist or the cheerleader. We live for those moments of possession, returning over and over to the prospect of this be-coming. Animated by desire, it is also fraught with danger that one will be destroyed, found not worthy, able only to go through the motions, remaining untouched, untransformed, and transforming nothing. In the moment of grace or illumination the religious person becomes a new being – reborn or redeemed, as Weber glosses the ‘‘highest conceptions’’ of salvation

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(1958c, p. 279) – temporarily aligned with something he can never secure, that will always exceed him. And it is through his rebirth that the institutional value is reproduced, brought alive once again, able thereby to call others. It is not different for the scholar who somehow etches out a new connection, espies an unseen strata of reality; the political leader who crafts a viable new vision for the nation-state; the entrepreneur who offers a new commodity, or even property, form on the market; the artist who creates beautiful forms; and, of course, the lover who allows himself to be possessed by a woman (or man) who will offer him (her) the recognition and the possibility of being anew. These can all be, and indeed should be, read in instrumentally rational ways, as the control of goods – of knowledge, power, profit, art, sexual bodies – but that does not negate the other side in which one is possessed, and indeed transformed, by the substance or value, never completed, but offered the ecstasy of new possibility, the same kind of humility of desire with which one takes and is taken by a lover or a god. Institutions do not operate through an included exclusion of bare life, but of love, without which they would be dead letters indeed.

NOTES 1. ‘‘Concrete social practices manifest the institutional logics of capitalism, bureaucracy, and democracy. Inside each institution, the activities of individuals are symbolically defined by a historically developed vocabulary of motives and beliefs. Interests that cannot be converted to a particular vocabulary within a logic of action are difficult to express or to handle within that institutional sphere.’’ (Alford & Friedland, 1985, p. 432). 2. That book ends with a recognition of religion’s exclusion (Alford & Friedland, 1985, p. 442). 3. Philip Gorski, for example, looks at variations in religion’s institutional location and tructure as a determinant of its politicization (2007). 4. Identifying religion with ‘‘truth’’ in that text was, as Nancy Ammerman, among others, has pointed out, a mistake (Ammerman, 2005, p. 335). I cannot, in retrospect, really recall, but I suspect the reason we made that error was my focus on religion as an institutional order that hinged on believing in an unobservable reality. 5. Arendt says love is worldless because it is unconcerned with the what of the person, a creation of the who which is oblivious to what a person is, thereby making human love into the analogue of Augustinian love, which cannot be concerned with the attributes of the particular person, only its divine source, the proper object of true love. Arendt relocates this divine ‘‘who’’ creation, this collective subject formation, in the domain of politics where one seeks to fashion an immortal collective subject, whereas human love is rendered private because it is the analogue of the Christian love. Ironically it is Heidegger, the anti-semite, who is the true Jew,

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the one who understands that love requires a mortal other, in which the particularity of each is preserved and necessary to that love, a love that, as Thomas Carlson has shown, makes the world, grounds its significance, and provides the basis for the authenticity that is possible in one’s being toward death. 6. ‘‘That which holds for the description of shades of light, tones of sound, nuances of smell, etc., also holds in exactly the same sense for the description of religious, aesthetic, and ethical ‘value feelings’,’’ he writes (Weber, 2012, p. 182). 7. Weber also equates a man’s erotic conquest of a woman with the ‘‘conquest of power’’ (1958d, p. 345). 8. The implication, I think, is that what appear as conflicts with spheres where instrumental rationalities are dominant – between market and state on the one hand and religion on the other, for instance, Brubaker (1984, p. 77) – are really still based on conflicting value rationalities. This may be consistent with Weber’s historical generalization that the ‘‘objectification of the power structure’’ or the ‘‘rationalization of coercion’’ is accompanied by a ‘‘flight into apolitical emotionalism,’’ which includes eroticism, an ‘‘acosmic ethic of absolute goodness,’’ and mysticism (Weber, 1978, p. 601). The relation is not clear. Weber could be pointing to the consonance between impersonal, or personless, forms of action, each organized around an inaccessible, or invisible, value. Or he could be pointing to a substitution of a repersonalization, a hyper-subjectification, in response to depersonalization, the covering over of the God that once animated state and capitalism. This would be a substitution of a personalized world for a depersonalized one, or one that hinges on an illusionary having as against a political world where there are only power mechanisms, not a leader who wields power with an ethic of conviction toward a particular value. Whatever the specification, a sociological relation is posited between value spheres, which can be read as more than just an escape from rationalization. 9. Weber sometimes elides the distinction between the two forms of possession. ‘‘Others seek to be possessed by God and to possess God, to be a bridegroom of the Virgin Mary, or to be the bride of the Savior.’’ (Weber, 1958c, p. 278). This is doubly curious not only because possession need not be identified with mysticism and because of the disjunction in the parallelism: a groom would possess and a bride be possessed. 10. There is an inner tension here: On the one hand, one must choose, on the other hand, one is chosen. The choice depends on a will without reason, a passion, a love affair. There is an intriguing parallel between the logic of a value sphere and the way in which Christians understand God’s grace. Overpowering institutional call and individual response, or taking up, of the calling, I cannot not see the Christian parallel of a God whose bestowal of grace, whose call, is so powerful that one cannot resist, and yet the individual who is understood to choose his faithlessness, his fallen condition through lack of faith. There are echoes of this absurd asymmetry in Weber’s polytheism – that one’s institutional salvation is not the result of one’s will, not an instrumental rationality, not a possessing, or even a ‘‘having,’’ while one’s lack of salvation is a result of the failure of one’s will. 11. Another reason is his understanding of the contradiction between political means and ethical ends in a democratic nation-state. The means of politics – violence, party organization, and emotional manipulation – contravene whatever ethical commitments a political leader brings to the political arena.

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12. We do not yet have much to say about the object, about the role of materiality, in the constitution of institutional logics, whether it is simply a site through which institutional logics operate or whether and in what way it is integral to their very operability (Patricia, William, & Michael, 2012). 13. Thornton et al. write: ‘‘The cornerstone institution connotes the root symbols and metaphors through which individuals and organizations perceive and categorize their activity and infuse it with meaning and value’’ (2012, p. 54). I think of institutional substance as fitting this description if by ‘‘value’’ they mean what the institution does as opposed to the value it has. 14. There is a clear institutional warrant for studying, as Boltanski and Thevenot do, the situational deployment of conventions (Boltanski & Thevenot, 2006). 15. ‘‘The use of the term ‘institutional logic’ tends to imply way too much consensus in the field about what is going on and why and way too little concern over actors’ position, the creation of rules in the field that favor the more powerful over the less powerful, and the general use of power in strategic actions fields. In short, the relative and potentially oppositional positions of actors within the field are not well captured by the concept of institutional logic. The term fails to capture the ways in which different actors in different positions in the strategic action field will vary in their interpretation of events and respond to them from their own point of view’’ (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012, p. 11). 16. Weber’s value spheres likewise were chock full of the kinds of ‘‘compromises’’ to which Boltanski and Thevenot refer. ‘‘In almost every important attitude of real human beings, the value-spheres cross and interpenetrate’’ (Weber, 1949, p. 18). There is, in human action, always an admixture of value rationalities; they come in impure fusions and mixtures. Values can recombine, thereby transforming their meaning and the practices associated with them. Erotic love, for example, moves from the eroticization of vassalage in the Christian Middle Ages to the intellectualism of salon culture in which ‘‘intersexual conversation is valuable as a creative power’’ (Weber, 1958d, p. 346). Weber pointed to fusions in the alliances between ‘‘universalist mass religions’’ and art, each of which sought an emotional ‘‘religious experience,’’ or the unstable ‘‘fusion’’ of eroticism and mysticism (Weber, 1958d, pp. 343, 349). Not only is the primary value not always distinct, but its capacity for re-composition with others affords paths of social action that may attenuate conflict, a point developed in Boltanski and The´venot’s assertion of the situational availability of a multiplicity of ‘‘orders of worth’’ (Boltanski & The´venot, 2006). These combinatorial possibilities allow for institutional rationalities to change, as, for example, in the combination of social justice and expected profit as criteria of socially responsible investment in the field of French asset management (Arjalies, 2010). 17. For Weber it was this life and this love that were central motors in the genesis of salvation religions (Weber, 1958). Love does pop up in other polities. In the market polity: ‘‘One succeeds through the strength of this desire, because one loves. Real life is what people want to acquire’’ (Boltanski & Thevenot, 2006, p. 197). And in the civic polity: ‘‘The civic polity must do for humanity taken as a whole, as a body politic, what love never, or only rarely, allows persons to achieve in the order of individual relations’’ (Boltanski & Thevenot, 2006, p. 117). 18. The interest of relativism is not that of the marketplace in that the former denies a common good, ‘‘the generality of worth,’’ and the sacrifices necessary to it.

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The interest of the marketplace is a desire to ‘‘obtain satisfaction,’’ which if it is to be mediated by the marketplace requires a detachment both from the goods that elicit this interest and from oneself and other people (Boltanski & Thevenot, 2006, pp. 197–200).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This paper is a revision of the Keynote address at ABC network conference: ‘‘Organizing Institutions: Creating, Enacting and Reacting to Institutional Logics’’

Banff Springs Hotel, June 14–16, 2012. A number of people have helped me in writing this paper particularly Diane-Laure Arjalies, Tom Carlson, Damon Golsorkhi, Michael Lounsbury, and Stefania Tutino. I would also like to acknowledge my conversations with Jason Hopkins, Joanna Steinhardt, Nesrin Unlu, and Matt Wilson, all members of my graduate seminar on institution at UC Santa Barbara in the spring of 2012.

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THE IMMATERIALITY OF MATERIAL PRACTICES IN INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS Candace Jones, Eva Boxenbaum and Callen Anthony ABSTRACT According to most theoretical formulations, institutional logics contain both an ideational and a material dimension. Whereas the ideational aspect, such as cognitive frames and symbols, has received significant attention in the growing literature on institutional logics, the material aspect has remained largely invisible and often implicit. We analyze the 16 most central theoretical and empirical works on institutional logics with the aim of exploring how the material dimension of logics has been conceptualized and researched. Our findings suggest that materiality has been interpreted primarily as practices and structures, and rarely as physical objects. We explore some consequences of omitting physical materials as an object of study in institutional logics research and point to avenues for future research that may enhance theory development of institutional logics by explicitly attending to the role of materials. Keywords: Institutional logics; institutional complexity; practice; materiality

Institutional Logics in Action, Part A Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 39A, 51–75 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X(2013)0039A&B006

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The notion of institutional logics has proliferated in institutional research over the past two decades. It refers broadly to organizing cognitive frameworks that provide social actors with ‘‘rules of the game’’ (Thornton & Ocasio, 1999) and that operate, often implicitly, as practical guides for action (Rao, Monin, & Durand, 2003). When Friedland and Alford (1991) introduced this notion to institutional scholars some 20 years ago, they emphasized that institutional logics are associated with distinct societal sectors, such as family, religion, state, or market. They further proposed that logics are composed of the following key elements: cognitive schema, normative expectations, and material practices (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Thornton & Ocasio, 2008). Whereas the more abstract aspects of institutional logics (i.e. cognitive, normative and symbolic) have received ample attention in the literature, the material (practices) dimension has been surprisingly overlooked. Our ambition in this paper is to review the current state of insight on the materiality of institutional logics and suggest avenues for future research. Some scholars have emphasized institutional logics as a duality. For example, Mohr and Duquenne (1997) highlighted the duality between cultural meanings and social practices in their analysis of institutional logics of poverty relief during the Progressive Era. In a landmark empirical study of logics, Thornton and Ocasio (1999, p. 804) emphasized that institutional logics are ‘‘both material and symbolic—they provide the formal and informal rules of action, interaction, and interpretation that guide and constrain decision makers in accomplishing the organization’s tasks.’’ This division between symbolic and material aspects of logics is also reflected in the recent work by Thornton, Ocasio, and Lounsbury (2012), who define these two dimensions as follows: ‘‘By material aspects of institutions, we refer to structures and practices; by symbolic aspects, we refer to ideation and meaning’’ (p. 10). This view of materiality emphasizes organizational structure and practices, which are certainly more visual than symbolic features, but which fall somewhat short of including tangible objects. In his most recent work, Friedland (2013) extends material practices to include physical objects. He argues that ‘‘Unobservable substances must be transmuted into observable objects – nested and interlocked—which are the means by which practices are anchored, affected and oriented’’ (Friedland, 2013, p. 37). Thus, for Friedland, material objects are pivoting points for the practices that other scholars emphasize in their formulations of the material aspect of institutional logics. As such, they can be understood as an important extension of, or a necessary condition for, the practices and structures that many scholars associate with the materiality of logics.

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Although objects have not been absent from the empirical contexts of studies drawing on institutional logics, they have been peripheral to the arguments of those articles that focus instead on structures and practices. Practices have been interpreted as the activities, skills, knowledge, and beliefs enacted in a role – in essence the content of a role. For example, the shift in institutional logic that Thornton and Ocasio (1999) describe in the higher education publishing industry focuses on the skills and attention of a CEO—an editor identifies great authors when operating under an editorial logic whereas an MBA seeks to expand markets and sales when guided by a market logic. Glynn and Lounsbury (2005) identify the change in a symphony’s repertoire that is played in a season: market-oriented logics are associated with increasingly popular music incorporated into a concert. Since roles entail values, activities, and beliefs, different roles can lead to conflict among role occupants such as doctors and administrators (Reay & Hinings, 2009) or musicians and administrators (Glynn, 2000). The consequences of these cognitive elements are revealed in structures and practices: how roles are enacted and what practices are prioritized. The material elements, however, are implied rather than examined, such as changes in the content or types of textbooks published or types of musical instruments included in a concert. Practices also direct our attention to the processes and goals of action such as how risk is managed in mutual funds that aim either to protect assets or to maximize them (Lounsbury, 2002, 2007). Scholars have also shown how the introduction of new practices, such as business planning, altered a museum’s goals from preserving cultural artifacts to generating revenue (Oakes, Townley, & Cooper, 1998; Townley, 2002). Structures, the other element associated with materiality, focus our attention on the importance of formal roles and units, rules relating roles to one another and the pattern of relations between roles and organizational units. For example, the creation of new formal roles was vital for institutionalizing recycling as a program of action in universities (Lounsbury, 2001). By altering relations between organizational units, the higher education publishing industry shifted from using a functional form associated with a craft logic to using a multidivisional form associated with a market logic (Thornton, 2002). The new logic of nouvelle cuisine reversed the hierarchical role relationship between waiter and chef that existed in classical cuisine (Rao et al., 2003). Dunn and Jones (2010) show how the creation of a new department – family medicine – instantiated a care logic into medical education, socializing physicians in that logic. In response, proponents of a science logic created the Medical Science and Technology

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Program to counter and hopefully thwart the increasing role of the care logic as the basis for medical training. These studies on practices and structures bring us one step forward toward understanding the dimension of materiality in logics. However, they leave many questions unanswered. For instance, it is unclear whether any material objects were mobilized or changed during these shifts in practices and structures. For instance, did textbooks change in their content or material form when higher education publishing shifted from an editorial logic to a market logic? Did Alberta museums purchase different artifacts under the logic of revenue generation than they did under the logic of cultural preservation? Did mutual funds create new and distinct financial instruments when guided by the logic of profit maximization versus the logic of asset protection? And importantly, did changes in available materials stimulate the introduction of new practices and structures, enabling the shift in logics? In essence, the materials that underpin, or concretely convey, certain structures and practices seem either implicit or peripheral in many studies of institutional logics. Their invisibility makes it difficult to examine if materials are necessary anchors, perhaps even catalysts, for changes in practices and structures, which currently represent the material component of institutional logics in mainstream research. Materials may impact not only practices and structures, but also symbols and ideas. As Friedland (2001, p. 141) states: ‘‘institutions have logics that must be made material in order to signify.’’ Although some scholars claim that it is through ‘‘symbols that the meaning of material practices translates and travels’’ (Thornton et al., 2012, p. 11), ideational elements are not easily translated, diffused, and institutionalized without a material manifestation. Ideas travel through time and space in text, such as books and newspapers, Wikipedia, and blogs, which instantiate them and make them durable. For example, researchers have found that people reverse their judgments when they physically write down ideas and throw away those notes; imaging or visualizing alone does not reverse judgments (Brin˜ol, Gasco´, Petty, & Horcajo, 2013). Guttenberg’s press revolutionized society by making books affordable and thus the ideas in them available to large segments of the population. Much like the Internet has done in more recent times, Guttenberg reshuffled social structure through changing who had access to what knowledge and altering role expectations and role relations among social actors. Similar to text, modern markets and financial exchange cannot function without computers and telecommunication infrastructure that

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relay transactions and prices. Thus materials enable the durability of institutions (Jones & Massa, 2013; Pinch, 2008). Although scholars of institutional logics have included materials and objects in their studies, they have not examined the role materials play in anchoring or catalyzing change in institutional logics. Instead, these scholars place materials and logics in the background, emphasizing alternative theoretical explanations, such as identity movements, for the emergence of nouvelle cuisine and its divergence in material practices from classical cuisine (Rao et al., 2003). Similarly, alternate theoretical frameworks such as design processes and technological systems are evoked to explain institutional change. For example, Edison consciously tapped into an established technology (i.e., gas) to enhance acceptance of his new technology (i.e., electricity) (Hargadon & Douglas, 2001). Only recently have scholars begun to examine the material basis of institutional logics and explicitly connect distinct materials to different institutional logics (see Jones, Maoret, Massa, & Svejenova, 2012). For example, the institutional logic of commerce for business clients demanded new building materials and new kinds of buildings made of concrete, steel, and glass, whereas the professional logic of architecture for clients that prioritized tradition, such as the State, utilized established materials of brick, stone, and wood. Architects fought over which materials were appropriate to include in the new category of modern architecture. Materials not only anchor established practices and structures and institutionalize new ones, but are also vehicles enabling ideas and symbols to travel across time and space. We propose to bring the tangible objects of material practices back into institutional logics. The literature on institutional logics appears to have emphasized cultural practices and symbolic or organizational structures, which we suggest are intermediate steps between ideation and materials. To reveal the lack of material in institutional logics, we apply a vocabulary approach to seminal studies that use institutional logics. Our results demonstrate empirically that institutional logics research focuses on culture, structure, and practices, whereas materials in their tangible form (i.e., objects) seem to be invisible or understudied. We then point to literatures that enable and expand our understanding of materials in institutional logics. Our goal in this paper is to pave the way for studying materiality as an integral component of institutional logics in order to improve our comprehension of the multiple dimensions of institutional logics that dynamically interact to produce institutional stability and change.

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METHODS: A VOCABULARY APPROACH TO ANALYZING DIMENSIONS OF INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS Friedland and Alford’s (1991) seminal paper launched research on institutional logics, which has become an increasingly important area of study within organization theory and, in particular, institutional theory. As Friedland (2013, p. 26) notes, institutional logics are ‘‘tied to vocabularies of both motive and belief.’’ Thus, we use a vocabulary approach (Jones & Livne-Tarandach, 2008; Loewenstein, Ocasio, & Jones, 2012) to take stock of research on institutional logics. A vocabulary approach examines vocabulary structure – the frequency of key words, their relationship to one another and their relationship to exemplars that render vocabularies concrete and understandable. We performed a search on all articles about institutional logics and cited Friedland and Alford (1991). We searched in two main sources: Business Source Complete, which is a database used primarily by management scholars, and JSTOR, which is used primarily by sociologists (we checked the sociology discipline as a search). To access the volume of research spawned by Friedland and Alford’s (1991) paper, we first searched for published scholarly articles using the terms ‘‘institutional logic AND Friedland.’’ There were 208 articles in Business Source Complete and 56 in JSTOR, a surprising result given that Friedland and Alford were trained as and engaged with sociologists. To capture specifically the role of material in institutional logics, we performed a second search, using the terms ‘‘institutional logic AND material AND Friedland.’’ This latter search garnered almost half the articles of the former search: 118 in Business Source Complete and 25 in JSTOR. Fig. 1 shows the pattern of publications over time, testifying to Friedland and Alford’s successful launch of a new topic within institutional theory. Given the high number of articles caught in our second search, we opted to focus our vocabulary analysis on those articles that: (1) draw on institutional logics, (2) cite Friedland and Alford (1991), (3) explicitly discuss ‘‘material’’ as an aspect of institutional logics such as compensation plans or organizational structures, although they may not detail tangible material properties or tangible objects (as opposed to highlighting their use of archival or other research material(s)), and (4) have significantly influenced scholarship (as measured by citations). Using the above criteria, we identified 130 unique articles. (We combined duplicates from the two

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Instit Logics Material

40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

1994

1993

1991

1987

0

Fig. 1. Publications on Institutional Logic and Institutional Logic AND Material from Business Source Complete and JSTOR databases 1987–2012.

searches and focused on management and sociology literatures, removing two public administration articles.) To identify the seminal or most influential articles, we used Google Scholar citations to gauge the influence of the 130 articles. We selected Google Scholar because it captures books, conference papers as well as published papers. Thus, it assesses a wider scholarly audience and emerging scholarship on institutional logics than would the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). Table 1 reveals the impact score count for the 130 articles, which are ordered by impact. Naturally, older articles have had more time than more recent ones to accumulate citations and thus to impact scholarship. An inspection of the articles shows that published scholarship on institutional logics starts before the 1991 publication of Friedland and Alford’s paper. Scott’s (1987) review piece ‘‘The Adolescence of Institutional Theory’’ explains the importance of Friedland and Alford’s idea of institutional logics and cites their working conference paper. We selected the most influential articles for in-depth analysis, that is, the 16 articles with 200 or more citations. We translated these files from PDF to RTF format for ease of analysis in MAXQDA. Appendix A contains the references for these 16 articles. We performed a vocabulary analysis using MAXQDA, a text analysis program that allows the researcher to identify and count the frequency of a term as well as the relationships among terms (i.e., the intersection of key terms in a unit of thought). To assess

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Table 1. Count of 130 Publications in Google Scholar Citation Range. Google Scholar Citations 0 1–99 100–199 200–299 300–399 400–499 500–599 600–699 700–799 800–899 900–999 1,000–1,999 2,000–2,999

Number of Publications 11 90 13 4 3 4 1 1 0 1 0 1 1

relationships, we used the paragraph, understood as a completed thought, because the meaning of a word depends on the words that surround it (Krippendorf, 2004). Our analysis proceeded by identifying key terms associated with the key dimensions of institutional logics: cognitive schema, normative expectations, and material practices. We ran word frequencies on the 16 articles to identify the appropriate forms of terms related to these three key dimensions. We coded the 16 articles for terms appearing in the text of the articles that are associated with any of these dimensions. We crosschecked these terms and added key terms depending on their usage in the document. For example, we did not include ‘‘object’’ as a key term for material because authors often used this word in the texts as a verb (e.g., ‘‘we object to this interpretation’’) rather than as a reference to a tangible material item. We also removed the usage of ‘‘material’’ when it referred to the authors’ research process (e.g., ‘‘we used the following archival materials’’) rather than referring to an aspect of an institutional logic. These dimensions and codes are listed in Appendix B. We used UCINET to visualize the structure or relational patterns among key terms and to assess the centrality of terms. We prioritized relationships to facilitate visualizing and identifying the most important structural relations by using the upper quartile tie strength as the cutoff for inclusion (in our case n=15, that is, the two vocabulary terms need to be co-located in the same paragraph at least 15 times). To verify the visual interpretation, we ran Bonacich centrality on the code relations using UCINET. Bonacich

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centrality uses an iterative approach to measure influence by assessing which nodes are connected to the most influential other nodes (Hanneman, 2013).

FINDINGS: VOCABULARY FREQUENCY IN DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS OF INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS As Table 2 reveals, even in articles that include material, scholars elaborate institutional logics by a focus on culture (n=866), structure (n=732), meaning (n=463), and practice (n=447). Vocabulary terms that focus on the materials of practice, which Friedland (2001, 2013) argues are essential Table 2.

Frequency of Vocabulary Terms across Texts (by Frequency in Each Aspect of Logic).

Logics

622

Cognitive Meaning Cognition Symbol Schema Belief Script Knowledge

463 240 240 149 103 103 90

Normative Culture Value Rule Normative Moral Expectation

866 298 129 116 100 72

Material Structure Practice Resource Technology Material Investment Artifact Asset

732 447 207 158 87 47 31 29

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to making immanent culture and ideas, occur the least frequently (i.e., artifact, asset, invest, material). Overall we find that whereas institutional theory focuses on cognition (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006), seminal works on institutional logics emphasize culture and use the terms ‘‘structure,’’ ‘‘meaning,’’ and ‘‘practice’’ to elaborate culture.

Vocabulary Structure of Key Terms in Institutional Logics Table 3 verifies that ‘‘culture’’ and ‘‘structure’’ are the most influential vocabulary terms related to institutional logics, with practice, meaning, and values playing an intermediate role and material aspects a peripheral role in how the most influential articles on institutional logics conceptualize and study institutional logics. Fig. 2 shows the relationships among the key vocabulary terms across the seminal texts. ‘‘Culture’’ and ‘‘structure’’ are, in Table 3. Vocabulary Term Culture Structure Logic Practice Meaning Value Symbol Cognition Belief Resource Rule Normative Material Moral Schema Technology Script Knowledge Expectation Artifact Investment Asset

Bonacich Centrality (Normalized) for Institutional Logic Vocabulary Terms. Normalized Centrality 10.988 10.537 6.926 5.977 5.836 5.276 4.187 4.078 4 3.766 3.331 3.113 1.945 1.914 1.821 1.79 1.572 1.323 1.276 0.934 0.872 0.28

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Material

Moral

Rule

Symbol Resource Technology Logic

Structure

Meaning Culture

Value

Schema Practice

Cognition

Script Belief

Normative

Fig. 2. Network Analysis of Vocabulary Terms in Institutional Logics. Note: Triangle: Material, plus sign ¼ cognitive, Square ¼ Normative.

fact, more central than the term ‘‘logic.’’ In these texts, scholars rarely define what they mean by culture; instead, they elaborate it through associated terms such as cognition, meaning, structure, etc. Culture may be more central than logics because three seminal texts focus on culture, recognizing logics as an important facet of culture (i.e., Alexander, 2004; DiMaggio, 1997; Mohr, 1998). Our key finding resonates with our theoretical review at the beginning of the paper: material seems to be invisible or peripheral to institutional logics in as much as six of the eight keywords for material reside either at the periphery (i.e., material, resource, and technology) or outside of the graph (i.e, artifact, asset and investment). Since material is often defined as practices and structure (Thornton et al., 2012) and since these latter two terms are central to institutional logics, we also examined the relational co-occurrence of these terms in the texts. First we searched for the co-occurrence of ‘‘material’’ and ‘‘practice’’ within the same paragraph of the seminal articles. We found only 8 paragraphs out of the 2,623 paragraphs in the 16 articles (0.003%) where material and practice co-occurred. The majority of these paragraphs quoted Friedland and Alford’s definition of institutional logics. ‘‘Material’’ and ‘‘practice’’ are bolded to allow the reader to more easily find their placement in the quotes. The few instances in which ‘‘material’’ and ‘‘practices’’ co-occurred suggest

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Table 4.

Co-Occurrence of Material and Practice in Texts.

DiMaggio (1997, pp. 276–277): ‘‘Friedland and Alford (1991, pp. 248–249) provide the most thorough exposition and definition, describing ‘‘institutional logics’’ as sets ‘‘of material practices and symbolic constructions’’ that constitute an institutional order’s ‘‘organizing principles’’ and are ‘‘available to organizations and individuals to elaborate.’’ Oakes et al. (1998, p. 263): ‘‘it explicitly recognizes the political dimensions of conflict and provides a means of ‘‘bringing society back in’’ to an analysis of organizational change (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991a; Friedland & Alford, 1991). For example, institutional theory implies that organizations have a material substance that exists separately from organizational practices.’’ Dacin et al. (1999, p. 322): ‘‘[Friedland and Alford] provide conceptual tools to recognize multiple levels of symbolic structures and material practices that contend for dominance in framing and giving orderly meaning to domains of organizational and practical action (see also Heimer, 1996)y. These arguments restore attention to direct and indirect network linkages, local and nonlocal ties, and horizontal and vertical flows of material and symbolic resources in the analysis of organizations and contexts.’’ Thornton and Ocasio (1999, p. 804): ‘‘We define institutional logics as the socially constructed, historical pattern of material practices, assumptions, values, beliefs, and rules by which individuals produce and reproduce their material subsistence, organize time and space, and provide meaning to their social reality (Friedland & Alford, 1991, p. 243; Jackall, 1988, p. 112).’’ Seo and Creed (2002, p. 228): ‘‘Friedland and Alford maintain that the major institutions of contemporary Western society—a capitalist market, the nuclear family, the bureaucratic state, liberal democracy, and Judeo-Christian religious traditions—have mutually interdependent and yet contradictory ‘‘central logics—sets of material practices and symbolic constructions—which constitute their organizing principles and which are available to organizations and individuals to elaborate’’ (1991, p. 256).’’ Alexander (2004, p. 527): ‘‘From its very beginnings, the social study of culture has been polarized between structuralist theories that treat meaning as a text and investigate the patterning that provides relative autonomy and pragmatist theories that treat meaning as emerging from the contingencies of individual and collective action—so-called practices—and that analyze cultural patterns as reflections of power and material interest. In this article, I present a theory of cultural pragmatics that transcends this division, bringing meaning structures, contingency, power, and materiality together in a new way. My argument is that the materiality of practices should be replaced by the more multidimensional concept of performances.’’

that Friedland and Alford’s key insight that practices are anchored materially has not been elaborated in the selected set of articles. Table 4 contains examples of the co-occurrence of ‘‘culture’’ and ‘‘material.’’ We also extracted the co-occurrence of ‘‘material’’ and ‘‘structure,’’ finding that these two words co-occurred in 20 paragraphs of the 2,623 paragraphs in the 16 articles (1%). Most often structure is described as

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distinct from materials and refers to patterned relationships – whether social relations, cognitive thoughts, or organizational roles and units. For example, Thornton and Ocasio (1999) refer to changes in role relations where investment bankers became important advisers to CEOs of publishing companies. Suddaby and Greenwood (2005, p. 60) describe a teleological approach that ‘‘avows a means-end logic in which individuals and social structures move toward the maximization of materialist objectives.’’ Mohr (1998) highlights structure of culture rather than material properties. Scott (1987) points to the similarity in organizational structures of schools and consensus across roles (principals, teachers, or superintendents) regarding curricular material, grading, etc. DiMaggio (1997) refers to cognitive structures, social structures, and material practices. An exception is Haveman and Rao (1997, p. 1621) who connect material to structures, pointing to material as both structures and practices in thrifts: the terminating plan was the material realization of a theory of thrift based on the pillars of mutual cooperation and external control. This plan allowed for no role differentiation between members—all members were both savers and borrowers; all members entered the organization at its founding and left at its dissolution; there was no professional managerial cadre, as ordinary members assumed responsibility for administrative tasks; and all members took the same risks and received the same rewardsy

For many of these scholars, the materiality of structures is the pattern of relations among thoughts, actors, or organizations. As such, materiality seems to be used as a point of connection between (cognitive and social) structure and (patterns of) practice.

Vocabulary of Materials, Practices, and Structure with Exemplars In this section, we focus on exemplars – concrete instantiations of materials, practices, and structures – that authors point to in their text in order to understand what they mean by institutional logic. We start with an examination of the usage of practice in the text and find only a single definition of practice by Townley (2002, p. 167): ‘‘A practice requires a certain kind of relationship between those who participate in it and those who have participated in it, with the recognition that individuals inherit a particular space within an interlocking set of social relationships, and membership of a social group that gives obligations and duties.’’

Thus, practices are the activities associated with specific roles and relationships. In exemplars of practice, we see activities associated with

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specific roles, even if practice is not defined by authors. For instance, Thornton and Ocasio (1999, p. 814) describe how the content of the industry’s publication shifted to match the transformation of CEO’s practices under, respectively, an editorial logic and a market logic: ‘‘Rather than the typical Publishers Weekly (PW) features about new books, authors, and imprints, this newsletter focused on competitive position, ranking publishers by their control of market share, and providing information on acquisition practices as a means to increase market share.’’

Other activities listed as practices included CEOS implementing compensation plans (Zajac & Westphal, 1995), managers crafting and performing evaluations based on business planning criteria (Oakes et al., 1998), or lawyers and accountants executing client services (Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005). The materials are implied in these examples, such as the CEO reading the PW newsletter; however, the material content under the CEO’s control – that of textbooks – is not examined. Thus, we have intimations but little analysis of how the objects and materials underpinned new practices. A few scholars have focused their empirical research on specific material practices, though they did not associate these with material practices of logics but rather mentioned them in passing or specifically related material changes to constructs such as identity or product design. For example, a business planning and market logic directed managers to ‘‘how they can make their exhibits flashier, more interactive, and more accessible to groups with younger demographics and more disposable income’’ (Oakes et al., 1998). A nouvelle cuisine logic highlighted the ingredients in dishes and rules for organizing and serving food, reflecting a new and distinct identity (Rao et al., 2003). Hargadon and Douglas (2001, p. 493) are the most explicit in examining how materials influence institutions, using a technology perspective: Embedded within every technological system is a set of technics—fundamental physical materials, their properties, and the details of their use (Mumford, 1934). For example, coal lies at the core of the system of gas lighting that Edison sought to replace. When heated, coal gives off a flammable gas that burns relatively cleanly and is easily transportable. By 1882, these materials and properties (and others) were embedded in a complex system of gas production, distribution, and use. For Edison to overthrow the existing system of gas lighting, he needed to do more than simply devise a way to produce light that was cleaner, cheaper, and more transportable than gas. He had to overcome the institutions—the existing understandings and patterns of action—that had, over the fifty years of the gas industry’s existence, accreted around these fundamental physical properties and now maintained the stability of the gas system.

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Our findings show that only a handful of seminal studies explicitly mentioned physical materials and even fewer actually analyzed materials. Yet, tangible objects and physical materials are central to institutional logics. We concur with Friedland (2013) who argues that material practices revolve around objects, ‘‘which are the means by which practices are anchored, affected and oriented’’ (Friedland, 2013, p. 37); however, such studies are infrequent and much needed. A key challenge is to overcome the ambiguity associated with the material dimensions of institutional logics, produced by scholars referring to material as cultural resources and symbolic resources as well as objects with physical properties. An important step forward for scholars of institutional logics is to use language and referents that do not conflate practices, structures, and physical objects. We advocate as a first step to examine in more detail how materials – objects and their physical properties – anchor practices and carry ideational dimensions of logics.

BRINGING MATERIAL BACK IN TO INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS: A WAY FORWARD The desire to eschew material or technological determinism is understandable and important (Thornton et al., 2012, p. 5); yet, we must not shy away from trying to specify how materials underpin practices, such as the scalpel a physician wields in surgery or the plane a pilot flies. Further, materials instantiate the ideas or symbolic forms, just as church spire (or its lack) instantiates the ideal relationship between God and humans (Jones & Massa, 2013). When materials change, role relations and practices may change as well (Barley, 1986) and vice versa. By defining material as structure and practices, we may elide unintentionally the material bases not only of institutional logics, but also of materials that can contribute importantly – yet in unrecognized ways – to processes of institutional innovation, institutionalization, and institutional change. For instance, the materially induced dissonance between the Gothic architectural expression of the original Unity Church based on Catholicism and the ideational mindscape of a progressive Unitarian congregation was instrumental in provoking institutional change in church architecture when the congregation opted to construct a radically new kind of church, Unity Temple by Frank Lloyd Wright, that instantiated not only its Christian ideas, but also became an exemplar of modern architecture worldwide (Jones & Massa, 2013).

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With the aim of opening up this potentially important area of institutional inquiry, we point to literatures that connect ideation and materiality and that may provide a path for scholars of institutional logics to incorporate and examine the material within institutional logics. We posit that insights from other disciplines, such as science and technology studies (STS) and material culture from the disciplines of sociology and anthropology, might provide helpful theoretical starting points for exploring the material basis of institutional logics.

Science and Technology Studies (STS) Though some organization scholars propose a dialectic relationship between technology and organizations (Orlikowski, 1992), we posit that scholarly work from STS can offer multiple avenues for institutional logics research to engage with objects and the material world. We concur with Pinch (2008) that the absence of materiality from institutionalism represents a shortcoming that should be addressed. Although some STS approaches have been applied through various facets of the management literature (Czarniawska & Se´von, 1996; D’Adderio, 2011; Hernes, 2010; Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006), relatively little effort has been devoted to integrating insights from STS into institutional theory. We point to three STS theories that could provide particularly fruitful directions for future logics research: the social construction of technology (SCOT), actor-network theory (ANT), and textuality. For a more comprehensive discussion of the intellectual history of STS and for an overview of topics, we direct readers to the Handbook of Science and Technology Studies (Jasanoff, Markle, Petersen, & Pinch, 1995). First, the SCOT literature provides a framework for thinking about how different interests of social groups are reflected in, and contested through, material objects. Building upon the concept of ‘‘interpretative flexibility’’ from the sociology of scientific knowledge (Collins, 1985), SCOT theorists approach technologies as if they ‘‘acquire meanings in the social world and these meanings shape and constrain their development’’ (Pinch, 2008, p. 471). In their discussion of the technological development of the bicycle, Pinch and Bijker (1987) show how the design of the bicycle reflected the available materials in combination with the interests of various actor groups. Ultimately, the use of air in tires provided a material reconciliation of the differing values of safety (a preference of many women) and speed (favored by many young men). Thus, as Pinch and Bijker (1987) highlight,

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material objects are reflections of competing, and sometimes reconciled, values of different social groups. Other SCOT literature explores how expectations of material functionality are socially distributed among different groups. MacKenzie (1990), in his study of nuclear missile guidance technology, found that those closest and farthest from the technology have the highest uncertainty about its function, whereas those in the ‘‘middle’’ do not question their understanding, resulting in low uncertainty. However, this relationship between materiality and certainty of function inverses in moments of crisis. Thus, the SCOT literature offers a framework for studying how distinct social groups may have fundamentally different relations with the same material object as well as how relations vary with contextual dynamics such as stability and/or crisis. For scholarship on institutional logics, the SCOT literature may help connect materiality to social structure and practices as well as to institutionally determined interests within the ideational realm. Second, ANT treats human and nonhuman actors, or actants, symmetrically in their role within a network toward some effect. This symmetry between material objects and individuals has resulted in new conceptions of power, where relationships between actants are examined without preference of human agency (Callon, 1986). Although the analytical possibility of this absolute symmetry has been questioned and explored (Ashmore, 1993), ultimately an ANT approach demonstrates that things, including people and material objects, are both constituted and shaped by their very involvement with each other in a network (Lee & Brown, 1994). One potential research direction for scholars in institutional logics is to approach logics as networks, looking for objects that act as immutable mobiles, which are easy to transport yet maintain some fixity in their meaning (such as maps, graphical depictions of data, and money) and reflect the infrastructure of their networks (Latour, 1987). Additionally, future logics research might explore the implicit value systems that underlie how certain objects function. For example, Latour (1992) questions the morality of a door spring, which reflects some expectation of the speed at which people walk through doors. Although the process of materialization as the objectification of ideas has been explored in institutional theory by Czarniawska and Joerges (1996), institutional logics theorists might extend these insights into the continuing effect of such objects on logics. Finally, another stream of STS literature treats material objects as ‘‘texts’’ with both writers and readers. Woolgar (1991) argues in his ethnographic study of a microcomputer manufacturing company that objects are ‘‘written’’ in such a way, through technological design and advertising

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materials, to configure users, or influence the way in which objects are ‘‘read.’’ Material objects as texts, however, does not necessarily imply an asymmetrical relationship between writers and readers of materials; rather, the way that users engage with materials influences how writers configure such materials (Grint & Woolgar, 1997). Considering material objects as metaphorical texts provides an approach for institutional logics researchers to incorporate both the creators and the users of material objects. It also allows researchers to assess how features of objects might afford certain responses/uses while restricting others, extending the work of Alexander (2004). Further, this approach might also allow future logics research to explore dynamics of relationships between producers and consumers of material objects.

Material Culture Another discipline that has engaged with material objects is material culture within sociology and anthropology. Although anthropologists have typically focused upon the realm of human cultures and social structures, many have engaged with the role that material objects play in creating, facilitating, and reflecting culture and cultural values. For the purposes of institutional logics, we point specifically to theories of exchange and consumption as providing potential avenues for future research. First, studies on the role of material objects in both market and gift exchange have demonstrated the importance of materiality in social value. Malinowski’s (1920) study of the kula exchange among the Trobriand Islands demonstrates the central function that material exchange can play in perpetuating social structures, such as social value accumulation and relationship maintenance. Building upon exchange theory in anthropology, future research on institutional logics might approach objects as social beings with shifting values and contexts (and sometimes inalienable qualities) (Appadurai, 1986) and explore how this may alter, stretch, or identify the boundaries of institutional logics. Additionally, researchers could also follow methodological calls in anthropology for ‘‘follow the thing’’ studies, which involves tracing the movement of objects in society (Marcus, 1995). The social contexts under which material objects are exchanged could provide institutional logics scholars a way of approaching the role of materials in creating and maintaining certain logics such as how concrete was understood and used in France and the United States (Jones & Boxenbaum, 2012).

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Second, the role of consumption provides perspective into the social value and meaning of objects. Although some have suggested that consumption is a mode of communication (Douglas & Isherwood, 2003 [1979]), others claim that objects provide insight into people’s lives (Miller, 2008). However, we might also consider how physicality affects the consumption of ideas. For example, McDonnell’s (2010) study of the interpretation of AIDS campaigns in Ghana reveals obstructed physical displays, and even the ‘‘decaying’’ of materials, which restricts the delivery and subsequent consumption of AIDS knowledge. Therefore, from an institutional logics perspective, both the consumption of material objects and the consumption of information embedded in materiality provide an avenue to understand whether and how logics change compete with one another or become durable through being embedded into practices and structures. As we have discussed, the engagement of STS and material culture literatures with material objects provides paths for scholars of institutional logics to engage with materiality.

CONCLUSION Although institutional logics are recognized as containing both ideational and material components, extant research has been hesitant to address materiality. Our analysis of seminal works on institutional logics reflects this marginal and infrequent reference to the material component of institutional logics. When it is evoked, materiality tends to refer to patterns of practices and social structure. Physical objects are only rarely addressed in empirical research on institutional logics and often emitted from conceptual definitions of materiality. The invisibility of materiality, and particularly of physical objects, presents a weakness of institutional logics research, one that may impede theory development of the multidimensionality of logics. The absence of material objects in our conceptual formulations may impede empirical investigations of how practices and structures become anchored in organizations, which in turn may truncate our understanding of how logics operate across time, space, dimensions, and levels of analysis. Not only should we include material objects more explicitly in institutional logics research, we should also distinguish more clearly among different components of the ‘‘material dimension’’ of logics, notably between physical and cultural elements as well as between practices and objects. In order to move forward the agenda on institutional logics research, we propose to draw insights from other disciplines and theoretical perspectives

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that attend to materiality. We discussed some interesting theoretical perspectives within the disciplines of sociology and anthropology that may prove fruitful in this regard. Within sociology, we highlighted three lines of inquiry within STS, namely SCOT, ANT, and textuality. Within cultural studies, we examined exchange and consumption perspectives. In proposing the integration of insights from these adjacent lines of inquiry, we must be careful to attend to the assumptions of these perspectives. We need to apply them appropriately, extend, and alter the assumptions when necessary as well as craft new theories of materiality, when necessary, to realize the role of materials within institutional logics and how materials shape institutional change and stability. As the inclusion of individuals into institutional theory formulations has demonstrated (e.g., in the literature on institutional entrepreneurship), we may risk assigning more weight than is appropriate to an omitted element. Yet, material objects, when treated carefully and contextually, can open up new insights and stimulate the use of new methodologies, which may propel us forward toward a more comprehensive and dynamic understanding of how institutional logics shape organizational life in a multitude of implicit ways.

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APPENDIX A: 16 ARTICLES WITH VOCABULARY OF ‘‘INSTITUTIONAL LOGIC’’ AND ‘‘MATERIAL,’’ CITING FRIEDLAND AND ALFORD (1991) WITH 200 OR MORE GOOGLE SCHOLAR CITATIONS Full references are available in reference section Alexander (2004) Sociological Theory Dacin, Ventresca, and Beal (1999) Journal of Management DiMaggio (1997) Annual Review of Sociology Green (2004) Academy of Management Review Hargadon and Douglas (2001) Administrative Science Quarterly Haveman and Rao (1997) American Journal of Sociology Lounsbury (2001) Administrative Science Quarterly Mohr (1998) Annual Review of Sociology Oakes et al. (1998) Administrative Science Quarterly Rao et al. (2003) American Journal of Sociology Scott (1987) Administrative Science Quarterly Seo and Creed (2002) Academy of Management Review Suddaby and Greenwood (2005) Administrative Science Quarterly Thornton and Ocasio (1999) American Journal of Sociology Townley (2002) Academy of Management Journal Zajac and Westphal (1995) Administrative Science Quarterly

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APPENDIX B: KEY TERMS FOR COGNITIVE, NORMATIVE, AND MATERIAL DIMENSIONS OF INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS Logic including logics (eliminated logical or referring to deductive analysis) Cognitive: Belief (including beliefs, believes, believed, believing), Cognition (including cognitive, cognitively) Knowledge (including knowing) Meaning (including meanings, meaningful, meaningfully) Schema (including schemes and schemat – all forms i.e., schemata, schematically) Script (including scripts, scripted) Symbol (including symbols, symbolic, symbolically, symbolism) Normative: Culture (including cultures, cultural, culturally) Expectation (including expectations, expected, expect) Moral (including morals, morality) Normative (including norm, norms, normatively) Rule (including rules, ruled, rulelike, rule-like) Value (including values, valued, value-based, valuable) Material: Asset (including assets) Artifact (including artifacts, also checked for artefact, but did not occur) Investment (including investment, invest, investing, invested) Material (including materials, materiality, materially, materialist) Practice (including practices, practiced, practicing) Resource (including resources) Structure (including structures, structured, structural, structurally, structuring) Technology (including technological, technologies)

INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS AND INSTITUTIONAL WORK: SHOULD THEY BE AGREED? Tammar B. Zilber ABSTRACT In this paper, I discuss the possibility of creating a more fruitful conversation between institutional logics and institutional work as two central streams within institutional theory. I begin by situating each of these lines of theorizing within their respective intellectual traditions. I then elaborate on their core arguments alongside their theoretical assumptions. Specifically, I articulate how they each highlight some aspects of institutional dynamics while disregarding or downplaying others. Finally, I point to some similarities, differences, and possible analytic division of labor between them. I conclude by arguing that the tension between institutional logics and institutional work, as two frameworks for conceptualizing and exploring institutional dynamics, is the most recent incarnation of a long series of theoretical conundrums within neo-institutionalism, each triggering deep and ongoing discussions that enriched our thinking. As such, this tension is welcome and important, as long as each stream is able to define its own boundaries. Keywords: Institutional logics; institutional work

Institutional Logics in Action, Part A Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 39A, 77–96 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X(2013)0039A&B007

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Of late, the conversation in institutional theory is dominated by two schools of thought, institutional logics and institutional work. As two frameworks for conceptualizing and exploring institutional dynamics, both schools are championed by creative and prolific scholars who also master ‘‘academic entrepreneurship.’’ They have organized Professional Development Workshops and sessions in the Academy of Management Annual Meetings, converted streams at the annual meetings of the European Group for Organizational Studies, and arranged thematic conferences (e.g., Conference on institutions and work, held in Vancouver 2010; Conference on institutions and inequality, to be held in Vancouver 2013; ABC network conference on institutional logics, held in Banff, 2012). Scholars from both schools also edited special issues (Lawrence, Zilber, & Leca, 2013) and wrote up books and edited volumes (Lawrence, Suddaby, & Leca, 2009; Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012; and this volume of Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Lounsbury & Boxenbaum, 2013). In the parlance of institutional theory, scholars of each of these streams offer a specific institutionalized discourse, and a variety of opportunities to produce, disseminate, and consume texts that support this discourse (Phillips, Lawrence, & Hardy, 2004), and take part in the conversation that constitute our field (Hoffman, 1999). Taking a constructivist approach (Guba & Lincoln, 1994; Lincoln, Lynham, & Guba, 2011), this rich and ongoing theorizing, research, and academic activity, I argue, is not to be evaluated by the ‘‘truth value’’ of the different perspectives. Like other theories, approaches, and schools within our discipline, institutional theory is a ‘‘socially constructed truth’’ (Astley, 1985). There are neither institutional logics out there in the world, which we are trying to capture and explain, nor is there any institutional work. Rather these are analytical perspectives that allow scholars to perceive and discuss certain phenomena. And while at this, there are no institutions in reality. ‘‘Institutions,’’ ‘‘institutionalization,’’ ‘‘institutional logics,’’ and ‘‘institutional work’’ are but scholars’ modest attempts to organize and interpret some complex, ambiguous, and evolving events, actions, meanings, and experiences in our enacted world (Smircich & Stubbart, 1985). Institutional logics and institutional work are two conceptualizations that are deployed to instill some order in the world of organizations and their environments. To put it differently, rather than trying to assess who is right and who is wrong, it is their ‘‘narrative value’’ (Spence, 1984) – their ability to help us make sense – that I am trying to articulate in this paper. Specifically, my aim is to highlight the added value of these two perspectives or lenses for thinking about what we call ‘‘institutions.’’ I begin

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by situating each approach within its intellectual tradition. I then move to discuss their basic positions by analyzing their core arguments and theoretical assumptions. As theories are ways of seeing, highlighting some aspects but disregarding others (Morgan, 1986), it is also worth discussing the blind spots of each of these streams. Finally, in hope of fostering a fruitful discussion among these schools of thought, I point to some of their differences and similarities, and offer a possible division of analytic labor between them.

INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS The concept of ‘‘institutional logics’’ was put forth by Friedland and Alford (1991) in the ‘‘orange book’’ (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991), but it was picked up only later by Thornton and Ocasio (1999). Subsequently, it took off as a major research stream in the mid-2000s (see Fig. 1). Recently, scholars of institutional logics offer a comprehensive attempt to ‘‘analyze, synthesize, differentiate, and further develop theoretical and methodological tools for 45 40

Number of publications

35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 1993 1997 1998 1999 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 Publication year

Fig. 1. Publications Using the Term ‘‘Institutional Logics.’’ Source: Based on a search in Web of Knowledge, Social Science Citation Index, using the search keywords ‘‘institutional logic’’ or ‘‘institutional logics’’, December 16, 2012. Records include articles (177), reviews (16), proceedings papers (12), book reviews (7), editorial material (2), and book papers (1).

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the progressive development of the perspective’’ (Thornton et al., 2012, p. 4). Thornton and Ocasio (2008) and especially Thornton et al. (2012) offer rich, sophisticated conceptualizations of the institutional logics perspective, extend its theoretical wings, and chart new avenues for future research. At times, they also highlight what they see as imprecision and misunderstandings in the use of the concept. Thornton et al. (2012) clear vision for the institutional logics perspective, and their effort to infuse it with order and coherence resonates well with its core argument, which underscores the power of logics that govern the understandings and behaviors of individual and collective actors within a particular institutional sector. Thornton and Ocasio (2008) and Thornton et al. (2012) ground their institutional logics perspective within a wide intellectual terrain. They revisit conversations about the agency-structure balance (Giddens, 1984), the cultural values versus culture as tool kit issue (Swidler, 1986), and the emphasis on cognition in cultural processes (DiMaggio, 1997). Further, they chart a route connecting the structural approach to institutions, as espoused by Meyer and Rowan (1977) and DiMaggio and Powell (1983), together with the micro approache to institutions as articulated by Zucker (1977). They further develop the genealogy of their approach by marking Friedland and Alford’s (1991) model of the interrelations between individuals, organizations, and society as the cornerstone of their institutional logics approach. Building on these foundations, and working their way through a vibrant intellectual discussion of ‘‘logics of action’’ – including earlier conceptualizations by Fligstein (1990), DiMaggio (1991), and Boltanski and Thevenot (1991) – Thornton and Ocasio (1999, p. 804) define institutional logics as ‘‘the socially constructed, historical patterns of material practices, assumptions, values, beliefs, and rules by which individuals produce and reproduce their material subsistence, organize time, and space, and provide meaning to their social reality.’’ This definition reflects four key principles of the institutional logics perspective: (1) striving to integrate agency and structure; (2) and the material with the symbolic; (3) paying attention to historical contingency of institutions; and (4) following institutions across diverse social levels. One element not explicitly stated in the definition but is key to the institutional logics perspective is the argument that there are multiple institutional logics, each governing different societal sectors. The institutional logics perspective also presupposes the possibility of individuals and organizations caught up between different sectors and having to wrestle with different, even contradictory, logics (Greenwood, Raynard, Kodeih, Micelotta, & Lounsbury, 2011). While there are various sectors and various institutional logics that

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govern them, their number is not infinite, and for the time being they are determined a priori by the conceptual framework rather than emerge from empirical data. Friedland and Alford (1991) suggested five such institutional sectors (the capitalist market, bureaucratic state, democracy, nuclear family, and Christian religion), Thornton (2004) suggested six (markets, states, corporations, professions, families, and religions), and Thornton et al. (2012, pp. 68–72) added a seventh (community logic). As is clear from Fig. 1, the institutional logics perspective struck a chord with scholars of institutions, and the rich stream of research that followed yielded many insights, and contributed much to our understanding of institutional processes (for reviews, see Thornton & Ocasio, 2008; Thornton et al., 2012). Still, like all theories (Morgan, 1986), the institutional logics perspective has been highlighting some aspects of institutions while ignoring or downplaying others. I discuss here three such shortcomings: its treatment of the micro-level dynamics of institutions, social action, and meanings. All these are, I believe, imprints of its basic ontological and epistemological stands. While the institutional logics perspective spans diverse levels of analysis, it is the organizational field level that has been most studied (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008), with scant studies of the organizational level. Even recent studies of institutional complexity focused on how organizations respond to change in field-level institutional logics, rather than on the internal dynamics that underlie these responses (see Greenwood et al., 2011). True, recent conceptual developments within the institutional logics approach zoom in to the micro level. Pache and Santos (2010), for example, offer a model of organizational responses to conflicting institutional demands, logics included, which takes into account political dynamics within the responding organization. Further, Thornton et al. (2012, especially Chapter 6) modeled the mechanisms by which logics shape individual and organizational behavior, including collective identity and identification, political struggles, and categorization and classifications. They also explore how individuals and organizations can change logics through entrepreneurship. However, empirical studies are yet to fully build on these conceptualizations and operationalize them in a way that will shed light on the micro-foundations of institutional logics. Moreover, most studies within the institutional logics perspective are based on indirect measures (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008, p. 121), from afar, and have much of the social dynamics involved as a closed, black box. Scholars of institutional logics exert categories from written texts (Mohr & Duquenne, 1997), and they use proxies of identification and of political

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contestations as indicators of the socially constructed pattern they seek for. For instance, they use political structures as proxy of contestation over status and power (Thornton & Ocasio, 1999). Accordingly, we know little about the ways institutional logics are worked out on the ground, in day-today behaviors and experiences of actors. This distance of institutional logics studies from day-to-day experiences and behavior is also connected to its treatment of meanings. The institutional logics perspective takes into account both the material and the ideational. Still, organizational-level structures and practices get precedent over actors’ ideas, understandings, and interpretations. The primacy of the material over the symbolic in institutional logics thinking may have to do with the basic assumption that the material and the symbolic can be treated separately; that the material is somehow more ‘‘real’’ than the ‘‘symbolic,’’ and consequently that scholars should strive to ‘‘partition symbolic from structural effects’’ (Thornton et al., 2012, p. 11). Most empirical studies within the institutional logics school focus on structures and practices, thus relegating the analysis of meanings to the background. In most cases, the meaningful worlds of particular institutional logics are addressed as part of the ‘‘background’’ of the study and outline as its ‘‘context.’’ The content of institutional logics is not part and parcel of the empirical inquiry and its theorizing as such. They are usually derived on the basis of authors’ knowledge of a relevant academic literature. Take, for example, Goodrick and Reay’s (2011) study of the interrelations between multiple institutional logics and professional work of pharmacists. The researchers’ account of four ideal types of institutional logics, which precedes their empirical analysis, is provided based on the authors’ ‘‘knowledge of the institutional and professions literature’’ (p. 378). The empirical investigation centers on structures and practices that embody – according to the researchers – the institutional logics in each case. Further, as most studies of institutional logics aim at charting dynamics over a long period of time, they are inevitably based on archival materials. This is so in earlier works (e.g., Mohr & Duquenne, 1997) and continues on in more recent research projects (e.g., Goodrick & Reay, 2011). The use of archival data is of course illuminating in demonstrating institutional dynamics throughout the years. Archival-based studies of institutional logics are very sophisticated in analyzing texts and connecting linguistic characteristics thereof to organizational structures and practices. But they also may result in what Gioia, Thomas, Clark & Chittipeddi (1994) termed an ‘‘arrogant stance’’ (p. 377) – discounting first-hand experiences of actors in the field while favoring theory-based interpretations of the

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researchers. Moreover, the study of meanings based on archival data also tend to result in treating meaning as fixed and given (at least in a specific period of time), and rendering the social action of texts quite hidden. The social activity related to those texts – how meanings were produced and negotiated, how meanings are part of social actions, and how they are used by social actors (Ahearn, 2012) – these issues are hardly explored. Texts, however, ‘‘do not just describe things; they do things’’ (Potter & Wetherell, 1987, p. 6). Relying only on archival texts which are but ‘‘sedimentations’’ (Ventresca & Mohr, 2002) of field or organizational level action, we still do not know enough how abstract logics are negotiated (articulated, debated, censored, erased, rewritten), and how they become materialized and turn into social reality in everyday life. How precisely are categories connected up with practices? How exactly do institutional logics shape up political conflicts? How do new categories or classification systems come to be when institutional logics are in conflict or change? Put differently, common paradigmatic assumptions and methodological choices within the institutional logics perspective allow scholars to explore the interrelations between institutional logics and practices and structures, and their dynamics over time. The same choices, however, also limit their ability to attend to the micro-foundations of institutional logics (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008, p. 120). Furthermore, these methodological preferences hardly allow for exploring meanings and practices as dynamic and contested social phenomena. No less important, when institutional logics researchers downplay the mutual constitution of the material and the symbolic, they also reject the possibility of following how institutions change while being institutionalized in new spaces. Specifically, not following the dynamic of meanings and interpretations misses the complicated processes of translation and adaptation that accompany any local use of higher order material and symbolic building blocks (Czarniawska & Joerges, 1996; Sahlin-Andersson, 1996). If we are to take meanings more seriously, we need to acknowledge that even if we accept that there are a limited array of institutional sectors and their logics, those logics, once ‘‘on the ground,’’ go through various interpretive transformations. While Thornton, Ocasio, and Lounsbury relate this to the issue of change in fieldlevel institutional logics (2012, pp. 161–169), their typology of change attributes it to either external or internal ‘‘causes.’’ They thus relate to meanings once again as a ‘‘black box,’’ ignoring change as an ongoing, ever present process, stemming from actors’ sense-making and interpretations. The kind of change that theories focusing on the ideational assume – be it

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discourse (Phillips et al., 2004) or translation (Sahlin & Wedlin, 2008) – remains thus under the radar of institutional logics inquiries. These emphases of the institutional logics perspective may in themselves be understood in terms of the core arguments of institutional theory. The focus on long-term, macro, and material effects reflects the logical-positivist and post-positivist paradigms dominant and institutionalized (taken for granted) in organizational studies for many decades now (Bluhm, Harman, Lee, & Mitchell, 2011; Bort & Kieser, 2011). To fully appreciate the social action by which institutional logics are constructed, interpreted, and put to use, we need to strike a different balance between the original postpositivistic paradigm that dominates the institutional logics thinking and constructionist approaches. According to a post-positivistic paradigmatic stand, complex social dynamics should and can be analytically reduced to finding causal connections between phenomena rather than exploring the social textures and dynamics of these phenomena. Social reality should be analyzed by operationalizing it into sets of statistically correlated independent and dependent variables, discovering and representing finding about cause and effect relations between them (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). A constructivist approach, by contrast, focuses on how social reality – institutional logics included – is constructed, by whom, and what are the social practices involved (Guba & Lincoln, 1994; Lincoln et al., 2011). A constructivist approach is thus keen to the formation of meanings and to the ‘‘work in progress’’ of the institutional order (DiMaggio, 1988). What is lost by not providing a causal model is gained by offering an analysis of the rich social dynamics and the detailed actions that are carried out in light – and through the use – of institutional logics. What we need to develop then is a constructivist approach that relates to both the symbolic and the material, and their interrelations. Such perspective would accept the complexity of social processes and our inability to chart at times clear cause and effect relations for social phenomena that are often caught up within a ‘‘hermeneutical circle.’’ The alternative to the cause/effect account would thus be an interpretation of the dynamics of meanings and practices of and within the institutional order. It is thus not enough to use qualitative data while analyzing it still from a post-positivistic approach alone. In particular, to understand the meaningful aspects of institutional logics, as operated and used in the individual, organizational, field, and society at large, we need a conceptualization that more fully appreciates meanings (and materials) as socially constructed. The qualitative methods that allow for analyzing such social action – like participant observation, interviewing, writing up an ethnography, and

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methods based on a practice perspective (Jarzabkowski & Spee, 2009) – tend to focus on the here and now. When used as the only methods at hand, they hardly capture longitudinal, historical processes and effects. A fruitful research may be formed when the institutional logics perspective is supplemented by an emphasis on a close inquiries into the social action related to such logics. The widening of research methods is in particular a main source of new theoretical insights. Hence, as recent studies show, when scholars of institutional logics add interviews and observational data to archival data, they shed new light on the processes that underlie the work of institutional logics – the ways competing logics are managed (Reay & Hinings, 2009) or interrelate with organizational identity to create hybrid organizational forms (Battilana & Dorado, 2010); the mundane work at the organizational level that undergirds field-level change in institutional logics (Smets, Morris, & Greenwood, 2012); the way identity work mediates the translation and reproduction of institutional logics (Lok, 2010); the institutional entrepreneurship involved in adapting institutional logics to support the creation of new organizational forms (Tracey, Phillips, & Jarvis, 2011); and the work that underlies the constructions and resolution of institutional complexity (Smets & Jarzabkowski, forthcoming). In articulating their explorations into the micro-foundations of institutional logics, Lok (2010), Tracey et al. (2011), and Smets and Jarzabkowski (forthcoming) explicitly build on the conceptualization of institutional work (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006) – to which I turn now.

INSTITUTIONAL WORK Institutional work emphasizes the ongoing labor that takes place on the ground, and dedicated to creating, maintaining, and changing institutions. Theorizing institutional work developed bottom-up. The concept itself was coined in a 2006 review paper in which Lawrence and Suddaby (2006) gathered different articles published since 1990 in three organizational theory outlets – Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal and Organization Studies1 – analyzing them all under a coherent conceptual umbrella they termed ‘‘institutional work.’’ Lawrence and Suddaby (2006) refer explicitly to the emergent quality of their project. In their 2006 paper, they wrote: ‘‘Our intention is not to conduct an exhaustive overview, nor to provide a definitive schema of institutional work. Rather, our objective is to reveal and illustrate the sediment of institutional work in the existing literature and, thereby, outline the terrain of an emerging object

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of institutional inquiry’’ (p. 220). By giving name to an ever growing salient trend in the neo-institutionalism literature, and by suggesting a distinction between three kinds of institutional work, Lawrence and Suddaby (2006) offered a vocabulary that can be used to enhance and substantiate this approach. Later, in the introduction to their edited volume (Lawrence, Suddaby, & Leca, 2009), they further articulate how their argument has been emerging: ‘‘In first proposing the concept [y], our primary goal was to develop an inductive, empirically grounded understanding of the terrain that might be mapped using the concept of institutional work. With that accomplishment, we now turn to developing a more systematic, theoretical exploration, in order to provide a more nuanced and detailed description of the concept’’ (pp. 2, 3). As part of this expanding analysis, the volume is composed of theoretical and empirical explorations. The editors further point out that the various papers include ‘‘both considerable agreement and significant conflict especially with respect to the term’s conceptual boundaries’’ (Lawrence et al., 2009, p. 2). While taking an inductive approach, developing the concept of institutional work based on a review of existing empirical studies of institutional dynamics, Lawrence and Suddaby (2006) also chart the theoretical foundations of their conceptualization. They point to two streams of thought that inspired them. One, within institutional theory, connects DiMaggio’s (1988) essay on interest and agency in institutional dynamics and Oliver’s discussions of strategic organizational responses to institutional pressures (1991) and de-institutionalization (1992) as key articles that signaled, and introduced an interest in the ‘‘impact of individuals and collective actors on the institutions that regulate the fields in which they operate’’ (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006, p. 218). The second is the tradition of the sociology of practice, especially taken up from Bourdieu (1977, 1993), de Certeau (1984), and Giddens (1984). Based on these two traditions, Lawrence and Suddaby (2006) developed the notion of institutional work as ‘‘the purposive action of individuals and organizations aimed at creating, maintaining and disrupting institutions’’ (p. 215). This definition highlights three key elements: (1) the role of institutional actors as purposeful, skilled, and reflexive agents; (2) a focus on social action – variety of practices – as the main medium of institutions; and (3) an effort to capture both agency and structure, and their interrelations (in ways similar to, yet different than, the institutional logics perspective). The concept of institutional work presupposes the dynamic and ongoing nature of institutions, highlighting not only ‘‘heroic’’ creations of institutional orders but also the ‘‘nearly invisible and often mundane’’ actions involved in

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the creation, maintenance, or change of institutions (Lawrence et al., 2009, p. 1). The emphasis on both agency and structure means that institutional work involves a movement between actions as constituting institutions and being constituted by them. Indeed the actions carried out by individuals and groups should be analyzed in relation to the institutional order that governs them (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006, p. 220). The institutional work approach is newer than the institutional logics perspective, and yet, as can be seen from Fig. 2, it has captured more interest recently. Still, like all theories, it has its shortcomings (Morgan, 1986). Central to the notion of institutional work are the intentions of actors on the one hand and the consequences of their work on the other. Intentions and anticipated teleological consequences are what turn, analytically, a random physical movement (made by humans or animals) into an ‘‘act.’’ Methodologically, however, following intentions and consequences in the study of institutional work is somewhat problematic. To begin with, finding out the intentions of an actor can be challenging. Actors are not always aware of their intentions, or may have one intention but act in a way that does not serve these claimed intentions, or even contradict them. Simply building on actors’ explicit, conscious reporting of their intentions – whether in textual or oral reflection upon their work, naturally occurring, or within an interview setting – is also problematic. If we take a social constructionist approach seriously, these reflections by actors change with time, audience, and interests (Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach, & Zilber, 1998; Zilber, TuvalMashiach, & Lieblich, 2008). Actors’ accounts of their intentions cannot be taken then on face value and cannot serve as an absolute anchor point in regard to the intentions embodied in particular actions.

Number of publications

20 15 10 5 0 2008

2009

2010

2011

Year of publication

Fig. 2. Publications Using the Term ‘‘Institutional Work.’’ Source: Based on a search in Web of Knowledge, Social Science Citation Index, using the search keyword ‘‘institutional work’’, December 16, 2012.

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Further, Lawrence and Suddaby (2006) define acts of institutional work by way of their consequences – the threefold categorization of creating, changing, or maintaining institutions. While this categorization stemmed from their review of existing literature, and is productive in ordering a variety of publications into a coherent stream, it is problematic both conceptually and given a tension between the methodology best fitting the study of institutional work and the actual methodological preferences in the field of organizational studies. Conceptually, as Lawrence and Suddaby acknowledge, actions may have unintended consequences, not always leading then to intended or desired outcomes (2006, p. 219). Moreover, institutional work is precisely ‘‘about action, not outcomes [y] People are constantly doing things to build, sustain, and tear down institutions, and we should be interested in their actions, rather than in whether they succeed’’ (Dobbin, 2010, p. 673). Furthermore, methodologically, tying institutional actions with their consequences require a retrospective research design. Institutional creation and change are slow and long processes, and so to evaluate whether or not the work in question maintained, changed, or created new institutions, scholars need to have a longitudinal perspective in regard to the institution in hand. But such longitudinal explorations, usually based on archival data, may not allow for the focus on social action. To make things even more complicated, a focus on the here and now, and on the constitutive power of practices, may not fit too well with the mainstream, post-positivistic, thinking in the discipline of organizational studies, and may be ill-judged by readers and reviewers (Feldman & Orlikowski, 2011, p. 1249). Given the strong imprint of the threefold categorization of institutional work and the methodological preferences of our field, it is not surprising that although Lawrence and Suddaby (2006) stress the practice base of their conceptualization of institutional work, we are yet to see works that focus on the more immediate ongoing, messy institutional work at the stage in which no one knows – neither the actors nor the researcher – whether these actions would result in maintaining, creating, or changing the institutional order. The treatment of subject position and social resources necessary for institutional work exemplifies some of the problems discussed above. In order to employ institutional work and succeed at it, actors need to occupy enabling positions, and have skills and resources (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006, p. 228). Studies of institutional work tend to treat such positions and resources as objective and given, that is as a property that actors either have or lack. In articulating the characteristics of subject positions and resources as indicators of anticipated success/failure, scholars pointed to

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field, organizational and individual level conditions (Battilana & D’Aunno, 2009), the political order (Goodstein & Velamuri, 2009), social positioning like being outsiders or insiders (Maguire & Hardy, 2009), and the specific capacities of actors (Zietsma & Lawrence, 2010). The practice and constructivist traditions, however, teach us that a resource is not ‘‘a thing or quality that either is, by nature, a resource or has become a resource.’’ Rather, ‘‘a resource is defined not by what it is, but by the practices through which it is enacted as a resource’’ (Feldman & Orlikowski, 2011, p. 1249). A resource is thus in itself part of institutional work and should be explored as such. Scholars thus need to develop strategic research designs and ways of analysis that would allow capturing the social construction of merit, resource, and subject position. The emphasis on institutional work has drawn new attention to the role of actors in institutional processes. To appreciate the creativity actors use in constructing their positions and resources (again as part of their institutional work), we need to think of actors, actions, and the institutional contexts within which institutional work is carried out. An institutional context determines ‘‘what types of actors can exist as well as what they can do’’ (Hwang & Colyvas, 2011, p. 64), but actors may also construct this context. Still, paying attention to both actors and their context is easier said (or easier conceptualized) than empirically done (investigated; for rare exceptions, see Goodrick & Reay, 2010; Zilber, 2009).

SHOULD THEY BE AGREED? Institutional logics and institutional work are two current streams within institutional theory, each developed within a distinct tradition and with its own trajectory. Both approaches strive to bridge the tension between structure and agency that undergirds the development of neo-institutional theory for decades now (Greenwood, Oliver, Shalin, & Suddaby, 2008). While previous conceptualizations emphasized either the deterministic effects of structure or the seemingly unrestricted power of institutional entrepreneurs to manipulate that structure (Lawrence et al., 2009), both institutional logics and institutional work perspectives attempt to strike a better balance between the two poles. Until recently most studies of institutional logics focus on macro-level process. This may start changing with the new conceptualizations offered by Thornton et al. (2012). Institutional work is more akin to examining the minutes and the details of institutional practices, meanings, and structures – the micro-level

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foundations of institutions. Furthermore, these approaches can be seen as each emphasizing different aspects of institutions. While institutional logics is more interested in the broad building block of institutions, examining in particular structures (including the structure of meanings and organizational practices), institutional work is more tuned to examining micropractices (though mainly discursive). These differences between institutional logics and institutional work – and this multiplicity of approaches within institutional theory – can turn out, I argue, to be productive. Our discipline has gone through a few cycles of a ‘‘multiple paradigms’’ debate in which scholars allied around two main arguments. On one side, some scholars called for the integration of different theoretical stands into a consensual, coherent conceptualization that will allow the field to further develop (Glick, Miller, & Cardinal, 2007; McKinley, 2007; McKinley & Mone, 1998; Meckler & Baillie, 2003; Pfeffer, 1993, 1995, 2007; Scherer & Steinmann, 1999). Others were critical of this effort to push organizational researchers to join ‘‘hands in the singing of ‘Kum Ba Ya’’’ (Lounsbury, 2003, p. 293). They hold that multiplicity, differentiation, and even conflicts between different theoretical approaches enrich our theoretical insights (Cannella & Paetzold, 1994; Kaghan & Phillips, 1998; Lounsbury, 2003; Perrow, 1994; Schultz & Hatch, 1996; Van Maanen, 1995a, 1995b).2 The tension between institutional logics (Thornton et al., 2012) and institutional work (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006; Lawrence et al., 2009) may be seen as the most recent incarnation of a long series of theoretical conundrums within neo-institutionalism, each igniting deep and ongoing discussions that pushed the theory forward (Greenwood et al., 2008), among them are diffusion versus translation (Zilber, 2008), stability versus change (Dacin, Goodstein, & Scott, 2002), structure versus agency (the paradox of embedded agency; Battilana & D’Aunno, 2009), and the heroic institutional entrepreneur versus the cultural dope (Garud, Hardy, & Maguire, 2007). Such debates within institutional theory may be even more important given the dominance of this theory within organization theory more generally (Greenwood et al., 2008). One characteristic that both streams share seems to be an obstacle to such a lively discussion among them: They both attempt, each in its own distinct way, to fully bridge some of the internal tensions within institutional theory, and offer a more complex and balanced view of institutional processes. Such attempts at creating a far-reaching theoretical tent are admirable in terms of the richness and depths of the intellectual skill. But at times it seems as if each school sees itself as sufficient to colonize the field and to allow scholars to

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inquire fruitfully into the entire gamut of issues covered by institutional theory. The institutional logics approach (especially its articulation by Thornton et al., 2012) seems to attempt to cover all levels of analysis, including all cross-level effects. Scholars of the institutional work perspective (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006; Lawrence, Suddaby, & Leca, 2011), on their part, seem to assume that every act within the constituency of institutions is institutional work. But if every such act is ‘‘institutional work’’ – what is unique about institutional work that distinguishes it from all actions that do not qualify? Likewise, if everything can be explained within the framework of institutional logics, what is its specificity? Each of these approaches needs, I believe, to pay more attention to its scope, to its boundary conditions, and its demarcation. Each approach should thus try to state what is not included in its terrain of explorations. Each approach should be accompanied with the epistemological account of its partiality. Once we clarify these boundaries and deepen our understanding of the differences between these approaches, a space of possibilities for a fruitful dialogue can be opened. Each perspective has much to gain by developing its core arguments vis-a`vis the other. As a community of scholars, I suggest, we will be better off treating institutional logics and institutional work as a figure and ground. Instead of trying to integrate them into one, it will be more generative (Gergen, 1978) to master our ability to change our theoretical lens between them (Morgan, 1986) – at times treating institutional logics as our focal point, and relegating institutional work to the background, whereas other times treating institutional work as the figure, and institutional logics as the ground. If we follow a constructionist view, not only ontologically (what is there in the world) but epistemologically as well (our own processes of creating knowledge; see Gioia, 2003), we could better acknowledge that none of these conceptualization can be truer than the other. It is their generative value that we should evaluate, and in that sense the two are better than one.

NOTES 1. This elitist approach is worth noting. 2. It is interesting to note, apropos the social construction of scientific knowledge, that each of these cycles of debates was hosted in a different yet central outlet in the field, among them Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management Inquiry, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Organization, Organization Science, and Organization Studies.

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INSTITUTIONAL LOGIC PROCESSES

A TALE OF TWO COUNTRIES: HOW DIFFERENT CONSTELLATIONS OF LOGICS IMPACT ACTION Susanne Boch Waldorff, Trish Reay and Elizabeth Goodrick ABSTRACT We build on the concept of ‘‘constellations of logics’’ (Goodrick & Reay, 2011) to further our understanding of the relationship between institutional logics and action. We do so through a comparative case study of similar primary health care initiatives in Denmark and Canada. We draw on micro- and macro-level data to show how both the arrangement and relationship among logics impacted the design and accomplishment of the initiatives in each country. Based on our data, we theorize five different mechanisms through which logics can simultaneously constrain and enable action. Keywords: Institutional logics; institutional complexity; practice How do institutional logics impact action? Studies have shown that institutional logics guide behavior, maintaining consistency and resilience within a field (Scott, 2008). As institutional researchers became more interested Institutional Logics in Action, Part A Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 39A, 99–129 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X(2013)0039A&B008

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in change, they began to draw on the concept of institutional logics to understand the behavior of macro- and micro-level actors as agents of change (Purdy & Gray, 2009; Reay & Hinings, 2009; Smets, Morris, & Greenwood, 2012). However, even though there are a continually growing number of studies drawing on the concept of institutional logics, we have yet to understand how actions can both be constrained by institutional pressures and yet at the same time facilitated. Recent work provides a promising new approach to understanding action within institutionalized settings by highlighting ‘‘avenues for partial autonomy’’ as an explanation of how institutions both constrain and enable action (Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012, p. 7). In this study, we draw on the concept of constellations of logics (Goodrick & Reay, 2011) and Thornton et al.’s (2012) idea that institutional logics can explain the partial autonomy of actors from social structure to further examine the relationship between institutional logics and action. We do this through the analysis of comparative data in two countries, Denmark and Canada, where a similar policy initiative was developed in response to similar deep-rooted health care problems. In both settings, as well as in health systems worldwide, the management of an escalating number of patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes and chronic lung disease presents a daunting challenge. While the initiatives were similar in intent, we show that differences in the arrangement and relationships among logics in each country impacted the design and accomplishment of a primary health care initiative. While earlier literature on institutional logics was focused on understanding a dominant logic that guided actors within a field (e.g., Goodrick, 2002; Lounsbury, 2002; Scott, Ruef, Mendel, & Caronna, 2000; Thornton, 2002; Thornton & Ocasio, 1999), more current research recognizes that multiple logics can coexist in organizational fields (e.g., Greenwood, Diaz, Li, & Lorente, 2010; Lounsbury, 2007; Purdy & Gray, 2009; Reay & Hinings, 2009). Still, almost all studies have focused on only two logics, and have assumed that they are inherently incompatible (Greenwood, Raynard, Kodeih, Micelotta, & Lounsbury, 2011). In response, Goodrick and Reay (2011) developed the term ‘‘constellations of logics’’ to draw attention to the arrangement of multiple logics (more than two) in a field, and the relationships among these logics. Although a few studies hint at a relationship among logics that is not necessarily competitive (e.g., Greenwood et al., 2010), Goodrick and Reay (2011) identified and explicitly described cooperative as well as competitive relationships. While competitive relations among logics imply

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that strengthening one logic necessarily results in weakening another logic, cooperative relationships imply that alternative logics can jointly influence practice and that strengthening one logic may even result in strengthening another logic. Thus, the importance of cooperative as well as competitive relationships is critical to consider in attempting to understand how change occurs, or how stability is maintained. In this study, we draw on a combination of interview and archival data to consider how constellations of logics impact action by both constraining and enabling change. We are able to show how differences in the constellations shaped the primary health care initiative differently in Canada and Denmark. We also show how in the two countries actors at the micro-level interpreted the initiative and took action differently. We do so by considering the existence and interplay of institutional logics and actions as reported in documents and by individuals at the front line. Our approach allows us to advance previous theoretical conceptualizations that have tended to overlook the micro-foundations of action by focusing on the field or organizational level.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND The concept of institutional logics was introduced into institutional theory by Friedland and Alford (1991) who conceptualized society as an interinstitutional system with distinct logics associated with different societal sectors. Institutional logics are values and beliefs that are reflected in actor behavior which are associated with ‘‘a set of material practices and symbolic constructions,’’ that enable and constrain the behavioral repertoire of social actors (1991, p. 248). Logics shape action because they represent sets of expectations for social relations and behavior (Goodrick & Reay, 2011). These concepts are fundamental to research conducted within an institutional logics perspective that views individual and organizational behavior as situated in an institutional context which both regulates behavior and provides opportunities for agency and change (Thornton et al., 2012). Even though the foundational work of Friedland and Alford (1991) recognized the coexistence of multiple logics at a societal level, early studies of institutional logics emphasized a single dominant field level logic and its effects on organizations. The concept of a dominant logic provided a basis for predictability and order in organizational action (Cappellaro, 2012; Thornton, 2004) and consequently logics and practices were linked together. This linkage of logics with practices was demonstrated by documenting

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shifts in the dominant field level logic and showing corresponding shifts in practices (e.g., Goodrick, 2002; Lounsbury, 2002; Scott et al., 2000; Thornton, 2002; Thornton & Ocasio, 1999). For example, Thornton and Ocasio (1999) showed how a shift from an editorial to market logic in higher education publishing led to changes in executive succession practices. Similarly, Goodrick (2002) documented a shift from a vocational to a scientific logic in management education and a corresponding rise in empirical research. Underlying this approach is the assumption that logics compete with each other for dominance and that consequently organizational practices within a field change to reflect the currently dominant logic. In the past decade there has been growing recognition that multiple logics can coexist in a field. Hoffman (1999) advanced the idea of plurality by identifying the coexistence of multiple logics during a protracted transition from one dominant logic to the next. Other studies showed that during such a transition, the competing logics are associated with a battlefield mentality or uneasy truce that persists for some time (e.g., Hensman, 2003; Reay & Hinings, 2005). However, these studies suggested that tension between coexisting logics could not be sustained in the long run; one logic should ultimately win out, becoming the new dominant institutional logic. Of particular theoretical interest, is the attention these studies focused on the transition period when multiple coexisting logics were examined based on both symbolic constructions and material practices. In other words, the impact of multiple logics on action was seen through the existence of practices consistent with each of the competing logics. More recently scholars have further advanced this concept by suggesting that multiple logics can characterize established organizational fields as opposed to reflecting a temporary state (e.g., Goodrick & Reay, 2011; Greenwood et al., 2010, 2011; Lounsbury, 2007; Reay & Hinings, 2009; Waldorff & Greenwood, 2011). By recognizing the existence of multiple logics, the question of relationships among logics comes to the fore. The importance of these relationships is apparent in studies attempting to understand how change occurs (action), or how stability is maintained (Thornton et al., 2012). However, there has been little attention to the relationships themselves. Almost all studies to date have focused on two coexisting logics and assumed that logics are inherently competitive (Greenwood et al., 2011). This means that even though logics are recognized as coexisting in a more permanent relationship, the consequence of their competitiveness is that practices are aligned with one, but not both of the relevant logics. Other studies have focused on how partitioning (dividing up) the field facilitates the ongoing coexistence of competitive logics. Scholars have

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found that different logics are associated with different types of actors, geographical communities, and organizations (Goodrick & Reay, 2011). For example, Reay and Hinings (2009) found that the influence of logics was segmented according to different types of actors; physicians were guided by the professional logic while health care managers were guided by a corporate logic. Others have shown how logics can be segmented by geographical location with corresponding differences in organizational forms and practices (e.g., Greenwood et al., 2010; Lounsbury, 2007; Purdy & Gray, 2009; Waldorff & Greenwood, 2011). Finally, Marquis and Lounsbury (2007) and Thornton, Jones, and Kury (2005) have documented how variation in logics by segments of an industry results in different practices. Extending this principle to understand the work of a single actor, Goodrick and Reay (2011) argued that competitive logics were reflected in work practices because of segmenting; different practices were guided by different logics. In their study of pharmacists, they showed that some tasks were guided by a professional logic, for example, while other tasks were guided by a managerial logic. Consequently, competition between logics persisted because some aspects of work were guided by one logic while others were guided by alternative logics. Only a few studies have conceptualized the relationship among multiple logics as anything other than competitive. In their study of the impact of multiple logics on the organizational decision to downsize, Greenwood et al. (2010) suggested that when certain logics occur together they can amplify each other’s effects. One example provided by Greenwood et al. (2011) was when the Catholic Church in Spain reinforced the institutional logics of family and community. Giving more specific attention to ‘‘constellation of logics,’’ Goodrick and Reay (2011) argued that relations among logics could be cooperative as well as competitive. While competitive relations imply that increases in the strength of one logic means a corresponding decrease in another logic, cooperative relations do not. Instead multiple logics can coexist and jointly influence practice. They showed two different ways logics could be cooperative. First, they suggested that the relationship among logics could be facilitative, meaning that changes in work practices consistent with one logic can encourage other changes consistent with an alternative logic. As a result, the increasing influence of one logic does not reduce the impact of another; it may even strengthen it. Greenwood et al.’s example of the relationship between the Catholic Church and the institutional logics of family and community could be considered facilitative. Second, Goodrick and Reay proposed that the relationships among logics can be additive, meaning that a particular work task reflects the influence of more than one

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logic. Additive relationships between logics imply that practices must satisfy the demands of more than one logic such as when pharmacists’ practices had to meet both professional and market standards. Thus, while competitive relations among logics mean that practice changes will reflect one logic instead of another, cooperative relations suggest that practice changes may reflect the joint influence of multiple logics. While Goodrick and Reay (2011) recognized cooperative as well as competitive relations among logics, their archival methodology meant they were only able to indirectly consider the connection between logics and action. However, the presence of multiple logics in a field provides an opportunity to reconceptualize the relationship between logics and action. While a focus on a dominant logic highlights how logics constrain action, multiple logics open up space, giving more discretion to social actors. Consequently, multiple logics may provide a new way of understanding how agency may be both constrained and facilitated at the same time. Rather than practices being the instantiation of institutional logics, they may instead reflect how actors make sense of and enact institutional prescriptions (Binder, 2007; Greenwood et al., 2011; Waldorff, 2010). Multiple logics provide social actors with choice of action which may then reflect the power distribution in an organization (Pache & Santos, 2010), the thickness of links between organizational members and field level infrastructures (e.g., Greenwood et al., 2011; Kraatz, 1998; Lounsbury, 2001) or the status of those supporting a particular logic (Heimer, 1999). Organizations can adopt practices consistent with only one logic or the practices of different organizational units can reflect different logics (e.g., Binder, 2007). Although multiple logics provide social actors with ‘‘avenues for partial autonomy’’ (Thornton et al., 2012, p. 7), there is very limited attention to what this means at the micro-level. Despite numerous calls to investigate the ‘‘coal face’’ of institutionalism (e.g., Barley, 2008; Powell & Calyvas, 2008), most studies investigating multiple field logics have focused on the field or organizational level. A recent study by Smets et al. (2012) provides an important advancement. They explicitly focused on multiple logics at the micro-level to develop a model of how improvisations in work practices in response to complexity can result in a new field level logic. The emphasis in their study is in illuminating how ‘‘under the radar’’ activity as opposed to the more typical ‘‘muscular’’ entrepreneur can result in change. Thus while, they highlight the importance of micro-level activity in relationship to logics in facilitating change, they give little attention to how multiple logics also constrain change.

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In this study, we consider how constellations of logics both constrain and facilitate action by building on a conceptualization of logics as both competitive and cooperative (Goodrick & Reay, 2011). We do this through a comparative case study of primary health care in Canada and Denmark. We draw on micro- and macro-level data to show how both the arrangement of the logics and the relationship among them in the constellations impacted the design and accomplishment of a primary health care initiative in the two countries.

RESEARCH SETTINGS In Canada and Denmark, the idea of cross professional collaboration was promoted simultaneously as part of national strategies. In both cases, it was the challenge of the escalating number of patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes and chronic lung disease and other life style related health concerns that led to a reevaluation of the organizational framework by which primary health care services (those provided in the community) are developed, implemented and offered to citizens. Particularly, there is a desire to move away from the established practices where individual family physicians work independently in their offices, providing services to patients and referring them to other professionals if needed. The idea is to change to collaborative service delivery by multidisciplinary teams of health professionals. The Canadian and Danish primary health care systems are similar in many ways (Hansen & Kjellberg, 2011). Health care services are politically governed and funded by public taxes. The administrative health regions run the hospitals, while family physicians treat citizens’ general health problems and act as gatekeepers in relation to the specialized health care system. Thus, primary health care is delivered in physician clinics and public health clinics – quite separately from hospital care. The physician’s payment is constructed as ‘‘fee-for-service.’’ Consequently family physicians constitute both the entrance to and foundation for health care provision. The government policies in Canada and Denmark set up sites or mechanisms so that professionals were encouraged to collaborate and develop innovative solutions to ways of organizing health care – and, importantly, these same people would be the ones who implemented their own solutions. The policies were based upon meta-governance (Sørensen, 2007) and implied that the government defined the political–economical framework for the process, outlined who could participate in the process,

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and how they could participate. Special government funding was provided for the parallel development of multiple sites where the localized approaches to multidisciplinary teams could be utilized. Although, the national strategies were very similar, their background and specific design differed. In the Canadian health care system, the concern over the steadily increasing cost of care led to a series of attempts to reform primary health care through the 1990s and early 2000s. In spite of a variety of efforts, only a very small number of pilot projects were successfully implemented and costs continued to grow without evidence of population level improvements in health. Around 2005, a focus on primary care reform emerged. Our study is focused on one Canadian province (Alberta) where a new initiative was designed to bring physicians and the Regional Health Authorities (RHAs) into formalized partnerships that would reform the system from the ground up. These new organizations were called Primary Care Networks (PCNs). They were established with support from an agreement between the provincial medical association, the government and the local RHAs. Groups of family physicians were invited to participate in conjunction with their local RHA. The PCNs were legally constituted joint ventures between local physicians and the RHA; physicians were given the option to participate in the new program, and a large percentage chose to enroll (Reay, Goodrick, Casebeer, & Hinings, 2012). In Denmark, the question of how to improve patient rehabilitation became a central issue in the political debate in the early 2000s. Several political parties argued that the governmental structure needed to change, as it inhibited collaboration across sectors and governmental levels. In June 2004, policy makers reached an agreement concerning a reform of the Danish public sector (Danish Ministry of Interior and Health, 2004). The reform, which took effect on January 1, 2007, emphasized that the municipalities should be creative and develop innovative solutions in health care provision, for instance through the innovation of health care centers. Most municipalities chose to develop their health care center involving external partners such as family physicians, voluntary organizations, and private companies (Waldorff & Greenwood, 2011). Family physicians were not mandated to have a particular relationship with the health care centers but they were invited to engage with community initiatives. The policy initiative promoted a high degree of local innovation and variation (Due, Waldorff, Aarestrup, Laursen, & Curtis, 2008). To sum, the initiatives in the Canadian province and Denmark led to the development of new organizations – PCNs and health care centers. These new organizations had a variety of staff including nurses, dieticians, mental

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health counselors, rehabilitation therapists, physical therapists, administrative employees, social welfare consultants, and/or physicians. In both countries, there was a particular focus on changing the way services were provided for people with chronic diseases, such as diabetes and chronic lung disease.

METHODOLOGY We employed a comparative case study to explore how different constellations of logics in Canada and Denmark impacted action in each setting (Stake, 2006). This research approach allowed us to analyze each case with attention to action at both macro- and micro-levels, consistent with a conceptualization that institutional logics and actors are nested at multiple levels of analysis (Thornton et al., 2012). The studies in Denmark and Canada were conducted independently, but with similar research goals of understanding attempts to fundamentally reform primary health care services in each location. At the completion of the two studies, the cross-case comparative analysis was designed and conducted.

Data Sources We relied on both archival and interview data for our analysis. In both Denmark and Canada, we collected government policy documents, strategic documents, formal reports, and legal regulations associated with the development of the primary health care initiative. All documents were publicly available, and contained information concerning the need for primary health care reform (unsustainable costs of chronic disease) and information about the design of the reform initiative. In Canada, the initiative was designed and managed in collaboration with physicians. Therefore documents targeted to the public were often coproduced by the government, the physician association, and the local RHAs. In Denmark, the national government produced the initial frame setting documents, and the municipal governments then produced a number of documents developing and focusing the initiative on their local population. The key data source was interview data. Between 2006 and 2008, we interviewed people involved in the design and operationalization of the primary health care initiative in both Denmark and Canada. We interviewed

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152 people in Denmark and 62 people in Canada. At each site we interviewed physicians, managers, and other health professionals responsible for developing the initiative at that particular site, and in Denmark we also interviewed local politicians and representatives from hospitals and other involved partners (patient organizations, private companies, pharmacies, and schools). Since many people were interviewed more than once, over the three years of research, there were a total of 192 interviews in Denmark and 150 in Canada. The interviews were semi-structured, and explored a range of issues such as the respondent’s involvement in local planning and decision making, in development of new practices, and his or her relationship to other involved actors.

Data Analysis In each case, we analyzed the documentary data by first organizing materials chronologically, and according to the source. This allowed us to understand the development of the initiative in each country, and the ways in which the design was presented to the public. The chronology of documents facilitated our cross-case comparison, allowing us to identify documents explaining the design of the initiative as it was initially set out. We combined documentary accounts of the design with interview data from macro-level actors who were knowledgeable about policy development. Then, by drawing on previous analytic frameworks (Goodrick & Reay, 2011; Thornton, 2004; Thornton et al., 2012) we evaluated the ways in which each of the societal logics (state, professional, corporate, community, market, family, and religion were reflected in the design. This analysis allowed us to identify the composition of the constellation of logics in each case. (Table 1 shows our evaluation of each logic in the constellation by country.) In the next stage of our analysis we focused on the micro-level interview data. Interviews conducted in each country were coded according to techniques and recommendations made by Miles and Huberman (1994) for carrying out qualitative analysis. To compare across the two cases, we engaged in a reanalysis of the data, focusing on the ways in which interviewees discussed their interpretations of the primary health care initiative and their reporting of actions taken. Our data analysis was iterative with consideration of the extant literature on institutional logics and action; regular discussions among the researchers facilitated multiple rounds of analysis (Myers, 2008). Accordingly, we coded the data into categories showing how micro-level actors engaged in action to move

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Table 1.

Comparison of Logic Constellations in Canadian and Danish Initiative.

Logic

Canada

Denmark

State

State determined overall parameters of initiative. Proposals from each site required approval by government body.

Professional

Physicians retained high degree of control. Physicians were key instigators.

Corporate

Initiative designed to fit with bureaucratic reporting mechanisms. Initiative designed with ability to make modifications in line with community priorities. Physicians and RHA determined what community needs were. Financial incentives used to encourage physician participation and to modify physician work tasks. RHAs already motivated by existing budgeting processes to seek efficiencies in health care.

State determined overall parameters of initiative. Proposals from each site required approval by local government body. Physicians retained high degree of control. Physicians were consulted and giving medical advice. Initiative designed to fit with bureaucratic reporting mechanisms. Community members hold strong voice in determining parameters of initiative.

Community

Market

No financial incentives used to encourage physician participation.

Incentives used to encourage municipalities to create efficiency in health care.

forward with the initiative. We used NVivo to support the coding process (Richards & Richards, 1994). This analytic process revealed both similarities and differences across the two cases that could be identified in light of the different constellations of logics existing in the two countries.

CONSTELLATIONS OF LOGICS AND ACTION In this section we explore how the Canadian and Danish governmental initiatives were designed in 2006 to change primary health care delivery. In particular, we analyze the design with respect to the seven main societal level logics as set out by Thornton et al. (2012) – state, professional, corporate, community, market, family, and religion.

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State Logic In both countries, the initiative had a strong focus on the state logic. The overall parameters were determined by the state and proposals developed at each site needed approval from a government body. The goal was to improve population health, with particular attention to chronic diseases. Because the health systems are fully funded through government revenues there is also inherent influence of the state as a redistribution mechanism. The principles of the system are based on equality of all citizens, which translates into equal access to health care for all people. The following quote from the political agreement on a structural government reform in Denmark provides examples of the state logic of equal access: The conciliation parties wish to support and promote a strong public health care service that offers patients unrestricted, equal and free access to prevention, examination, treatment and care at a high professional level. Furthermore, the health care service should provide high quality and high level education and research. (Danish Ministry of Interior and Health, 2004, p. 37)

Physicians or any other providers are not allowed to discriminate or favor particular people. Notably, physicians cannot charge patients directly. Neither can they ask for additional payment. These policies are longstanding, and generally considered as taken-for-granted aspects of the primary health care system.

Professional Logic Our analysis showed that the initiatives in both countries were also designed in line with the strong professional logic. Since physicians are the major provider of primary health care services, the delivery system is arranged around the cornerstone of autonomous service provision by physicians in their offices. The initiatives did not challenge this arrangement by which physicians due to their medical education and expertise are authorized to act as gatekeepers with the responsibility to see their own patients and to refer them to other parts of the health care sector such as hospitals and specialists if needed. In both countries the physicians retained a high degree of control. In Canada the design of the initiative relied on physicians taking advantage of the opportunity to engage with the local RHA in efforts to provide better

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care for patients. Physicians had to step forward and agree to participate in the new arrangements, but if they did, financial advantages accrued to the physician group. Government administrators were convinced that the only way professionals (and physicians in particular) would change their practices was if physicians themselves determined the appropriate changes to make: In a network, a team of family doctors works with the local health region to determine primary care priorities in their community. The network receives public funding to support customized programs developed to address these local needs. (Alberta Government Publication, 2005)

In Denmark physicians were not mandated to have a particular relationship with the health care centers but they were strongly encouraged to engage with community initiatives. They were consulted by municipalities about the provision of health services and how health services should be organized: The collaboration with physicians and regional health administration will include planning of future referrals to the health care center, patients’ pathway programs, and clarification of interfaces [who does what] between medical practice and health care center. Physicians will also be an important partner in describing the patient pathway programs, the contents of selected activities at the health care center, clinical guidelines and indicators for quality of services. (Fredensborg Municipality, 2006)

Overall, the type and organizing of services provided for patients in both countries was largely determined by physicians, based on their professional knowledge and expertise.

Corporate Logic The corporate logic was also influential in how services were provided. In both countries the initiative was designed to fit with bureaucratic reporting mechanisms. In Canada, RHAs were responsible for the provision of all medically necessary services (except physician services) for citizens. They administered government funds through a hierarchical managerial structure, employing other health professionals, administrative and managerial personnel. In partnering with physicians as part of the PCN initiative, the RHAs brought a bureaucratically organized approach (as would be expected of governmental organizations). We see that the RHAs were

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primarily guided by the corporate logic in terms of the organizational systems and rules associated with service provision: I think the collaboration between the region [RHA] and the physicians works really well because the RHA is really good at organizing services, paying staff, covering shift work, etc. And then, when we work together with physicians we make much better decisions about what services are offered. (Canadian manager)

In Denmark, the initiative was also influenced by the corporate logic. The initiative sustained the bureaucratic structure by which each physician operated as a separate company undertaking general medical care under conditions negotiated in the agreement with the regions (Danish Regions, 2007). This meant that the physicians were guaranteed a certain ‘‘customer’’ base and therefore guaranteed a set level of revenue. Yet, the agreement also regulated the physicians’ activity, including the provision and pricing of services, opening and closing times, a reasonable level of income, and location of general practices. The following quote from a policy document from the association of Danish regions illustrates the embedded corporate logic: The organizational development of physicians’ practices should promote rationalization and professionalization of activities in order to exploit the medical resources and free physicians’ patient related time. Organizational development requires an immense, ongoing effort from the individual practice, but this is needed to ensure quality and efficiency for both the practice and health care as a whole. (Danish Regions, 2007)

Community Logic We also see that the initiative in each country was designed to be adaptable in line with local needs. The community logic is evident largely in association with the regional nature of RHAs in Canada and the municipalities in Denmark. Both RHAs and municipalities are responsible for providing services within established geographic boundaries that are initially conceived as representing meaningful community groupings. This means that the way in which primary care health is provided can vary somewhat from one area to another in order to best meet local needs. For example, people living in isolated communities have different needs from those in large urban cities. People living within particular communities could engage with the RHAs or municipalities to advocate for particular services they believed to be most important.

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Yet, we see that the community logic is weak in Canada, and strong in Denmark. In Canada, the adaptation in line with local needs was left up to each PCN to design over time. Physicians and RHAs held ongoing discussions to determine what community needs were and what services should be provided. In Denmark, the municipalities became responsible for more tasks in 2007, including health promotion and prevention and this contributed to the strengthening of the community logic. This allowed for community members to hold strong voice in determining local parameters of initiative. The following quotes show the health care law’s facilitation of community influence and an example of such in practice: There might be benefits within care, prevention and rehabilitation, such as improved quality, professional collaboration, recruitment and economies of scale etc., by assembling services in an organization like a health care centre, and by conforming to local demands. (Danish Ministry of Interior and Health, 2005, p. 39) The health care center will deliver health promotion programs for the unemployed [who risk falling permanently out of the labor market due to illness]. The aim is to change ‘‘passive’’ services to ‘‘active’’ services, and contribute to the shortening of sick leaves, and also to help citizens gain a higher functioning level and better quality of life. (Fredensborg Municipality, 2006)

Market Logic Even though all services were publicly provided, the market logic was present, even though the national systems were far from free market system where demand and supply determines price. Most physicians were reimbursed through a fee-for-service basis, meaning that their personal incomes were tied to the number of patients they saw. Physicians needed to generate profit through the operations of their clinics. It was in their financial self-interest to see as many patients as possible. This system of remuneration meant that physicians were disinclined to participate in any activities other than patient appointments. For example, they did not want to attend meetings because they were not remunerated for this time and they incurred a significant opportunity cost; this was time where they could not see patients. In Canada the initiative had a strong market focus and the government funding for the sites allowed for economic incentives to encourage physician participation. Physicians were reimbursed for time spent at meetings, program development and other planning activities. These activities were

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not funded in the health system outside these special primary care organizations: Physicians were paid completely on a fee-for-service basis that rewards multiple office visits and is focused on treating illness. We need to start rewarding other kinds of physician behaviors that will get us more into prevention and promotion. y So in the new initiative, there are incentives for physicians to participate in planning meetings, and encourage patients to attend educational sessions, for example. (Canadian manager)

Yet, in Denmark we see that no incentives were designed to encourage physicians to participate in the initiative. Instead the focus was on incentives to encourage municipalities to efficiently provide health care. The municipalities became partially responsible for funding medical treatment, depending upon people’s use of the health care service. This financial arrangement was intended to give municipalities the incentive to improve health promotion and physical therapy services as well as to reduce hospital treatment. The following quote illustrates the embedded market logic stressing the importance of efficiency: Those municipalities that manage to reduce the need for hospital treatment through an efficient effort with prevention and care will be rewarded by having to pay less for hospitalization of their citizens. (Danish Ministry of Interior and Health, 2004, p. 42)

Overall we see that the way in which the initiative was initially set out was guided by a constellation of logics with the strong influence by the state, profession, and corporative logics in both countries. In the Danish initiative, there was also strong influence by the community logic with less influence by the market logic. In the Canadian initiative, it was the opposite; there was relatively stronger influence by the market logic, and lower influence of the community logic. We saw little, if any, influence from the family and religion logics in either setting.

ACTION IN LIGHT OF CONSTELLATIONS OF LOGICS Our interview data helped us to understand, from a micro-level perspective, how actions or constraints on action were related to the constellation of logics in each country. Below we group our findings according to the similarities and differences that we observed. In both countries, the strength of the professional logic meant physicians held a central and controlling role in the health system overall and physician

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support for any desired changes was critical. This was evident in the design of the initiative in each country, as explained above. Interviewees in both Denmark and Canada told us about the constraints they faced in making changes. Physicians believed that their professional expertise made them uniquely qualified to determine appropriate treatment or services for patients. The strong reliance on professional expertise (of physicians in particular) played out in the commonly accepted restrictions on change that physicians mandated. Physicians were only willing to participate in the initiative if their control over patient care was maintained. There was general agreement that there could be no perceived external (state, corporate, community, or market) control over how physicians practiced medicine. For example: [Physicians] have a fear of having their practice controlled in some way, and being told what they can and can’t do. Physicians want their professional autonomy, and they can’t be pushed around by the bureaucrats y You don’t want someone telling you how to practice medicine. (Canadian physician) Of course we had to set up the initiative so that physicians maintained control over medical practice. We would have liked to tell them to just step back and let other professionals provide more services, but that just wouldn’t work at all! (Canadian manager) This is a fairly resource-intensive course [rehabilitation], and therefore I think it should be provided to those who most need it, and I think doctors are much better to judge this than the patients themselves. There’s a tendency when you offer something to people, then it’s all the resourceful and the most healthy people who get the majority of the resources. [It’s up to physicians to control this.] (Danish physician) One of our disappointments is that the physicians have seen this project [health care center] as a competitor. For example, physicians provide diabetes care. We provide this too. But [instead of working together with us] they have plenty and they can’t do it all, but they don’t realize this (y). (Danish manager)

In both countries there were concerns about how to make changes that could satisfy the different values, beliefs, and goals of different actors. This was particularly evident with respect to the professional and state logics, which were both relatively strong in Denmark and Canada. Interviewees told us that the initiative had to unfold in a way that not only protected the principle of equal access (state logic) but also improved access by reducing wait times and serving vulnerable populations. At the same time, it was critical to incorporate professional goals of maintaining or improving the quality of services provided. The following quotes illustrate

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how actions were constrained to ensure that both requirements were met simultaneously: Well, you have to ask, ‘‘What are the objectives?’’ If you’re the Minister of Health, your main objective is increased access. But what does that mean? A patient wants to be able to have a doctor. But there are also questions about quality of care. Increased access is the mantra of the government, but the sub-mantra, especially by the College of Family Physicians is – let’s improve quality, too. (Canadian physician) This health care center is geographically located in an area [of low population] and with a history of an abandoned hospital. We need to offer a broad range of services [to provide equal access to health care] – it’s also what the politicians say. We are not a narrowly focused health care center, as in some other places. y Here, patients [have to have access to services] such as an injury clinic, radiology and laboratories. But my task, of course, is to ensure that we are on course to provide some health promotion and preventive services. (Danish manager)

Before introducing the primary health care initiative, in both countries there was a division of work such that health managers (corporate logic) were responsible for planning and allocating resources for publicly available health care services, while physicians (professional logic) provided medical services within those parameters. In Canada, as part of the initiative design and increasingly as the initiative unfolded, physicians took on planning and organizing activities. As a result, part of their day was guided by professional logic (providing medical services) and part of their day guided by the corporate logic (responsibility for planning and organizing overall services). The following quotes show how physicians engaged with the corporate logic for at least part of their work: Currently I am a member of the executive and I’m also a member of the governing board. So the one thing to remember about our PCN is: there’s the overall governing board, which has RHA representation, plus the physicians formed a not for profit corporation. So the not for profit corporation and the RHA have a joint board governing the PCN. y I’m on the board, but most of the time I work as a family physician. (Canadian physician) I saw this [the initiative] as the answer or the opportunity to model a lifelong dream, a 10-year-old dream, no 15-year-old dream of mine y And I said, ‘‘We could use our hospitals as hubs or anchors of these networks and we could combine some hospital services such as obstetrics and things like that with a primary care network. And so my role in the network was I would say I was a catalyzer, one of the catalyzers of the network. I was able to help supply a vision. (Canadian physician)

In Denmark, the physicians also participated in planning discussions as the initiative was unveiled and developed, but their voice at the table was based on providing professional expertise rather than engaging in activities associated with the corporate logic such as planning and organizing primary

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health care more broadly. With respect to the design, physicians advised that the health care centers be created as separate new organizations, and not be integrated with physician offices. Thus, the initiative developed with physician offices and health care centers operating in parallel: I represent [local physician] organization, and I have been asked by them to go into these discussions. The advantage of this [initiative] is of course that it is a fairly concrete project. We get a place, which is the health care center, and which we hopefully can shape, so it will be used. The activities which will be provided will meet some needs that I can see, we do not cover now. (Danish physician) When you have many patients registered [with you] then it can be difficult to be as thorough, as preventive and as all-around, as one would like to be around the patients. Then the doctor may very well say [to the patient], ‘‘Well you know what, there is also a health care center, you might want to go there.’’ (Danish physician)

An interesting difference between the two countries was the way in which the community logic impacted action. Although the initiative in both countries was designed to allow significant local tailoring, the strength of the community logic in Denmark was reflected in the direct and critical action taken by the local municipal council. Danish municipalities were central to decision making. They determined the location and services to be offered. This is in contrast to the Canadian setting where determination of community needs was left to physicians and (to a lesser extent) the RHAs. In setting up the Canadian PCNs, the first phase was characterized by lengthy planning sessions to determine what services were needed and how they should be delivered in the local setting. However, attendees of these sessions were physicians, other health professionals and RHA managers – ‘‘ordinary’’ community members were not involved. The quotes below illustrate the strength of the community logic in Denmark, and its relative weakness in Canada: [The Danish health care center is designed so] that you can get services in your local area. Considering the citizen’s everyday life, and looking at family therapy, our family workshop is what we have most success with. The activities have to be based on the family’s daily life and also be provided so they fit into a normal life. (Danish elected community official) We have made some ‘‘open house’’ events, which is also a part of our marketing, and these events have been very close to be overrun. Many people came. I think about 200 people came to such an event, where we split up into groups, and the staff took each group and talked about the center - here is this and that, and here’s the deal. (Danish elected community official) We’re doing things together. In the past, the RHA might say, ‘‘Oh, we have a program. Mr. Physician here is what’s available for you.’’ Or a physician says, ‘‘This is what we

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need’’ and they went to the RHA. This is the first time that they [physicians and the RHA] sit down and they together come up with what they think should happen. And how it should happen and how it will look. (Canadian manager)

Another significant difference in how people took action was related to the very strong sense in Denmark that market principles were fundamentally inappropriate for health care, while this opposition to market principles was less strong in Canada. (Although the health care system in both countries was one of public provision of health care services.) We saw this as a difference in the strength of competition between market and professional logics in the two countries. One of the ways in which we observed the difference in relationship between the professional and market logic was in discussions about the appropriate qualification of site managers. In Denmark, it was critical for the manager to hold professional qualifications (ideally a physician or a nurse) because municipalities wanted to signal the professional nature of the new health care centers, and the potential for developing relationships with physicians. In Canada, the ideal manager held both professional and business credentials, for example, a qualified nurse with an MBA was considered ideal. Several PCNs hired a manager with only business credentials – not a health professional – arguing that the most important aspect of the manager’s work was to organize people and manage the overall operations. The following excerpts illustrate the differences in an ideal manager: We hired someone to manage the PCN who has a Masters’ degree in Business and is also a nurse. We felt this was an important step in bringing together the physicians and the RHA. (Canadian manager) We got this fabulous business manager. This really good guy who is a very good business person. He started putting the things – showing us how you put things together. We sat down, we wrote our business plan and we would have these really effective meetings. (Canadian physician) The manager should be someone who is accustomed to the primary healthcare sector [y] It [medical training] is a very good background, that is, when you have been working in the national office of social medicine and public health then you are already familiar with both the command and conversation paths, dialogues, and problems between the different partners. [y] doctors in social medicine are usually very good at having a feel for who should do such and such. (Danish physician)

Although physicians in both countries were reimbursed for their services on a fee-for-service basis, and were profit-maximizers in that they operated their clinics in a way that provided them with sufficient revenues compared to expenses, financial incentives for physicians were much more acceptable in

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Canada than in Denmark. In Canada, physicians were enticed to participate in the initiative through the availability of extra money. For example: Interviewer: Why did you think it was a good idea? [to engage in the initiative] Respondent: Well, it might even come down to money as being a good idea. Part of medicine is a business y And we looked at that as an opportunity to expand our business with some support from the government. And provide more care. (Canadian physician) [The government announced the opportunity] and we saw that as ‘‘do it or else.’’ Somebody else could take the money and run with it. That’s what we thought. So we felt we must be in control of the process. And, first of all, the thought was: ‘‘we need to get a bag full of money, each of us.’’ But they told us it’s not that way. It’s for improvement of primary health care, and to make our work easier; the goal was basically to improve access and treatment of patients. (Canadian physician)

Over time, in Canada the financial incentives became an integrated and accepted component of the overall strategies for improving primary health care. They were used both to encourage physicians to take on planning and program development and through the addition of dedicated funding that was available for particular programs such as diabetes care: [We saw the initiative] as a way of getting improved care to certain groups of patients. [It meant] getting physicians paid better for some things. It was presented as a way of serving certain groups of patients get better – I guess better care – more comprehensive care. (Canadian physician) [Now that they pay us for going to meetings] we’re actually now more comfortable doing this administrative work because we see that somebody seems to value it. (Canadian physician)

In contrast, financial incentives for physicians in Denmark were not discussed. We heard about the importance of professional values (not market) for organizing health care, and this translated into a change initiative that relied on physician participation because they saw it as the ‘‘right thing to do.’’ For example: [The plan is that] we maintain our own practices with the possibility of cooperation. Then we can always make changes. The experience from our medical center is that there are major problems as soon as money comes into it, so y It is a fragile issue. So we will not initially depend on this, we will just be cooperating within the same building. (Danish physician) The current thinking is to create a natural competition among health actors, but without having to be profit-maximizing – however, there is the tendency of the government

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saying ‘‘it’s okay’’. But what we have to compete on is the quality! (Danish health care center manager)

However, although it was deemed inappropriate in Denmark to bring the market logic together with the professional logic, we observed that the market logic was brought together with the community logic to encourage action by the municipalities: In the recent agreement municipalities became financially responsible for their citizens admitted to (regional) hospitals and they also have to pay part of physicians’ salaries. This means that the municipalities will be more motivated to support initiatives to treat people in their own home [rather than in hospitals]. (Danish physician)

To sum, we saw in both Canada and Denmark how the presence of strong state and professional logics constrained action. In Canada, there were shifts in the activities consistent with the corporate logic as physicians took on administrative work; there was no corresponding shift in Denmark. While the community logic was much more influential in Denmark than in Canada, incentives consistent with the market logic were used in both countries to encourage desired behaviors

DISCUSSION In this study, we have considered how multiple logics impact action by using a comparative case study approach to analyze government initiatives to improve primary health care in Canada and Denmark. We investigated the relationship between the constellation of logics in each country and the development of the field level initiatives as well as how actors at the micro-level took action. While the literature has focused on fields with two coexisting logics and assumed that they are inherently incompatible (Greenwood et al., 2011), our study compared two fields characterized by different constellations of logics. Even though Canada and Denmark have very similar approaches to health care and face similar problems in terms of improving primary health care services, differences in the constellations of logics meant that the change initiative was shaped differently in the two countries. By comparing and contrasting the constellation of logics in two different but similar settings, we were able to see patterns of actions that otherwise might be hidden from view. In particular, it is the differences between the arrangement and relationships among logics that helped us to better understand how logics impact

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action. In contrast to many other studies (e.g., Smets et al., 2012), our two cases showed aspects of both stability and change. Based on our data, we theorized five different mechanisms through which logics may constrain and enable action. We suggest that all could occur simultaneously – explaining how action is both constrained and enabled. We summarize these below.

Constraining Action We found that action was constrained both through the arrangement of the logics and the relationship among them in the constellation. In our comparative case studies, both the presence of an influential logic and an additive relationship between logics constrained action. Presence of an Influential Logic First, and somewhat similar to other studies (e.g., Reay & Hinings, 2005; Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005), we show that having a large number of field level actors holding values and beliefs associated with a particular logic constrains change. In such cases, existing institutional arrangements reflect the strong influence of a particular logic and change is constrained because only alternatives that respect the principles underlying the logic are possible. In both the Canadian and Danish case, widespread adherence to the logic of professionalism meant that actions which did not recognize the expertise of physicians were not even considered. All actors agreed that medical professionalism was critical to primary health care delivery, and therefore change could not exclude or diminish the stature of physicians. In both the Canadian and Danish case, the initiative was designed so that physicians maintained control over all aspects of primary health care that were considered ‘‘medical practice.’’ In addition, it was critical to include physician expertise in determining the appropriate structure for new service delivery. This was accomplished in different ways in each country, using economic incentives or appealing to physicians’ community responsibility, but the principle of ensuring meaningful physician input was assured in both cases. Additive Relations Between Logics While influential logics in a constellation are one mechanism by which action is constrained, the relationship between such significant logics comprises a second mechanism. In our comparative case study, we found

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that additive relations between logics also constrained action. Additive relations between logics imply that institutional arrangements reflect the values, beliefs, and practices of more than one logic. Rather than choosing between competing mandates, as a competitive relation would suggest, an additive relation means that action must satisfy the mandates of both logics simultaneously. By increasing the number of demands that new institutional arrangements must meet, additive relationships consequently constrain change. For example, the health care systems in both Canada and Denmark were based on adhering to both the state and professional logics, without diminishing either. This meant that any changes to the system had to maintain the principle of equal access for all citizens (state logic) and medical professionalism. Consequently, the additive relationship between the state and professional logic constrained action because any new arrangements had to similarly be guided by both logics.

Enabling Action We also observed that the arrangement of the logics in the constellation and the relationship between them enabled action. The three different mechanisms we found enabling change were strengthening alternative logics in the constellation, segmenting logics, and facilitating relationships among the logics. Strengthening Alternative Logics The first way we observed action enabled is when a competitive alternate logic within a constellation was strengthened. We saw an example of this in the Danish case where the national government devolved responsibility for health to the municipal governments – thus strengthening the alternative logic of community. Financial incentives were put in place that motivated many municipalities to create new health care solutions (health care centers) based upon specific local needs. The municipalities did not have much experience with health care provision (except care for the elderly and children) and the municipal staff was not initially qualified to deal with their new roles. Yet, they took on this initiative and the design of the new approach to health care provision was largely determined through community attention. Thus, action was facilitated because community members were encouraged to be directly involved in the design. These community members such as politicians, citizens, health professionals, and volunteer organizations would otherwise have been bystanders in public

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health care reform. But with the strengthening of the community logic, each health care center developed according to local values and opinion. Segmenting Competitive Logics The second mechanism through which action can be enabled is segmenting logics. Segmenting can enable action because it allows competitive relationships to coexist by partitioning work consistent with different logics among actors or organizations. In this way, competition between logics can persist and action can occur without resolution of the conflict. In the Danish case, for example, physicians continued to be guided by the professional logic for all of their work, while municipal health care centers were primarily guided by the community logic. The physicians provided professional advice to the designers of the health care centers, but chose to keep their own medical work separate in their own offices. Since the centers then developed in parallel with physicians’ offices, new prevention and health promotion services could be developed and offered in the health care centers without threatening the standard medical practices of physicians. These new practices (prevention and health promotion) were established and sustained in the health care centers because they were somewhat isolated from the principles of medical professionalism. In this way both the principles of professional autonomy and local community beliefs about appropriate services were satisfied, but the constraints of professionalism were contained within the physician offices, leaving freedom for action and innovation in the health care centers. Facilitative Relationships Finally, we saw that facilitative relationships between logics can also enable action. With such relationships, strengthening one logic serves to strengthen another logic. In Canada, for example, we saw that using financial incentives (strengthening market logic) to encourage physicians to change their behavior (work in interdisciplinary teams and focus on innovative treatments for chronic conditions such as diabetes) led to strengthening both the professional and state logics. This is because physicians were financially motivated to try new ways of practicing medicine – particularly in terms of multidisciplinary teamwork. This market-driven approach was designed to encourage behavior change, but it was the resulting positive outcomes for patients (professional logic) and overall public system improvements (more patients receiving appropriate treatment) that led physicians to continue the multidisciplinary work. Overall, we saw that Canadian physicians were primarily motivated by professional standards, but there was openness

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to financial incentives designed to encourage physician participation and integration with the delivery of new primary health care services. This happened through the addition of dedicated funding that was available for particular programs such as diabetes care. Thus, physicians participated in programs that fit with their professional standards, maintained their sense of autonomy, increased satisfaction with the public system, and also increased income for their clinic and ultimately for themselves. We also saw that a facilitative relationship between logics could result in changes in the way behavior is segmented over time. In Canada, before the initiative, behavior was segmented with physicians guided by the professional logic and the RHAs guided primarily by the corporate and state logics. With the development and introduction of the initiative which included incentives consistent with a market logic, physicians began to take on system-level planning and organizing activities that previously had not been part of their work. Thus, they began segmenting their own workday or week to be partially guided by the professional logic (clinic time) and partially by the corporate and state logic (meeting time). This change in segmenting from actor based to segmenting within a single actor facilitated a new conceptualization of primary health care for physicians. Because they became engaged with RHA managers and other health professionals in planning for the most effective use of state resources (corporate and state logics), physicians were more open to alternate service provision that was less controlled by medical professionalism. By showing that the arrangement of logics in a constellation and the relationship among them impact the way action is both constrained and enabled, we contribute to the literature in three ways. First, in contrast to prior studies that explored the link between institutional logics and action by focusing on two logics (Lounsbury, 2007; Marquis & Lounsbury, 2007; Purdy & Gray, 2009; Reay & Hinings, 2009), we explore the impact from multiple coexisting logics. Lounsbury (2007), for instance, showed how investment practices in the mutual fund industry were developed differently in two cities due to a trustee or a professional logic, and Purdy and Gray (2009) found that the conflicting bureaucratic and democratic logics led state offices of dispute resolution to adopt different practices and actions. Because we specifically considered all potential logics proposed by Thornton et al. (2012), our analysis gives attention to a broad set of influences on behavior. Thus we overcame the assumption that a particular practice is the instantiation of a particular logic. Instead we see that multiple logics provide discretion and agency to social actors, allowing for the development of a variety of practices. Our findings thus provide empirical support for

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Greenwood et al.’s (2011) suggestion that actors facing institutional complexity are likely to take advantage of available logics. Second, we advance the conceptualization of constellations of logics by exploring the relationships among logics (Goodrick & Reay, 2011; Greenwood et al., 2010; 2011). Prior studies have focused on logics as competing; they identified how a particular logic’s dominance becomes evident in established practices (Dunn & Jones, 2010; Purdy & Gray, 2009; Scott et al., 2000). For instance, Scott and his colleagues (2000) showed that after the domination by first the professional and then the state logic in health care delivery, a new managerial logic of efficiency gave rise to managed care and new organizational forms such as health maintenance organizations (HMOs). Purdy and Gray (2009) found that even though state offices of dispute resolution developed multiple pragmatic solutions, it was impossible to satisfy the multiple conflicting logics persistent in the emerging contexts. And Dunn and Jones (2010) found that the increasing contestation between the logics of ‘science’ and ‘care’ led to reform of American medical education. Yet, in our analysis we show that the relationships among logics are not necessarily competitive, they can also be cooperative. In the Canadian and Danish cases we see that practices were developed so they were able to satisfy at least two strong logics (additive relationship) or they were shaped in a particular way because when one logic was strengthened this reinforced another logic (facilitative relationship). Our findings suggest that consideration of cooperative relationships among logics may reveal new insights. Practices may be simultaneously guided by multiple logics. Further attention in this regard is certainly warranted. Finally, we bring new insights to the concept of partial autonomy (Thornton et al., 2012), by drawing on the concept of constellation of logics as a new way of understanding agency. We see that it is the arrangement and relationship among logics that helps to explain how action can be both constrained and enabled. By considering the impact of multiple logics on both the design of an initiative to modify health services, as well as the interpretations and actions of micro-level actors, our study shows the potential for stability and change. Particularly strong logics within a constellation can limit the number of available options. Options can also be limited when two (or more) logics must be satisfied in any viable change opportunities. On the other hand, when strong logics are isolated (in physicians’ offices as we saw in the Danish case), there may be potential for action in settings outside the control of those strong logics (e.g., the Danish health care centers). We also saw that potential for action arose when the relationship among logics was facilitative – that strengthening one logic

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could strengthen another. Although most researchers present the market and professional logic as conflicting, our study shows synergy. In the Canadian case, the introduction of financial incentives (market logic) led to a stronger sense of professionalism and improved the state’s ability to maintain equal access to health care for all citizens. Overall, we see that attention to varying relationships among logics combined with consideration of macro- and micro-levels allows a finer grained analysis of action that reveals new insights into how institutions are both reproduced and challenged.

CONCLUSIONS Our comparative case study highlights how different combinations or constellations of logics link to social actors. Future research could build on this foundation to investigate whether the discretion that multiple logics afforded, in terms of partial autonomy of actors, also extends to the iterative relationship between identity and logics. Social actors may hold greater autonomy in terms of identity than has currently been recognized. By investigating the link between constellations of logics and actors’ social identities, it could be possible to learn much more about why actors behave in a particular way. Also, scholars could explore further how action at the micro-level shapes the arrangement and relationships among logics in a constellation. While we showed how actors at the micro-level interpreted an initiative and took action differently, others could provide insights into how action at the micro-level facilitates a specific logic constellation. We also suggest that future research should systematically explore relationships between the symbolic and material elements of logics. Consistent with Thornton et al., we conceptualize the symbolic and the material as ‘‘intertwined and constitutive of one another’’ (2012, p. 10). However, at least in the short term, meanings of particular practices can change for at least some actors (Zilber, 2002). We hope that future research can investigate field level initiatives in other settings and consider how meanings and practices evolve over time. By improving our theoretical knowledge concerning the dynamics of the symbolic and material, we may be much better positioned to understand practice complexity; in particular why relatively no variation in practice is possible in one context, while wide variation occurs simultaneously in other contexts. Our comparison of primary health care reform in two countries provided us the opportunity to examine action in cases where different constellations

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of logics guided behavior. Each case brings important findings to the fore, but it is in considering the similarities and differences between them that we were able to identify interesting patterns concerning ways that action was constrained or enabled. Our comparative case study holds all the limitations of interpretive qualitative research. It is not clear to what extent our findings are generalizable to other contexts, but we hope that other researchers will engage in similar studies in other settings. We also encourage more comparative work that crosses international boundaries. In order to understand complex problems, it is important to investigate how they arise and are addressed in different contexts. Although cross-case comparative studies complicate the research process, we believe that the potential to advance theoretical knowledge is enhanced. Exploring how common problems are approached in different countries provides important opportunities to improve our understanding of different constellations of logics and how they impact action.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors thank Ann Casebeer for her previous contributions to the research. The first author thanks the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation, and the National Institute for Public Health for providing financial and practical support for this research. The second author thanks the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research for funding that supported a portion of this research.

REFERENCES Alberta Government. (2005). Primary care network: A new way to deliver primary health care in Alberta. Edmonton AB: Alberta Government. Barley, S. R. (2008). Coalface institutionalism. In R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, K Sahlin & R. Suddaby (Eds.), The sage handbook of organizational institutionalism (pp. 490–515). London: Sage. Binder, A. (2007). For love and money: Organizations’ creative responses to multiple environment logics. Theory and Society, 36(6), 547. Cappellaro, G. (2012). Individual dynamics and micro-institutional complexity: An ethnographic study. Presented at Academy of Management 2012 Annual Meeting, August, Boston, MA. Danish Ministry of Interior and Health. (2004). Agreement on a structural reform. Copenhagen: Danish Ministry of Interior and Health.

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PROCESSES FOR RETRENCHING LOGICS: THE ALBERTA OIL SANDS CASE, 2008–2011 Patricia J. Misutka, Charlotte K. Coleman, P. Devereaux Jennings and Andrew J. Hoffman ABSTRACT Why do significant cultural anomalies frequently fail to generate change in institutional logics? Current process models offer a number of direct ways to enable the creation and diffusion of ideas and practices, but the resistance to adoption and diffusion, something so emphasized by the old institutionalism, has not been incorporated as directly in those models in a way that allows us to answer this question. Therefore, we theorize three retrenchment processes that impede innovation: cultural positioning, behavioral resistance, and feedback shaping. The ways in which these processes work are detailed in a case study of one high profile cultural anomaly: oil production and environmental management in Alberta’s oil sands from 2008 to 2011. Implications for the institutional logics perspective and understanding logics in action are discussed. Keywords: Institutional theory; plural logics; power; qualitative analysis; oil industry

Institutional Logics in Action, Part A Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 39A, 131–163 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X(2013)0039A&B009

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A significant cultural anomaly1 currently exists in Canada: the ongoing, unbarred exploitation of bitumen deposits (‘‘oil sand’’) in Alberta resulting in extreme regional environmental degradation in a nation known for its progressive attitudes and advanced social programs (OECD, 2010; Meyer & Scott, 1983; Nikiforuk, 2008). The mining and processing of these deposits have been cited as a significant policy outlier and major obstacle for Canada in reaching its greenhouse gas reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol (Demerse, 2011). This Gold Rush type development, along with a lack of adequate environmental standards and reporting frameworks, in turn, has led to international media exposes and the labeling of the area as ‘‘the Tar Sands’’ and North America’s major source of ‘‘dirty oil’’ (National Geographic, 2009; New York Times, 2010). But change in the methods of production and environmental practice, to date, has been slow. The cultural anomaly of the Alberta oil sands, while extremely important in its own right as an environmental outcome, is of particular interest to us because it offers an interesting type of extreme case for extending our understanding of the institutional logics perspective. Starbuck (2009) and Lee (1999) highlight the use of extreme cases, such as the oil sands, for theory development and enrichment. Such cases should be extreme in terms of the distribution of normally predicted outcomes, and also extreme as complex and highly compelling phenomenon. The oil sands anomaly is multi-level, multi-jurisdictional, and high profile. The case is not easily or fully explained by the ‘‘usual suspect’’ type mechanisms featured in conventional institutional analysis, such as the advancement of the state (Dobbin & Sutton, 1998; Schofer & Hironaka, 2005) and the slow translation of idea and practice within a field (Czarniawska & Sevon, 1996; Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005). Following Weber (1978[1921]), these tend to emphasize a progressive form of rationalization (Meyer & Rowan, 1977). Instead, the oil sands anomaly seems more consistent with the thinking about pluralities and complexities of logics2 (Greenwood, Raynard, Kodeih, Micelotta, & Lounsbury, 2011; Hoffman, 1999; Kraatz & Block, 2008; Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012). In the oil sands, we see multiple logics at work with power frequently used directly and indirectly to resist, constrain, and prevent the adoption of progressive practice both within a particular logic and certainly across them. Lounsbury and colleagues (Lounsbury & Crumley, 2007; Thornton et al., 2012) have offered one synthetic model of institutional change in a plural or complex logic context that focuses less on exogenous forces of change and more on endogenous ones. We think that this model, like the plural logics perspective on which it is built, might benefit from analyzing an extreme case, not of change, but of

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constraint and resistance, processes central to the ‘‘old’’ institutionalism (Gouldner, 1957; Greenwood & Hinings, 1996; Hirsch & Lounsbury, 1997; Selznick, 1949). In the context of the oil sands, what is particularly interesting is the relative power of the actors (government, corporations, and communities) within the environmental management domain, compared to their power in the market domain, which therefore forces these actors to use indirect methods of stalling adoption and advancement. We argue that there are three sets of power-related processes relevant to understanding these indirect methods: (1) the cultural positioning of oil sands firms around environmental logics, identities, and practices within the field; (2) the behavioral resistance processes used by varieties of actors in the oil sands that disrupt problem recognition, mobilization, and decision-making; and (3) the feedback shaping processes that are part of these political actions, but also part of the encoding and retrenchment of extant institutions of oil production and environmental management (also see Hoffman, 2010; Hoffman & Jennings, 2011). Jointly, we refer to these positioning, resistance, and feedback processes and their effects as ‘‘retrenchment processes.’’ Retrenchment processes represent an important set of mechanisms that could potentially explain the lack of change in the face of the current cultural anomaly, particularly given the compelling forces for addressing this anomaly.3 To examine and elaborate upon these retrenchment processes empirically, we rely on a qualitative, abductive approach (Pierce, 1992[1898]; Yin, 2003). The cultural positioning processes in the oil sands are demonstrated primarily using data on the use of environmental systems by the large oil majors in the region, but also by relying on interview data with company and government officials about the meaning and use of such systems and reports (Misutka, 2010). Other institutional theorists have used environmental reporting as a means of tracking the logic of a system’s development (Bansal & Roth, 2000; Hoffman, 2001, p. 220). The resistance processes are based on a preliminary content coding of 36 interviews with diverse field participants. Content coding of interviews and field notes is one of the standard techniques in behavioral science for systematically assessing qualitative data (Yin, 2003) frequently used by institutional analysts (Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006; Maguire, Hardy, & Lawrence, 2004; Zeitsma & Lawrence, 2010). The feedback shaping processes are primarily captured by consulting government and media documents regarding change efforts in the oil sands, and in the sustainability reporting data produced by oil sands companies and informed by the 15 interviews with company officials and stakeholders.

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THEORY Cultural anomalies are stimuli for change. These anomalies include trigger events, findings, disjunctures, activities, or other incongruities between an extant logic(s) and new understandings, methods, or techniques (Hoffman & Jennings, 2011). Anomalies are such because they tap into and challenge the deeper dimensions of underlying logics (Hulme, 2009). For example, in the case of environmental management logics, the BP oil spill was a trigger type of anomaly, one which raised the deeper issue about how much risk society is willing to accept for the use of oil and who should bear this risk – communities, the government, oil companies or others. The normal institutional process for digesting cultural anomalies, in its simplest form, involves three parts that are reflective of most change (Greenwood, Suddaby, & Hinings, 2002; Hoffman & Jennings, 2011): first, the context, which involves the trigger and its recognition; second, the conflict over the meaning of the trigger and its implications; and third, the extension of the change through cascading events via the actions of cultural entrepreneurs (Lounsbury & Glynn, 2001). As the first step implies, the cultural anomaly, even though it may be generated via an external shock or unexpected trigger, becomes highly endogenous. The current logics and debates in the field are used to frame the anomaly as worthy of attention. Debate ensues over the nature of the problem and potential solutions, all part of the overarching contestation processes among institutional actors (Seo & Creed, 2002). Lounsbury and Crumley (2007) have recently published a process model of innovation dynamics that captures this endogenous institutional change in logics. This model synthesizes much of what we know currently about change within logics (see Thornton et al., 2012 for a review). Within this model there are three main components: (1) the current sorting and arrangement logics, identities, and practices (also see Friedland & Alford, 1991; Hoffman, 1999); (2) a modified version of the theorization of novel practices (Greenwood et al., 2002), which connect current institutional elements to new ones; and (3) an impact or feedback loop, which leads to wider diffusion of the structure and behavioral arrangements, similar to that proposed by Strang and Meyer (1993). In this model, anomalies can be viewed as exogenous triggers to challenge established logics-identitiespractices, which are then acted upon endogenously as anomalous variations. These cultural anomalies are typically resolved, first, via their placement within the current structural and cultural arrangements of logics, identities, and practices at field level; second, via the subsequent theorization and

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contestation process in the field; and third, via the feedback loops back to the structure and behaviors that define the field.

Retrenchment Processes Even though this model of institutional change offers a fine synthesis of multiple logics, macro structures, and micro-processes that are involved in the resolution of anomalies, it is still geared primarily toward a discussion of how change and innovation occur, particularly through the activation of power, rather than how they are impeded. The model contains important paths that indicate the possibility that innovation and change will be thwarted at several stages (e.g., at the problem recognition or decision-making stages), but proportionally, these are not depicted as being as prominent as the forces for change have been. Furthermore, given the inherently constraining nature of institutions, we think that the model might benefit from more explicit inclusion of structural and behavioral mechanisms that tend to stall or prevent change and innovation.4 Below, we elaborate three such retrenchment mechanisms: cultural positioning, behavioral resistance, and feedback shaping. The inclusion of these processes is necessary to explain how relatively weak actors in one domain, though perhaps stronger in another, may still have power over outcomes in the domain in question. Cultural Positioning The first way in which somewhat weaker actors in an institutional domain may resist change is through cultural positioning in the overall field. Fields are composed of logics, collective identities, and practices. Every institutional logic contains a range of, or variation in, ideas and acceptable actions (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Scott, 2001). It follows that within that range, modal logics, identities, and practices are considered to be the standards (Lawrence, 1999), forms (Meyer & Scott, 1983), or archetypes (Weber, 1978[1921]), whereas the others are hybrids or extremes. It also follows that some of these hybrids or extremes are more progressive, and others regressive, relative to the evolutionary path of the elements in the domain. These regressive areas of logic, identity, and practice offer an important anchor in the domain. By anchoring in regressive areas of a field, an actor can increase the variation and fragmentation in a field and also act as a constraint on more progressive practices, for example, those which would improve the overall environmental record of the field (Hoffman, 2011).

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Behavioral Resistance Processes The second means by which the impact of a cultural anomaly is dampened is via the micro-dynamics among vested interests and actors aligned with various logics, particularly by their behavioral resistance processes (Hoffman & Jennings, 2011).5 The position and boundaries of these retrenched spaces are defended not only by particular groups, both wittingly and unwittingly, but also by the processes pursued within them.6 Lounsbury and Crumley (2007) identify several areas of collective mobilization for institutional change, each of which we think is a site for indirect resistance processes (also see Thornton et al., 2012). The areas run from attention formation and social movement generation to politicking and decisionmaking. In keeping with Oliver (1991), we think that less observable and indirect processes occur in all areas of collective mobilization, but these processes become both more observable and active (as opposed to passive) as resistance becomes manifest (also see Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006). Shaping Feedback Finally, the third means for thwarting or downplaying the impact of an anomaly is by shaping feedback in a way that preserves the current structural arrangements in the logics or to support the more retrenched positions in it. Shaping can take two forms: first, the dampening of progressive feedback from innovation and change; second, the acceptance and codification of regressive feedback along with positive change. The first type of modification interrupts or stalls positive change by undermining momentum and diffusion, leading to some limited or diluted form of translation (Cook & Clemens, 1999; Hoffman & Jennings, 2011). The second allows for change, but via the creation of cross-logic, hybrid practices, or forms (Scott, 2001); logic-based accommodation (Maguire, 2002); or a type of legitimated ‘‘knot’’ that ties two or more logics together (Goodrick & Reay, 2010; Lindberg & Czarniawska, 2006). These artifacts tend to further anchor the field, and this bulwark inhibits future change.

METHOD To demonstrate and elaborate upon the impact of these three retrenchment processes on the reaction to a cultural anomaly, we rely on a primarily qualitative, abductive approach (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Pierce, 1992[1898]; Yin, 2003). We extend prior knowledge of each of these three theorized factors of mobilization using different, if related, sets of qualitative data.

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In the case of cultural positioning, we examine external assessments of the environmental management practices of the recognized ‘‘oil majors’’ in the patch by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI, 2008–2011), the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP, 2010), and the Dyer, Moorhouse, and Laufenberg (2008). To match up these positions and logics, we content coded the GRI environmental reports on more than 160 elements in these reports (Bansal & McClelland, 2004). Report elements were aligned with the key logics of industrial management, strategic positioning, and corporate social responsibility. Once the coding of the GRI indicators was complete, we then examined the overall ranking of companies on the various reports to determine whether particular companies were more progressive (progressive) or regressive (lag) within modal sets of logics. To do so, we matched up GRI reports with the sustainability reports of each company that submitted data in order to verify whether the reported systems were more symbolically representative of the logic or more substantive in nature. We also conducted 15 interviews (see Table A.1) with company and government officials to establish the context and meaning of these reports (Misutka, 2010). The most regressive firms were those that had sparse environmental systems representing a particular logic and a relatively poor sustainability record; the most progressive firms were those with the most developed environmental reporting systems under a logic and a better sustainability record. Other institutional researchers have used content coding and external assessments of environmental management reporting as a test of logic development (Bansal & Roth, 2000; Hoffman, 1999). In the case of behavioral resistance, we focused on how members of the organizational field responded to critical incidents associated with the cultural anomaly of lagged developments in the field. Critical incidence data are used by institutional researchers to assess the characteristics of institutional systems, especially logics (Hoffman, 1999; Scott, 2001), triggers for change (Cook & Clemens, 1999; Hoffman & Jennings, 2011), and institutional work (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2008). We began by coding those critical incidents between 2007 and 2011 using local media, archival documents, and interviews. We then constructed a timeline of incidents around climate change, oil processing, and environmental systems. The incidents bundled around five main events, which we organized into two related sets: (1) the ‘‘duck trial,’’ media portrayals of the oil sands, and local industry and community response; and (2) water quality and ecosystem quality problems and the formation of environmental standards. Each set roughly represents one full cycle of attempted (and failed) change.

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To capture how members in the field responded to these critical incidents, we conducted 36 formal interviews (see Table A.1) with First Nations and Aboriginal band representatives, environmental NGOs (eNGOs), and additional oil and gas industry members along with government regulators in 2010–2011. Interviewees were asked about their roles in the field via questions centered on engaging other stakeholders or their current campaigns and projects related to the aforementioned critical incidents, as well as the industry’s response to the controversy. Observations of stakeholder meetings and community events were also recorded, along with 60 informal conversations conducted at these events or in other situations such as meals, drinks, or car journeys. All interviews were recorded with permission and then transcribed. To these interviews, we attached field notes and whatever documents, company presentations, articles, and web pages that the interviewees thought pertinent. We culled through this massive set of interviews and field notes (running more than 2000 pages) to isolate evidence related to our mechanisms of interest. We isolated passages that fit with different aspects of behavioral resistance, from attention formation to social mobilization and on to politicking as discussed by Lounsbury and Crumley (2007), and then tried to determine which specific behavioral tactics seemed to fit with instance of power use. In our preliminary results below, we only discuss a few of the illustrative examples that we found. In the case of feedback shaping processes, we relied primarily on our archival information on government programs, company initiatives, and media reports to isolate new ventures and innovation attempts, such as the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan (LARP). In some cases, we returned to our interview data, particularly from round one (Misutka, 2010) to try to understand the meaning of these plans in the context of the multiple participants. Using these reports and supporting interviews, we tried to isolate three or four larger innovative ventures to see what type of change was occurring, if any, and in this way describe the way in which various institutional actors shaped feedback.

RESULTS The results of our explorations are best understood by first displaying the model of Lounsbury and colleagues (Lounsbury & Crumley, 2007; Thornton et al., 2012) in full and then highlighting our modifications to it as we step through the ways in which change to dominant institutional logics and logic

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Fig. 1.

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The Retrenchment Process. Source: Adapted from Lounsbury and Crumley (2007).

configurations appears to have been forestalled. Their model – and our modifications in bolded boxes and arrows – is shown in Fig. 1.

Cultural Positioning The first step for stalling change is via the cultural positioning of firms and their practice within the current structure of the field and the logics underpinning that structure. The relative positioning of the oil majors during the 2008–2011 period, as noted, is captured via the logics of those firms as shown by their environmental management systems, and the external assessment by reporting bodies of those firms on the logics. Table 1 presents the alignment of the various oil companies’ environmental management systems with different known environmental logics. At Royal Dutch Shell and Suncor, the strategic environmental management logic appears to be the strongest. At most of the other firms, there is greater plurality (sedimentation) of logics. What this means for retrenchment is that the large group of balanced firms, which still retain elements of the industrial–regulatory logic, anchor the field, making it more difficult for the most recent of the logics, the strategic environmental one, to take hold. A third observation is that some of the firms such as CNRL and Imperial do not report on as many GRI items as firms like Royal Dutch Shell. Quite apart from the weighting among logics, this may indicate that there is less reliance on any formal logic in such firms relative to other oil majors in the field. Table 2 shows the external assessments of oil major’s environmental reporting systems. The reports are listed from those involving a wide group

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Table 1. Content Coding of Oil Sands Major Environmental Report Elementsa,b. .

Companies

Logic 1: Industrial and Regulatory Management (%)

Logic 2: CSR Management (%)

Logic 3: Strategic Management (%)

CNRL ConocoPhillipsc Esso/Imperial Nexen

31 49 41 46

10 45 35 58

9 24 29 38

PetroCanada Royal Dutch Shell Statoil Suncor Syncrudec Total E&P

79 87 90 30 72

Merged with Suncor for 2009–2010 75 90 98 20 73

90 46 54 29 37

a

Data based on 2010 GRI report submissions, except for ConocoPhillips which files a report every 2 years, thus 2009 was used. Company percentages are out of the full 100% of total indicators. b Indicated logics within categories are represented as percentage covered within each coded category. c ConocoPhillips and Syncrude did not report within the GRI or provide a list of indicators, so reports with coded independently.

Table 2.

External Assessments of Environmental Management Practices. Assessment of Oil Sands Operators

Oil companies

CNRL ConocoPhillips Esso/Imperial Nexen PetroCanada Royal Dutch Shell Statoila Suncor Syncrude Total E&P

Pembina (2008)

GRI (2010)

CDP (2010)

Combined average

Relative rank

31 n/a 34 n/a 37 46.5 n/a 33 18 25.5

17 37 36 47 n/a 84 68 75 31 55

n/a n/a 54 n/a 59 68 n/a 75 n/a 64

23 36 40.6 46 48 61.8 n/a 61 18 48.1

8 7 6 5 4 1

Note: PetroCanada became part of Suncor in 2010. n/a, not available/not submitted. a Statoil is not ranked overall as its oil sands operations are still in the planning phase.

2 9 3

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of stakeholders (GRI) to those involving a relatively narrow group of supporters (CDP – financial analysts). The reports give a sense of the structural arrangements in the oil patch that make the adoption of more progressive practices within each logic, and of the more progressive, strategic environmental logic, difficult. One of the most noticeable observations about the data in Table 2 is that the relative ranking of the firms across the reports is similar (and somewhat stable). Royal Dutch Shell and Suncor fare quite well throughout this period, whereas Imperial and CNRL do not.7 None of the companies perform well (above 50%) on the Pembina scorecard, which is entirely NGO-derived. A second important observation is that there is wide variance in scores, quite apart from ranking, indicating very different standings of these firms being routinely perceived by diverse evaluators. Where retrenchment is concerned, this variance is particularly salient. It allows for legitimated, wide, non-isomorphic standards adoption in the field (Scott, 2001), and it empowers firms representing these oil majors, such as the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), to ensure that an even wider variance in practices among smaller, less resource-laden and system-intensive members is legitimate, and must be gradually changed before the core sector of producers, with their wide variance, changes. In terms of relative cultural positioning, then, the field contains a great deal of variation. On the one hand, it has progressive firms such as Royal Dutch Shell and Suncor, which draw on more historically rooted logics, especially corporate social responsibility, but push such logics forward with strategic approaches to the environment. On the other hand, it has oil majors such as CNRL, Imperial, and Syncrude, which appear to be somewhat retrenched based on their GRI rankings and logics corresponding to their practices. Most intriguing is that the bulk of the large, resource-rich companies (e.g., see Total, ConocoPhillips, and Nexen) anchor a ‘‘mixed middle’’; that is, they draw on an admixture of logics and practices. Thus, such firms and their systems legitimate a wide variance in practices among the full group. This position of firms and variance in practices would seem to support our claim that the local field is retrenched via a deeply structured version of fragmentation and decentralization.

Behavioral Resistance Processes Behavioral resistance processes include indirect and direct efforts that influence collective mobilization – running from attention formation and

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social movement generation on to politicking and decision-making. We relied on thematic coding of our two sets of interview data, those done in 2008–2009 with oil executives and stakeholders about environmental reporting in light of increasing environmental pressure due to incidents, and those done in 2010–2011 with diverse stakeholders in the patch communities around environmental systems, critical incidents, and stakeholder engagement practices. Table 3 displays the key examples and behavioral processes and tactics observed in compressed form. Attention Formation Attention formation is critical for identifying problems and then for focusing cultural and material resources in order to address them (Ocasio, 1997). However, its sequential and evanescent nature is also easily deflected or diluted using a variety of micro-tactics. Avoiding The most prominent process of retrenchment prior to the critical events analyzed was avoidance. The method of processing bitumen was developed in the early 1990s and was in full operation for a decade before garnering much attention. The companies in the oil patch and the industry as a whole, instead, pointed at the positive economic benefits as often as possible. Furthermore, within issue domains, like cumulative impacts or animal habitat destruction, the industry tends to avoid direct discussions. In interviews, company information, and online blogs, environmental managers of oil sands companies discuss other issues (Upstream Dialogue: The Facts on Oil Sands 2010, CAPP). Interestingly, this can sometimes mean focusing on pollution issues themselves, but not the most relevant ones at hand. In the case of caribou, land, air, and water have been discussed, often to the exclusion of non-specific habitats, boundaries, and park areas (Interview 17). Fragmenting Avoidance is, in part, possible because of fragmentation in logics, collective identities, and practices across different organizations and communities (Greenwood et al., 2011). Oil majors try to craft communications strategies that reflect their different identities. They wish to look better than the competitors, but they also need to be able to work together on some projects either as joint ventures or often at a group or industry level. This makes the

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Table 3. Processes Affected Attention formation

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Behavioral Resistance Processes. Examples

Behavioral Tactics

 Avoiding discussions of cumulative impacts of industry development – for example, in boreal forest (interview with oil sands environmental manager, Upstream Dialogue: The facts on Oil Sands 2010, CAPP)  Ignoring the caribou population problem (interviews with community spokesperson and oil sands environmental manager)

Avoiding

 Forming and promoting unique identities of each company and its competitive nature are emphasized (observation, CAPP website 2011)  Creating other independent groups seeking to promote development (CAPP, Alberta Oil Sands Secretariat, Alberta Innovates, Pembina, OSLI) (company interviews, 2009)

Fragmenting

 Dialoguing via online forum to re-mesh issues, like personal energy consumption, noting positive side effects of development, such as discovery of dinosaur fossils (OSQAR blog)  Showing that the oil sands members themselves have similar environmental concerns, but have done a better job of thinking them through (interviews, web news)

Reframing

 Creating local relationships with communities, which fits need for support in application processes (Fort McMurray Today: http:// www.fortmcmurraytoday.com/ ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3073153)  Attempting to realign geographically dispersed municipalities with province on infrastructure, helping to lobby the province for key transportation infrastructure upgrades necessary for both community and industry (Oil Sands Developers (b), June 2009).

Individualizing and regrouping

 Working in economic partnerships with local communities (especially bands), have band members sit on committees, and employ them in the operations (interviews).  Bringing the wider regional community on side by making sure that their livelihood and continued growth depend primarily on the patch’s development (interviews)

Co-opting

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Table 3. (Continued ) Processes Affected

Politicking and decisionmaking

Examples

Behavioral Tactics

 Attending trade and employment fairs to help attract young people to work in the industry as well as investing in training, apprenticeships, and leadership initiatives (Shell Oil Sands Fact Book, 2009)  Rewarding particular eNGOs that promote the mission of the oil major, and punishing those that do not (interviews)

Countermoving

 Generating a large number of agenda items in many meetings, on which few decisions can actually be made (interview). Also, requiring a great deal of time for each issue, thus dragging out the decision process (interview)  Using a complex pathways for approval or oversight method for environmental impacts (i.e., water) managed by the Regional Aquatic Monitoring Program (www.ramp-alberta.org)

Using non-decisions and circuitous paths

 Presenting large amounts of company information at regulatory hearings, which can’t be scrutinized properly by community representatives during hearing timelines (interviews with industrial relations coordinators)  Transporting company executives to community meetings/consultation days (interview with government representatives). Company representatives complete workbooks being gathered as stakeholder data (interview with government representative, observation at stakeholder event)

Excessive reviewing and skewing consultation

 Using lots of experts on panels and consultation meetings, which makes the non-expert voice less valued (interviews)  Not publishing or directly revealing underlying sources of money and support; e.g., companies do publish details of direct support to agencies with whom they are presumably aligned (GRI, 2010), and lobbying is only partially disclosed (interviews)

Expert-only decision-making and hidden votes

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field more complex, both vertically and horizontally, particularly through collaborations, viewed as essential given the intensive capital required to build in the oil sands, thus the collective reputation of the industry is crucial (Interview 8). Attempts to create a fragmented, decentralized, and horizontal field can even be seen in the new industry collaboration between five large oil sands companies that perceive themselves to be most progressive. Frustrated with the industry association’s need to appeal to all their petroleum producers, not just the large oil sands companies coming under attack, they set up a new organization – The Oil Sands Leader Initiative (OSLI). They initially had no communications, not even a website, despite a communications working group. They simply hoped to show that they were about performance, and not just publicity (Interviews e, f, and h). This in itself is a communications tactic, hoping to communicate that the silence suggests they are not green washing, but it also means that people cannot monitor the coalition and it is not clear how these leaders are different than the other oil majors in the Patch.8 Reframing Once critical incidents related to the anomaly have been raised, a common tactic is to focus attention on less directly relevant parts of the topic or to recast that topic (Benford & Snow, 2000). Reframing is typically done by broadening the discussion toward the economy, rather than just environmental logics (Lefsrud & Meyer, 2012). The industry has established a campaign, with print advertising as well as an online forum. The forum has the advantage of holding the debate about the industry and energy, allowing people to post and debate, but within an industry controlled space. The advertising campaign has attempted to persuade people that everyone living in the province benefits economically from the industry, and therefore ‘‘Alberta Is Energy’’ (CAPP, 2010). This stance discourages people from criticizing the industry in a number of ways, by reminding them that people they know are directly employed by the industry and by reminding them of the number of indirect benefits (for example, to a chief), both of which would likely lead to people feeling hypocritical for criticizing the industry. It makes the industry seem all encompassing and impossible to ‘‘shut down.’’ This strategy does not attempt to deny that there are no negative impacts of the industry, but rather enlarges the perspective to cover all citizens as beneficiaries. Educating is one of the most advanced forms of reframing. Those working in the oil sands believe that people do not understand or have been

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misinformed about the issues involved, and they have therefore worked to educate adults, young people, and children. The education of adults has come through media tours and news stories, as well as more information online, and a multimedia advertising campaign. Young people have been given a book, Our Petroleum Challenge, to read in school, and some were hand-selected to attend an industry-sponsored conference on energy issues. Children are also given classes on the difference between renewable and non-renewable energy, and are invited to act out the oil sands development at the front of the class. And young people as a group are the target of an industry collaboration, which rather than educating them about the industry allowed them to choose the issues upon which they wished to focus (Interview 18).

Social Movement Generation If attention is focused and sufficiently stimulated, there is the possibility of mobilizing for institutional change (Davis, McAdam, Scott, & Zald, 2005). However, there are many opportunities for preventing or stalling this process, all of which can be observed in relation to the critical events of 2008–2011 in the oil patch. Individualizing and Regrouping The first and most obvious process of deflecting mobilization is to individualize the issue. Among oil companies, individualizing takes place when securing agreements among community members who sanction oil development activities in their geographic area. Companies are keen to distinguish themselves from their competitors, so they create different sets of relationships with stakeholders. One oil sands company entered into a 40year royalty style agreement with a Metis community of 300 people said to be worth tens of millions during the lifetime of the project. This avoids an adversarial response from the community, especially if the company expands development (Financial Post, 2011). At the same time, there are a number of cultural factors that inhibit the mobilization of community residents: the lack of resources to thoroughly respond to new project applications; the lack of communication within and across communities. Many do not have Internet connectivity in order to mobilize opposition. For some areas, the majority of the high-paying employment opportunities are with oil sands companies. But in spite of traditions in other First Nations communities in Canada and south of the

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border, there is not as much of a protesting culture among Alberta First Nations. NGOs and community members do not necessarily share the same concerns, especially because some seek money and employment from the industry and many distrust NGOs’ historic protest against trapping practices (observed at Treaty 8 day, 2010). Co-opting If mobilization cannot be forestalled, co-optation is always possible. There are several forms at work currently in the oil patch. First, oil sands companies have made agreements with First Nations communities. Industry is obliged to ask First Nations for their feedback on environmental assessment because of regulation but feel that some communities are keen to discuss economic gains at this point (Interviews 11 and 21). The environmental assessment process is part of the regulatory process, and First Nations may time economic rewards at around the same time as these documents are discussed. Industry often favors contracting with community subcontractors or companies that are approved by the First Nation. However, these agreements may also state what the First Nation can and cannot say through terms agreed upon, which stops some community members from being able to criticize the oil sands industry (Interview 12). Those working for their band have to be careful to speak to researchers and journalists as individuals, and not as representing their First Nation. Oil Sands companies have also worked with First Nations communities on activities such as reclamation planning and recording their traditional knowledge. This may aid the industry in the future, but it also has the advantage of helping the project and co-opting those who might otherwise be concerned about the loss of the boreal forest that has been part of traditional First Nations lifestyles, leading to the loss of traditional land use knowledge as a result. Countermoving Some tactics rely on more overt forms of power use to prevent collective action, partly by rewarding those who do not mobilize and punishing those that do. These can be considered to be countermoves. Aboriginal people, a potentially outspoken group, due to impacts to their traditional lands, such as the removal of the forest, are offered economic benefits. These include direct payments, support, and fast-tracking of contractors who provide some of their profits to their band, employing Aboriginal people and First Nation companies, as well as organizing scholarships to the local vocational college and apprenticeships. There has also been a local employment center

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set up, and at least one company provides advisory services to First Nation members who want to set up their own businesses (Interview 11). In addition, there have been a number of tactics to lower the influence of eNGOs, first to diminish and delegitimate those eNGOs that oppose the industry. This has been done through cutting their funding either directly or through the foundations that fund them or by supporting eNGOs that do not challenge the industry. Often these eNGOs have supported work on climate change campaigns, but the industry has been keen to argue that it believes in climate change, and that oil sands may only be a temporary (if lucrative) measure en route toward a green energy future (OSQAR blog; Interview 21).

Politicking and Decision-Making The processes here focus on key groups that have already been mobilized, most notably local communities and eNGOs. In addition, a great deal of work has been done around the critical incidents in the foreground and background of government. We can only provide a sample and sense of some of these complex processes based on our access to public documents and interviews with well-placed stakeholders. Here our direct participation and observation is more limited. Non-Decision-Making and Using Circuitous Paths Like avoidance of the issue at the attention recognition stage, not making decisions is a way of avoiding the processing of mobilized support. Non-decision is avoidance of engaging mobilized support at the formal stage of decision-making. The indirectly forced tabling of decisions is one method of not making decisions. Interviewees have commented that agendas are often very large, and thus there is rarely time to move on many items. At least one eNGO unit has said that it is frustrated with the amount of time spent with little resolution on local community boards. As a result, they have formally chosen to no longer sit on stakeholder panels (Interview 25). At a wider level, there have been a number of circuitous pathways for regulatory oversight and approval. Some of these have industry participation at key junctures. For instance, the oversight of environmental impacts (i.e., water) is managed by the Regional Aquatic Monitoring Program, a coalition of government, industry, and stakeholders. But it is funded by industry (www.ramp-alberta.org). Similarly, the Cumulative Environmental

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Management Association, responsible for addressing issues raised in the Regional Sustainable Development Strategy, is a 50-member association with representation from government, industry, environmental, Aboriginal and health organizations. But it too has heavy industry influence (http:// cemaonline.ca/index.php/about-us). Excessive Reviewing and Skewing Consultation Information overload is a frequent problem in all areas of land development. It is doubly difficult when complex environmental issues are overlaid on normal development application processes. Even though oil sands companies provide the funding for industry relations corporations (IRCs) staff at First Nations headquarters to help them review lengthy environmental reports when applying for new sites to develop, this funding is limited and the number of qualified individuals is less. Not surprisingly, both industry employees and First Nations members have said that they do not feel they can review whole documents (Interviews 13 and 36). Furthermore, the whole regulatory process takes several years and usually ends in hearings. One environmental manager describes it as an iterative process (Interview 12), but IRCs can feel under-resourced and frustrated when after such a long period, applications are accepted (Interview 36). Given the length and complexity of the process, how information is processed and what becomes incorporated in the applications change. One eNGO that previously provided recommendations for an oil sands company’s application felt frustrated when the company gained approval to start, and then sold on their project, meaning that none of the recommendations were followed (Interview 25). In some communities, it is hard to get input on local water quality and watershed development issues. As a result, particularly in the last few years, there has been an attempt to be sure that some representatives of local and company groups are at least present. At least one eNGO, and a number of small community level environmental groups have said that they are frustrated with the number of industry representatives who sit on them and the amount of time spent with no resolution. As a result, they have chosen to no longer sit on stakeholder panels. Even high-profile consultation processes face the same issues. The government has been trying to develop a Lower Athabasca Regional Plan (LARP) in which the government allocates areas for development versus conservation. As part of this process, it has organized multiple stakeholder consultation days: industry has been present at these stakeholder and public meetings, sometimes flying its representatives across the province to do so.

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In addition, there were also two sessions organized primarily for industry, involving breakfast and lunch, and opportunities to hear presentations and provide small group feedback to facilitators. One industry manager challenged a facilitator on why international water standards were necessary (observation at LARP stakeholder/industry event, Edmonton, May 2011). Some employees also attended the evening session open to the public and made their opinions known. One interviewee reported that a company had given their employees the time to respond formally through the government’s workbook during work hours. These responses are anonymous. Another company provided a formal response, and organized meetings to discuss the specifics of the plan (Interview 21). A candidate for Premier was also invited to meet with an oil sands company to learn more about the issues related to the LARP (observation, Calgary, May 2011). Expert-Only Decision-Making and Hidden Votes The industry has cooperated with the government in setting up a number of panels to review issues, such as those related to water and health. This follows the perspective that industry members are the experts and are best able to resolve their own issues. Similarly, there have been joint venture projects where government and industry (at a group level) have worked on infrastructure projects to respond to social issues related to such fast development of a previously rural and sparsely populated area. Indeed, over the last 3 years, there has been a battle of experts in the oil patch, which has stalled decisionmaking. Environmental managers also responded formally on behalf of the company. In positioning themselves as the experts/solution finders to environmental issues, they can legitimately take over the debate, for example, by hosting blogs and taking an active role in education and in eNGOs. In fact, Alberta’s rules around funding and lobbying disclosure may also be seen as somewhat of an anomaly. As a result, there may be far more lobbying groups and industry associations involved in reporting practices and environmental management than meets the eye. Even though the reporting frameworks do ask about direct participation in public policy and lobbying, the amount of disclosure on such information varies. Statoil, for example, discloses that it does not contribute to political parties or individual politicians; however, it also provides partial disclosure of its lobbying efforts, focusing on responsible development and regulatory compliance commitments. Specific lobbying efforts are not disclosed. Total does not disclose any political contributions, but does detail specific activities around participation in regulatory processes (Total Corporate Sustainability Report, 2010, p. 9). No other companies provide details on these activities.

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Alberta does require that all personal and corporate donations over a value of $375 must be publicly disclosed through Elections Alberta and are available on the organization’s website (www.elections.ab.ca). In 2010, five of the study group companies made donations to the governing Alberta Progressive Conservative Association in their corporate name with a maximum donation of $10,250 attributable to Imperial. The Party reported donations from CNRL of $9,250 and from Syncrude of $4,250. Individual donations made by corporate executives or board members were not tracked. Such behind the scene influence has been claimed by some oil patch critics to be large (see Nikiforuk, 2008).

Feedback Shaping Processes Even if there is the creation and nascent adoption of some new idea or practice in an institutional arena that promotes a new logic or collective identity, feedback to the rest of the field can be shaped in a way that preserves the current structural arrangements of logics and/or to support the more entrenched positions in it (Table 4). Hijacking Translation Feedback with regards to the oil sands occurs informally and formally. It ranges from the public’s view of the positioning of firms in the oil patch (identity issues) to normative pressures to change environmental behaviors and programs to more coercive via regulation and legislation. These pressures lead to forms of translation (Czarniawska & Sevon, 1996). Industry’s translation efforts make it apparent that it has learned something from recent oil sands incidents. It has been using the media, both traditional and online, to reposition itself in the minds of stakeholders. One consultancy now sends email newsletters aggregating the energy news and providing their short commentary on it. Several oil sands companies aim to provide positive news stories to the media. They have invited media and high-profile energy bloggers (who can take the flights and accommodation as long as they declare this on their blog) on tours of the area. They have also produced fact sheets on the industry as a whole. One communications executive stated that it has recognized that the industry had to state the size of the tailings ponds, for example, or else someone else would, so they might not report the correct size. There was a move to provide facts of this nature alongside facts about the contribution of the oil sands to local and national economies. Another oil sands communications manager reported that they aimed to provide employees with conversational pieces

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Table 4. Feedback Shaping Processes. Process Affected Shaping of feedback

Examples

Process

 Cognitive: Learning to respond positively to environmentalist pressure. Suncor and industry partners announce plans to share information and research on tailings reclamation processes (Suncor, 2010), bypassing the need for the government to further regulate tailings  Normative: Taking over training and education of community environmental monitoring programs for Aboriginal peoples (Shell, Oil Sands Factbook, 2009)  Regulative: Steering enforcement away from areas disruptive to production (interviews)

Hijacking translation

 The evolving environmental systems of the firms in the ‘‘mixed middle’’ (see Table 1 and 2) show that several practices from different logics can be combined into one operating system, even if this system is not highly legitimated by the external assessors of it  Evolving the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan (LARP) for land use and conservation. This plan ties together disparate interests, along with very different environmental logics, all in the same document (http://environment.alberta.ca/ 03422.html). It is also highly legitimated by government bodies and the community

Hybrid practice and re-knotted logics

in case they met detractors of the industry and to make sure they attracted the best staff (Interviews a, c, d, and 20 and 21). In the case of regulative institutional change, new rules and laws around ecosystem health monitoring and best practices are currently being established. After some delay on environmental reporting, the Alberta government has now released the final version of the LARP (August 2012). The federal government also announced that it would strengthen its coverage of oil sands activities, though in Canada, the management of resources and pollution is primarily a provincial duty. Interestingly, Alberta Environment now has a much larger role in the task of planning and monitoring for the region. Indeed, the plan covers comprehensive pollution domains, from water to land and air. It is also focused around issue areas

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such as the ‘‘oil sands’’ and ‘‘Fort Chipewyan’’. In addition, the regulatory and compliance features are highlighted, particularly on the plan’s public eb portal. As of yet, however, relatively few charges have been laid. Indeed, the most progressive oil companies on our list, Suncor and Syncrude, appear to have the highest profile problems and fine rates of all the majors discussed, but there is little evidence yet of sweeping charges around the type of water quality issues raised in research reports, such as those raised in 2010 by a leading, local scientific team.9 Re-Knotted Logics Feedback can also be shaped via the creation of hybrid practices and hybrid forms (Greenwood et al., 2011; Scott, 2001), which themselves represent a type of legitimated ‘‘knot’’ that ties two or more logics together (Lindberg & Czarniawska, 2006; Goodrick & Reay, 2010). Perhaps the most salient example of hybrid forms and practices is among the environmental management systems used by particular firms. The firms in the ‘‘mixed middle,’’ such as Nexen or Imperial or ConocoPhillips, use a combination of newer and older practices, from three logics (see Table 1). These sets of practices cohere and endure in their environmental management systems, even if they are not rated highly by external assessors like GRI or Pembina (see Table 2). In terms of re-knotting, perhaps the most comprehensive example is the set of land use practices encoded in the LARP, which has now been finalized (LARP, 2011). As mentioned at various points above in our observations, the plan was created via the processes discussed above: a great deal of attention, but of an oscillating and fragmented sort, with regional and local consultation processes, and provincial government decision-making in generating the plan’s terms. The result has been a plan that divides the land use of the LARP into a northern section that is more environmentally focused and a southern section that is based on multiuse, that is, primarily on oil sands operations. Thus, the LARP legitimates the current conflict between highly economic-focused logics versus more environmentally oriented ones (Hulme, 2009) in the Alberta oil sands.10

DISCUSSION We opened this paper by asking why do significant cultural anomalies frequently fail to generate changes to institutional logics? Based on current

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institutional change models, particularly those offered by Lounsbury and colleagues (Lounsbury & Crumley, 2007; Thornton et al., 2012), we theorized three specific sources of constraint on change: cultural positioning, behavioral resistance, and feedback shaping processes. Using three sets of primarily qualitative data on economic and environmental practice in Alberta oil sands, we elaborated upon how pressures for change have been channeled and diluted. More specifically, with regard to cultural positioning, we found that the high variance in usage of environmental items and logics on which these items mapped appeared to allow and legitimate slow change. In addition, the sedimentation of logics meant that several approaches were anchored on a distributed plurality of logics (Kraatz & Block, 2008; Thornton et al., 2012), making progressive movement toward a more strategic environmental approach difficult (Hoffman, 1999). This analysis showed the dark side (Khan, Munir, & Willmott, 2007) of too much pluralism, that is, the problem of too many logics evolving and being ascribed to a field. With regard to the behavioral retrenchment processes, we found a large number of instances of avoidance and fragmentation of attention in our venue, even in the short 2008–2011 period. This was particularly noticeable at the community level, where attention unfortunately is essential as a precursor for mobilization (Diani & McAdams, 2003). We were also able to document many instances of attention switching, reframing, and educational processes, processes that have been examined by other institutional scholars (e.g., Hoffman & Ocasio, 2001; Lefsrud & Meyer, 2012). Educating, in particular, seemed extremely important as a micro-tactic, both working with youth through schools and community education and training, but also by re-educating adults on energy literacy and on perspectives that stress the economic benefits of the industry. Our analyses of resistance and retrenchment in mobilization and decisionmaking were perhaps more traditional in nature than those of attention, covering such well-known mechanisms as co-opting, countermoving, nondecisions, excessive review, and blocked votes. Nevertheless, by demonstrating their use, we showed that our venue and actors have many features that have been found in other studies, such as that of the California oil spill off Santa Barbara (Molotch, 1970) or Love Canal in Niagara Falls New York (Russell, Lewis, & Keating, 1992). In addition, we were able to demonstrate the importance of individualization, regrouping processes, and resistance mechanisms that take advantage of the dispersed geography of the oil sands, both within and across communities. Finally, we noted how these play out in processes where consultation was concerned. In the Canadian context,

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representativeness at this phase of decision-making is considered very important. We discussed several tactics that made representativeness difficult and, at times, mis-portrayed. In terms of shaping feedback, we found this set of processes to be evolving rapidly of late, and thus our findings were only suggestive. The ‘‘duck trial’’ did lead to both negative publicity (hence reputation effects) and large fines (relative to the penalty maximization), which was a strong signal for change in the system. In addition, the cascading expose of oil sands in the international media – validated by results of the ‘‘Schindler report’’ (Kelly et al., 2010) – put pressure on the Alberta and federal governments to deal with the problem, forcing them to change their stance about the need for a comprehensive environmental plan (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 2010; Dowdeswell et al., 2010; Edmonton Journal, 2010b). Nevertheless, the court fines and the compliance-elements of the plan, plus the involvement of the government as a key mediator,11 seem to signal that any combination of the current three logics as the basis for environmental management is possible, so long as the industrial–regulatory logic is followed at a minimum, along with some use of corporate social responsibility in particular community locales. As such, the LARP plan may come to represent an ‘‘institutional knot’’ (Lindberg & Czarniawska, 2006).

Theoretical Implications Based on these findings, we think that the institutional change model offered by Lounsbury and colleagues (Lounsbury & Crumley, 2007; Thornton et al., 2012) might benefit from amendment. The current model acknowledges that extant logics and field boundaries may be reinforced and change-resisted. However, the model and the text that it embodies fall short of including explicit mechanisms and examples of failed change. Instead, the subtext of its logic is that when attention is not formed, social movements not generated, and political decision-making not aligned properly, innovation and change will simply not occur. Fig. 1 represents, then, a useful companion model, that is, a model of retrenchment as the flip side to the innovation and change model. In that model, we have added the mechanisms that we have found by examining the Alberta oil sands case. These mechanisms, depicted in gray, act upon the cultural anomaly (also depicted in gray), leading to boundary reinforced identities, logics, and boundaries – that is, retrenchment – in the local field. The sequencing of the mechanism implies that change may be derailed at

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any point in the innovation process, starting with methods to block attention formation, then those for undermining the generation of social movements, and finally techniques for blocking the alignment of politics and formal decision-making with change initiatives. Even after innovation has occurred, the translation process may be hijacked or the institutional change re-knotted. Besides these amendments to the change model, our research has two other theoretical implications of note. First, the work may add to the complexity view of plural logics recently offered by Greenwood et al. (2011). In that view, the contradictions in logics, which anomalies themselves represent, are enabled by logic, field, and organizational level features. We agree. Nevertheless, in spite of their depicted flow from the logic to field to firm and back in Fig. 1, the linkages across these levels are not as explicit as they might be previously perceived. The dynamism and maintenance efforts for this contradiction are not displayed or discussed with construct level terms. And much of the discussion in that perspective is about quasi-agentic ‘‘strategic’’ responses by firms and field members to institutional complexity elements, and less about the reinforcement of those elements. Going back to Selznick (1949) and to Perrow (1986[1972]), we think that much of what passes for institutional change is really the attempt to constrain change, which itself leads to reinforcement of current practice and small variations on that change (Kraatz, Ventresca, & Deng, 2010). The pendulum in institutional research might even benefit from swinging back toward the overwhelming weight and power of constraint and isomorphic pressure, around which innovation and change are, periodically and with unpredictable paths, created. A second theoretical implication of our research beyond the direct amendment of the institutional change model is related to work on local or community institutional fields. Local fields have been theorized as important sites for change (e.g., Jennings, Greenwood, Lounsbury, & Suddaby, 2012; Marquis & Lounsbury, 2007; Rao, Monin, & Durand, 2003). Indeed, variations in local cultures and the proximity of actors in communities often allow for the generation of local innovative ideas and practice. However, we have seen that the community structure of the oil patch, where communities are geographically and historically disparate, has contributed enormously to retrenchment. On the one hand, agents seeking to improve environmental conditions (i.e., to change current economic practice) are too dispersed and different to garner attention or mobilize socially. On the other hand, agents seeking to maintain current economic and market conditions have the resources to overcome

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geographic and social distance issues, further reinforcing the ability to resistance change. This negative, double-moderating effect of geographic community structure is quite the reverse of what is often depicted in the literature on institutional innovation but must be incorporated more directly into our institutional theories. To wit, a focus on retrenchment processes can importantly help us to develop a more comprehensive understanding of institutional logics in action.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to thank the many Alberta companies and their representatives, as well as the other regional stakeholders, community members and campaigners who discussed, in frank terms, their practices, policies and perspectives. Ms Misutka and Ms Coleman both received research ethics clearance for their data collection efforts. In addition, we would like to thank Mike Lounsbury for his comments on drafts of this paper.

NOTES 1. ‘‘A ‘cultural anomaly’ is a scientific finding of sufficient magnitude that it helps create a crisis within a given scientific paradigm, such as what Maxwell’s observations about electricity or Roentgen’s observations about x-rays did to the Newtonian approach to physics (Kuhn, 1970, p. 52). Jointly or singly, cultural anomalies help push us into what Kuhn (1970) refers to as ’revolutionary science’, a period in which the pursuit of explanations and understanding results in the exploration of alternatives to long-held, taken-for-granted assumptions’’ (Hoffman & Jennings, 2011, p. 101). 2. Institutional logics refer to the widely accepted pattern of beliefs, ideas, and actions within a domain by its constituents (Friedland & Alford, 1991). 3. The development and deployment of retrenchment processes by actors might be seen as a form of institutional entrepreneurship (Khan, Munir, & Willmott, 2007), but most likely only when the retrenchment processes generate some new, alternate, but non-progressive practices. This is a point to which we will return in the discussion. 4. A very different approach to retrenchment is to examine its sources directly, and not within a model of change (e.g., Levy & Eagan, 2003). The downside of this approach is that it rebuilds a lot of institutional theory along the way; the upside, is that it may yield more unique (less derivative) theory from extant constructs. 5. Note that we do not subscribe to the notion that there is a direct correspondence of particular actors or types of actors with the position depicted,

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but there are agentic processes that tend to lead actors to react and undermine the adoption of progressive logics. 6. By ‘‘processes’’ we mean the methods of implementing either systemic or agentic power (sometimes thought of as structural or personal power as in Lukes, 1977). Processes of a systemic or structural nature are frequently just patterns of actions attendant with levels of power; processes of an agentic or personal nature are frequently behaviors that are initiated by certain conditions, without the requirement of intention (e.g., see Lawrence, Winn, & Jennings, 2001). These agentic processes themselves may be portrayed in very different ways by observers and participants. One may see them as power tactics, the other as the natural use of tools of the trade. 7. A score of 70 is considered strong for environmentalism on the GRI (GRI, 2010) and CDP (CDP, 2010) indexes. 8. To their credit, these experts set up a charter laying out where they recognized that the industry was not currently meeting societal expectations. Working groups were set up in all the areas facing criticism, community relations, air, water, land, and technology innovation. They also share innovations. 9. See Kelly et al. (2010); Edmonton Journal, August 31, 2010a; a research report led most notably by University of Alberta scientist David Schindler is seen as the first peer-reviewed scientific evidence noting the significant local watershed degradation tied to oil sands development. 10. The LARP does encode several important changes to use in specific subregions, which have caused furor among local developers, yet not really pleased local bands or farmers (Edmonton Journal, 2011). 11. Interestingly the head of global reputation for one oil and gas company (not based in Alberta) asserted that government had the final say over environmental standards and the types of issues we are discussing, and if they were not happy they would have to force industry to stop. While a stakeholder and environmental manager in Calgary told one of our interviewers that he thinks the Alberta government is too concerned with upsetting voters to make tough decisions, such as on conservation areas in the Lower Athabasca region. It is perhaps the context of this power difference that allows these retrenchment options to flourish.

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APPENDIX Table A.1.

Two Sets of Interview Data.

Interview Set 1: Environmental Reporting Label

Company (C)

Label

Stakeholder (S)

a. b. c.

Board member Project manager Board member

i. j. k.

d.

GM, previously led reporting process GM, leads reporting process VP, leads reporting process VP, leads reporting process VP, leads reporting process

l.

Financial industry Environmental NGO Academic – research related to oil sands Media – business focus

m. n. o.

Financial industry Industry association Environmental NGO

e. f. g. h.

Interview Set 2: Community Stakeholders Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Community Member Government Government Government Government Regulator Regulator Regulator Oil and gas Oil and gas Oil and gas Oil and gas Oil and gas Oil and gas Oil and gas Oil and gas Oil and gas Oil and gas Oil and gas

Number 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

Community Member Oil and gas Oil and gas, ex-government Oil and gas Oil and gas Oil and gas Oil and gas eNGO eNGO eNGO eNGO/Community eNGO eNGO Community Community Community Community Community Community

INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS AS STRATEGIC RESOURCES Rodolphe Durand, Berangere Szostak, Julien Jourdan and Patricia H. Thornton ABSTRACT We propose that institutional logics are resources organizations use to leverage their strategic choices. We argue that firms with an awareness of multiple available logics, expressed by a larger stock of competences and a broader industrial scope are more likely to add an institutional logic to their repertoire and to become purist in this new logic. We also hypothesize that a favorable opportunity set as expressed by status leads high and low status firms to add a logic but not to focus exclusively on this new logic. We examine our hypotheses in the French industrial design industry from 1989 to 2003 in which a managerialist logic emerged and prevailed along with the pre-existing institutional logics of modernism and formalism. Our findings contribute to theory on the relationship between organizations’ strategy and institutional change and partially address the paradox of why high-status actors play a key role in triggering institutional change when such change is likely to undermine the very basis of their social position and advantage. Keywords: Institutional logics; strategic resources; institutional plurality; strategic choice; logic addition; logic focus

Institutional Logics in Action, Part A Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 39A, 165–201 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X(2013)0039A&B010

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The institutional logics that compose society are available to organizations as a basis for action (Friedland & Alford, 1991). When Google endorsed the open source movement by entering the Open Handset Alliance in 2007, the company adopted a strategy that contributed to make it one of the most innovative and successful players in the industry. In advancing the cause of open source, Google also contributed to change the rules of the game applying to all its competitors. Microsoft, whose CEO once said that the open source emblem Linux was ‘‘a cancer,’’1 finally in the summer of 2008 adapted its discourse by starting to advocate open source strategies. As a result, the market logic, once hegemonic in the software industry now coexists with the community logic of open source and Microsoft has since appeared as lagging behind Google in the latter. As the example of Google suggests, endorsing new (or marginal) institutional logics can be a powerful way for firms to shake up established competitive positions in an industry (Durand & Jourdan, 2012). For example, when independent radio stations in the United States started producing cheap quiz shows and playing recorded music, they increased competitive pressures for the network stations, which had to progressively abandon expensive live shows (Leblebici, Salancik, Copay, & King, 1991). Durable competitive advantages can ensue when competitors may be hesitant to imitate firms venturing away from established ways of doing business; for instance, Jonsson and Re´gner (2009) show that Swedish mutual funds that broke away from the dominant logic of active fund management were imitated more slowly than other funds. The case of Google or the example of French Haute Cuisine (Durand, Rao, & Monin, 2007) also reveals that firms need not reject the old while embracing the new. While supporting open source initiatives, Google remained faithful to the market logic of proprietary software, including its core business technology – the search algorithm. However, the firm added the open source logic to its repertoire of strategic action, supporting open source projects such as Android or Chrome, but did not attempt to blend the two logics, which the company has so far kept compartmentalized (Pache & Santos, 2010). French restaurants could innovate concurrently in one culinary logic (tradition) or across logics by combining and innovating in the new and upcoming Nouvelle Cuisine logic (Durand, Rao, & Monin, 2007). The goal of this paper is to shed light on cases where firms use institutional logics as strategic resources. Existing accounts of logics diffusing at the field or industry level (Rao, Monin, & Durand, 2003; Thornton & Ocasio, 1999) devote little attention to firm-level strategic action and do not account for the instances where firms add logics rather

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than substitute them. Although studies of institutional plurality reveal that unresolved tensions contribute to the maintenance of distinct logics at a macro level (Dunn & Jones, 2010) and suggest ways through which individuals may manage such tensions at the micro level (Battilana & Dorado, 2010; Reay & Hinings, 2009), little is known about how firms take positions in the institutional space by embracing more than one logic, and the consequences of this on their performance. We posit that, while the availability of new logics in the institutional environment opens opportunities for firms to make strategic choices, such choices must be understood as being deeply embedded in prevalent institutional logics that shape cognition and behavior in the industry. Based on this premise, we argue that firms face the double choice of including a new logic to their identity and in becoming a purist in that new logic by abandoning their original institutional logic. The first choice relates to the addition of a new logic into their identity repertoire. As their attention is focused on issues consistent with their own logic and driven away from inconsistent cues, firm decision makers will have a hard time perceiving, understanding, and conceptualizing new logics; for instance, giving code away for free (community logic) was not a conceivable option for decades in the software industry when copyright protection was considered a cornerstone of firm strategies (market logic). We propose that a firm’s awareness to new institutional logics will be related to its competence base and its scope of operation. In addition, depending on their opportunity set as represented by their status, firms may also opt to add a new logic or not (Adut, 2005; Phillips & Zuckerman, 2001). The second choice, becoming a purist in the new logic, boils down to the abandonment of a preexisting logic. The same factors, awareness as expressed by competence and specialization and opportunity set expressed by status position would lead some firms to dis-identify with their original logics. We test this model using empirical evidence from the industrial design industry in France (1989–2003). Industrial design is an appealing context to conduct our study because it exists at the interface of institutions and organizations. Informed by science and art, it evokes the tutelary representations of technique and aesthetics (De Noblet, 1988; Guillen, 2006; Lucie-Smith, 1983) expressed in the institutional logics: modernism (technique) and formalism (aesthetics). Managerialism, a late comer in France, posed a challenge to design agencies: lack of awareness of alternative logics, the possibility of adding this new logic to their repertoire, and that of abandoning their original logic in favor of an exclusive focus on

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managerialism. Over a 14-year period, we tracked the institutional strategic choices made by 180 design agencies. In the late 1980s, modernism predominated in French design agencies; however, by the early 2000s, managerialism became the most popular logic, indicating that design agencies added managerialism to their repertoire and, in some cases, dropped their traditional logic. We explore under which conditions the strategic dynamics of institutional logics occurred, addressing calls to further integrate strategic decisions, organizations’ performance, and institutional theory (Durand, 2012; Ingram & Silverman, 2002; Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012, p. 182).

THE LOGICS OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN2 Inspired by a conception of society as an interinstitutional system (Friedland & Alford, 1991), we conceive of professional fields as connected and interpenetrated by the structural, normative, and symbolic dimensions of broader institutional values that institutional logics capture and render available to organizations. Institutional logics are the socially constructed assumptions, values, beliefs, and rules that guide organizational actions and are characterized by organizational identity, legitimacy, authority structures, mission, focus of attention, strategy, logic of investment, governance, and economic orientation (Thornton, 2002, 2004). Institutional logics sculpt actors’ cognitions and structure actors’ choices (Thornton & Ocasio, 1999, 2008). Neo-institutional research shows how organizations position themselves vis-a`-vis institutional logics, which they demonstrate through their mission statements and documents produced for their audiences (Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005; Thornton, Jones, & Kury, 2005). With this in mind, we explored how industrial design emerged as a profession and industry in France over the past decades. The International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) defines design as ‘‘a creative activity whose aim is to establish the multifaceted qualities of objects, processes, services and their systems in whole life-cycles. Design is the central factor of innovative humanization of technologies and the crucial factor of cultural and economic exchange.’’ Therefore, references to technique, aesthetics, and business in the design industry echo higher-order realities of science, spirituality, or market. Briefly stated, in our case, as in many creative and cultural activities, the three institutional logics we observe at the industry level (Szostak, 2006) parallel higher-order institutional sectors (Jones & Livne-Tarandach, 2008;

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Thornton, 2002; Thornton & Ocasio, 2008; Thornton et al., 2005). Flamand (2006, pp. 14–15) theorizes that design emanates from exact sciences (e.g., physics, engineering), sciences of spirit (e.g., aesthetics, anthropology), and commercial sciences (e.g., management, marketing). Paralleling this typology, modernism presents industrial design as rooted in science, engineering, and technique. Formalism, in a reaction against modernism, associates design with spirituality and aesthetics, while managerialism portrays design as favoring efficiency and exchange. Table 1 describes the main dimensions of the three ideal-types of institutional logics.3 In design, the modernist logic stems from the influential Art and Architecture of German Bauhaus (1919–1933) (Guidot, 2000). Modernism is based on rational and scientific concepts (Whitford, 1984), whereby ‘‘form follows function.’’ In architecture as well, and prior to design, the trilogy Table 1. Ideal-types of Institutional Logics in the Industrial Design Industry. Modernism Corresponding institutional sector Source of identity Source of authority Basis of mission

Formalism

Managerialism

Profession

Spirituality

Market

Designer as engineer Technique mastery

Designer as artist Charismatic leadership

Design as an end: Build perfect objects (function over form)

Design as an end: Build aesthetic experience (form over function) Individual as a human being Immateriality, symbolism, affect, diversity

Designer as manager An efficient means for business Design as a means: Build optimized solutions (compromise between form and function) Individual as a consumer

Basis of attention

Individual as a user

Basis of strategy

Simplicity, efficacy, durability, rigor

Excerpt from vocabulary repertoire indicative of institutional logics

To concentrate, to equalize, to make conform, rigor, ‘‘it works,’’ coherence, expertise, efficacy, technical control, technology, seamless process, engineer, knowhowy

To dream, to imagine, to mix, to cross, artist, emotion, extravagance, images, lightness, originality, flexibility, human relationships, colors, design art, culturey

Marketing, management of organizational creativity, clientorientation To sell, to make profitable, to prospect, to manage, market, competitive advantage, consumer, strategic analyses, network, brand territory, project, competitive environment, marketing reflection y

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‘‘unity, order, and purity’’ are the guiding principles of modernist design (Guillen, 2006, p. 12), for which, according to Mies van der Rohe, ‘‘less is more.’’ Modernism defends simplicity, precision, regularity, and functionality, what Guille`n calls ‘‘the taylorized beauty of the mechanical.’’ For these reasons, modernism has been accused of being antitraditional, antiromantic, technique-based, and futurist. Above all, modernism characterizes the movement toward a rapprochement between designers as engineers and technicians, an elaboration of a legitimate profession, and a distancing from the previous model of designers trained, along with painters and sculptors, as artists in Beaux-Art schools. The creative process strives for universality, as did Charles and Ray Eames with the DSS chair in 1948, or Rams and Fisher with the Braun electric razor in 1969. Technique and technology help advance the cause of modernist designers for whom technological mastery is a source of authority. Objects are simple and efficient; colors are often black, white, or gray. Modernists perceive the individual as a user of the object in the space they design. Technology and its continuously evolving capacities encourage designers to constantly draw and conceive the purest of shapes to capture the functional essence of the entity. Michel Dallaire, a modernist industrial designer from Montreal, stresses these aspects: ‘‘I dislike superficiality. I like the truth of each material and of each technical process. Functionality of object is essential and inherent in the creative process. Result must be rigorously efficient.’’ Andre Desrosiers, independent designer in Montre´al, concludes: ‘‘Inhabited by the engineering aspect of their works, modernist designers want their creation to work.’’ In France, the first design professionals were engineers and architects who touted modernism as a natural logic. Contrary to modernism, postmodernist ideology emphasizes pure design and the re-establishment of a designer-as-artist identity. In her study, Larson (1993) insists on formalism, that is, the identification of architects as artists rather than as producers of social reality inspired by science. Formalism, the second ideal-typical logic, is embedded in artistic movements such as Free Forms and is a reaction to the modernist logic that arose after the Second World War. This movement, and protest groups such as Memphis, opposed to modernist values, criticized mass consumption and offered a new conception of design that promoted color, playfulness, optimism, and subjectivity. Formalism stems from taste judgments and societal definitions of spirituality, sacredness, and beauty.4 These values are evident in one of E. Sottsass’ most famous works: the 1969 typewriter ‘‘Valentine,’’ whose bright red color contrasted with the usual black office equipment. For Sottsass, industrial design is ‘‘a way of seeing life, politics,

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eroticism, food and even art.’’ Long before Apple computers, Valentine affirmed the beauty of a professional object that was also a personal object. According to the formalist ideal-type, form does not follow function, it precedes functionality. The source of designers’ authority is charismatic leadership, whereby the designer aims to ‘‘create strong signs and surprises,’’ according to Philippe Starck, a world-famous French formalist. The genius of a sculptor can be applied to everyday objects. In 1990, Starck designed a toothbrush for Sanofy-Synthelabo that mimicked the form of Brancusi’s sculpture ‘‘L’envole´e de l’oiseau.’’ Also in 1990, Starck designed a lemon squeezer (manufactured by Alessi), which looks like a sculptural giant spider and is ‘‘strange and singular.’’ Formalism has allowed designers to explore new creative directions, where the individual is viewed as human with phenomenological experiences of reality. Cedric Sportes, a French designer who works in Montre´al, has adopted a formalist conception of his design practice. He describes himself as a ‘‘juvenile creator.’’ To him, a formalist designer is strategically different from a modernist designer because experience and free expression precede rationality and technique. ‘‘While modernism applies technical criteria to judge its production, formalist work is neither right nor false. It appeals to subjective and emotional experiences,’’ explains Andre Desrosiers. The third ideal-type of designer institutional logic is managerialism. Managerialism proceeds from considering the market as an economic structure containing values and principles that expands its legitimacy to new domains (Haveman & Rao, 1997; Kitchener, 2002; Scott, Ruef, Mendel, & Caronna 2000; Thornton & Ocasio, 1999). As early as 1959, in its exploratory tour of the American design industry, a EOCE investigation group concluded that a professional designer ‘‘must be 30% an engineer, 30% an artist, 30% a sociologist, 30% a business man, and 30% a seller’’ (EOCE, 1959, p. 41). In 1961, Thomas Maldonado saw design as the process that coordinates all factors contributing to a product, from its consumption (functional, symbolic, and cultural factors) to its production and distribution (Verganti, 2008). Despite this early notice, the conception of industrial design as viscerally entangled with business techniques has been very slow to permeate the French design industry. In the late 1980s, the structure of the profession around the educational system began (design schools and curriculum distinct from engineering or art education), with national and regional exhibitions on design, and the institutionalization of design as generating distinctiveness within markets for products and services (see Appendix B for additional historical elements). Since the early 1990s, the Design Management Institute (DMI), originally a US-based organization

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has grown internationally to include large firms, their designers as well as independent design agencies, and academics. The DMI has theorized and expanded the managerialist logic through its publications (like DMI Review and more recently DM Journal) and multiple conferences across the world. Although technical and cultural values are present in managerial design, the most influential values are economic; the ultimate goal appears to be the use of design as a means (to build optimized solutions), and not as an end as in modernism (to build perfect objects) or in formalism (to build aesthetic experience). The source of a designer’s identity hinges on being a project manager, and the source of authority revolves around the designer’s capacity to understand clients, current production processes, and strategic constraints. Charles Godbout, an independent designer, states that, in order to conceive optimized solutions, ‘‘Managerial design means a tool for business.’’ Verganti (2008) confirms that such ‘‘interpretations of design often tend to be very close to ‘product development’ and sometimes its interpretation are close to market research or creativity and even branding.’’ Hence, the individual at the end of the creative process (i.e., the consumer) is considered to be the target and the basis of attention. Ginette Gadoury, the SIDIM (Salon International du Design d’Inte´rieur de Montre´al) president, says: ‘‘Managerial design must satisfy clients’ objectives and needs.’’ Clients and their needs are thus integrated into the creative process as early as possible (Borja de Mozota, 2002). Therefore, through institutional changes, theorization, and socialization, managerialism has become available as a resource to design agencies, as a complement or substitute to the traditional and oppositional modernist and formalist logics. For Roger Tallon, the famous French industrial designer who designed the high-speed train TGV, the evolution of the train’s design reflects the deeper institutional evolution of the French industrial design industry. In the mid-1980s, the train’s squared lines and its massive aspect epitomized Tallon’s engineering vision of design, deeply anchored in technology where form follows function. In the mid-1990s, the second generation of TGV exhibited biological lines inspired by fast animals, as if form overshadowed function. The third generation of TGV, launched in 2005, introduced new colors and materials and optimized space, at minimum cost, reflecting the touch of fashion creator Lacroix. Over its history, TGV has illustrated the coexistence of the three ideal-typical institutional logics, represented by the shift from a logic rooted in technique to one where form took precedence and, eventually, to a third where cost efficiency was quintessential. Therefore, at the end of the 1980s, three distinct institutional logics coexisted in the French industrial design industry. Modernism and

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formalism were the tutelary logics of the profession, and managerialism appeared to some as centered on the means to reach their ends. Whereas being modernist or formalist was a clear choice for industrial design agencies as rooted in distinct higher-orders (science vs. aesthetics), their relationship vis-a`-vis managerialism was full of circumspection.

COMBINING OR ABANDONING A LOGIC FOR MANAGERIALISM? While it has long been recognized that the institutional logics of society are available to social actors as resources for action (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Thornton et al., 2012), we have little understanding of what drives professional organizations to strategically incorporate and discard institutional logics. Strategy scholars traditionally define firms’ resources as the tangible and intangible assets which are tied semipermanently to the firm (Barney, 1991; Wernerfelt, 1984). To the extent that firms can recognize logics in their environment and decide to position themselves by adopting discourses or practices that tie them to available logics, institutional logics constitute resources for the firm. Logics as resources are strategic to the extent that they affect the competitive position of firms and have consequences for their future performance . The case of design agencies reveals how the availability of the managerialist logic contributed to reshape the competitive landscape of the industry. Whereas design agencies were previously instantiating either the institutional logics of Formalism or Modernism, depending on the training and philosophy of their founders (Jones & Livne-Tarandach, 2008; Stinchcombe, 1965), managerialism began to appear as a strategic choice available to firms in the 1980s. For the decision makers able to recognize such a choice, the options were the following: remain loyal to the firm’s original logic (status quo by ignoring managerialism), adjoin managerialism to the firm’s existing logic (logic addition), or abandon the firm’s original logic and turn into a pure managerially oriented organization (logic focus). Logic addition proceeds from a hybridization strategy as the firm has to articulate the supplementary logic in combination with its original logic (Battilana & Dorado, 2010). In contrast, a singular focus on one logic requires a purification effort as the firm suppresses references to an earlier logic and concentrates on the remaining one (Jourdan, 2011). We argue that for a design firm, the choices leading to the adoption and focus on a new logic such as managerialism

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stems from both the degree of awareness (based on competences and industrial scope) and the opportunities available to the firm based on its status position in the social structure.

Awareness For a design agency to engage in managerialism, it needs to be aware of its availability. In other words, the firm and its decision makers need to realize the potential for strategic choice for the opportunity to materialize (Bowman & Hurry, 1993; Daft & Weick, 1984; Ocasio, 1997). The takenfor-granted nature of institutions means that, more often than not, the option to add a new logic such as managerialism may not be thinkable. Accordingly, the possibility to add and focus exclusively on a recent institutional logic will depend on the firm’s awareness, that is, its ability to question internalized logics and recognize the availability of alternatives in the environment. For instance, Briscoe and Safford (2008) stress the differentiated role of firms’ internal groups as a trigger to embrace new logics of action as soon as prior opponents started accepting what they had previously resisted. Traditional conceptions of institutional change emphasize the possession of internal resources and specificities sought by actors as an avenue for adopting different paths of action (e.g., Leblebici et al., 1991). Internal competences are a fundamental lever of institutional choice and logic deployment (Creed, Scully, & Austin, 2002; Fligstein, 1990; Freidson, 1986). For instance, Kraatz and Moore (2002) underscore how variation in competences (via knowledge transfer and interorganizational learning, introduction of new mental models, and attenuation or replacement of institutional values) leads administrators to develop and implement controversial college programs. Competences underlie expertise and the superior ability to execute particular activities in a professional domain (Freidson, 1986). For instance, in the design industry, respondents identified four domains of design competence: visual (2D), product (3D), environmental, and socio-analytical (social and human knowledge). Muriel Rajaut, a manager at a reputed French design agency, acknowledges that ‘‘few agencies can pride themselves on mastering both 2D and 3D design because they are two different areas of expertise; the agency needs to get contracts for each activity on a regular basis.’’ Each domain of competence possesses its own constraints and demands. From the above, depending on their professional competence, design agencies are

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more or less aware that alternative logics – in particular managerialism – are suitable for them. We argue that more competent firms in their domain of activities – that is, more focused on an area of expertise or gaining competence – will be less aware of new logics available to them and will adopt them less than other firms that possess either a broader set of competencies or a lower overall degree of competence. Even if aware of alternative logics, the cost of adding a not-obviously compatible logic like managerialism to a firm’s original logic (in terms of all its elements such as identity, authority, legitimacy, and so forth) will to more competent firms appear high compared to the potential benefits. While the managerialist logic is likely to appear less theoretical and specific but more replicable, it requires different sets of competencies and activities that more competent firms will not perceive as valuable as firms which are less specialized or skilled. Hypothesis 1. As their degree of competence diminishes (having a broader repertoire of expertise, lower skills), design agencies will be more likely to add managerialism (logic addition) and to concentrate exclusively on managerialism (logic focus). The scope of a firm’s clientele also will be critical in shaping its awareness of alternative institutional logics. This is because extant activities rely on routines that affect the attention structure of the firm (Ocasio, 1997). Design agencies, as in many professions, have more or less specialized clienteles, and focus on different set of activities to address them (Ramirez, 2009). Whereas an agency with a dispersed set of clients belonging to various industries will have a wider attention span (Schroeder, 1990), an industryspecialized agency is more likely to be driven by the specific demands of its clients that share certain similarities (Lounsbury, 2007). Hence, the former will have more chances to enter in contact with new logics and adopt them (Schneiberg & Clemens, 2006). Getting entrenched in an industry’s specificities induces a design agency to become more and more involved in assessing and following its clients’ specific needs. Narrower industrial scope entails an increased dependence on the judgments of few potent clients within their industry. According to Paul Schmitt, ‘‘many designers limit themselves to a given specialty. When Alessi needs new ideas for a coffee machine or a screwdriver, they call on different agencies based on their specialty. But that means that specialists are more dependent on their clients’ ideas and beliefs than multi-sector agencies.’’ Because of their clients’ expectations and their increased dependence on the industrial players likely to share their own logic, agencies with narrow industrial scope develop

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practices that reinforce the taken-for-grantedness of their institutional logics, restricting their institutional awareness (Hwang & Powell, 2009; Scott et al., 2000; Thornton et al., 2005). Therefore, the narrower the scope of activities of an agency, the lower is its likelihood to be aware of the possibility to add and focus on a new logic as a strategic choice. Hypothesis 2. Design agencies with a broad industrial scope will be more likely to add managerialism (logic addition) and to concentrate exclusively on managerialism (logic focus) than agencies with narrower industrial scopes.

Opportunity Set Prior research suggests that deviating from the established dominant logic is not without consequences and can trigger severe social sanctions (Durand et al., 2007; Phillips & Zuckerman, 2001). For a firm to engage in logic addition, it needs to have the ability to resist social pressure and venture in new institutional territories. As a positional attribute, status confers authority and discretion to act. Status results from the acceptance by a professional community that some states or characteristics are unevenly distributed among its members, who deserve to be singled out (Berger, Ridgeway, Fisek, & Norman, 1998; Larson, 1977; Ridgeway, 1991). The community, or its representative bodies, pay tribute to these members via awards, prizes, or rankings to symbolize these intra-community dissimilarities. Status signals that certain actors’ choices are more desirable, valuable, acceptable, and meaningful than those of less prestigious actors. The director of the most influential regional design center, MM. Gabillard, explained to us the significance of awards to the French design profession: ‘‘Laureates are like lighthouses that signal the way to go for others and enable new things and ideas to become acceptable. What matters is that design agencies enter the competition and for some to win awards and prizes.’’ Acknowledged standing reduces behavioral uncertainty for the community and influences strategic behavior (Benjamin & Podolny, 1999) as well as deviation from the norm (Phillips & Zuckerman, 2001; Rao et al., 2003). But also, low-status players can violate conformity and innovate by combining logics, while middle-status agents have been recognized as the most conservative (Phillips & Zuckerman, 2001). Because social structure is a precondition of resource selection, it represents different opportunity sets depending on position (Bourdieu,

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1977; Podolny, 2005; Sewell, 1992). Since institutional logics not only constrain organizations but are also resources that organizations can employ, both high-status and low-status organizations sway the prevalence of managerialism in the industry. The choice by high-status agents to embrace managerialism is disconnected from cultural betrayal, as is the case in the contrast between avant-garde versus classicism (Becker, 1974)5 whereas a recognized modernist opting for formalism would be a shocking occurrence to peers and would likely be penalized by social sanctions, loss of revenues, or professional ostracism. However, adopting managerialism introduces innovativeness to a high-status professional without obviating its original logic orientation. For a distinguished agency, ‘‘managerializing’’ one’s identity is an innovation without violating existing codes (Durand et al., 2007); it does not connote one’s identity as negatively morphing into a pure managerialist. Nevertheless, a firm that focuses only on managerialism by abandoning its original logic would deprive the high-status player from its base and it will probably not cross the Rubicon. Low-status agencies will add managerialism as a way to differentiate themselves and attract attention but cannot really focus only on managerialism as they first hope to be recognized as a design agency. Therefore, we expect that middle-status conformity will have a sobering effect for logic addition, but it will not operate when firms must separate themselves from the domain and categories that establish their identities as peer members in either traditional logic. Therefore: Hypothesis 3. High- and low-status design agencies will be more likely than middle-status agencies to add managerialism (logic addition), but less likely to concentrate exclusively on managerialism (logic focus).

METHODS Data Source To characterize the institutional logics present in the French industrial design industry, we conducted a series of 38 interviews in France and Quebec with retired and active independent designers, professional association managers, governmental representatives, company designers, and professional educators (Appendix A, Szostak, 2006). We supplemented our work with industrial design history and art history texts (e.g., De Noblet, 1988; Flamand, 2006; Guidot, 2000; Guillen, 2006; Larson, 1993;

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Loewy, 2000; Lucie-Smith, 1983; Smith, 2005; Whitford, 1984; Woodham, 1997). We found that in France as in many countries (Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States), the history of science and art has permeated the design field and nurtured how designers identify and define themselves. Based on this evidence, we identified mainly two major ideal-typical logics: modernism and formalism, supplemented more recently by a third logic: managerialism. The interpretative analysis of our interviews, the convergence of our ideal-types with historical analysis of art movements, and anecdotal evidence (such as the TGV) lend support for the presence of institutional reordering in the French industrial design industry over the period of study. In order to affirm these changes and test our propositions, we conducted a quantitative analysis. The design profession is not registered with a unique SIC code in France. Genevieve Sengissen, member of the Fe´de´ration des Designers Industriels (FEDI) union, indicated that ‘‘there is no clear professional referential of this sort’’ and suggested that we use a professional journal: the Guide des Professionnels du Design (hereafter, the Guide). Among others, Eric Fache, president of FEDI, C. Paymal from Dragon Rouge agency, and Yo Kaminagai, design manager of Parisian Metro, confirmed that this publication is the most useful source of information on French design. The Guide is issued by the Strategies publishing group, which specializes in professional publications in the areas of communication, public relations, and art. Founded in 1989, it focuses on consumer goods and services industries; annual circulation is 7,000 copies. Since its origin, the Guide has used the same format for collecting information (a questionnaire sent to agencies) and the same categories: descriptive information, financial data, agency philosophy, clients, projects and products, awards, and expertise domains. Because agencies are grouped by their expertise, an agency can be present in more than one section of the Guide. In our dataset, we gathered all the information corresponding to a given agency and studied the changes in expertise and institutional instantiation over the years. Between 1989 and 2003, 249 different agencies appeared at least once in our archival source. Managerialism and Dependent Variables In our attempt to explain design agencies’ institutional choices, we studied logic instantiation following a three-step process. First, using the Guide, we categorized each agency’s institutional logic instantiation. As in prior studies (Jones & Livne-Tarandach, 2008; Rao, Monin, & Durand, 2005; Scott et al., 2000), we composed a corpus of vocabulary associated with each

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ideal-type, based on the content analysis of our interviews and analysis of the logics by other scholars (Borja de Mozota, 2002; De Noblet, 1988; see bottom of Table 1 for illustrative excerpts). For each of the lines of an agency’s self-presentation in the Guide, we searched for terms associated with each of the logics and counted each term. In some instances, drawings or graphical representations accompanied the agency’s description. We interpreted these images using the same series of references as indicated in Table 1. When there were congruent references to only one ideal-typical logic, we coded 1 for this logic. In the absence of a clear dominance, we coded 1 for each of the two logics represented. In the rare cases of systematic reference to one logic and when only one cue belonged to another logic, we ignored the discrepant cue. We coded the data on agencies year by year and assessed coding stability by verifying that the agencies that did not change their self-presentation from one year to the next received the same coding. Stability was 100%. For reliability, we used two additional independent coders, one of whom was a design expert (a teacher of design and art history). Inter-rater agreement (Cohen’s kappa) among the three raters was 80% and was greater than 92% between the design expert and our own coding. After examining the diverging cases, we agreed on a final coding. We created two dichotomous variables: logic addition and logic focus. Logic addition takes a value of 1 when a design agency at year t instantiates managerialism as a complement to either modernism or formalism (and 0 for the other instances). Logic focus takes the value 1 when managerialism becomes the only identifiable logic instantiated by an agency, and is coded as 0 otherwise. Over the full period, as shown in Fig. 1, we observed that managerialism becomes the norm of the industry (more than 2/3 of agencies include references to managerialism at the end of the period) whereas pure modernists or formalists decrease from 2/3 to 1/6 of the population. Agencies focusing on managerialism only stabilize at more than 10% of the population. Independent Variables Awareness depends on a firm’s competences and its exposure through industrial scope. Based on our knowledge of the industry and in agreement with our interviewees, we distinguished four types of competences in our setting: (a) visual design (graphical, 2D); (b) product design (3D and other senses beyond visual); (c) environmental design (spaces, architecture of interiors, furniture and other equipment); and (d) socio-analytical design (integration of psychological, sociological, and economic studies). For each type, we graded the agencies’ competence based on all the accessible

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0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0

1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 pure modernist or formalist

Fig. 1.

hybrid

Logic focus (pure management)

Evolution of Design Agencies’ Logics, 1989–2004.

information from the Guide on a scale of 0–10. Based on further discussions with interviewees, we first developed a series of rules for each competence and graded 40 agencies. For instance, for the practices of ‘‘visual design’’ and ‘‘product design,’’ the rules are displayed in Appendix C. Two independent coders (a professional and a nonspecialist) graded the same agencies using the rules. The resulting inter-rater agreement was between .74 and .79. Then, we amended the rules based on comments from designers. We shared the series of rules with our external raters and significantly improved our inter-rater agreement to above .90. Last, we coded the rest of the agencies. Therefore, for each competence, visual, product, environmental, socio-analysis, we have a score that positions the firm, a higher value indicating a greater competence. We capture the range and degree of competences by two variables: number of competences is the count of competences and takes values of 1, 2, 3, or 4. As per Hypothesis 1, higher numbers will favor managerialism adoption and exclusive focus as more diverse experts are likely to be less competent in each of these activities. Second, with gain in competence, we calculate the difference from year to year of the total value of expertise scores weighted by the number of

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competencies. A positive difference indicates a gain in competence and according to Hypothesis 1 should be negatively related with managerialism adoption or focus. We measured the second dimension of awareness, industrial scope, as 1 minus the Herfindahl index of the total number of industrial sectors where an agency’s client operates, out of the 13 represented in the database. The greater the Herfindahl index, the more concentrated is an agency’s client basis. Therefore, as our measure is 1 minus the Herfindahl index, the narrower the industrial scope, the smaller the value of the variable, with greater values indicating more disperse industries, which according to Hypothesis 2, should be more favorable to managerialism. Our panel of interviewees helped us distinguish the five most prominent awarding entities and ceremonies characterizing professional recognition in the industrial design field: (a) Janus de l’industrie, awarded by the French Design Institute and focusing on technical characteristics; (b) Oscar, awarded by journalists and professionals from client industries and focusing on two-dimensional design such as graphism, packaging, etc.; (c) Strate´gies Prizes organized by the Strate´gies publishing group, covering four categories of design: graphical, product, environmental, and multidimensional; (d) TopCom awards, given at the TopCom conference and focusing on communication and expression through visual design, editorial and graphical charters, and internet websites; and (e) l’Observeur, awarded by the APCI for innovative products, with criteria including ergonomics, sensorial approach, and ecological aspects. In an industry with various legitimating agencies and several award subcategories, we calculate awards as the logged cumulative number of awards garnered by an agency at time t since its founding. This variable captures the degree of recognition obtained by an agency for its past production and is a proxy for status. In our model, as per Hypothesis 3, we use both the linear and quadratic values of Awards. Note that other variables produce similar results (e.g., proportion of awards granted relative to all awards granted over the period of study). Control Variables A series of control variables were included in our models to account for alternative explanations of managerialism instantiation. First, at the level of the industry, a vast literature gives evidence of the influence of past instantiations in explaining a focal agent’s logic adoption. Some social and fashion effects could play a role in accounting for why agencies instantiate managerialism. Therefore, the past managerialism adoption variable is the

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proportion of agencies having adopted managerialism at t-1. This variable controls for social effects of past adoption (e.g., Rao, Greve, & Davis, 2001; Rao et al., 2005). Other control variables at the industry level include dummy variables for years (not reported in Table 3) and density (logged number of design agencies), which accounts for ecological aspects (the quadratic term was not retained in final models as it was insignificant). At the firm level, we include several control variables in our baseline model. First, an agency’s position in the profession may facilitate its freedom of institutional choice (Davis & Greve, 1997; Lounsbury, 2007). We measured an agency’s centrality by its number of ties, which include an agency’s ties with professional associations and partners in France – declared ties with professional associations (e.g., FEDI), unions (primarily Union Franc- aise des Designers Industriels), regional groups, professional accreditations from Opdqi (Office professionnel de qualification des designers industriels) – and the number of memberships in foreign design associations and partnerships with foreign design agencies. The variable ties uses the logged value of this count, a higher value pointing to greater centrality and ability to add references to new logics. Second, governance represents a firm’s legal structure; it is set equal to 1 for ‘‘unlimited liability,’’ which represents greater legal responsibility for owners than other types of governance, and 0 for otherwise. As governance indicates the degree to which owners bear legal responsibility, one could expect that the higher this responsibility, the higher the probability to engage in managerial choice, as managerialism aims at economic performance. Third, we accounted for size, measured by the logged number of employees, and fourth for age, the logged number of years since agency founding, as both have been shown by past research to impact firms’ strategic choices. Fifth, international is a count variable that assesses the number of an agency’s international contracts likely to influence its choices relative to managerialism (we use logged number of contracts). Sixth, to account for potential differences between firms that entered the industry during our observation period and firms that preexisted, we created leftcensor, a dummy variable that is set equal to 1 for firms that were founded before 1989 when we start our observations and 0 otherwise. Finally, we control for the value of each of a design agency’s four competences as per the calculations explained above and in Appendix C. Overall, due to the necessity of repeated observations and lagged variables, we ran our models using 893 fully informed observations representing 180 design agencies. Table 2 reports the descriptive statistics and correlation matrix for the variables.

Mean SD Min. Max.

1 Logic addition 2 Logic focus 3 Density 4 Past manag. add. 5 Ties 6 Governance 7 Size 8 Age 9 International 10 Left censoring 11 Comp. visual 12 Comp product 13 Comp envir. 14 Comp. socio-analysis 15 Number of comp. 16 Gain in comp. 17 Industrial scope 18 Awards 19 Awards2

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

0.06 0.24 0 1

0.05 0.22 0 1

4.20 0.23 3.71 4.51

0.71 0.14 0.36 0.90

0.52 0.79 0 5.39

0.64 0.48 0 1

2.86 0.90 0.69 5.33

(9)

(10)

(11)

(12)

(13)

(14)

(15)

(16)

2.15 0.81 0 4.34

0.46 1.54 0 14

0.33 8.03 6.73 4.63 4.96 0.47 1.89 2.76 3.42 3.36 0 0 0 0 0 1 10 18 10 10

3.36 0.26 0.83 2.91 1 10 5 12

0.12 0.12 0.01 0.09 0.02 0.10 0.21 0.04 0.10 0.51 0.19 0.04 0.08 0.05 0.06 0.18 0.05 0.07 0.13 0.18 0.08 0.23 0.04 0.04 0.52 0.57 0.39 0.57 0.00 0.01 0.03 0.12 0.06 0.10 0.17 0.22 0.02 0.06 0.09 0.01 0.09 0.27 0.08 0.03 0.04 0.35 0.04 0.23 0.07 0.16 0.29 0.11 0.19 0.00 0.33 0.04 0.28 0.07 0.12 0.30 0.09 0.18 0.01

(8)

Descriptive Statistics and Correlation Matrix.

0.06 0.10 0.12 0.10 0.09 0.53 0.04 0.08 0.03 0.05 0.03 0.04 0.02 0.09 0.20 0.06 0.00 0.03 0.13 0.30 0.45 0.04 0.01 0.15 0.29 0.21 0.30 0.42 0.01 0.01 0.04 0.01 0.09 0.09 0.06 0.05 0.06 0.23 0.43 0.03 0.04 0.22 0.00 0.02 0.03 0.07 0.06 0.01 0.09 0.06 0.02 0.00 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.06 0.03 0.01 0.02 0.11 0.13 0.13 0.28 0.06 0.13 0.13 0.26 0.14 0.18 0.19 0.00 0.10 0.10 0.22 0.02 0.13 0.18 0.10 0.07 0.05 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.08 0.07 0.00 0.05 0.13 0.05 0.18 0.04 0.00 0.06 0.12 0.22 0.26 0.48 0.02 0.00 0.05 0.09 0.23 0.26 0.48

(1)

Table 2.

0.72 0.16 0 1

0.13 0.12

(17)

0.76 0.96 0 3.71

0.94

(18)

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RESULTS We evaluated the likelihood of logic addition and logic focus using two logit models with robust standard errors and clustering on agencies. Using several procedures, we tested for the presence of endogeneity, which could affect our results. In particular, competences and dependent variables could be related to each other by unobservable factors (competences and the error term of our regression equations could be correlated). Hence, we estimated an instrumental regression for each area of expertise. We then introduced the predicted residuals, resid, of these first equations into the logit models and recalculated the standard errors. We checked whether resid coefficients were significant in the logit equations; none were significant. Therefore, this procedure ruled out potential biases due to endogeneity in our models, and we opted for presenting simpler logit regressions. We proceeded stepwise by successively adding to our control variables number of competence, gain in competences, industrial scope, and awards in the two logit models with logic addition and logic focus as the dependent variable respectively in Table 3 and Table 4. Model 1 is the baseline, and adding each independent variable improves significantly the baseline model Chi2. The control effects establish a baseline for gauging the effects of the independent variables and the appropriateness of the models’ specifications. Density reduces the likelihood to add managerialism to an existing logic (Table 3), whereas it increases the likelihood to become a pure managerialist agency – that is, to abandon the traditional logic of modernism or formalism (Table 4). Firms with more ties tend to add managerialism (Table 3) although the effect on becoming a pure managerialist firm is barely marginally significant (Table 4). Bigger firms tend not to combine managerialism with their prior original logic (Table 3). When looking at competences individually, more competent agencies in 3D design tend to ‘‘managerialize’’ their identity more (Table 3) whereas agencies more competent in socio-analysis design tend to do this less (Table 4). However, when there is an existing combination between either modernism or formalism and managerialism logics, more competent firms in socio-analysis design are the ones more likely to abandon their original logic (Table 4). The addition of variables capturing competence breadth or level contributes to the baseline models. Hypothesis 1 states that as their degree of competence diminishes (having a broader repertoire of expertise, lower skills), design agencies will tend to add and focus more on managerialism.

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Table 3. Predicting Logic Addition (Adding Managerialism). Variables

Model 1

Model 2

Model 3

Model 4

Model 5

Density

1.244 þ (0.684) 0.610 (1.283) 0.422 (0.151) 0.098 (0.302) 0.312 þ (0.160) 0.103 (0.175) 0.018 (0.071) 0.268 (0.273) 0.022 (0.086) 0.133 (0.064) 0.007 (0.038) 0.080 (0.041)

1.245 þ (0.683) 0.882 (1.297) 0.487 (0.160) 0.085 (0.305) 0.298 þ (0.163) 0.088 (0.177) 0.018 (0.072) 0.226 (0.280) 0.096 (0.098) 0.070 (0.078) 0.067 (0.049) 0.157 (0.060)

1.676 (0.703) 0.370 (1.304) 0.420 (0.143) 0.075 (0.297) 0.293 þ (0.156) 0.057 (0.173) 0.033 (0.068) 0.278 (0.262) 0.016 (0.087) 0.135 (0.062) 0.015 (0.036) 0.099 (0.041) 0.186 (0.045)

1.740 (0.702) 0.265 (1.301) 0.388 (0.147) 0.035 (0.307) 0.335 (0.156) 0.060 (0.173) 0.054 (0.070) 0.245 (0.267) 0.020 (0.085) 0.144 (0.063) 0.044 (0.038) 0.103 (0.042) 0.182 (0.045)

1.786 (0.700) 0.188 (1.296) 0.370 (0.151) 0.049 (0.302) 0.274 þ (0.163) 0.048 (0.173) 0.063 (0.069) 0.203 (0.274) 0.041 (0.085) 0.170 (0.064) 0.049 (0.039) 0.109 (0.042) 0.180 (0.046)

Past management addition Ties Governance Size Age International Leftcensor Competence: Visual Competence: Product Competence: Environmental Competence: Socio-analysis Gain in competence

0.620 þ (0.325)

Number of competences

2.477 (1.005)

Industrial scope Awards Awards2 Constant Chi2 Observations Number of agencies þ

3.255 (2.647) 30.24 893 180

2.922 (2.672) 31.62 893 180

po0.10,  po0.05,  po0.01,  po0.001.

4.634 þ (2.701) 47.35 893 180

3.188 (2.765) 52.86 893 180

2.817 (1.042) 0.829 (0.308) 0.260 (0.100) 3.149 (2.768) 57.83 893 180

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Table 4.

Predicting Logic Focus (Becoming Pure Managerialist).

Variables Density Past management addition Ties Governance Size Age International Leftcensor Competence: Visual Competence: Product Competence: Environmental Competence: Socio-analysis Number of competences

Model 1

Model 2

Model 3

Model 4

Model 5

2.452 (1.017) 0.242 (1.731) 0.233 (0.159) 0.292 (0.353) 0.248 (0.198) 0.128 (0.218) 0.063 (0.101) 0.162 (0.380) 0.037 (0.105) 0.006 (0.070) 0.009 (0.046) 0.188

2.316 (1.009) 0.021 (1.712) 0.279 þ (0.165) 0.244 (0.355) 0.216 (0.200) 0.081 (0.220) 0.069 (0.102) 0.239 (0.388) 0.045 (0.119) 0.084 (0.086) 0.070 (0.058) 0.143

2.357 (1.021) 0.376 (1.745) 0.225 (0.159) 0.289 (0.352) 0.245 (0.199) 0.129 (0.219) 0.060 (0.102) 0.173 (0.381) 0.027 (0.105) 0.004 (0.069) 0.016 (0.047) 0.183

(0.061)

(0.070) 0.753

(0.061)

2.203 (1.013) 0.437 (1.740) 0.248 (0.169) 0.353 (0.364) 0.250 (0.201) 0.080 (0.222) 0.090 (0.102) 0.232 (0.403) 0.044 (0.119) 0.070 (0.087) 0.096 (0.060) 0.124 þ (0.070) 0.759

2.207 (1.011) 0.389 (1.741) 0.241 (0.170) 0.360 (0.365) 0.243 (0.218) 0.076 (0.224) 0.090 (0.103) 0.292 (0.416) 0.053 (0.122) 0.068 (0.090) 0.101 (0.062) 0.127 þ (0.071) 0.774

(0.372)

(0.373)

(0.377) Gain in competence Industrial scope Awards Awards2 Constant Chi2 Observations Number of agencies þ

0.060 (0.051)

2.632 (1.285) 0.314 (0.438) 0.129 (0.162) 14.256 14.573 13.855 16.228 16.196 (3.941) (3.929) (3.951) (4.028) (4.022) 28.01 29.39 29.43 34.19 34.25 893 893 893 893 893 180 180 180 180 180

po0.10,  po0.05,  po0.01,  po0.001.

2.602 (1.280)

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Results show that the number of competencies is positively associated with addition of managerialism (at 10% in Table 3) and with abandonment of the initial logic to become a purist in managerialism (at 5% in Table 4). The gain in competence is, as expected, negatively related to logic addition (at .1% in Table 3) but not so to logic focus (coefficient not significant in Table 4). Overall, there is substantial support for the idea that when design agencies are more specialized and skilled, they have a lower likelihood to adjoin managerialism to their existing logic or to focus exclusively on managerialism. We present the addition of other independent variables with the more significant of the two variables, that is, gain in competence with logic addition (Table 3) and the number of competencies and logic focus (Table 4). Regarding Hypothesis 2, results give support to the expectation of a positive association between industrial scope and logic addition and logic focus. Coefficients are positive and very significant for the former (Table 3, Model 5, at 1%) and positive and significant for the latter (Table 4, Model 5, at 5%), indicating that design agencies with broader industrial scope tend to add and focus on managerialism more than those with clients from a limited number of industry sectors. Finally, Hypothesis 3 predicted a curvilinear relationship between status (represented by awards in our models) and logic addition (but not with logic focus), such that high- and low-status design agencies will be more likely than middle-status agencies to add managerialism to their repertoire but not to focus exclusively on managerialism. Coefficients for awards and awards2 in Table 3 give support to this conjecture, demonstrating a U-shaped relationship – significant coefficients at 5% for both linear and quadratic terms. In Table 4, both coefficients are nonsignificant as expected too. Note that interactions between status and awareness variables (competence and industrial scope) did not lead to additional findings of interest as they remained nonsignificant.

DISCUSSION Our paper responds to recent calls for rapprochement between institutional and strategy research whereby ‘‘strategy research can offer insights into the reasons why organizations would seek to bring conformity and innovation together by both preserving a resource base that respects the established order, but also disrupts practices and traditions in their search for advantage’’ (Durand, 2012, p. 300). French design agencies faced with the strategic choice to define their identity relative to the managerialist logic,

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could ignore it and maintain the status quo, add it to their identity and value proposition; and even become a managerialism purist. Their individual decisions nurture a movement at the level of the field, which incrementally modifies the legitimacy of each decision context. In the spirit of the cited call and others as well (Ingram & Silverman, 2002; Thornton et al., 2012), after controlling for alternative explanations (industry effects, ties, governance, age, size, internationalization among others), we explained the choices to add and focus on a managerialism as stemming from each firm’s awareness and social position. Awareness depends on the competence base: a narrower base of competence discourages firms to instantiate managerialism as a logic for their actions whereas an agency with a broader competence portfolio (supposedly less skillful in each competence) will tend to add managerialism and focus exclusively on this logic (i.e., abandoning its prior logic, either modernism or formalism). Examined from a different angle, that of gain in competence, results converge to the same conclusion: firms which gain in overall competence are less likely to add managerialism to their repertoire (coefficient not significant for logic focus). Awareness is also driven by exposure, and design agencies with a broader industrial scope tended to add and focus on managerialism more systematically than firms which deal with clients from limited sectors. Confirming some prior studies on middle-status conformity, agencies with high and low status tended to add managerialism more than middle-status conformers. However, they did not focus exclusively on managerialism since the former will lose their identity roots and damage their position and the latter need to be recognized designers and as such have to anchor their identity within one of the two logics that imprint the field, either modernism or formalism. We acknowledge this study has potential limitations, some of which engender future research opportunities. First, we examined a cultural, rather than a manufacturing or high technology, industry where ideal-typical institutional logics may differ. In particular, our setting involves distinctive logics likely to be less salient in noncultural industries (e.g., formalism). Second, particularism weakens generalizability of results, and boundary conditions proper to the particular context and situation must be acknowledged whenever studies use national data. Third, one may question whether an institutional logic’s instantiation is fully captured in secondary data. We opted for a research design that focused on what agencies declared and as such was observable by actors from the field, both with its embedded advantages and limitations. Fourth, during our period of study, institutional logics as they are connected with higher-order sociocultural orders remained

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relatively stable. As a consequence, we are not examining the blending of institutional logics, and in our study hybridization occurred at the organizational, not field level. These characteristics only reinforce the need to extend our study to other unsettled or mature sectors and industries and to analyze how organizational and strategic factors encourage institutional hybridization or purism. Last, we were unable to account for firms’ financial performance due to data limitations. Performance might be an explanatory factor for the adoption of the managerialism logic, since managerialism’s promise is that of economic efficiency. Also, it would be important to examine which of the logic additions and logic foci bring greater monetary and symbolic outcomes. Few studies make the connection between higher-order institutional sectors, institutional logics at the industry level, and organizations’ instantiation choices (Fligstein, 1990; Haveman & Rao, 1997; Scott et al., 2000; Thornton & Ocasio, 1999). However, when organizations make reference to or stop instantiating a given logic, this impacts the relative prevalence of logics in the industry and of higher institutional sectors in society. In examining the sources and consequences of such institutional reshuffling, we complement classical analyses that assign a prevalent role to habitus and sense making in accounting for institutional change. Whereas this classical view is applicable to oppositional logic choices (old vs. new), we can deduce that institutional plurality imposes a theory of institutional strategic choice in which industry instantiations of ideal-typical logics and their corresponding dimensions are resources that are recognized and mobilized by organizations in terms of firms’ relative competencies, scope, and status characteristics. This result is important as it paves the way for a more direct connection between institutional logics and organizational performance which could not be studied in this paper but deserves further scrutiny. If, as defined elsewhere (Durand, 2000, 2006), competitive advantage is the ‘‘concrete actualization of the rent potential resulting from the conjunction of resources (with isolating properties) and capabilities (actualizing resources’ potential rent-accruing services) capacitated by firms in industrial contexts’’ (Durand, 2006, p. 125), then institutional logics pertain to the domain of resources not only as a factor that defines its production capacity and identity but also as a determinant of the rent potential of firms. Our results prompt dialogue between strategy and institutional research. We qualified institutional logics (in the text and the title of this paper) to be resources for firms in an attempt to expand the semantic scope of this term in strategy. While strategic resources are productive inputs and assets

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usually conceived as valuable when they provide firms with private benefits that cannot be imitated by competitors (Barney, 1991), institutional logics as resources have value to the firm to the extent that they increase pressures for competitors to imitate them (Durand, 2006). When firms enjoying both institutional awareness and ability to deviate from the status quo venture outside their institutional comfort zone, they contribute to alter the institutional order (Durand & Jourdan, 2012). By adopting managerialism, design agencies not only changed their own position in the industry, but also created pressures for competitors to follow in a territory where they had an advantage – reminiscent of Google’s strategy with open source. Our study reveals which firms use institutional logics as strategic resources: design agencies with large design competence bases and a broad industrial scope of operation are more likely to be aware of available institutional logics, while high-status firms have more ability to act upon institutional logics as strategic opportunities than other firms. In doing so, this study helps to shed light on a paradox of prior institutional research: why would high-status actors play a key role in triggering institutional change when such change is likely to undermine the very basis of their own social position and advantages? Without accounting for such strategic dynamics, it is difficult to understand, for instance, why high-status restaurants contributed to favor the emergence of Nouvelle Cuisine, threatening the Traditional Cuisine logic that formed the basis of their own social standing (Rao et al., 2005). Our findings suggest that one reason why elite restaurants supported the alternative logic was to strategically increase competitive pressures on rivals. As Nouvelle Cuisine became more and more prevalent in the field, the restaurants that had first embraced the alternative logic had gained a competitive advantage by mastering the practices and discourses underlying the bases of the logic. Rivals that were late to jump on the bandwagon were at a disadvantage because they lacked the required credentials, source of authority and identity, and the mastery of Nouvelle Cuisine techniques. At the same time, restaurants that had chosen to stick to Classical Cuisine were out fashioned and relatively marginalized in the industry’s institutional space. For the institutional perspective, this paper complements the endogenous change tenet that assumes that pioneering institutional entrepreneurs or powerful actors upend institutionalized industries by triggering imitations of new logics. We argue that, as a way to perpetuate their actions, organizations tap into an institutional reservoir of logics as resources for action. With this study, we respond to calls by Schneiberg and Clemens

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(2006), Lounsbury (2007), or Thornton and Ocasio (2008) to tackle the challenges of institutional plurality faced by organizations. Assuming that field or societal level logics vary much less rapidly than do adoption and instantiation conducted by firms, we consider logics as more or less prevalent resources, which, although constraining the organizations that instantiate them, coexist in an industry and are selected depending on an organization’s characteristics. In the case of oppositional logic pairs, the selection of the insurgent logic leads to an automatic loss of influence of the dominant logic. When institutional plurality exists, depending on its competence and industrial scope that condition its awareness, and on its status that determines its opportunity set, an organization has more or less latitude to modify its institutional instantiation without appearing as an activist or an objector or to blur its identity. Hence, the respective salience of institutional logics is not independent of the organizations that adopt them. Uncovering the mechanisms that explain why firms evolve in their logics’ instantiation helps us understand why and how various high-order sectors diffuse in society, as organizations instantiate available logics. According to this view, the straightjacket of institutional logics and isomorphism loosens a bit, allowing concurrently the inscription of logics within a higher-order cultural context, and strategic determinants to gain importance in explaining institutional change. In particular, the view of the market logic as dominating the various institutional sectors of State, family, or professions is modulated by the possibility that some organizations use a market logic in combination with rather than in substitution of their original institutional logic. In our setting, managerialism becomes dominant not because of purists (managerialists represent about 12% of the population) but because of pluralization, highlighting a tendency to both preserve existing logics and codes and transform them by adopting new ones (e.g., Durand et al., 2007). Therefore, these findings support a new perspective of institutional change where strategic factors encounter institutional logics and determine institutional choices. Hence, by connecting organizations’ strategic characteristics to institutional heritage, we can envision culture as the contingent expression by organizations of higher-order cultural sectors epitomized in institutional logics. We have identified a number of factors that lead to firms’ quest for strategic advantage; the changing degrees of organizational competencies or industry focus that affect firms’ level of awareness and, their opportunity set that was shaped by status ascription by industry members to a selected few alters – all factors which lead to logic addition or a singular focus on

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new logics in the quest for strategic advantage. Therefore, this study paves the way for an institution, organization, and strategy (IOS) model of cultural evolution whereby organizations (e.g., Durand, 2012), depending on their strategic characteristics, are the central conveyors and dispatchers of higher-order cultural sectors through their choices of institutional logic instantiations.

NOTES 1. Interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, June 1, 2001. 2. This section refers to interviews done in France and in Montre´al (see ‘‘Methods’’ section and Appendix A). 3. Prior works used ideal-typical definitions of institutional logics (Thornton, 2002; Thornton & Ocasio, 1999, 2008; Thornton et al., 2005). Ideal-types are categorization tools that reflect and theorize on reality and are ‘‘a method of interpretative analysis for understanding the meaning that actors invest their actions with’’ (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008, p. 110). Ideal-types are not descriptive of a reality or field per se but representations that associate a series of dimensions that convey norms, structures, and symbols proper to a higher-order institutional reality with an institutional logic. We ask readers to accept the methodological and theoretical benefits of using ideal-types as well as their inherent limitations (Weber, 1978). 4. While religion is recognized as a classical higher-order institution (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Weber, 1978), we enlarge slightly the scope of this institutional sector to include spirituality and aesthetics in its sphere. Indeed, without entering into a debate about how many institutional sectors or orders coexist in society, we place spiritual, aesthetic, and transcendental dimensions into one sector, that of spirituality. Aside from the fundamental social functions fulfilled by well-identified institutions (public good protection [states], private good [corporation], exchange [market], etc.), other metaphysical functions may have been ignored in our organizational studies that religion, per se, does not capture entirely. However, the sacred and the beautiful have a long common history, in isolation and in conjunction with professions, markets, and corporations. In this endeavor, we thus follow Elie Faure, Erwin Panofsky, and Harrison White by drawing broader contours for spirituality as a higher-order institutional sector. 5. ‘‘An attack on sacred aesthetic beliefs as embodied in particular conventions is, finally, an attack on an existing arrangement of ranked statuses, a stratification system y the resistance to the new expresses the anger of those who will lose materially by the change, in the form of aesthetic outrage’’ (Becker, 1974, pp. 773– 740). 6. Interestingly enough, design has long been translated as creation; only recently has the term design been accepted as such. Franc- ois Barre´, a student of the prestigious Ecole Nationale D’Administration, and Franc- ois Mathey, a commissioner of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris (1955–1986), wanted to duplicate the British Design Centre of London, which had been operating for almost three

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decades. As Franc- ois Barre´ said during our interview: ‘‘In 1977, it was the real introduction of industrial design in France through the yearly exhibitions around the theme: ‘‘what is industrial design?’’. According to the scholar and famous historian of industrial design, Raymond Guidot, ‘‘At these exhibitions, there were the French designer Roger Tallon, but also the American designer Charles Eames, the Italian Joe Colombo, the Dutch designer Verner Panton, and the German Fritz Eichler, himself responsible for design policy at Braun. All the main foreign cultural influences were present.’’ 7. ‘‘Ecole Nationale Supe´rieure de la Cre´ation Industrielle’’ (National Graduate School of Industrial Design). 8. ‘‘Agence de Promotion de la Cre´ation Industrielle’’ (Bureau of Industrial Design Promotion). Today, APCI is a nonprofit organization supported by professionals, promoters, and education specialists, and is a member of ICSID.

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APPENDIX A: LIST OF INTERVIEWEES (FOR MORE DETAILS, SEE SZOSTAK, 2006)

Name Jack Lang Franc- oise JollantKneebone Franc- ois Barre´ Chantal Riols Anne-Marie Boutin Claude Mollard Marion Laporte

Agne`s Lutz Joe¨lle Malichaud Paul Schmitt Marie-Marguerite Gabillard Josyane Franc Eric Fache, Genevie`ve Sengissen, Christian Roche Antoine Fenoglio Jean-Charles Gate´ Manfred Hubert Yo Kaminagai Muriel Rajaut Christophe Rebours Roger Tallon Jean-Pierre Vitrac Raymond Guidot Jocelyn de Noblet

Status Former Minister of Culture and Education Past director of ENSCI Founder of Centre de Cre´ation Industrielle Manager at APCI APCI’s president Director at the Ministry of Education In charge of introducing design into French primary and high schools’ curriculum Director in charge of design at Ministry of Industry Director in charge of design at Ministry of Culture Founder of regional design centers and CEO of ‘‘Le Creuset’’ Director of design center at RhoˆneAlpes (CDRA) Director of communication for Arts school at Saint-Etienne city hall Designers and members of FEDI (professional union) Designer and CEO of Sismo agency Design journalist at ‘‘DesignFax’’ Independent designer Design manager at RATP Director of Branding and Packaging service at Desgrippes & Gobe´ agency Designer and CEO of In Process agency Designer Designer and CEO of Design Pool agency Historian of design Historian of design

Date, City February 18, 2004, Paris October 6, 2003, Paris December 17, 2003, Paris October 6, 2003, Paris December 16, 2003, Paris

October 7, 2003, Paris October 9, 2003, Paris December 15, 2003, Paris July 8, 2003, Lyon Januar 6, 2004, SaintEtienne September 3, 2003, Lyon

February 6, 2004, Lyon December 17, 2003, Paris October 23, 2003, Lyon February 18, 2004, Paris December 16, 2003, Paris February 17, 2004, Susre`nes October 9, 2003, Paris February 16, 2004, Paris February 16, 2004, Paris February 17, 2004, Paris

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LIST OF INTERVIEWS OF 13 MONTREAL DESIGN EXPERTS (APRIL 2005) Sylvie Berkovicz Louis Brassard

Marc Choko Michel Dallaire Andre´ Desrosiers Michel Foti Ginette Gadoury Charles Godbout Marie-Jose´e Lacroix Sylvie Laniel Claude Mauffette Ce´dric Sportes Pierre Vanier

Design journalist at TV5 Counselor of industrial development at the Ministry of Economical and Regional Development Teacher at UQAM Designer and CEO of Michel Dallaire Design Industriel Independent designer Integrated designer into Sistemalux Director of SIDIM Independent designer Commissioner of design at Montre´al Design counselor of the Ministry of Quebec local and regional affairs Designer and CEO of Claude Mauffette Design Industriel agency Independent designer Counselor of the Ministry of Quebec local and regional affairs

April 19 April 21 (by phone) April 11 April 22 April April April April April April

13 6 21 6 18 11

April 14 April 5 April 19

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APPENDIX B: HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF FRENCH INDUSTRIAL DESIGN Four characteristics deserve mention to describe how the French industrial design field evolved during the previous decades. First, whereas industrial design was long essential to American manufacturers, in the 1960s French firms and centralized-economy’s decision-makers still considered that ‘‘industrial design was for rich countries. It was not our business’’ (R. Tallon). Many viewed industrial design as a luxury rather than an investment. As a consequence, during France’s Glorious Thirty (1945– 1975), industrial design was not really recognized as a legitimate profession. Second, despite efforts to emphasize the importance of design for French industry, industrial design remained confined to the artistic sphere of society. In the 1970s, the French Design Center (Centre de Cre´ation Industrielle)6was created and based at the Pompidou Centre in Paris as part of the Museum of Modern Art. Franc- ois Barre´, its founder, likes to remind: ‘‘As Churchill said, design is an economic tool for the conquest of markets.’’ Third, the impetus for the French industrial design industry originated in the 1980s. Loyal to a centralization policy, the newly elected president, Franc- ois Mitterrand (1981–1995), and his hyperactive culture minister, Jack Lang (1981–1986; 1988–1993), developed and sustained the concept of art and design. As Jack Lang explained: ‘‘I think that the government has to set a good example. France must support creators and manufacturers, it has to link economic invention to industry.’’ Hence, President Mitterrand ordered the renovation of the Presidence offices and the Chaˆteau de l’Elyse´e; he appointed Philippe Starck and J-M. Wilmotte as project managers. The French government also created the first schools of design, such as Ensci,7 in 1982. One year later, the Agence de Promotion de la Cre´ation Industrielle8 (APCI) was launched jointly by the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Industry. Fourth, after the centralized impulse of the 1980s, the Ministry of Industry, in 1991, sponsored 10 regional design centers to trigger a new dynamics (Paul Schmitt). Throughout the 1990s, these centers sought to sensitize and organize regional manufacturers, designers, and institutions. Nevertheless, most of them have since vanished, except in the Rhoˆne-Alpes area. There, in 1998, the Saint-Etienne municipality organized the International Design Biennial, an event where schools of design from all over the world exhibited the results of their creative explorations of human activities (sitting, sleeping, eating, driving, working, etc.). Moreover, in

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1999, a design union, the Fe´de´ration des Designers Industriels (FEDI), was founded in Lyon. Eric Fache, FEDI president, defined its goal to ‘‘structure and organize the design profession,’’ due to the lack of formal rules at the national level. Today, deontological guidelines determine a designer’s relationship with clients and competitors.

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APPENDIX C: CODING OF EXPERTISE Coding Form for ‘‘Visual Design’’ – 2D

If If If If If If If If

If If If If

only multimedia (web, Internet, sitesy) only point of sale promotional items (postersy) only visual editing only signs, signals, ‘signaletique’ only packaging 2D (label, colors, y) only packaging 2D þ ‘‘in relief’’ no details given on the practice ‘‘visual design’’ or ‘‘graphical design’’ with additional competences : graphical chart, logo, color, institutional communication y visual design þ one among {packaging ; multimedia ; promotional items ; visual editing} visual design þ two among {packaging ; multimedia ; promotional items ; visual editing} visual design þ three among {packaging ; multimedia ; promotional items ; visual editing} visual design þ four among {packaging ; multimedia ; promotional items ; visual editing}

2 pts 2 pts 3 pts 4 pts 4 pts 5 pts 1 pt 6 pts

7 pts 8 pts 9 pts 10 pts

Coding Form for Product Design – 3D

If If If If If

If

If If If

only product conception only product editing only packaging þ 3D no details given on the practice only packaging 3D – with additional information on practice like conditioning, formatting, restylingy ‘‘product design’’ or ‘‘volume’’ with additional practices like : shape, prototype, mass product, industrial design product design þ one among {packaging ; conception ; editing} product design þ two among {packaging ; conception ; editing} product design þ three among {packaging ; conception ; editing}

3 pts 3 pts 5 pts 1 pt 6 pts

7 pts

8 pts 9 pts 10 pts

FROM AGENTS TO PRINCIPLES: THE CHANGING RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HOSPITALIST IDENTITY AND LOGICS OF HEALTH CARE Vanessa Pouthier, Christopher W. J. Steele and William Ocasio ABSTRACT Institutional logics and collective identities are closely intertwined: logics shape the emergence and evolution of identities, which in turn play a crucial role in mediating the influence of the logics themselves. Though there exists a significant body of research on the intersection of the two phenomena, relatively little attention has been given to changes in the strength, content, and permanence of particular logic–identity associations. In this paper we explore empirically the question of whether and how a logic and identity may become severed, through an inductive case study of the development of the hospitalist identity in health care in the United States. Based on this study, we propose a set of mechanisms through which the distancing of a logic and an identity may occur. We

Institutional Logics in Action, Part A Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 39A, 203–241 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X(2013)0039A&B011

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also discuss potential counterfactual outcomes, in order to build theory regarding the longitudinal relationship between logics and identities. Keywords: Institutional logic; institutional complexity; practice; institution

Recent years have seen a burgeoning interest in the relationship between institutional logics and collective identity. On the one hand, collective identities play a crucial role in the everyday enactment of institutional logics (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Greenwood, Raynard, Kodeih, Micelotta, & Lounsbury, 2011; Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012), as well as their diffusion and decline (Creed, DeJordy, & Lok, 2010; Lok, 2010; Marquis & Lounsbury, 2007; Rao, Monin, & Durand, 2003). On the other hand, logics play an important, reciprocal role in shaping the emergence of such identities (Glynn, 2008; Goodrick & Reay, 2010; Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005; Wry, Lounsbury, & Glynn, 2011), along with their status and ongoing evolution (Lounsbury, 2002; Thornton & Ocasio, 1999). The two phenomena co-evolve; their dynamics inextricably intertwined. And it is for this reason that identity occupies such a central place in recent efforts to theorize the micro-foundations of institutional logics (Thornton et al., 2012). Yet, even though theoretical and empirical research on identities and logics has been extremely fertile, it has inevitably entailed certain lacunae. Of particular interest to us, the literature has tended to suppose relatively stable connections between pairings of logics and identities, thereby obscuring some of the potentially consequential ways in which the relationships between logics and identities change over time. Existing research has explored the impact of identification dynamics in cases where logics and their associated collective identities are all but synonymous (Lok, 2010; Rao et al., 2003), as well as the role of such dynamics where logics are associated with multiple complementary identities (Thornton et al., 2012), and the ability of actors to forge and protect identities that balance the influence of multiple and potentially contradictory logics (Battilana & Dorado, 2010; Meyer & Hammerschmid, 2006). Such work has undoubtedly produced substantial theoretical advances, but at the same time it has deflected attention away from the dynamics of the relationships between logics and identities, per se. The unintended consequence of this has been a dearth of research into the historical contingency – or more accurately,

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historical mutability – of the relationships under study. The one notable exception of which we are aware is to be found in Chapter 6 of The Institutional Logics Perspective (Thornton et al., 2012), which we address in our theoretical discussion below. In this paper, we begin to address this lacuna through an inductive study of these dynamics, focused on the relationship between the logic of managed care, and a new professional physician identity in the United States: that of the hospitalist, or the physician specializing in the provision of care within the hospital setting. This identity emerged in the 1990s, when the label was first introduced. Initially, the hospitalist identity was theorized in terms of the influential logic of managed care, and articulated in relation to the key problems and practices highlighted by this logic. In the following decades, however, it has become disassociated from managed care, both rhetorically and in terms of the practical foci of the collective. Here, we address the antecedents and consequences of this detachment of hospitalist identity from the logic of managed care, developing a process model of detachment, which we suggest can be expanded through further theoretical and empirical work. Our empirical analysis indicates that the proximate trigger for this detachment process was the emergence of a set of identity threats and opportunities, which challenged the ability of hospitalists to maintain a positive identity in the eyes of other key stakeholders in the health-care field, and in their own estimation. We argue that these threats were identified, and to some degree constituted, through an active process of environmental scanning and sensemaking: a process which not only identified potential threats to the nascent hospitalist identity, but also identified opportunities to enhance that identity by further infusing it with positive meaning, as well as emotional and practical significance. Together, these threats and opportunities made it more difficult to maintain a positive identity in the context of continued affiliation with the rhetoric and principal movers of managed care, and provided an increasingly attractive alternative, in the form of an identity articulated in relation to other principles and groups. Based on our inductive analysis, we propose that hospitalists responded to these pressures through processes of cultural differentiation and social realignment. On the one hand, they sought to sever the cultural or semiotic associations that bound their identity to the logic of managed care, and to forge new and more positive associations; actively distancing themselves from that increasingly toxic logic, and attempting to create for themselves a distinctive set of cultural associations with principles of quality, systems design, and cooperation. On the other hand, they sought to distance

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themselves from the principal agents of managed care and to forge alliances with other key stakeholders, such as hospital executives, as well as new and popular groups such as the incipient ‘‘quality of care’’ movement. These processes, triggered by the emergence of identity threats and opportunities, succeeded in detaching the hospitalist identity from the logic of managed care – both symbolically, and in practice. As an unintended consequence, these processes of cultural differentiation and social realignment also created a distinct cultural and social space that was well suited to the emergence of a new institutional logic – a space in which changes in cultural and social associations made possible novel and distinctive institutional configurations and connections, sparking the creation of a distinct institutional logic of hospital medicine. Though we focus on the role of these mechanisms in the detachment of logics and identities, the emergence of this new logic nonetheless serves to illustrate the extent of their potential significance; and we close with a discussion of some of the contingencies and alternative outcomes that might aid us in theorizing the likelihood of such unintended, or even intended consequences. We thus contribute to the institutional logics perspective in four ways. First, we draw attention to longitudinal variations in the connections binding together logics and identities. The strength, content, and permanence of these associations between logics and identities have attracted little attention, despite the multiple and significant ways that the specific connections binding together logics and identities have been shown to influence the coevolution of the two phenomena (Thornton et al., 2012). Second, we introduce the concept of identity opportunities to complement the previously recognized concept of identity threats (Dutton & Dukerich, 1991; Elsbach & Kramer, 1996). We propose that identity threats and opportunities together play a key and previously neglected role in precipitating change in logic–identity relationships and associations, and we believe this expanded perspective usefully supplements prior theory on the interrelations of the two phenomena (Thornton et al., 2012). Third, we introduce the mechanisms of cultural differentiation and social realignment to explain the process by which logics and identities may become distanced or severed. We thus address variation in the content and strength of logic– identity associations by introducing the process of distancing descriptively, and by theorizing its contributing factors and its internal dynamics. Finally, we argue that the process of distancing may create a form of cultural and symbolic vacuum, well suited to the emergence of a new institutional logic. We thus contribute to theory on the emergence of logics by indicating an additional set of precipitating or facilitating dynamics.

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INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITIES Institutional logics are the sets of organizing principles that grant order and coherence to particular domains of social life: sets of principles such as accumulation and commodification, for instance, which characterize the domain of the market and the realm of economic activity; or such as pursuit of transcendental truth, and personal enlightenment, which guide and organize certain forms of religious behavior (Alford & Friedland, 1985; Friedland & Alford, 1991). These sets of principles form ‘‘transrational systems,’’ which define localized forms of rationality. They infuse activity with meaning and significance, and thus define what it is that is going on – why other people are doing what they’re doing, what things possess value, and what activities are considered laudable or reprehensible – and the courses of action that might be meaningfully, sensibly, and rationally pursued (Friedland, 2012; Friedland & Alford, 1991; Thornton & Ocasio, 2008; Thornton et al., 2012). Even as these principles provide meaning to material practices, however, they rely upon material practices to make them concrete, observable, and consequential. As Friedland and Alford put it, the behaviors of buying, making love, voting, or praying serve to make property, love, democracy, or God concrete and immediate – but ‘‘these behaviors make sense to those who enact the behavior only in relation to those transrational symbolic systems and [, in turn, the] symbolic systems only make sense in terms of the behavior’’ (Friedland & Alford, 1991, p. 250). As such, these principles, or logics, are both symbolic and material: or, to use Thornton and Ocasio’s definition, they are the ‘‘the socially constructed, historical patterns of cultural symbols and material practices, including assumptions, values, and beliefs, by which individuals and organizations provide meaning to their daily activity, organize time and space, and reproduce their lives and experiences’’ (Thornton & Ocasio, 1999, 2008; Thornton et al., 2012). Since its first incarnation, the institutional logic concept has been significantly elaborated. While Roger Friedland has continued to develop and elaborate upon the concept in his theorization of logics as the gods of the value spheres (Friedland, 2012), scholars in institutional theory and organization studies have built an extensive body of theoretical and empirical elaborations (for an overview, see Greenwood et al., 2011; Thornton et al., 2012). This body of work has been particularly focused on the development of a detailed and comprehensive set of mechanisms by which logics influence individual and organizational behavior, and by which they may enable, facilitate, or hinder processes of institutional change, as well as the development of

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a coherent institutional logics perspective, or meta-theory of social and institutional behavior (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008; Thornton et al., 2012). Core topics within this literature have been the existence, replication, and replacement of dominant logics within particular institutional fields (Haveman & Rao, 1997; Lounsbury, 2002; Rao et al., 2003; Scott, Ruef, Mendel, & Caronna, 2000; Thornton & Ocasio, 1999); the existence, management, and consequences of overlap between institutional logics, or institutional complexity (Dunn & Jones, 2010; Goodrick & Reay, 2011; Greenwood, Diaz, Li, & Lorente, 2009; Greenwood et al., 2011; Reay & Hinings, 2009); the emergence of new institutional logics, and particularly of hybrid logics (Battilana & Dorado, 2010; Meyer & Hammerschmid, 2006; Murray, 2010); and, last, but not least, the interconnection of logics and collective identities. Following the predominant tradition within the logics literature, we conceptualize collective identities as cultural categories that serve to delineate sets of individuals or organizations as being of a particular, socially meaningful type – a type with particular attributes, and particular relational attitudes and roles (Goodrick & Reay, 2010; Lok, 2010; Navis & Glynn, 2010; Thornton & Ocasio, 2008; Thornton et al., 2012; Weber, Heinze, & DeSoucey, 2008; Wry et al., 2011). More specifically, we conceptualize identities as guides to who or what individual actors should be in concrete social situations (Lok, 2010); guides that rely upon a posited set of prototypical features that identify the imagined community to which they are supposed to belong and which they are held to exemplify or represent (Anderson, 1991; Rivera, 2008). Rather than supposing that these categories reflect shared meanings on the part of members or others, we envisage the predominant meanings of these categories – the features that are considered to be prototypical – as continually open to, and often subject to, contestation and revision by putative members and by other parties. As a result, individuals engage in identity work, including attempts to maintain a positive value for their collective identities or to distance themselves from collectives that they consider stigmatized, illegitimate, or at odds with their self-image (Creed et al., 2010; Lok, 2010). Within the logics literature, the importance of collective identities has long been recognized, though interest has recently increased significantly. In Friedland and Alford’s original formulation, for instance, logics were responsible for providing the vocabularies of motive, interest, and purpose that individuals used to articulate themselves and order their behavior (Friedland & Alford, 1991); a bundle of elements that essentially constitute an identity. This relatively close coupling of logics and identities is exemplified by Rao et al.’s study of the nouvelle cuisine movement, where the increasing attractiveness of the social identity associated with chefs of la nouvelle cuisine encouraged many

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chefs to embrace the new logic; defecting from the less attractive, traditional identity associated with the logic of pure, ‘‘classical’’ cuisine (2003). The same general approach is echoed by Lounsbury’s study of Boston and New York mutual fund communities, which attended to different stimuli (inefficiency vs. poor performance respectively) to make strategic decisions about the management of fund portfolios (Lounsbury, 2007). Recently, some scholars have begun to focus more on the dynamics of logics and identities (Thornton et al., 2012). For example, Meyer and Hammerschmid’s work on the translation of institutional logics into new settings illustrated the ways in which hybrid identities could be constructed (2006), showing how identities may reflect not so much the concerns and values associated with a single dominant logic, but rather an effortful balance between the prescriptions and value systems of multiple competing logics. Such work has been complemented and extended by Lok’s work on the role of identity in resisting and subverting institutional change (2010), as well as Reay and colleagues’ work on the ways in which professional identities may reflect and sustain constellations of complementary or competing logics (Goodrick & Reay, 2010; Goodrick & Reay, 2011). Perhaps the most extensive prior effort at theorizing the dynamics of identity and logics is to be found in the sixth chapter of the Institutional Logics Perspective (Thornton et al., 2012). In the latter half of this paper, the authors draw on prior empirical research (Lounsbury & Crumley, 2007) in order to develop an ‘‘ecological’’ model of the relationships between logics, practices, and collective identities (which they define as cultural categories characterized by shared cognitive and normative orientations). This model posits recognizable domains of activity, composed of multiple practices and identities, and governed by particular logics. These domains are characterized by variations in the practices pursued by participating groups, and variations in the cognitive and normative orientations embedded in the constituent collective identities. Under certain circumstances, particular practices or identities come to be seen as embodying goals, attitudes, or tactics that are contrary to the predominant logic and alien to the other prevailing identities and practices. Such discrepant or anomalous variations in practice or identity attract the attention of participants and trigger active processes of sensemaking, as individuals and groups attempt to decide whether these anomalies are problematic, and whether their own interests may be furthered by eradicating or exploiting them. This process of sensemaking may in turn give rise to efforts at collective mobilization or to politicking within existing decision-making channels – efforts focused on protecting the existing logic from the influence of discrepant identities or practices, on altering it to incorporate them, or on

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creating a new and distinct organizational community or domain of practice, within which those identities or practices will be dominant rather than anomalous. Thus, variations in practice or identity may cause the alteration or reinforcement of institutional logics, or the creation of new domains of practice. This model provides a helpful point of entry into studying the dynamics of logics and identities, but is focused primarily on explaining endogenous change in institutional logics, using anomalous variety in practices and collective identities as a key mechanism. Accordingly, it does not expend a great deal of attention on variations in the strength, content and permanence of associations between logics and identities, which is the focus of this paper. Though it notes the possibility that collective identities may splinter off into new domains of practice, it does not enter into detailed analysis of the processes by which the erosion or severing of the bond between collective identities and institutional logics might take place, nor does it elaborate on the ways in which these dynamics may foster the emergence of new institutional logics. In sum, while prior work has highlighted the diverse and complex relationships that bind together institutional logics and collective identities, changes in the strength and content of identity–logic associations have not yet been explored in a systematic and focused manner. What is the relationship between a logic and identity and how might it mutate or change over time? Do the associations between logics and identities intensify, erode, or even become severed over time? Through what mechanisms does this come to pass? Given the power of identities to reproduce institutional logics, to encourage defection from one logic to another, and to inspire and permit effective resistance to change, the means by which identities themselves may be suborned by, or lost to, particular logics seems likely to be theoretically and empirically consequential. Thus, though existing research provides several interesting avenues into this topic, we believe a purposeful inductive, qualitative study offers an invaluable prompt for ongoing efforts to enrich the institutional logics perspective.

METHODOLOGY AND METHODS Research Design As suggested above, our aim in carrying out this study was to revisit, enrich, and prompt the development of theory regarding the interrelations

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of institutional logics and collective identities. To do so, we draw on an inductive case study of the nascent hospitalist identity within the U.S. health-care field. This research site was chosen and retained for its theoretical pertinence (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Miles & Huberman, 1994; Yin, 2009). Two main theoretical and pragmatic reasons motivated our focus on this particular identity, and its membership. First, on the surface, the identity in question was clearly subject to the dynamics that we sought to study; offering a rich source of pertinent empirical details, amenable to theory generation (Eisenhardt, 1989; Miles & Huberman, 1994; Yin, 2009). Second, this identity not only offered a clear case of the phenomena we sought to study, but also involved a group of participants that were especially reflexive. Accordingly, textual data was not only particularly rich, but also directly pertinent to our research topic. In addition, participants were particularly amenable to interviews and to detailed discussion of the emergence and evolution of the hospitalist movement, as well as their own experiences within it.

Data Sources To carry out this case study, we drew on a wide range of data sources, including influential blogs within the hospitalist movement, company mission statements, letters published in medical journals, peer-reviewed studies and commentaries, and previous sociological and anthropological studies of the movement. We focused, however, on two particularly fertile sources. The first was the existing hospitalist literature, which served as a general source of information on the emergence and development of the new profession, and its reception by other constituencies within the medical industry. We identified and read the most cited peer-reviewed studies and all editorials and commentaries by leaders in the field for the years 1995–2011, and also collected articles and other documents written about the movement by non-hospitalists; including both articles in key medical journals and less formal opinion pieces. We used this library to track the ways in which hospitalists understood and presented their profession and movement over time, relative to broader institutional logics within the health-care field, as well as the attitudes and beliefs of other field constituencies toward this project and its presentation. The anxieties and foci of the hospitalists’ own literature helped us to identify possible identity opportunities and threats. The second key source of data was a set of twenty-five 30–60 minute, semistructured interviews, which were audio recorded in all but one instance.

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Anonymity was assured. Participants included movement leaders, practicing hospitalists, other health-care professionals working with hospitalists on a regular basis, staff from companies providing hospitalist services, hospital executives, and representatives of key professional associations and agencies in the U.S. health-care field. Interviewees were identified through the literature, through referral chains (Rubin & Rubin, 2005; Weiss, 1994), and through attendance at three conferences on the practice of hospital medicine. During these interviews, participants were asked to describe the values and practices of hospitalists, and prompted to explain any changes that they identified in the content of the hospitalist identity. These interviews took place both prior to, during, and after data analysis and theorization: as such, they served both as an original source of data, and as a means of testing the plausibility of our emergent historical and theoretical narratives amongst participants (Rubin & Rubin, 2005). These interview data both aided in the development of the theoretical narrative presented here, and served as a means to test its acceptance amongst participants.

Data Analysis Data collection and analysis proceeded concurrently, in an iterative format (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Yin, 2009). In line with our goals of theory generation and explanation building, we focused on developing an historical narrative that explained the trajectory of the data, and sought to develop and test concepts based on that narrative (Yin, 2009). Through collective debriefings following individual interviews, as well as ongoing reading and rereading of interview transcripts and archived articles, we sought to build a descriptive, historical narrative of the case and to identify patterns in the data. Alongside this process we held regular group meetings in which we sought to develop plausible analytic and explanatory narratives capable of accounting for and explaining these patterns, and the history of the case. These analytic narratives were written up into theoretical memos, and rendered diagrammatically in several tentative process models. Both the memos and the models then served to guide further data collection and analysis efforts – helping us to choose new sources of data, and to develop new questions to address to participants, so as to best challenge and test our emerging explanations. From an early stage, we engaged in an ongoing and iterative process of data collection, data reduction, data display, and the development and verification of analytic conclusions (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Throughout this process, differences in our independent interpretations of the data and emerging

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explanations were discussed until they were collectively deemed minimal. Finally, this process led us to the model presented below. In the following section, we present the historical narrative of the case that was gleaned from this analysis, detailing the evolution of the hospitalist identity, and its changing relationship with the logic of managed care. We also describe the emergence of a new and distinctive logic of hospital medicine, which emerged during this process. We then turn to examine the analytic model that we propose on the basis of this case, encompassing the antecedents, mechanisms, and consequences of the distancing or severing of logics and identities; alongside a number of counterfactuals and contingencies.

HISTORICAL AND ANALYTICAL NARRATIVE: HOSPITALISTS AND THE DECLINE OF THE MANAGED-CARE LOGIC Even on the surface, the history of hospitalists’ identity serves as a particularly vivid example of the dynamics that we seek to study. As mentioned earlier, the hospitalist identity, which encompasses physicians specializing in the provision of care to patients within the hospital, first emerged in the mid-1990s. At that point, it was theorized in ways that drew closely on the rhetoric associated with the logic of managed care, emphasizing goals and pressures of efficiency and cost effectiveness, and focusing on practices that would further these ends. Relatively quickly, the hospitalist became a well-recognized figure within the health-care field – and one often closely associated with managed care. Within only a brief period of time, however, the logic of managed care began to decline precipitously in popularity and influence. While one might have expected hospitalists to decline in influence or number as a result, instead they have thrived, becoming one of the most significant new specialties of the past few decades. In the meantime, however, hospitalists have become vocal opponents of the logic of managed care. Their attention and emotional investment is focused instead on goals and practices associated with quality of care, patient safety and satisfaction, and the design of collaborative workplaces.

Phase One: The Emergence of a Collective Identity Hospitalists began as a loose network of physicians engaged in similar sorts of work; a group that had little if any sense of itself as a coherent collective.

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In the early 1990s, several physicians began creating lists of those peers that they considered to be part of an emerging specialty – a body of physicians who spent most of their time, if not all of it, working with acutely ill hospitalized patients, as opposed to splitting their time between care in the hospital and care in the community. This emerging consciousness of a shared style of work, and perhaps even a shared set of problems and concerns, gave rise to a key 1996 article in the New England Journal of Medicine (Wachter & Goldman, 1996). It was in this article that the ‘‘hospitalist’’ was first named, and identified to a broad audience as part of an emergent and coherent specialty; one that was articulated largely through the rhetoric of managed care. At the time, the logic of managed care was enjoying its brief ascendancy within the field of American health care. Though notions of managing care had been common within the field for many years (Scott et al., 2000), the use of managed care as a principle for organizing the field as a whole was relatively novel – and was closely connected with President Clinton’s anticipated health reforms, with their emphasis on the provision of costeffective care through market (price) and bureaucratic mechanisms (Nigam & Ocasio, 2010). It was also not to last particularly long. Though it exercised a great deal of influence over health-care discourse for a brief period, the logic of managed care attracted a significant and powerful backlash. In the aftermath, managed care became widely associated with the bureaucratic rationing of care, a pejorative attribution that was typically made in a highly morally and emotionally charged way. Given the prevalence and salience of the logic at the time, however, it is of little surprise that the pioneers of the hospitalist identity drew upon the rhetoric of the managed-care logic. They suggested that the expansion of managed care had opened up a greater role for generalist physicians, but also posed insuperable challenges to predominant modes of generalist practice. Primary care practitioners (PCPs), who had been the prototypical generalists in the past, could provide both comprehensiveness and continuity in care provision, but not in ways that could satisfy the realities of managed care, particularly its emphasis on efficiency. Aside from any other concerns, the need for PCPs to travel between office and hospital made it inefficient for them to take responsibility for both community and hospital care. In addition, the authors suggested, the introduction of physicians specialized in providing care within the hospital should enhance the value of care, by increasing the experience and availability of physicians caring for inpatients. Such emphasis on efficiency, cost effectiveness, and value was calculated – functionally, if not intentionally – to appeal to

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proponents of the managed-care logic, and to position hospitalists positively in relation to that logic. With the new label in place, and the creation of the hospitalists’ first society (the National Association of Inpatient Physicians (NAIP)) one year later, there was an intensification of efforts to theorize and galvanize hospitalists as a coherent identity and specialty out of the multiple ‘‘hospitalist’’ initiatives and programs that were being developed across the United States (Strelitz, 2003; Wallace & Schneller, 2008). In theorizing their distinctiveness as a professional group, hospitalists drew strongly on the logic and discourse of managed care. Echoing the Wachter and Goldman article, they told themselves and others that demands for increased efficiency were driving PCPs to spend more time on outpatient work, leaving a gap in inpatient care – and that they were perfectly positioned to fill this gap, and to enhance both efficiency and value (Strelitz, 2003): At inception, it was introducing a new division of labor that would facilitate taking care of an increasingly complex population of patients in an efficient manner. At the question ‘‘why do that?’’ hospitalists would respond, ‘‘to care for acutely ill patients more efficiently/at lower costs.’’ (Senior Medical officer at a company providing hospitalist services)

Similarly, early studies tended to focus on efficiency metrics such as length of stay, using quality measures as control variables – attempting to show how hospitalists saved money without compromising patient safety and satisfaction (Auerbach et al., 2000; Wachter & Goldman, 2002; Wachter, Katz, Showstack, Bindman, & Goldman, 1998). At the same time, in their everyday practices, hospitalists built up expertise in triage and discharge planning to help reduce unnecessary hospitalizations and length of stay, as well as working closely with hospital administrators to meet financial objectives. As a result, they directed their attention towards furthering the efficiency interests of insurance companies and cost-conscious hospital administrators alike. In sum, while the process of identity construction at this early juncture was not bereft of discursive conflicts and inconsistencies, hospital medicine became a metaphor for and, de facto, a representation of the economic context of the medical profession – an exemplar for the cost-conscious physician (Strelitz, 2003). Not only did the growth of managed-care play a role in hospitalists’ early success, and their increasing influence within the U.S. health-care system, it was also reflected in their rhetoric and their domain of practice. At root, the particular skills and sensibility that

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hospitalists emphasized, and for which they were recognized early on, reflected the core tenets of the logic of managed care: The prime driver in the early days was how do you shorten length of stay, how do you decrease hospital costsy And I think the emergence of this model really came about, in part, because large medical groups began to recognize that the old organizational structure – primary care doctors caring for their own patients within the hospital – was not achieving that goal, and that [this] would be financially disastrous. So that was the idea: that the specialty would be accountable, and was put in place, in part, to meet the necessities born out of how the healthcare system was organized and how people are compensated. (Movement leader)

Phase Two: The Retreat from Managed Care Antagonism against the logic of managed care had simmered throughout the period in which the Clinton health-care plans were constructed and discussed, but in the late 1990s it intensified significantly. Suddenly the logic was not merely suspect, but subject to widespread moral opprobrium, with its principle movers stigmatized, and contagion threatening to spread to associated groups, such as the hospitalists. The hospitalists themselves were cognizant of this. From a relatively early stage they had become a reflexive group, engaged in environmental scanning and sensemaking. Conferences, for example, addressed not only the enhancement of care and treatment, but also the history and nature of hospitalists as a group, and the steps needed to ensure acceptance of the hospitalist model and to enhance the effectiveness and influence of hospitalists within the hospital setting. This reflexivity became more entrenched over time, especially within the hospitalist literature. Bob Wachter, the hospitalists’ original theorist, played a key role in this regard (Wachter, 2002; Wachter, 2006, 2008; Wachter & Flanders, 1998; Wachter & Goldman, 2002). At the first national conference on hospitalists in the fall of 1997, hospitalists and advocates of the hospitalist model thus faced the twofold challenge of demonstrating the ability of the model to save money while presenting its benefits in an ideologically acceptable way in the context of growing resentment at the intrusion of financial considerations and corporatism in health care. As the backlash against the logic of managed care intensified, many prominent hospitalists disassociated themselves from both theorizations and justifications based on managed care, and from those groups and organizations that might be tainted by association with the logic. One development of special importance was the attempted introduction of mandatory hospitalist programs by Prudential, in 1999. In these types of

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programs, primary care physicians would be forced to turn over their patients to hospitalists should they require hospitalization, and patients would be unable to opt out of the hospitalist system. This move was vigorously resisted by many physicians; including hospitalists. Hospitalists were keenly aware of the threat this might pose to their identity. As one of our interviewees commented: When certain of the managed care organizations started to embrace this movement to the point that some of them began mandating it for their members, we had just formed the society and we came against it as strongly as we could. That was actually the first policy position that we took, that there should not be mandatory programs. [y] It was very important that we came out and said that’s a bad idea; that might be a short-term victory for the field – more hospitalists, more patients being attended to by hospitalists – but there’s no question in my mind that it would have been a long term loss. It was really important in separating us in the eyes of the public and the press – anyone who was looking from managed care. We were not an agent of managed care; we were a group of physicians who had come to believe this was ultimately going to be better for patients and the system. (Movement leader)

Some have argued that hospitalists’ concern with distinguishing their practices from managed care dates to the time of their first theorization, if not before (Strelitz, 2003), but in our view it was at this point that such efforts intensified and became crucial. Whereas many hospitalists had positioned themselves as a solution to the problems posed by managed care, and a solution framed in the terms of managed care, they now began to move away from this positioning. The waning of managed care and the possibility of being associated with inappropriate rationing of care constituted an important identity threat to hospitalists and their leaders, who worked hard to avoid over-entanglement with managed-care organizations, initiatives, and theorizations: We worried a lot that it would get conflated with all the larger concerns about managed care, about decisions being made just about money, about CEOs making ten million dollars, Wall Street sensibility, all that sort of stuff rolled up into it. (Movement leader)

This concern is reflected in the histories told within the profession. Several of our interviewees stated vehemently that there was no, or only a very limited, connection between hospitalists and managed care, which they retrospectively portray as an irresponsible system of rationing. Similarly, authors within the hospitalist literature have sought to demonstrate empirically that hospitalists are not predominantly employed by managedcare organizations (Williams, 2004), to construct professional histories that highlight and reiterate hospitalists’ opposition to the imposition of mandatory hospitalist programs by managed-care organizations (Wachter,

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2007, 2008), and to discuss how hospitalists’ focus on efficiency is intrinsically different from that of managed care (Abbo, 2008): The hospitalist orientation is markedly different from the capitation approach tested under managed care. [y]Whereas physicians resisted bureaucratic rules set by distant insurers that did not respond to the individual needs of patients, hospitalists make nuanced trade-off decisions about where to save resources, and they do so without rigid and inflexible rules. (Abbo, 2008)

These assertions that hospitalists were not tools of managed care were associated with some positive content for the hospitalist identity, and the nature of hospitalist practice. In particular, some served to direct hospitalists’ attention toward the principles associated with quality of care, as individuals sought to define the movement’s value in a way that included, but was not reducible to ‘‘the figures’’ (Strelitz, 2003): All of us were looking for a more, for a broader and almost more noble and professionally satisfying set of values than simply we’re here to do a job and take care of the patients but also to save money and decrease hospitals’ lengths of stay. So when the IOM report came out in 1999, it really felt like an amazing opportunity, an alignment of the stars to rebrand ourselves, to say we are not only about the care of individual patients, but making systems of care better and sure that is also about saving money – that’s fine, but also much more important about improving quality, about improving safety, about increasing collaboration among all the different caregivers and from that it was quite natural to come up with this mantra that we will take good care of individual patients while also making the system better. (Movement leader)

The publication of studies documenting significant quality gaps in the U.S. health-care field constituted a critical opportunity for hospitalists to reposition themselves. The movement leadership started to re-articulate and enrich the roles and responsibilities of hospitalists around a two patient model – that is, a model in which the hospital, as well as the sick human, is envisaged as a patient in need of care and cure. In addition, they began to more clearly emphasize the quality dimension of value in their discourse. As they did so, the rank and file hospitalists embraced the new vision quite readily and engaged in new activities to support it. Associations with the quality movement prompted the development of distinctive practices and facilitated efforts at building new interprofessional alliances. Hospitalists spent an increasing amount of energy on quality research aiming to document the impact of hospitalist practice on clinical outcomes, as well as engaging more heavily inpatient satisfaction and quality improvement activities: Hospital medicine is increasingly claiming quality improvement research or health care delivery science or health care engineering, however we want to call it, as a major

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component of what they do, and in fact, one fourth of the test for recertification in the focus recognition track relates to quality improvement/patient safety. (Movement leader)

The concept of value became ever more central to their discourse, just as the possibilities of systems management and team coordination (O’Leary et al., 2008; Strelitz, 2003) or lean production (Graban & Prachand, 2010) increasingly informed their practices. Hospitalists emphasized more and more that they were not clinical generalists, but process or site specialists. Being at the coalface affords a close-up view of how a hospital really operates, and potential for insights into how to fix it (Barley, 2008). Hospitalists have used their consequent appreciation of the process of inpatient care and the organizational system in which it is embedded to claim specialty status (Strelitz, 2003). They now systematically portray the health-care system as a network of interdependent systems and processes that they can continuously improve through staff engagement and teamwork, and the institutionalization of methods for timely data collection and analysis. The name change of the professional association from the NAIP to the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) in 2003 importantly reflects this new orientation: Hospital medicine is more than an individual doctor treating an individual patient. Hospitalists need to be concerned about things like collecting data, thinking system-wide and making hospitals safer. (Wellikson, quoted in Gesensway, 2003) The new name reflects hospital medicine’s focus on teamwork. The organization plans to broaden its scope to include non-physician members involved in hospital medicine practice, including nurse practitioners, physician assistants, case managers, pharmacists and hospital administrators. (Williams, quoted in Gesensway, 2003)

Over the years, the hospitalist literature has documented an ever-growing number of collaborative projects that they have undertaken to make systems improvements. They strove to form a particularly strong relationship with nursing. The expanding literature on the hospitalist–nurse relationship highlights the importance of such concerns as collaboration and teamwork with nurses (Amin & Owen, 2006), division of labor and workflow (Olender, 2005), and nurse satisfaction (Olender, 2005). In some institutions, hospitalists and nurses are experimenting with unit-based coleadership models and interdisciplinary research projects. In the process of developing close working and research relationships with nurses, hospitalists ensured that they were not seen merely as ‘‘warm bodies,’’ but as specialists capable of enhancing the work environment, as well as the work and outcomes of other medical practitioners.

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We’ve brought in young, bright, talented people who want to make a difference. Not just somebody who’s coming in that wants to run a business; wants to make moneyy [So] you have that, coupled with a similarly minded nursing staff, and it’s a creative dynamic on our units that is really remarkable to see in action. They really understand what interdisciplinarity is all about [y] and as they’re starting to populate our surgical units, we’re seeing more and more opportunities with them. Things just work there and innovation can be implemented. (Chief nurse executive)

Nurses are by no means the only or most important group with which hospitalists have sought to align themselves. Other efforts have been directed toward engagement with PCPs, discharge planners, administrators, and specialist physicians (Strelitz, 2003), and more recently intensivists (Heisler, 2010). These efforts were a recurrent theme at key annual conferences we attended in 2010 and 2011. A particularly telling illustration of alignment efforts can be found in the landmark project BOOST, which is a national, hospitalist-led, quality improvement program launched in 2008 to reach Better Outcomes for Older Adults through Safe Transitions. This resulted in the development, in collaboration with five other medical specialties, of a set of standards intended to reduce hospital readmissions and to enhance quality in transitions of care between inpatient and outpatient settings. Hospitalists introduced a new discontinuity in the system of care, which many constituents were afraid could undermine care quality in the name of efficiency and managed care. They have worked tirelessly at both the national and local levels to assuage those concerns and make their work around safe transitions an emblem of what they are all about: Yes this is discontinuity but it is purposeful discontinuity and the imperative is not so much around the discontinuity but what we’re going to do about it. So, it is incumbent upon us to build communication systems and information transfer systems so that information gets to people who need it when they need it, from doctors’ offices to hospitals and back. (Chief medical officer, Hospitalist Company)

As hospitalists worked collaboratively to improve hand-offs and outcomes within and between settings – developing new communication tools and practices to make the process more seamless and satisfying to all the parties involved – they managed to construct their dual allegiance to the patient and the hospital system as both necessary and desirable, and in the process, gained the trust of core constituencies: Hospitalists try to optimize hidden bed capacity and thus avoid backlogs, delays, and poor bed placement. When you see all those patients wandering around the hospital, waiting for a bed - they are what motivate them. Hospitalists are patient advocates. (Case manager)

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Phase Three: The Emergence of a New Logic As the pursuit of efficiency and quality through systems design and teamwork (Amin & Owen, 2006; Heisler, 2010; Olender, 2005; Strelitz, 2003) became more ingrained in the practices, training, and identity of the hospitalist, this new set of principles has also spread through the frontiers between the hospitalists and their partners and been transposed into more distant domains. As a result, a new logic of ‘‘hospital medicine’’ has emerged (this being the hospitalists’ own term for their discipline), addressing the conceptualization and provision of inpatient care. Table 1 compares and contrasts the managed care and hospital medicine logics in the form of stylized ideal types. As the table indicates, the logic of managed care reflects the influence of higher-order market and corporate logics. It emphasizes, primarily, the pursuit of efficiency and cost effectiveness in care provision, with costcontrol being achieved through the careful design of economic incentive structures and through the extensive use of formal, bureaucratic records of, and justifications for, care planning and decision-making processes. Within this logic, the hospitalists’ role is to enhance efficiency (and quality) of care through 24-hour availability within the hospital. This reduces time spent in transit between inpatient and outpatient settings, and increases the time available to treat patients, speeding patient discharge and furthering the interests of insurance companies and hospital administrators alike. By contrast, the logic of hospital medicine espoused by the hospitalists reflects primarily professional and corporate logics, placing a greater emphasis on physician autonomy and responsibility, as well as the pursuit of

Table 1.

Comparison of the Logics of Managed Care and Hospital Medicine. Managed-Care Logic

Hospital Medicine Logic

Interinstitutional logic Source of legitimacy Organizational structure Hospitalists’ role Physician relationships Critical relationships

Market/corporate Efficiency Bureaucratic 24-hour availability Group practices Administrators; insurance companies

Operational strategy

Treatment-based

Professional/corporate Quality/effectiveness Team-based Complex medicine Collaborative Administrators; other physicians; nurses Systems-based

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quality of care. Rather than economic incentives or bureaucratic design, the central focus of this logic is the goal of an holistic, systems-based approach to the provision of care, and the ongoing pursuit of a collaborative, teambased environment. Only this approach, so it is theorized, will allow for physicians to deal effectively with the increasingly complex cases that they face within the hospital setting. Accordingly, within this logic, the hospitalists’ role requires that they attend to the organizational structure and work practices that can enhance or impede effective and safe health-care provision, over those which increase the efficiency of care planning. This, in turn, requires that they build close relationships with nurses and with other physicians and health-care professionals, as well as administrators. Almost from the beginning, hospitalists did not see the logic of hospital medicine as being limited to their own sphere of practice: The idea that a physician specialty would spend a lot of its energy trying to make systems of care work better was not a natural thing for physicians. So I think hospitalists embraced those kinds of things, improving value, improving systems and integration with the organization, in a unique way. But ultimately I don’t think it will be a unique way. I think it was just the first specialty to do it. [y] Most specialties have learned at least to talk the talk and many of them, those leading people, the cutting-edge people’s practices are walking the talk. (Movement leader)

And indeed, following collaboration with hospitalists, several groups have made changes to their practice and theorizations. For instance, working in close proximity to hospitalists, nurses have embraced issues brought into focus by the hospitalist model, such as links between safety and work scheduling (Janney & Landrigan, 2008). Similarly, neurosurgeons have expressed a greater interest in quality management following engagement with hospitalists. Indeed, the Chair of Neurosurgery at UCSF, following the success of the hospitalist-neurosurgeon collaboration, stated: We want to be the leading neurosurgery department in the country in quality and safetyy [We want a quality and safety program, and] I’d like to hire one of your hospitalists to run it. (Wachter, 2010)

The logic has also spread into domains of activity beyond inpatient medical care, in which hospitalists had little to no prior presence or direct influence. Our interviewees highlighted the cases of surgical hospitalists, and laborists: surgeons and obstetricians who, like medical hospitalists, are focused on care provision within the hospital rather than in outpatient settings (Nelson, 2007). Theorization of both surgical hospitalist and laborist practice explicitly referenced the ‘‘model of care’’ introduced and exemplified by medical hospitalists, and articulated its own contributions

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largely in terms of that model (Maa, Carter, Gosnell, Wachter, & Harris, 2007; Weinstein, 2003). While leaders of the hospitalist movement ascribe the diffusion of hospitalist styles of work to efficiency pressures, and the increasing complexity of care requirements, they also note that advanced hospitalist programs with strong leadership have made a real mark on their institutions. Partly as a natural consequence of the two patient model and their close alignment with hospital executives, hospitalists have been elected to key leadership positions in their organizations, such as chief medical officers, chief quality officers, and medical directors for care coordination (Kinnan, 2007). Such positions certainly facilitate the transfer of ideas and the adoption of new cultural norms: When the broader institution began to look around and said we need to do this, who is around and sort of already know something about it, if you had a good hospitalist program, you had a group of physicians who were already quite embedded in the work and so in that way I think it has become y there is a migration of some early learning from hospital medicine to the outside. (Movement leader)

Hospitalists’ activism does not stop with the effortful redesign of their respective individual organizations through the establishment of mechanisms, procedures, and work cultures that embrace standardization and collaboration (Strelitz, 2003). The national lobbying of the SHM regarding systematic delivery of care, elimination of waste and increase of efficiency, improvement of quality and development of quality management programs, and professional ethics (for details, see the SHM website) also contributes to shifting practices and theorizations within hospitals, and within the U.S. hospital system. These practices and theorizations in turn reflect the principles of hospital medicine – the interlinked principles of systems management, quality management, coordination and teamwork, along with a reformed or elaborated notion of continuity of care and fiduciary responsibility (see: Strelitz, 2003; Wallace & Schneller, 2008). The Society of Hospital Medicine is quite unique; it is not just advocating for its doctors, it’s working towards positioning hospitalists as leaders of quality efforts. We’ve been lobbying for research fellowships and grants and making sure hospital medicine is an area worth investing in. NIH funding used to be organ-based, now it’s promoting interdisciplinary research. We need to advocate for changes in the structure of the system. Inpatient care requires teamwork in a world of siloists and silos. (SHM President, conference notes)

This is not to say that hospitalists introduced these concerns; they would readily deny that they did. Nonetheless, they now play an important role in

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shaping and connecting them (McKean, Budnitz, Dressler, Amin, & Pistoria, 2006; Wachter, 2008). Thus, the logic of hospital medicine is expanding to encompass or influence other domains of activity, and perhaps other collective identities. I’m obsessed by the adoption of the hospitalist model of care by every specialty! I’m using Google Alerts to monitor the spread of the model and the emergence of new breeds of hospitalists such as surgical hospitalists. The word is just a job description, not a professional background. Professional backgrounds (such as surgeons, internists), can choose to be hospitalists – this means that they take the care of hospitalized patients as their focus and actively improve the system in which they are working. (Movement leader, conference notes)

THEORIZING THE DYNAMICS OF LOGICS AND IDENTITIES For the purposes of theory generation, regarding the mutable linkages between logics and identities, we focus on phase two of the historical narrative above. In particular, we attend to the ways in which hospitalist identity became severed from the logic of managed care. Though our interest is in the dynamics of the relationship between logics and identities in general, rather than in the specific dynamic of severance, the data speak most directly to this particular process and its antecedents and consequences. Accordingly, we seek here to model that process, and to propose some counterfactuals and contingencies that might inspire further empirical work and theorization. We begin by discussing the conditions that motivated hospitalists’ attempts at distancing their identity from the logic of managed care: the emergence and identification of identity threats and opportunities. We propose that such threats and opportunities were made salient and significant through participants’ sensemaking, and acted as reasons and justifications for efforts at cultural differentiation and social realignment – the key processes through which distancing was achieved and enacted. These two mechanisms served to distance the identity from threatening associations and to intensify positive associations, both responding to, and altering the horizon of, threats and opportunities. Having discussed these mechanisms, we then turn to their immediate consequences. Specifically, we argue that efforts at cultural differentiation and social realignment helped create the conditions of possibility for a new and distinctive logic: that of hospital medicine. Finally, we turn to discuss some counterfactuals and

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contingencies, which must be incorporated in any attempt to generalize theoretically from the original case. We present the resultant model diagrammatically in Fig. 1.

Antecedents Identity Threats and Opportunities Identity threats are events, happenings, or states of affairs that could call into question the defining, characteristic, and valued features of a collective identity (Elsbach & Kramer, 1996), challenging the ability of the group to maintain a positive self-identity and external image. Reciprocally, we propose to use the term identity opportunities to refer to those events, happenings, or states of affairs that could, in contrast, strengthen or legitimize the positive features or meanings associated with such an identity. In their attempts to maintain a positive and valued identity for themselves, individuals and groups are encouraged to protect their collectives from

Institutional Environment

Sensemaking

Theorization Collective Distancing:

Identification of Identity Threats and Opportunities

● Cultural Differentiation

Reconfiguration of practice, theory, and participant actors Emergence of Distinct Institutional Logic

● Social Realignment

Collective Reaffirmation

Reattachment

Defection of Individuals

Novel Attachment

Perceived Lack of Meaning / Profusion of Meanings

Fig. 1. Disassociation of Logic and Identity. Solid Lines and Boxes Show the Pathway that we propose for Detachment of the Hospitalist Identity from the Logic of Managed Care. Dashed Lines and Boxes Show Alternative Processes that Might have been Triggered by the Existence of Identity Threats and Opportunities, and Alternative Outcomes that might have resulted from the Distancing Process. See the Text for Details.

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potential threats, and to pursue potential opportunities. Neither threats nor opportunities speak for themselves, of course. Instead, they are identified through a process of sensemaking (Weick, 1995; Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 2005). Either through proactive scanning of the environment, or through reactive responses to other’s attitudes and behaviors, members of the collective intuitively identify certain events or states of affairs as threatening or opportune. They then seek to draw others’ attention to these threats and opportunities – making them appear imminent or significant – and thus mobilizing the collective either to defend its identity, or to enhance it. The identification of threats and opportunities may thus take the form of theorization (Greenwood, Suddaby, & Hinings, 2002), dedicated to describing the current status of a movement and its immediate prospects, or it may take the form of a more everyday and inexplicit process. In both cases, it can serve as an impetus for mobilization (Thornton et al., 2012, Chapter 6), and both forms were identified in the context of our case (see pp. 16–18). Under certain circumstances, threats and opportunities may be perceived to be directly and closely related to particular institutional logics, particularly if associated with the core values, identities, or practices of the logic. In other cases, threats and opportunities may be more tangentially related to specific logics. In both instances, the identification of such threats or opportunities seems likely to lead to remedial or exploitative measures that will functionally alter the relationship between the identity and associated logics, either incrementally or radically. It seems likely, however, that radical changes in these relationships are more common when the threats and opportunities are associated with core features of the logic. It also seems more likely that changes in the relationship will be explicitly recognized and theorized in such a case, whether these changes are incremental or not. To summarize, the drive to defend or enhance collective identities has long been recognized in organization theory and elsewhere (Alvesson, 1994; Bernstein, 2005; Cerulo, 1997; Dutton & Dukerich, 1991; Elsbach & Kramer, 1996; Goffman, 1990a, 1990b; Schlenker, 1980). Within institutional theory, a number of studies have explored the ways in which threats to individuals’ identities may encourage efforts at institutional change (Creed et al., 2010), or resistance to change (Lok, 2010), as well as the ways in which groups may attempt to legitimize or strengthen collective identities by encouraging positive associations and understandings (Goodrick & Reay, 2010; Wry et al., 2011). Though hospitalists are a particularly reflexive group, well attuned to the identification of identity threats and

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opportunities, we consider that these enabling or facilitating conditions are an endemic and perennial feature of social life. The catalyst for the mechanisms described below is likely to be the intensity of the threats and opportunities, as well as the possibilities for effective preemption or reaction. In addition, for these mechanisms to be explicitly aimed at the logic rather than at particular elements of the logic, we believe it must be apparent to participants that association with the logic as a whole – with a particular system of values and practices, in its entirety – is a threat to their continued positive sense of self-identity, and to the positive evaluation of their identity by others.

Key Mechanisms Cultural Differentiation We consider that one of the key means by which identities are connected to institutional logics is through their connection to the web of meanings and symbolic constructions within that logic. There are two main elements to this. First, we note that the meaning and value of a given identity is often articulated in terms of certain values, principles, and contributions – in terms of valuable ends that the collective is instrumental in achieving or furthering; or values that the collective embodies and reflects. These ends and values may reflect one logic, or multiple logics, but the historical rhetoric that has been used to justify and defend the identity, and the emotional attachments that have been formed to particular values and ends, seem likely to ensure that the history of an identity embeds its value within particular logics. Second, we note that the worth of the identity is in part a result of its relationship to other identities; or in other words, of the role it is perceived to occupy in relation to other identities that are either highly or poorly regarded. Thus, we suggest, halo effects, or processes of moral contagion are likely to result from the cultural placement of one collective identity relative to others. We propose that when a logic itself begins to be perceived as a threat to an identity, it becomes important for those members who wish to retain or rehabilitate that identity, to distance the identity from the values and principles with which it has become associated. These members seek to find new ways of articulating the worth of the identity, that do not rely on the values and ends that are now becoming morally opprobrious. At the same time, it becomes important for them to distance themselves from other identities that may be seen as bearing the ‘‘taint’’ of the compromised

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institutional logic. We suggest the concept of cultural differentiation to capture the consequent rhetorical efforts to distance a given collective identity from associated identities, social values, or other cultural objects [any ‘‘socially meaningful expression that is audible, visible, or tangible or that can be articulated,’’ from a sonnet to a doctrine, hairstyle, or vase (Griswold, 1986, 2008)] that are perceived to bear negative emotional or moral connotations; whether those connotations are perceived by members of the collective, or by other parties with whom those members are likely to interact. Following the identification of significant and consequential identity threats, cultural differentiation may take a variety of forms. Here, we take note of two in particular, which serve to illustrate the functioning of the mechanism. First, cultural differentiation was sought by means of rhetorical assertion, and the production and reproduction of particular professional histories (see pp. 16–21). Hospitalists simply stated, in person, or in the writing of articles and letters, that they were not, and had never been, associated with managed care. They articulated their outrage at the principles of managed care, and in particular at the rationing of care, and positioned themselves as part of the answer to that problem – as agents of quality, safety, and of care itself. Indeed, the early efforts of hospitalist leaders and lobbyists to avoid over-entanglement with managed-care organizations, initiatives, and theorizations, have become a staple part of hospitalists’ reflexive histories – histories that are closely intertwined with hospitalists’ sense of their roles and responsibilities, their relations with other groups, and their future direction. This form of cultural differentiation should not be considered a purely rhetorical move, though it had some strategic elements. We believe that it also reflected the sincere and deeply held beliefs of hospitalists themselves. These beliefs were triggered by horror stories regarding callous or improper care, driven by single-minded concerns for cost-saving or efficiency; and as the logic of managed care became more and more caricatured in these terms, it became more and more true that hospitalists had never been a part of managed care, as currently remembered. Second, cultural differentiation was pursued by means of an emphasis on hospitalists’ own distinctive features and practices (see pp. 16–22). By exploring and emphasizing practices that were not prompted by the concerns of managed care – particularly efforts at developing and implementing quality improvement programs and patient safety programs, or efforts at creating interdisciplinary and collaborative care teams – hospitalists were able to illustrate the ways in which their identity extended beyond the principles and concerns of managed care. Through these

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practices, hospitalists were able to show themselves and others that they were more than agents of managed care principles. They could show that they could not be reduced, at least not fairly, to the stooges or stalking horses of the logic, and that they possessed an identity that was partially, and increasingly, distinct from the problems and solutions at the heart of the managed care vision.

Social Realignment The second key means by which identities are connected to institutional logics, in our view, is by their connection to a web of actors, each bearing their own expectations regarding members’ practices and behaviors. Once again there are two main elements to this. On the one hand, as suggested above, identities are in large part defined by the relational connections with, and attitudes toward, others that are believed to be prototypical for members (Alvesson, 1994; Apesoa-Varano, 2007; Clarke, Brown, & Hailey, 2009; Dutton & Dukerich, 1991; Glynn, 2008; Lok, 2010; Sveningsson & Alvesson, 2003; Wry et al., 2011). Thus, we argue, concrete relationships between the collective and other groups are consequential insofar as they instantiate, exemplify, or challenge these prototypical relations, and hint at the priorities and values of the collective. On the other hand, we note that the expectations carried by the groups with whom members interact on a day-to-day basis shape the behavior and self-understandings of those members through various types of feedback, including moral sanction, confusion, validation, and legitimation (Goffman, 1990a; Ibarra & Barbulescu, 2000; Karreman & Alvesson, 2001; Paterniti, 2000; Patriotta & Spedale, 2009; Pratt, Rockmann, & Kaufmann, 2006). As neo-institutional theorists have long emphasized, expectations may become locked-in over time, such that contrary behaviors are understood as forms of undesirable deviance (Deephouse & Suchman, 2008; DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Scott, 2001). Networks and cultural cognitive institutions, such as collective identities, are intimately intertwined, even co-constitutive (OwenSmith & Powell, 2008), since expectations, identities, and relationships reciprocally influence each other. As a consequence, the social connections experienced by members of a collective make it easier or harder for them to maintain certain forms of self-identity, and to encourage or protect themselves from the identities that others ascribe to them. We propose the term social realignment to refer to the purposeful reconfiguration of the relationships between the collective and other groups, aimed at eroding these two types of connections, and thus at distancing

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the logic and identity. We suggest that purposeful changes in these relationships provide empirical or material grist for the rhetorical processes of cultural differentiation – providing plausibility and verisimilitude for claims of cultural distance. At the same time, we argue that reshaping the network of connections in which members are enmeshed may make it easier to protect the collective identity not only from moral contagion, but also from skepticism or undesirable expectations; allowing the collective to enact its new identity with minimal or reduced challenge from other parties. In the case of hospitalists, realignment consisted of members’ attempts to ally themselves with new professional groups and bodies, in a manner that credibly positioned hospitalists as concerned and engaged with duties and problems extending beyond the narrow role originally opened up for them by managed care (see pp. 16–22). Originally, hospitalists were aligned with administrators and supported by managed-care organizations, while many other physician groups were either agnostic or outright agonistic. Successful outreach and realignment efforts have defused much of this disinterest and antipathy. They have also served to enthuse those groups which, from the start, saw potential rewards in 24/7 physician presence on hospital wards. Hospitalists’ efforts to engage with and address others’ day-to-day concerns, and to highlight new practices and initiatives, have helped them both to indicate that their interests and principles cannot be reduced to those associated with managed care, and to produce new expectations amongst others. In particular, they have generated expectations that emphasize hospitalists’ broad inclination and aptitude for collaboration, systems design, and quality improvement.

Immediate Consequences Opening up a Space for a New Logic Though efforts at cultural differentiation and social realignment were triggered in large part by identity threats and opportunities, their consequences were not limited to the resolution of threats and fulfillment of possibilities. These efforts did indeed succeed, for the main part, in severing the hospitalist identity from managed care, in terms both of the values and principles guiding hospitalist activity, and in terms of the ascriptions made to hospitalists as a collective, by other groups. However, they also crafted the conditions of possibility for the emergence of a new and distinctive institutional logic. By differentiating hospitalist practice from managed care,

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without clearly and closely suturing it to another distinct logic, hospitalists had incidentally and accidentally opened up a space for novel reconfigurations of relationships, values, and practices, that would eventually be transformed into a new and cohesive logic of hospital medicine – a logic that would extend to influence the behavior of a number of groups outside of hospitalists’ immediate sphere of practice. Though the emergence of the new logic is not the focus of this paper, we want to offer some thoughts on how this emergence was facilitated by the processes we discuss. We refer to the general mechanism connecting cultural differentiation and social realignment to the emergence of a new logic as the reconfiguration of practice, theory, and participant actors. First, as discussed above, hospitalists’ efforts at social realignment drew them into contact with a broad and diverse group of stakeholders within the health-care field. Relatively permeable boundaries between one group and another may be a key catalyst for institutional change (Zietsma & Lawrence, 2010), particularly when this permeability exposes individuals within the group to practical problems, potential solutions, and theories of which they were previously unaware. In this instance, hospitalists did not seek to realign themselves only with representatives of another logic, so much as they pursued a variety of attractive connections or identity opportunities – perhaps due to the absence, at the time, of a clear alternative candidate for dominant logic. As a result, hospitalists came into contact with a wide range of perceived problems, issues, and solutions for the effective provision of health care, as well as differing perspectives on the significance of certain values, such as cooperation and work satisfaction. As hospitalists’ practice became characterized by a new set of allies, a newly negotiated array of issues and problems to address, and a newly discovered set of solutions and practices to deploy, the material components of a new logic emerged in the form of a distinctive set of practices, in need of theoretical and experiential unification. Second, hospitalists’ efforts at cultural differentiation, in attempting to distinguish what hospitalists were not, what they were not about, and what they did not do, relied in part on efforts at defining what, precisely, they did do, and what they were about. The need for differentiation thus entailed a push for coherent theorization of hospital practice and value orientations. Distinguishing the identity culturally from the logic of managed care called for articulating core values, practices, and concerns that extended beyond those of that logic, and which marked the hospitalists as at least partially independent of it. This enabled hospitalists’ practices and everyday activities to be transformed from local solutions to local problems into exemplars of a

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new, coherent institutional logic (cf. Nigam & Ocasio, 2010; Wallace & Schneller, 2008). Although validating theories might have been sought from other logics, once again hospitalists tended to draw on a wide variety of influences, including the theorizations of the incipient quality movement, and theories of systems design, in a form of theoretical bricolage. We suspect this quasiindependent theorization may reflect the absence of a clear alternative dominant logic, but empirically it remains true that hospitalists’ theorizations drew upon a range of sources that few other physician groups bridged or connected. As a result, their theorizations were relatively distinctive, and were also tailored to the need to produce coherence from hospitalist practice in particular, even as they addressed the health-care field more broadly. In sum, efforts at social realignment and cultural differentiation constituted and articulated hospitalists’ activities as a distinctive amalgam of practical concerns, material practices, and value orientations. At the same time, these processes linked hospitalists both materially and symbolically to an array of other actors with an interest in maintaining and exploiting this new and newly theorized configuration of practices and pursuits. Actors who, because of hospitalists’ active efforts to engage with them, and provide value for them, came to share some of their interests, became tied to some of the same practices, and became increasingly open to further engagement with hospitalists and their ideas.

Contingencies Though our empirical case is focused on the dynamics of distancing or severance, it is important to recognize some of the key counterfactuals (the ways in which things might have gone otherwise). Here we focus on two key types of counterfactual: alternative processes that might have been triggered by the existence of identity threats and opportunities, and the alternative outcomes that might have resulted from the distancing process. Alternatives to Distancing or Severance The escalation of commitment is a well-known phenomenon (Staw, 2003), and one which might very well characterize a group’s response to identity threats and opportunities. Once a collective identity is articulated in the rhetoric of a particular logic, members of that collective may feel reluctant to withdraw their support, feeling that this would render their previous commitments unjustified, ill-advised, or mistaken, in a way that they are

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unwilling to countenance. Alternatively, particularly over longer periods of time, individuals may become socialized into the values espoused by the logic, becoming reluctant to withdraw support because of emotional and moral commitments to its tenets. In both instances, the demands of the individual’s own personal identity, and the need for them to project an air of social and moral competence, may lead them to double down on their past commitments, and seek to tie their identity more closely than ever to the logic under siege. The relative youth of the hospitalist movement may help to explain why this course of action was not taken – as hospitalists, though closely associated with managed care, had not had the time to commit themselves fully or irrevocably to that logic. Furthermore, the identity, though closely associated with managed care, drew upon other values or logics in its pursuit of legitimacy, including traditional physician concerns with the patients’ need for optimum care. The latent conflicts between these differing logics may have been triggered by emergence of key identity threats that encouraged severance, where otherwise a constellation of logics might have continued to coexist in uneasy alliance (cf. Goodrick & Reay, 2011) The study of nouvelle cuisine, by Rao and colleagues, offers a particularly vivid example of one other alternative process that might have been precipitated by identity threats and opportunities (2003): the defection of individuals from their collective identity in favor of another. Just as individuals defected from the traditional chef’s identity to the new identity proffered by la nouvelle cuisine, hospitalists might have defected from the hospitalist label and sought sanctuary under another label or identity; albeit one that shared certain features of work structure. That this did not occur, we suspect, is due to a combination of widespread awareness of the hospitalist label (making it difficult to escape from the label when one did identifiably ‘‘hospitalist’’ work), the absence of alternative labels for similar work structures, and the efforts of a core of dedicated hospitalists who saw the community implied by the label as a beneficial and healthy thing, worthy of defensive and rallying efforts. Alternative Outcomes Given that a process of distancing took place, however, in preference to reentrenchment or defection, there remain other outcomes that were feasible; as opposed to the emergence of a new and distinctive logic. First, there might have been a process of reattachment. Having severed the identity from the logic, members of the collective identity might have found themselves co-opted once again by actors affiliated with the logic; or might

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even have been driven to reassociate themselves with the logic of their own accord, either due to political dynamics within the group, or to a perceived lack of meaning following the loss of specific and clearly theorized ends or goals. Alternatively, and second, there might have been a process of novel attachment, driven similarly by co-option or internal dynamics. Many fields are characterized by a number of logics, which may exist in a state of rivalry, or in a state of easy coexistence (Creed et al., 2010; Dunn & Jones, 2010; Glynn, 2000; Goodrick & Reay, 2011; Greenwood et al., 2009, 2011; Lok, 2010; Marquis & Lounsbury, 2007; Meyer & Hammerschmid, 2006; Reay & Hinings, 2009). Members of a collective that have distanced themselves from one logic may find many receptive parties encouraging their engagement with another logic, or they may be seduced by the existence of other ready structures of meaning and practice, offering direction and order. We suspect that these two options were available to hospitalists, but were preempted by events. We consider that the many different cultural and social connections that hospitalists forged, as well as the new practices that they developed, incorporated elements of many logics but implied adherence to no one logic in particular, or even to a stable constellation of logics. Instead, the elements gave rise to a new, hybrid logic of hospital medicine in large part because their unity and coherence was achieved only by the fact that they were pursued, and then theorized, by hospitalists. Finally, actors might simply experience either a perceived lack of meaning or a complex nexus of meanings, the latter being characterized by ambivalence and a lack of clarity in goals and in means. Just as organizational members may experience an uncomfortable ambiguity and desire for meaning in the absence of clear organizational identity (Corley & Gioia, 2004), so too members of a collective identity severed from a logic may find it difficult to identify the values that they are furthering or pursuing, and the worth of their work. It is unclear to us whether a perceived lack of meaning is a purely theoretical or an empirical possibility. We suspect that it is indeed empirically plausible, though it may have been a relatively unlikely eventuality in the context of the case studied here. In particular, the availability of a higher-order logic of care (Mol, 2008) ensured that hospitalists would be able to find value and worth in their pursuit of patient’s health. This logic, at the least, would continue to justify their work and imbue it with value, whether they adhered to the logic of managed care, or to other logics of health-care provision. Continued complexity in meanings, and a lack of coherence, may have been a more plausible outcome, but once again, we believe, this was prevented by the existence of a highly reflexive and committed body of lay theorists within the hospital movement.

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CONCLUDING REMARKS Based on an inductive, qualitative case study, we contribute to theory regarding the dynamic relationships between institutional logics and collective identities. Specifically, we have developed a model of the dynamics governing the disassociation of the two, drawing on the history of hospitalists in the United States, and incorporating a number of counterfactuals and contingencies. This model supplements existing research, and the Perspective model, in several ways. First, and most broadly, we extend prior theory by explicitly addressing variations and changes in the strength, content, and permanence of associations between identities and logics. Such variations have been largely implicit in prior research, despite their potential significance in explaining the coevolution of logics and identities. Second, we add to theory by proposing that changes in the institutional environment pose not only identity threats to embedded collectives, as previously recognized, but also identity opportunities, both of which constitute important catalysts for change in identity–logic associations. Identity threats and identity opportunities destabilize both the evaluative and the emotional aspects of collective identities, encouraging leaders and members alike to protect or enhance the identity by re-crafting its associations with other identities, practices, and institutional logics. They thus serve as a key trigger for changes in the relationships between identities and logics, complementing those noted in previous research. Third, we further contribute to theory by proposing the key mechanisms of cultural differentiation and social realignment: untangling the identity from the symbolic system central to the logic, and altering the position of the collective within the network of actors and practices that enact the principles and precepts of that logic. Social realignment and cultural differentiation may be achieved through purposeful efforts at collective mobilization, or they may take place through more emergent and less overtly politicized means. In both cases, they are likely to have a powerful influence on the content, strength, and permanence of the associations between identities and logics. We also note that these mechanisms not only form a general basis for theorizing such changes, but also indicate the potential significance of reflexive leadership in the evolution of identity– logic associations. Finally, in proposing these two mechanisms, we additionally contribute to theory on the emergence of new institutional logics. Specifically, we highlight the ways in which social realignment and cultural differentiation

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may create a space, and the conditions of possibility, for a new and distinctive logic. We suggest that these two processes permit and encourage novel configurations of actors, practices, and theories, providing the constituent elements of a distinctive or hybrid logic. Alternatively, we suggest detachment processes could be followed by reattachment of the identity and logic, the formation of a novel attachment, or a perceived lack or ambiguity of meaning; possibilities which further supplement previous models of identity–logic dynamics. While we recognize the potential limitations of generalizing from a single case, we have several reasons to consider that this model may be widely generalizable. In the light of the existing social psychological and sociological literature, the ongoing identification of identity threats and opportunities seems likely to be an endemic feature of life within collectives in one form or another, as is the drive for individuals and groups to maintain positively rather than negatively valued collective identities. The consequences of these dynamics may vary significantly, depending on the severity of the threats, the attractiveness of the opportunities, and the relative (in)ability of individuals to sever their personal identities from that of the collective. Efforts at cultural differentiation and social realignment, however, provide intuitively sensible reactions to such threats and opportunities, and are by no means idiosyncratic to hospitalists. Likewise, individual defection processes (Rao et al., 2003) and re-entrenchment would seem likely to be a common consequence or outcome based on the common human propensity toward escalating commitment (Staw, 2003). Similarly, the possible outcomes of detachment that we propose, including the emergence of a new logic, reattachment, the development of new associations, or a perceived lack of meaning (or profusion of meanings), all seem to us to be far from idiosyncratic. Finally, we note that the comprehensive distancing processes observed in our case may be particularly likely when threats and opportunities are directly associated with the core values, identities, or practices of particular institutional logics, but distancing may also take the form of a more incremental sequence of smaller or less reflexive events. We believe the model we propose is capable of addressing both types of process, even though it was developed from an empirical case in which the former is significantly more evident. Though the potential array of contingencies remains to be fully theorized, we believe that the inductive case study presented here will serve as a prompt and an aid to such theorization, as will the core model that we have proposed.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors would like to thank all the interview participants for their time and involvement. We thank Michael Lounsbury for his helpful comments, and also the members of the Management and Organizations Department at the Kellogg School of Management for their informal comments and advice. We also gratefully acknowledge the suggestions and responses of participants in roundtable sessions at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management in Boston, and the 27th Annual Colloquium of the European Group for Organization Studies in Gothenburg, Sweden.

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LEGACIES OF LOGICS: SOURCES OF COMMUNITY VARIATION IN CSR IMPLEMENTATION IN CHINA Mia Raynard, Michael Lounsbury and Royston Greenwood ABSTRACT This paper explores how legacies of past logics spawn variation in the institutional landscapes of different geographic regions in China. Of particular interest is how this variation influences the ways that actors interpret and respond to broader societal and world society pressures. Employing a cross-level comparative research design, we examine the enduring legacies of previous state logics, which have given rise to distinctive material and symbolic resource environments in different regional communities across China. To the extent that institutional contexts direct the attention of actors toward particular environmental stimuli and provide the symbolic and material resources to respond, a better understanding of how contexts differ provides more accurate causal explanations of the variability of organizational behavior. We explore this phenomenon in the context of recent government-mandated corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in China. Our examination of public and private CSR initiatives, along with the CSR activities of a sample of 714 listed Chinese companies, suggests that legacies from past Institutional Logics in Action, Part A Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 39A, 243–276 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X(2013)0039A&B012

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state logics become embedded in local institutional infrastructures and shape how abstract, multifaceted CSR initiatives are interpreted and implemented. Keywords: Institutional logics; legacies; communities; institutional infrastructure; corporate social responsibility; China

In the last two decades, there has been growing scholarly interest in how institutional logics shape the complex interrelationships among institutions, organizations, and individuals. As overarching frameworks for interpreting social reality, logics both enable and constrain behavior by delimiting boundaries around what constitutes ‘‘appropriate’’ behavior and by specifying criteria for legitimacy (Friedland & Alford, 1991). In this respect, logics serve the dual function of providing an orienting framework for processing information, focusing attention, and providing the symbolic and material building blocks for responding to environmental stimuli (Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012). Appreciating both the top-down and bottom-up effects of logics opens up avenues for exploring how, why, and to what extent actors differentially experience and engage with their institutional environments. Despite the proliferation of research on logics, there has been a paucity of studies examining the ways that previously dominant logics continue to influence the behavior of organizations – even after the emergence and institutionalization of new logics. Old logics do not necessarily disappear or cease to exist, but rather endure through the material and symbolic legacies they leave behind (Kriauciunas & Kale, 2006). Yet, as Marquis and Huang (2010, p. 1442) note, our understanding of how and why past institutional environments continue to influence contemporary organizational behaviors remains largely speculative. The purpose of this study is to explore how the sedimentation of past dominant logics spawns distinctive institutional landscapes that filter how actors interpret and respond to broader institutional prescriptions (Greenwood, Raynard, Micelotta, Kodeih, & Lounsbury, 2011) – particularly when these prescriptions are multifaceted, abstract, and relatively ambiguous (Edelman, 1992; Edelman & Suchman, 1997). We explore, in particular, how the clustering of organizations within a geographic region can nurture the ‘‘legacy effect’’ of past logics. We posit that the legacies of logics will have varied effects across geographical communities (Marquis, Lounsbury, & Greenwood, 2011) because firms

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founded in the same time period and clustered in the same region are more likely to reinforce their imprinted cognitive frames of behavior; and, because both behavior and cognitive frames are enhanced and nurtured by the institutional infrastructure of a particular region. These legacy effects will, in turn, have important implications for the mode and process by which actors will respond to broader institutional prescriptions. Our interest, then, is to explore how the legacies of previously dominant logics might continue to influence the behavior of actors in the context of recent government-mandated corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in China. This setting is appropriate for our research purpose for two reasons. First, China has a unique market economy characterized by a complex juxtaposition of regional systems, developed in different periods of time and under different historical circumstances (Lin, 2002). These regional communities constitute distinct institutional landscapes that diverge in terms of economic development (Fan, 1997; Jones, Li, & Owen, 2003), physical and social infrastructure (Wu, 2010), governing policies and administrative structures (Kanbur & Zhang, 2005; Li, 2010), industrial clusters (Brun, Combes, & Renard, 2002; Cao, Xi, & Zeng, 2008), and local cultures (Fan, 2005). Second, the inherent ambiguity of China’s regulatory CSR initiatives provide local actors with a high degree of discretion in how they might conceptualize, experience, and implement top-down pressures to engage in CSR activities. This discretion increases the latitude of possible responses, thereby enabling local particularities to influence how CSR initiatives are manifested. For, as Campbell (2007, p. 950) notes, ‘‘socially responsible corporate behavior may mean different things in different places to different people and at different times’’ – thus, underscoring the call for more research to understand sources of CSR variation (Maignan & Ralston, 2002; Matten & Moon, 2008). The rise of Chinese CSR initiatives has largely been in response to growing international scrutiny and criticism over a recent string of substandard products manufactured in China, such as toys with lead paint, contaminated pet food, and melamine-tainted milk products. Together, these initiatives signal the introduction of a new set of institutional prescriptions into a business environment that has often privileged corporate economic interests in the exploitation of tangible and intangible resources (Baughn & McIntosh, 2007; Pun & Yu, 2008). While this business environment may appear, at first pass, to be relatively inhospitable to CSR initiatives, such an assumption may overlook important sociopolitical and cultural features of the Chinese context. In particular, China’s socialist roots and communist logic legacies make the tension between acting in

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the interests of profit versus the communal interests of society appear less straightforward. It is thus critical to appreciate the enduring influence of past political regimes and associated logics in order to better understand how CSR is unfolding in China. We draw on two main sources of data to explore the enduring effects of past logics. First, we examine a series of public and private CSR-related initiatives from the early 1980s to the present in order to identify broad regional patterns in CSR activities. Second, we draw on a sample of 714 Chinese companies listed on major stock exchanges to understand how organizations are responding to broader CSR initiatives. We begin our analysis by examining broad patterns across the east, west, and central regions of China (see Fig. 1 for a geographical division of the regions). This division of the regions follows the ‘‘three economic belts’’ scheme, commonly used in scholarly research to analyze regional inequality in China (e.g., Chen & Wu, 2005; Fan, 1997; Fan & Sun, 2008; Lee, 2001; Li & Wei, 2010).

Fig. 1.

China’s Three Economic Belts Regional Development Model. Source: Fan (1997).

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By examining how local institutional contexts differ, and how these differences generate and perpetuate variation in organizational behavior, this paper advances both the institutional logics perspective and the study of CSR. Examining the complex interplay between societal- and local-level forces, we show how and why geographically defined communities continue to influence the behavior of local actors, in spite of the homogenizing pressures of globalization and the ‘‘boundaryless economy’’ (Greenwood, Dı´ az, Li, & Lorente, 2010; Marquis & Battilana, 2009; Marquis & Lounsbury, 2007; Seelos, Mair, Battilana, & Dacin, 2011). In elaborating these links between logic legacies and geographic communities, we pay heed to the historical contingency of logics and how regional sedimentation patterns generate variation in local institutional contexts (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008; Thornton et al., 2012). For research on CSR, this study helps to shed light on additional factors that may contribute to the heterodoxy of CSR activity, namely, the important influence of regional characteristics. Existing efforts to examine systematic differences in CSR have pointed to a number of contributing factors, including the configuration of country-level institutions (Campbell, 2007; Chapple & Moon, 2005; Jones, 1999), corporate ownership and governance structures (Cornelius, Todres, Janjuha-Jivraj, Woods, & Wallace, 2008; Gao, 2011; Li & Zhang, 2010), managers’ personal values (Galaskiewicz, 1991; Hemingway & Maclagan, 2004; Zu & Song, 2009), and organizational attributes such as size, level of diversification, financial viability, and research and development (Margolis & Walsh, 2003; McWilliams & Siegel, 2001; Orlitzky, Schmidt, & Rynes, 2003). While these studies have provided insights into why CSR activity varies from one country to another or from one organization to another, there remains a paucity of comparative cross-level studies examining how broader pressures for CSR interact with regional-level factors to generate and perpetuate variation. In addressing this gap, the present study advances CSR research by drawing attention to contextual conditions that shape how CSR is conceptualized and implemented – and further, helps to illuminate the potential to transpose CSR practices across different contexts (Boxenbaum & Battilana, 2005; Sewell, 1992). Unlike CSR initiatives in the United States and Europe, those in China have been primarily initiated by the government rather than by the private sector (Moon & Shen, 2010). As such, a better understanding of how CSR is unfolding in China may help shed light on the effectiveness of top-down, government-led initiatives in shaping the CSR activities of organizations. Improving our understanding of the factors that

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shape, constrain, and channel CSR activities is particularly important given today’s highly integrated business environment, which has extended the scope and magnitude of irresponsible corporate behavior. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. The next section outlines the theoretical grounding of the paper and provides a broad overview of successive shifts in logics of political regimes, which have directly influenced the institutional landscape of different regional communities in China. The second section details the methodology and data used in this exploratory study. To illustrate the ideas put forward, we provide some preliminary observations and discuss their theoretical implications for research on institutional logics and CSR. We discuss potential avenues for future research examining how CSR is unfolding in China.

THEORETICAL GROUNDING Institutional Logics and Legacies Institutional logics are ‘‘the socially constructed, historical patterns of material practices, assumptions, values, beliefs, and rules by which individuals produce and reproduce their material subsistence, organize time and space, and provide meaning to their social reality’’ (Thornton & Ocasio, 1999, p. 804). In essence, logics serve the dual function of providing a top-down orienting framework for focusing attention, and the bottom-up symbolic and material building blocks for responding to environmental stimuli (Ocasio, 1997; Thornton et al., 2012; see also, Greenwood et al., 2011). While a number of scholars have explored logic shifts, wherein one logic comes to displace or supersede another dominant logic in the field (e.g., Haveman & Rao, 1997; Meyer & Hammerschmid, 2006; Thornton & Ocasio, 1999), few studies have explicitly examined how the legacies – that is, the residual cultural and material manifestations – of previously dominant logics can continue to shape the institutional landscapes of particular settings. Two streams of research provide some insights into the potential implications of logic sedimentation patterns. The first stream explores the uneasy co-existence of logics – wherein the relative dominance of logics oscillates over time, creating periods of balance and imbalance. Dunn and Jones’ (2010) study on American medical education, for example, demonstrates how plural logics of ‘‘care’’ and ‘‘science’’ continuously compete over jurisdictional dominance in the medical field – owing to distinct groups and interests, whose relative power ebbs and flows over time. Insights from their

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study suggest that a logic which can marshal public attention or that has the support of key social referent groups is likely to persist, despite the presence of alternative logics vying to supplant it. The tension between dominant and latent logics competing for jurisdictional control has also been documented in other fields – including, academic science (Berman, 2012; Murray, 2010; Stuart & Ding, 2006), health care (Heimer, 1999; Reay & Hinings, 2009), and the US financial sector (Lounsbury, 2007; Marquis & Lounsbury, 2007). Together, these studies reveal that field dynamics are not simply episodic shifts, whereby incumbent logics are successively dismantled and replaced by new logics. Instead, they underscore the durability and resilience of logics – such that logics can persist over extended periods of time, despite the emergence or encroachment of a competing logic. This stream of research, however, does not specifically address the potential for displaced logics to endure through the legacies they leave behind. The second stream of research sheds light on this issue by drawing attention to elements of past institutional arrangements and constitutional struggles, which can serve as resources for contemporary actors. Schneiberg (2007, p. 47), for example, suggests that ‘‘elements of alternative economic orders and abandoned or partly realized institutional projects y represent resources for endogenous institutional change, including the revival, reassembly, redeployment and subsequent elaboration of alternative logics within national capitalisms.’’ This argument is echoed by Thelen (1999, p. 385), who asserts that the ‘‘losers’’ of political struggles do not necessarily disappear, but may be lurking in the shadows, ‘‘biding their time until conditions shift.’’ The possibility of reassembling, transposing, or redeploying ‘‘elemental categories’’ of past logics (Thornton et al., 2012) provides actors with the necessary resources to introduce change into seemingly stable social systems (Hargadon & Douglas, 2001; Misangyi, Weaver, & Elms, 2008). This notion that resources from the past can be reconfigured and redeployed in subsequent periods has also been noted at the organizational level. Marquis and Huang (2010), for example, found that in the US commercial banking industry, capabilities and strategies that were developed during a bank’s founding could be adapted to changing environmental conditions – and thus, have different contemporary manifestations. More specifically, banks’ propensity to engage in acquisitions was influenced by intra-organizational mechanisms such as monitoring infrastructures, organizational design elements, and business processes which were developed in response to founding institutional conditions. That is, capabilities that were developed in response to past institutional environments can be redeployed or ‘‘exapted’’ in subsequent periods (see also, Borum & Westenholz, 1995;

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Kriauciunas & Kale, 2006; Marquis & Tilcsik, 2013). Elements of the past can, in this way, influence subsequent periods by providing a frame of reference, underpinned by legacies in the form of artifacts, routines, and practices, which then provide a filter through which contemporary ideas and pressures are understood – that is, ‘‘transposed’’ and ‘‘translated’’ (Boxenbaum & Battilana, 2005; for a review, see Boxenbaum & Jonsson, 2008). These two literatures suggest not only that logics are durable and robust, but that logics can serve as vehicles for change irrespective of whether they have been displaced. This underscores the importance of looking to the past to understand contemporary institutional arrangements – which do not emerge ex nihilo, but set themselves in relation to, and against the background of, previous arrangements and ‘‘repositories’’ of institutional elements (Scott, 2008, see also, Djelic & Quack, 2011; Greenwood, Hinings, & Suddaby, 2002). In essence, contemporary institutional arrangements are the product of different temporal processes and different historical configurations of sociopolitical and cultural institutions – resulting in a process akin to ‘‘institutional layering’’ (Steinmo, Thelen, & Longstreth, 1992; Thelen, 1999, 2004). This argument is echoed in Lieberman’s (2002, p. 702) assertion that ‘‘[n]ew policies, institutional arrangements, or ideological paradigmsydo not replace the old but are layered atop prior patterns.’’ It is thus critical to appreciate the historical contingency of institutions (Thornton et al., 2012, pp. 12–13), as well as the enduring legacies of past institutional orders when examining the interrelationship between actors and their environments. While the above streams of research highlight the enduring influence of past institutional orders, a different line of scholarship has underscored how the legacies inherited from the past may be nurtured differently within particular communities. This line of scholarship draws attention to the role of local institutional contexts and social arrangements in diffusing and reinforcing how actors conceptualize and respond to broader institutional pressures (Galaskiewicz, 1991; Marquis et al., 2011; Molotch, Freudenburg, & Paulsen, 2000; Thornton et al., 2012). We now turn to research on communities to show how it can inform our understanding of the complex interplay between broader institutional prescriptions, local institutional environments, and organizational responses.

Local Institutional Landscapes and Legacies Research on ‘‘communities’’ has conceptualized the term in various ways – for example, by geography (Lounsbury, 2007), political jurisdiction

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(Waldorff & Greenwood, 2011), professions (Reay & Hinings, 2009), and religious beliefs or moral beliefs (Shadnam & Lawrence, 2011). While the boundaries around a community may be difficult to delineate, Marquis and Battilana (2009) suggest that a community can be conceptualized as ‘‘the populations, organizations, and markets located in a geographic territory and sharing, as a result of their common location, elements of local culture, norms, identity, and laws’’ (p. 286, emphasis added). This close geographic proximity may generate a community-oriented affiliation that serves as a source of cultural differentiation or the basis of a distinct collective identity (Wry, Lounsbury, & Glynn, 2011) – which is further reinforced and reproduced through different regulative and normative processes (Glynn & Halgin, 2011; Marquis, Glynn, & Davis, 2007). Characteristics of geographically bounded communities, in this respect, have important consequences – as they reflect differences in material and symbolic resource environments, which can lead to variation in how broader institutional prescriptions become reified in structures, interactions, and practices. Waldorff and Greenwood (2011) argue that unlike fields, communities are typically defined by political jurisdictions with distinct sociocultural histories that generate important inter-community differences – namely, places where localized meaning is constructed within a broader heterogeneous context. Examining 18 Danish municipalities, Waldorff and Greenwood found that the decentralist logic of the state allowed local health care centers to decide whether to implement policies and services guided by the ‘‘rehabilitation’’ logic or the ‘‘healthy lifestyle’’ logic – despite ‘‘a national commitment to universal access to the same level and quality of service’’ (p. 136). The notion that regional histories and characteristics generate variation across communities has also been echoed by other scholars (e.g., Freeman & Audia, 2006; Marquis & Battilana, 2009; Romanelli & Khessina, 2005). Molotch et al.’s (2000) comparative study of two California localities, for example, demonstrates how historical urban structuration processes generate a distinctive ‘‘lash-up’’ of local character and tradition. They argue that the combination of structuration processes and lash-up produces durable distinctiveness – which shapes the way that ‘‘local actors ‘digest’ phenomena over which they have only partial control’’ (p. 795). To the extent that regional differences persist and play an important role in influencing local meaning structures, they can serve as a countervailing force to broader institutional pressures for convergence, homogenization, and isomorphism (Marquis & Lounsbury, 2007; Scott & Storper, 2003; Seelos et al., 2011). Greenwood et al.’s (2010) study on Spanish manufacturing firms, for example, illustrates the potency of regional

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characteristics in mitigating broader sociopolitical pressures. They show how regional pressures constrained the willingness of manufacturing firms to take advantage of a new state legislation that legitimated workforce downsizing as a response to market exigencies. Similarly, Helliwell and Putnam (1995; see also, Putnam, Leonardi, & Nanetti, 1993) reveal how regional differences in societal structures worked against national-level efforts to narrow the income gap between the northern and southern parts of Italy – such that the horizontal structures in the north and hierarchical forms in the south continued to generate divergence in per capita income. The potential for communities to mediate or mitigate broader institutional prescriptions has also been documented at the level of metropolitan cities. Lounsbury’s (2007) study on the mutual fund industry, for example, shows how professional money management firms in Boston and New York evolved distinct logics – owing to historic differences in their financial cultures. The financial culture of Boston was rooted in Brahmin elites wherein pedigree, propriety, and conservatism were cherished; whereas the financial culture of New York was characterized by class mobility and opportunism. These historic differences and the geographic distance between Boston and New York led to different responses to wider changes in the field. In a different study, Marquis and Lounsbury (2007) find that local banking professionals were able to resist the imposition of a national logic of governance by invoking and leveraging community logics to create smaller, community-oriented banks. Drawing upon the resources of their local environments, banking professionals were able to resist US legislative policy to promote larger, national banks. While extant research has underscored the role of local geographic characteristics in enhancing processes of diffusion, we are only just beginning to learn how communities filter broader institutional pressures through their distinctive local understandings, norms, and belief systems (Boxenbaum & Battilana, 2005). That is, we know little about how the sedimentation pattern of previous institutional logics generates variation in the ways that local actors respond to the same exogenous pressures. Geographical communities, in other words, may be distinctive because of the ‘‘layering’’ pattern of institutional and cultural infrastructures which, established at particular time periods, continue to shape how communities interpret wider social prescriptions. These community-level infrastructures can amplify or perpetuate legacies in several ways – that is, by increasing interaction between clusters of firms imprinted with the same dominant logic of the past; and, by helping to maintain social structures that police and champion a past logic. Our main interest in this paper is, thus, to combine insights from research on logics with this idea of

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differences across communities, in order to identify the conditions that spawn and then nurture variation in the receptivity, understanding, and responses of organizations and regions to the introduction of a new set of institutional prescriptions – namely, government-mandated CSR initiatives in China. Specifically, we explore whether regional differences, arising from their particular historically imprinted logics, affect their receptivity to particular dimensions of CSR prescriptions.

RESEARCH CONTEXT The Rise of CSR in China In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Chinese government began implementing ambitious CSR initiatives to bring Chinese legislation in line with legislation in other international jurisdictions (Hawes, 2007). Nevertheless, studies have revealed the difficulty of transposing these Western conceptualizations to the Chinese context (e.g., Ewing & Windisch, 2007; Moon & Shen, 2010; Wang & Juslin, 2009; Zu & Song, 2009). In particular, China’s communist regime and socialist roots have given rise to a unique configuration of institutional structures and corporate governance systems that continue to confound attempts to transpose international CSR standards into Chinese organizations (Baughn & McIntosh, 2007; Li, Fetscherin, Alon, Lattemann, & Yeh, 2010). Moreover, studies have noted differences between state-owned, private, and foreign-owned enterprises, and between industrial and service firms (Gao, 2011; Li & Zhang, 2010). This heterogeneity of CSR activity can, in part, be attributed to the inherent ambiguity of government-mandated CSR initiatives (Hawes, 2007). The ambiguity of China’s government-mandated CSR initiatives is apparent in the 2006 Company Law of the People’s Republic of China, and the 2008 Guide Opinion on the Social Responsibility Implementation for State-Owned Enterprises. For example, Article 5 of the 2006 Company Law states: When undertaking business operations, a company shall comply with all laws and administrative regulations, and respect social morality and business morality. It shall act in good faith, accept the supervision of the government and the general public, and bear social responsibilities. (Hawes, 2007, p. 815)

The 2006 amendment of the Company Law is the first time that the law has explicitly recognized CSR. While it reflects a concerted effort on the part

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of the government to introduce CSR legislation, it has nevertheless been criticized for its vague and ambiguous language. The Guide Opinion issued by the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) has also been criticized on similar grounds – owing to such broad statements as ‘‘SOEs should integrate CSR into corporate reforms,’’ ‘‘adapt CSR measures compatible with conditions at the national and organizational level,’’ and ‘‘SOEs are encouraged to educate their employees on CSR topics, and include CSR discussion in their important meetings’’ (Lin, 2010, p. 73). The abstract and ambiguous nature of government-mandated CSR initiatives has, importantly, provided local actors with some discretion in how they choose to respond (Bondy, Matten, & Moon, 2008; Waddock & Bodwell, 2007). Given that CSR activities tend to be intimately tied to local needs and expectations (Guthrie, 2003), local particularities and resource environments are likely to generate variation in CSR activities across China.

China’s Regional Environment and Political Legacies China’s centrally planned economy has given the state unparalleled power to distribute resources and target economic growth in specific areas through the ‘‘location control’’ of firms as well as state-controlled industries and services, directed investment in infrastructure, and preferential policies (Fan, 1997). Two political regimes, in particular, have had an enormous impact on regional variations – namely, those of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiao Ping. Under Mao (1943–1976), regional policies sought to remedy uneven regional development, tap inland raw materials and resources, and concentrate capital investments in remote interior locations – as a means to create self-sufficient industrial bases, away from the militarily vulnerable eastern coast (Fan, 1997; Lin, 2002). Accordingly, Mao’s regime focused on state-owned enterprises (SOEs), domestic investment and markets, and a regional development rationale that prioritized political goals over economic efficiency (Fan & Scott, 2003). The guiding state logic was centered on notions of ‘‘self-reliance’’ and ‘‘self-sufficiency’’ – with ‘‘a preference for human power, manual labor, mass mobilization over technology, intellect, and efficiency’’ (Fan, 2005, p. 423). Mao’s socialist blueprint for economic development placed a great deal of pressure on SOEs to fulfill an important social role. As Zu and Song (2009) note, Chinese state-owned enterprises were tasked with providing ‘‘safety nets and social protection’’ through the work unit system known as danwei

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(p. 105). Each danwei was responsible for managing the welfare, health, education, and lifelong employment of their workers (Bray, 2005; Lu¨ & Perry, 1997; Pun & Yu, 2008). Inherent in this sociopolitical environment was a predisposition toward implicit CSR – or, social values, norms, and rules that require organizations to address stakeholder issues as part of their operational activities (Matten & Moon, 2008). This implicit orientation toward CSR stands in stark contrast to explicit forms of CSR prevalent in contemporary US firms – specifically, those discretionary corporate policies that assume and articulate organizational responsibility for some societal interests (Matten & Moon, 2008). Deng’s rise to power (1977–1992), however, marked a paradigmatic shift in state policy – effectively ushering in a new development strategy that valued ‘‘efficiency over equity, individual creativity over collectivism, and regional comparative advantages over defence or ideological considerations’’ (Lin, 2002, p. 306). Under Deng, the guiding principle for regional development was pragmatism, delegation, and scale economies – which fostered a division of labor based on regional endowments. Each region was assigned specific roles: export-oriented industrialization and foreign trade in the eastern region, agriculture and energy development in the central region, and animal husbandry and mineral exploitation in the western region (Fan, 1997). Thus, whereas the state logic during Mao’s regime aimed to reduce regional inequality by redistributing resources from the coast to the interior, that of Deng’s regime emphasized regional specialization and an ‘‘opendoor’’ policy to developed countries – which, importantly, tolerated uneven regional development insofar as it improved efficiency (Fan, 2005). The eastern provinces’ favorable location near the coast enabled them to benefit from preferential government policies that were designed to accelerate China’s integration into the global economy (Kanbur & Zhang, 2005) – including open zone designations, which promoted foreign trade through state funding for infrastructure development, tax breaks, and greater autonomy over fiscal resources (Fan, 1997; Henderson, Tochkov, & Badunenko, 2007; Jones et al., 2003). In essence, these policies paved the way for economic liberalization in the eastern region, thus allowing the play of free market forces (Lin, 2002). The economic restructuring of the market under Deng had important consequences. As Moon and Shen (2010, p. 616) poignantly note, ‘‘following the privatization or liberalization of many SOEs, the profit motive was unleashed, and many former SOEs were unburdened of their previous social responsibilities and they became associated with environmental pollution and social negligence in the eyes of the public.’’ China’s bid

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to position itself as the ‘‘factory of the world’’ led to a systemic erosion of stakeholder interests in favor of profit-making activities (Wu & Zhang, 2007) – as scarce public resources were increasingly diverted away from environmental and social concerns to economic growth, facilities, and services (Xu & Yeh, 2010). Another consequence of economic restructuring was localism or ‘‘place wars’’ (Savitch, 2010), wherein local governments, incentivized to compete for state resources and policy support, engaged in fierce inter-jurisdictional competition that caused redundant infrastructure and industry development, ecological degradation, and increasing political fragmentation (Wu & Zhang, 2007). Mao and Deng’s conflicting state logics resulted in an economy in which communist–socialist legacies exist side by side with capitalist market structures (Fan & Scott, 2003). In the northern central provinces (the traditional industrial core of Socialism in China), remnants of Mao’s regime continue to shape the local business environment – as evidenced by the large number of SOEs concentrated in this part of the region. In addition, several key sectors including automotive, iron, and steel, have remained in remote inland locations – the progeny of Mao’s redistributive and national defence policies (Sit & Liu, 2000). Conversely, the eastern coastal provinces, as the ultimate beneficiaries of the government’s liberalization policies, continue to have stronger ties to the international market. One advantage from such ties are international knowledge ‘‘spillovers’’ (Kuo & Yang, 2008; Lai, Peng, & Bao, 2006). Henderson et al. (2007), for example, suggest that the inflow of foreign capital and expertise into the eastern region has contributed to aboveaverage improvements in production efficiency and product quality. Similarly, Fan and Scott (2003) assert that ties of proximity and association have promoted learning effects and the diffusion of know-how – by enabling quicker access to information and inputs. The Chinese government’s pervasive role in all facets of society underscores the potential for past state logics to endure. The decades of deep-seated beliefs, attitudes, values, and understandings inculcated during Mao and Deng’s regimes continue to influence individual and organizational behavior. The enduring influences (temporally and spatially) of both regimes can be seen in the material and symbolic legacies left behind. For instance, material legacies are readily apparent in the geographic dispersion of physical infrastructure, industrial clusters, tax policies, and administrative structures. Symbolic legacies, while often materially manifested in elaborate monuments, halls, mausoleums, and the like, carry deep symbolic meanings that are rooted in particular state logics of the past.

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The sedimentation pattern of these material and symbolic legacies within particular geographically defined communities has produced distinctive institutional landscapes, which shape how local actors process information, focus attention, and respond to broader environmental stimuli (Thornton et al., 2012). We explore these relationships in three ways. First, we identify broad societal and regional patterns in public and private CSR-related initiatives from the early 1980s to the present. Second, we compare how organizations founded during different political regimes respond to broader institutional pressures to engage in CSR – in terms of the types of CSR activity emphasized. Prior research suggests that founding period imprinting has important and lasting consequences for organizational behavior – ‘‘because organizations are of necessity created out of the specific technological, economic, political, and cultural resources available in the founding context’’ (Johnson, 2007, pp. 97–98; see also, Kriauciunas & Kale, 2006; Marquis & Huang, 2010; Stinchcombe, 1965). Building on this line of reasoning, we would expect that organizations founded under different political regimes and state logics will respond differently to CSR initiatives – for example, those founded under Mao are more likely than those founded under Deng to emphasize social and employee welfare practices. Third, we probe how and to what extent organizations located in a particular region will respond similarly to CSR pressures. In other words, whether organizations within a particular region engage in similar kinds of CSR activity and whether this effect is stronger for those organizations founded during the same political era. It could be argued, for example, that organizations in the eastern coastal region are more likely to engage in more corporate governance and CSR reporting activities than their inland counterparts as a result of closer ties to the international community. Together, these three interrelated sets of questions serve as a guide to our exploratory analysis of logic legacies and community influence. In the following section, we explain the method and data used to illustrate our theoretical arguments.

METHODS Sample and Data As the initial phase of a larger research project examining how CSR is unfolding in China, the basic research design of this study is intended to be both exploratory and pragmatic – to highlight the utility of exploring how

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the legacies of previously dominant logics affect organizational behavior. We drew on two main sources of data in this study. The first source concerns the public and private CSR initiatives that have been implemented in China. We examined CSR-related archival documents from national, provincial, and municipal governments, NGOs and nonprofit organizations, industrial associations, international consulting firms, and major east-Asian stock exchanges. From these documents, we identified 130 public and private CSR initiatives implemented beginning in the early 1980s to the present. While this list is by no means exhaustive, it provides a broad picture of the types of initiatives that have been implemented in China – with earlier initiatives serving as key indicators of past experience in CSR-related practices. The second source of data is the CSR activities and performance of a sample of 714 Chinese companies listed on major stock exchanges. The sample is comprised of a diverse range of organizations – varying by industry, ownership and governance structures, size, market values, founding dates, and geographic dispersion of operations. Descriptive information on each company was collected using two global research databases: ORBIS and Thomson ONE Banker. These databases provide extensive coverage of millions of companies worldwide, including company financials, real-time global market data, ratings and country reports, and authoritative content from industry-leading sources. Data on the CSR practices and performance of each company in 2010 was collected by RepuTex, a leading research, advisory, and index firm, specializing in carbon risk analytics for global companies and investment professionals. RepuTex maintains one of the most extensive corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) research databases on Chinese listed companies in the world. The growing importance of ESG data is evidenced by its increasing use in investment decision-making, corporate sustainability and CSR performance assessment, benchmark reporting, and company strategy building (Gao, 2011; Hedesstro¨m, Lundqvist, & Biel, 2011; Knoepfel, 2001). RepuTex’s ESG ratings assessments involve a process of direct consultation with financial institutions, fund managers, pension funds, companies, government agencies, policy groups, and other stakeholders.1 Each organization’s ESG performance is measured against four core indicators: corporate governance, environmental impact, social impact, and workplace practices. Corporate governance is a measure of the organization’s capacity to mitigate key governance exposures including regulatory quality, control of corruption, business conduct, self-regulation standards, and risk management. Environmental impact measures an organization’s ability to manage environmental exposures such as environmental stress (pollution, waste, etc.), stewardship

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and compliance, environmental management systems, carbon emissions footprint, and consumption. Social impact is a measure of an organization’s capacity to address social exposures, for example, political stability, accountability, human development, transparency, and stakeholder engagement. Workplace practices measures an organization’s ability to mitigate workplace exposures including labor market conditions, accident rates, collective bargaining, occupational health and safety (OHS) performance, training, attrition rates, and remuneration. Each company is given a performance score out of 100 along each of these CSR indicators.

Data Analysis In order to identify broad patterns in how CSR is unfolding in China, we analyzed a sample of 130 public and private CSR-related initiatives to determine: the implementing actors (e.g., central or local government, private sector organizations, NGOs), the CSR activity type (e.g., awareness raising, capacity building, regulations), the area of CSR addressed (e.g., environment, social, corporate governance, workplace practices), and the geographic area covered by the initiative (e.g., national or regional). Table 1 provides an overview of Chinese CSR initiatives introduced in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. The second stage of the analysis was directed at understanding how organizations are responding to the growing number of CSR initiatives. We examined RepuTex’s ESG evaluation of 714 Chinese listed firms. Table 2 Table 1.

Overview of Public and Private Initiatives in China. 1980s

1990s

2000s

Actor National Provincial/Municipal Private sector/ NGOs Mix

10 0 0 0

9 1 0 0

33 55 18 4

CSR Activity Type Awareness raising Capacity building Guidelines Policies/Regulations

0 0 0 10

1 2 0 7

26 30 20 34

8

4

30

CSR Area Environmental (e.g., sustainable development, reduction of ecological footprint, environmental protection and conservation)

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Table 1. (Continued ) 1980s

1990s

2000s

Social (e.g., community investment, stakeholder engagement, transparency, and reporting)

1

2

62

Corporate governance (e.g., board accountability, audit and compliance, ethical business conduct)

0

0

13

Workplace practices (e.g., occupational health and safety, work/life balance, remuneration, training and development)

1

4

5

10 0 0 0

9 1 0 0

43 52 3 12

10

10

110

Region of Implementation National East West Central Total

Table 2. Overview of Data Sample Organizationsa. Descriptive Characteristic

Number of Organizations

Ownership and governance CSOE LSOE Private Public

127 62 106 419

Industry sector Primary Secondary Tertiary

243 168 303

Founding period Pre-Mao Mao Deng Post-Deng CSR introduction

30 108 188 265 123

Main region(s) of operation West Central East Multiple

47 77 470 120

a

Total number of organizations = 714.

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provides a descriptive overview of the companies in our sample, including the distribution based on ownership type, industry sector, founding period, and main region(s) of operation and/or production. It is important to note that while our sample is comprised of a significantly higher number of firms with operations in the east, this distribution is more or less similar to that of the population distribution of companies. That is, the vast majority of business in China are concentrated in the eastern coastal region – the site of China’s three major ‘‘city-regions’’ (Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, and Bohai Rim), which together accounted for 54 percent of China’s national GDP, 79 percent of its foreign trade, and approximately 85 percent of all foreign investment in 2005 (Li, 2008). To assess the legacy effects of Mao and Deng’s regimes on CSR activities, we grouped the companies according to their founding periods (Pre-Mao, 1800s–1942; Mao, 1943–1976; Deng, 1977–1992; Post-Deng, 1993–1999;

62.0 60.0 58.0

Average Score

56.0 54.0 52.0 50.0 48.0 46.0 44.0 42.0 40.0 Corp Gov

Env

Soc

Wkpl

Pre-Mao

59.3

52.4

53.4

52.0

Mao

54.1

46.0

46.5

45.6

Deng

53.1

43.8

44.7

44.3

Post-Deng

51.4

43.8

43.3

43.0

CSR Intro

53.3

42.4

42.2

42.4

Fig. 2.

Average CSR Performance Scores by Founding Period.

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and CSR Intro, 2000– )2 and main region(s) of operation (west; central; east; and multiple). Given the wide range of performance scores across CSR categories, we omitted the top and bottom 5 percent of the observations in each category in order to mitigate the potential for outliers to distort our results. We then calculated the average performance scores for each CSR category based on founding period and region of operation – that is, our proxy variables for logic legacies. Our results are shown in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3, respectively. To assess the simultaneous influence of founding period and region, we examined how the CSR performance of companies founded in each period varied between regions. Given our particular research interest, we focused on variations in the CSR performance of companies founded during and after Mao’s regime (i.e., omitting the 30 companies founded in the Pre-Mao era).

56.0

54.0

Average Score

52.0

50.0

48.0

46.0

44.0

42.0

40.0

Fig. 3.

Corp Gov

Env

Soc

West

50.8

44.8

43.6

Wkpl 44.6

Central

49.9

43.2

42.3

43.0

East

52.7

43.6

44.0

43.3

Multiple

54.5

46.1

46.6

45.9

Average CSR Performance Scores by Main Region(s) of Operation.

Sources of Community Variation in CSR Implementation in China

Fig. 4.

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CSR Performance by Main Region(s) of Operation and Founding Period.

Fig. 4 consists of a series of box plots that depict regional variations in the CSR performance of companies founded in each of these periods. The dotted lines in the figure represent the median scores for each category of CSR.

FINDINGS The 130 public and private CSR-related initiatives shown in Table 1 reveal that CSR initiatives are clearly on the rise in China – with a large majority of initiatives being implemented in the last decade (i.e., 110 initiatives introduced after 2000 compared to only 10 in each of the previous decades). This finding is consistent with both academic and practitioner-oriented literature stating that CSR is a relatively recent phenomenon in China, but that pressures to engage in CSR activities are intensifying in both the public and private spheres of Chinese society. Interestingly, while it is apparent the national government was the driving force behind CSR in the 1980s and

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1990s, others have increasingly begun to take up the reins – as seen in the sharp increase in CSR initiatives initiated by local government and administrative bodies, private sector organizations, and NGOs. This trend suggests that the impetus for CSR has begun to diffuse both to lower levels of government and to nongovernmental agencies, including industry associations and stock exchanges. Table 1 also reveals that although the number of initiatives has risen for all areas of CSR, their relative increase has been disproportionate. A majority of the initiatives are concentrated on the social dimension of CSR – specifically wider stakeholder engagement, development of reporting systems, and increased transparency of business activities. Many of these were introduced by local governments seeking not only to increase awareness of CSR, but also to help standardize reporting methods and encourage investment in local communities. The smallest increases in initiatives deal with environmental concerns and workplace practices. Of the initiatives implemented in the 2000s, only 13 concerned corporate governance issues and only 5 were related to workplace practices or labor-related issues – which is surprising given the increased international scrutiny over a recent string of corporate corruption scandals (e.g., the Shanghai pension fund scandal in 2006, the tainted milk crisis of 2008) and labor rights cases (e.g., the Foxconn suicides in 2010, and incidences of lead-poisoning in battery-recycling plants in 2011). On the whole, it appears that the main CSR areas targeted by recent initiatives are primarily social and environmental in nature. Finally, Table 1 shows that approximately half of the CSR-related initiatives have been introduced in the eastern coastal region. This finding suggests that ties to the international community – that is, foreign direct investment, international customers and client bases, and close proximity to multinationals in China – may be influencing the impetus of public and private organizations to engage in CSR activities, partly because of their increased exposure to international pressures for CSR, but also their visibility to critical Western audiences. Our assessment of how organizations are responding to increasing calls for CSR reveals a number of important patterns associated with founding period and region(s) of operation. Fig. 2 shows a great deal of variation in the CSR performance of companies founded in different periods. Interestingly, despite variation across periods, the average performance scores along corporate governance are relatively higher than those of other CSR categories. This observation is somewhat surprising given the small number of public and private CSR initiatives related to corporate governance (see Table 1). We interpret this result as an indication that companies, regardless

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of their founding periods, are placing a greater emphasis on corporate governance issues – potentially in response to growing international awareness and negative repercussions of corporate scandals and unethical business conduct. In general, there appears to be a negative trend in average performance scores across all categories of CSR – such that performance decreases for companies founded in later periods. While it appears that companies founded during the Pre-Mao period have the highest average CSR performance, the relatively small number of companies founded during this period warrants some caution in interpreting these results. A comparison of the CSR scores of companies in the remaining periods shows that firms founded under Mao perform better than those founded under Deng; and that in general firms founded after the introduction of explicit CSR initiatives had the lowest performance. In order to better understand these results – particularly whether companies founded in different periods place a greater emphasis on specific areas of CSR – we examined the top and bottom 100 performing companies in each CSR category. Our intention for this analysis was to determine the relative proportions of companies founded in each period that ranked in the top and bottom 100 (see Fig. 5). The analysis revealed that while 25–30 percent of Top 100

Bottom 100 30.0%

35.0% 30.0%

25.0%

Proportion (%)

Proportion (%)

25.0% 20.0% 15.0%

20.0%

15.0%

10.0% 10.0% 5.0%

5.0% 0.0%

0.0% Corp Gov

Env

Soc

Wkpl

Mao

29.6%

25.0%

29.6%

25.9%

Corp Gov

Env

Soc

Wkpl

Mao

12.0%

13.0%

12.0%

12.0%

Deng

17.6%

11.7%

17.0%

17.6%

Deng

11.2%

10.1%

9.0%

11.7%

Post-Deng

5.7%

12.5%

9.8%

7.9%

Post-Deng

19.2%

13.2%

16.2%

15.5%

CSR Intro

16.3%

14.6%

8.1%

14.6%

CSR Intro

12.2%

26.0%

22.0%

19.5%

Fig. 5.

Proportion of Companies Founded in Each Period in the Top and Bottom 100 by CSR Category.

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the companies founded under Mao ranked in the top 100 across all dimensions of CSR, only 12–18 percent of those founded under Deng achieved the same rank. Our interpretation of these results is that firms founded during Mao’s regime have been imprinted with an implicit CSR concern, which could increase the receptivity of these firms to modern calls for CSR. That is, their inherent predisposition to emphasize implicit forms of CSR may, in turn, have some ‘‘spillover’’ effects to other dimensions of CSR. A comparison of the bottom 100 firms founded under both regimes, however, revealed much less variation – with similar proportions of companies in both periods ranking in the bottom 100 across all CSR dimensions. Taken together, these results not only suggest a complex relationship between founding period and CSR performance, but that the relationship may be nonlinear. An examination of regional patterns in CSR performance shows a great deal of variation across the different geographic communities. Echoing our previous findings, Fig. 3 shows that companies, irrespective of their main region(s) of operation, place a great deal of emphasis on corporate governance issues. Overall, our results reveal that companies with operations in multiple regions have the highest performance, while companies with operations in the central region have the lowest performance – across all CSR dimensions. The poor average CSR performance of companies in the central region may reflect the influence of legacy sedimentation patterns. First, although many key industrial sectors founded during Mao’s regime are still located in remote inland locations in the west, a relatively smaller concentration of their counterparts are located in the northern central provinces. As such, the institutional infrastructure for implicit forms of CSR may be less developed in the central region. Second, owing to the legacies of Deng’s regional development policies, companies in the central region have less direct exposure to international referent groups than their eastern counterparts – which effectively limits opportunities to benefit from international knowledge spillovers. In addition, these companies are likely to experience less direct international pressure to engage in CSR activities. From an alternative standpoint, these two reasons may help to explain the comparatively higher average CSR performance of companies in the east and west. Despite similarities in these performance scores, however, the underlying factors behind them may vary between the eastern and western regions. For example, the average performance of western companies in the workplace practice and environmental dimensions is higher than those of eastern companies – suggesting a potential legacy effect with respect to the

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socialist emphasis on human development as well as stewardship and compliance. In contrast, the higher average performance of eastern companies in the corporate governance and social dimensions may be reflective of Deng’s Open Door policy, which created stronger ties to critical international audiences who stress the importance of board accountability, stakeholder engagement, transparency, and reporting. The final stage of our analysis was directed at assessing the combined effects of region and founding period – with the interest of gaining a more nuanced understanding of the potential influences of legacy sedimentation patterns on CSR performance. The box plots in Fig. 4 reveal a number of results that are consistent with our previous findings – specifically, higher median scores for corporate governance relative to other CSR dimensions, lower CSR median scores for companies in the central region compared to those for companies in the east and west, a higher distribution of workplace practice and environmental impact scores for the west than the east, and a higher distribution of corporate governance and social impact scores for the east than the west. In contrast to our previous results, however, the box plots show that the median scores of companies founded under Deng tend to be higher than those of companies founded under Mao. The discrepancy between these results and those shown in Figs. 2 and 3 appears to stem from the high degree of variability in the CSR scores of firms founded under Mao’s regime. A comparison of Mao era firms across the three regions reveals that those located in the east have higher median performance scores than their counterparts in west and central regions for environmental impact, corporate governance, and social impact. Interestingly, the median performance scores of workplace practice are relatively consistent across Mao era firms. One possible explanation for this finding is that workplace practice issues are closely associated with the core philosophy of Mao’s danwei work unit system – and thus, are deeply embedded in the cultural norms and practices of these companies. Examining the workplace practice scores across the three regions, we find that companies in the west generally perform better than their counterparts in the east and central regions. Taken together, these findings suggest that legacy sedimentation patterns may be influencing the CSR activities of firms in the western region. Turning our attention to the eastern region, it seems that although the median scores for companies founded in different periods hover around the overall median in each CSR dimension, there is a high degree of variability in these scores. This variability can, in part, be explained by the enduring influence of Deng’s regional development policies – which placed a high

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concentration of export manufacturing companies in the region. Many of these companies operate in highly competitive industries, where profit margins are narrow enough to put shareholder value and firm survival at risk. Under these conditions, there are pressures and incentives to cut costs and save money wherever possible, even if it means acting in socially irresponsible ways (Campbell, 2007). At the same time, however, these companies are experiencing growing international pressure to engage in CSR activities. These conflicting demands may shed light on the variability of CSR performance in this region. In sum, our findings provide preliminary support for the enduring influence of past state logics on contemporary organizational behavior. In particular, they suggest that geographic differences in the sedimentation profile of past logics have generated variation in the receptivity, understanding, and responses of organizations to CSR initiatives.

DISCUSSION While our study was largely exploratory in nature, our findings raise some intriguing questions regarding the enduring effects of past logics. For instance, which aspects of logics are likely to endure and which are likely to fade away? What are the mechanisms and processes by which logic legacies continue to shape organizational behavior? What are some of the general characteristics of legacies – that is, what criteria need to be met for something to be considered a logic legacy? What types of organizational activity are most likely to be affected by logic legacies and why? Does the relative influence of legacies ebb and flow over time – and if so, why? Further research is needed to answer these questions and to more fully tease apart the effects of logic legacies. Future studies, for example, could employ discursive analysis techniques on organizational documents (e.g., annual reports and CSR reports) to identify whether, how, and to what extent organizations refer to the past as potential points of reference for how things ‘‘should be’’ done or how to respond to specific environmental stimuli. In addition, comparative studies could be particularly insightful for understanding what aspects of logic legacies are more likely to endure and the types of mechanisms that are involved in this process. While both approaches would help shed light on the enduring effects of past logics, it is likely that both approaches will require the use of multiple sources of data and more sophisticated measures of legacies in order to unpack the complex interrelationships between logics, legacies, and organizational behavior.

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Insights from this exploratory study revealed that the legacies of past state logics in China manifested both symbolically and materially – effectively spawning distinct institutional landscapes in the east, west, and central regions of China. Variations in these landscapes appeared to have played an important role in shaping how CSR initiatives manifested, particularly with respect to the area and type of CSR activities emphasized. The trends and patterns observed from our analysis suggest that the legacies of Mao and Deng’s regimes may continue to influence organizational behavior by orienting attention toward specific dimensions of CSR. These findings draw attention to additional factors that may contribute to the heterodoxy of CSR activity – namely, the potential influence of geographically defined communities and local resource environments. Future investigations of how CSR is unfolding in China could delve deeper into local variations by examining differences within regions – for instance, differences between provinces or between urban and rural communities within a particular region. Doing so would provide a more nuanced understanding of how broader institutional pressures for CSR are interacting with local meaning structures, norms, and practices to produce variation in how organizations respond. Another promising avenue for future research is the role of international constituent groups (e.g., international investors, consumers, auditors) in influencing how CSR is unfolding in China – and, whether this influence varies across different communities and why. As we noted earlier, closer proximity and ties to international constituent groups may make certain communities more susceptible to international influence than others – generating variation in how, and the extent to which, CSR manifests (e.g., between eastern coastal provinces as compared to their inland counterparts). Such influence could bring in external conceptualizations of CSR, which would likely influence indigenous formulations of CSR – and potentially, mitigate the influence of past political legacies by providing alternative normative orders for understanding CSR. The enduring legacies of China’s past political regimes and their associated state logics provide fertile ground for future scholarship on this research topic. In particular, China’s unique market economy characterized by a complex juxtaposition of socialist and capitalist systems creates potential ‘‘pockets’’ of latent tension between two divergent logics of political order – each with their own temporal underpinnings (Orren & Skowronek, 1994). Thelen (1999, p. 382) argues that in such situations, ‘‘the various ‘pieces’ do not necessarily fit together into a coherent, selfreinforcing, let alone functional, whole.’’ It is, therefore, important to

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understand how the sedimentation patterns of past logics shape the institutional environment that organizations must navigate. Further examinations of these patterns will not only provide insights on how past logics – through their instantiations in practices, norms, and accompanying institutional infrastructures – enable and constrain organizational responses to broader societal and world society pressures, but also provide more accurate causal explanations on the variability of organizational behavior. For research on CSR, these insights would shed light on an underresearched area of the world (Moon & Shen, 2010; Wang & Juslin, 2009) – thus providing additional opportunities for country-level comparative research. One promising area for future CSR research in China draws upon Matten and Moon’s (2008) framework for implicit and explicit understandings of CSR. Studies, for example, could examine whether Chinese companies are more likely to be predisposed to one form or the other – and whether there are intra-country variations in these predispositions. Specifically, do companies embedded in different communities have tendencies toward implicit versus explicit understandings of CSR, and if so, why? Do the legacies of past political logics predispose companies in particular regions or those founded during particular eras to engage more in one form versus the other? While there are many avenues for research on logic legacies, it is critical to move beyond the vague notion that ‘‘history matters’’ or that an organization’s founding context matters – criticisms that have often been levied at research on path dependence and organizational imprinting, respectively. What is important, more specifically, is that future studies adopt a cross-level approach to systematically identify the mechanisms and processes that enable past logics to persist – and thus, serve as resources that actors can revive, reconfigure, and reassemble for use in subsequent periods (Schneiberg, 2007; Thornton et al., 2012). Such an endeavor requires that researchers not only draw on multiple sources of data, but also conduct their analyses over a longer time period. Further research along these lines will yield new knowledge of the complex interplay between logics, legacies, and organizations.

NOTES 1. An overview of RepuTex’s assessment methodology can be found on its corporate website: http://www.reputex.com/publications/reputex-esg-methodology/. 2. The period labeled ‘‘CSR Intro’’ refers to the period after 2000 when CSR became explicitly referred as such in public and private initiatives in China.

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LOST IN TRANSPOSITION? (A CAUTIONARY TALE): THE BANK OF NORTH DAKOTA AND PROSPECTS FOR REFORM IN AMERICAN BANKING Marc Schneiberg ABSTRACT Recent institutional scholarship has discovered new possibilities for change in both the accumulation of incremental transformations and in the skillful action, institutional work, and creative activities of political and institutional entrepreneurs. Lurking behind stability and change lie actors who can act reflexively within and with existing institutions, and who do so on a routine, rather than exceptional basis, redeploying, recombining, and transposing extant systems to solve problems of identity and control. This paper probes the potentials and limits of those possibilities – and the prospects for reform in American banking – via a case study of the Bank of North Dakota and efforts to transpose its hybrid model of state and community logics into other states. The analysis first finds a full range of institutional labors and skillful activities emphasized by recent work as the foundation for transposition. It finds

Institutional Logics in Action, Part A Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 39A, 277–310 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X(2013)0039A&B013

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crisis; the presence of multiple logics; the mobilization of boundary spanning networks; the use of conferences and theorization to sustain independent discourse and collective identities; skillful framing; and substantial editing and recombination to fit the model with receiving states’ institutions. It then juxtaposes these conditions with outcomes in the states, developing some implications for actor-centered institutionalisms, current preoccupations with mechanisms, and state-level strategies for financial reform. Keywords: Institutional logics; institutional complexity; practice; institution; transposition; recombination; mechanisms; diffusion [For] Stacy Mitchell, senior researcher for the New Rules Projectythe balance sheets of local and Giant banks reveal ‘‘two entirely different types of businesses.’’ Local banks are still largely engaged in taking deposits and moving money into the community through the likes of mortgages and small business loans, while Giant banks take deposits and engage in speculative trading that privatizes profits, socializes costs and exacerbates economic inequalityyIndeed, there are still about 8,000 credit unions and 7,600 community banks in the nation. The pressing question is: how can we support and grow these institutions, and return to a people-centered banking system that makes credit readily available and invests in our communities? One possible answer is the State Bank movement. (‘‘Banking for the People,’’ February 7, 2011) Consider this tale of two cities: Grand Forks, North Dakota, suffered massive flooding that left it economically crippled in April 1997. So did East Grand Forks, just across the river in Minnesota. Three years later, Grand Forks had lost 3 percent of its population, and East Grand Forks had lost 17 percent. (American Banker, April 1, 2011)

Under what conditions – and through what mechanisms – can alternative logics diffuse across fields and transform existing institutions? What, more specifically, are the prospects for the survival and resurgence of logics of community-based relational banking geared to local development in a world where logics of securitization, continual innovation, high-volume production, and impersonal, arm’s length banking via giant, globe trotting corporations increasingly prevail? Two parallel developments in institutional analysis highlight intriguing possibilities for transformation. On one side is a now almost canonical appreciation that transformation, even fundamental transformation, need not and typically does not rely on revolutionary or epochal shifts, a wholesale succession of logics, or an all out mobilization of challengers and incumbents around competing visions of order and decisive ‘‘resettlements.’’

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To the contrary, transformation typically occurs incrementally, via the cumulation of small changes, often scattered and isolated experiments, the reconversion of existing systems to new purposes, and the layering or weaving into existing systems of new forms, logics, or elements from nearby fields (Campbell, 2004; Schneiberg, 2007; Streeck & Thelen, 2005). On the other side is a resurgence of ‘‘actor-centered’’ institutionalisms— and a general preoccupation with mechanisms as the centerpiece of social science explanations—with their renewed appreciation for the centrality of institutional entrepreneurship, institutional work, skillful action, and the generative or creative capacities of actors (Battilana, Leca, & Boxenbaum, 2009; Berk & Galvin, 2009; Elster, 1989; Fligstein & McAdam, 2012; Hedstrom & Ylikoski, 2010; Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006). Lurking behind both apparent structural stability and change lie actors who are capable of acting reflexively within and with existing institutions, and who do so on a routine, rather than exceptional basis, engaging in interpretive work to manage ambiguity and contradiction, exploiting interstices, and acting as bricoleurs by decomposing, reassembling, and transposing elements of extant systems to solve problems of identity or control (see also Hwang & Colyvas, 2011; Kaghan & Lounsbury, 2011 for an overview and assessment). These practices, for recent accounts, are the critical motors and mechanisms of institutional transformation. This paper uses a case study of the Bank of North Dakota and institutional work to establish its banking model more broadly to probe the utility of these two theoretical imageries, presenting a cautionary tale for actor-centric accounts of institutional change, and providing guideposts for the development of the institutional logics perspective (Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounbury, 2012). This is a case study of multiple logics, successful resistance to logics of banking associated with financialization in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and ongoing efforts to transpose the Bank and its logics of banking to other states. The first section provides an overview of the Bank of North Dakota as the basis for a thriving and resilient alternative system of banking in the United States—a hybrid of state and community logics that anchors decentralization in a world of globalization and an ecology of community banks and relational banking in the service of local development. The second section overviews 21 attempts to establish some version of this bank in 11 other states and then examines those efforts in detail. It finds in those efforts precisely the kinds of accomplishments, mechanisms and activities that incrementalist and actor-centric accounts propose as the foundations for successfully transposing new institutional elements and

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logics into new settings. And it juxtaposes those events, accomplishments, and activities with outcomes in the states. I conclude with some implications for current trends in institutional theorizing. The analysis presented here poses a dilemma for incrementalist and actorcentered institutionalism. It suggests that advocates’ capacities to transpose the logic of the Bank of North Dakota model rest as much, if not more, on macro- or meso-factors including the configuration of power-dependence relations in banking, the potency of societal logics, and polity-centered gridlock than the creativity, recombinatorial activities, and institutional labors of even the most skilled institutional entrepreneurs. It suggests as well that little is likely to happen on a whole class of fronts, even incrementally, in the absence of broad-based anticorporate or producerist movements that could authoritatively contest master logics and disrupt and reconfigure power relations. But invoking such forces risks shifting the explanatory focus back toward broader, more structuralist arguments, political institutional claims, and cultural determinisms that recent emphases on agency, border-crossing recombinant entrepreneurs, and micro-mechanisms hope to escape. At minimum, resolving such a dilemma without reverting to an actorless structuralism will compel us to retheorize relations between structural context and institutional work, re-embed actors in their contexts, and reengage inter- and multilevel institutional structures and processes along the lines of the institutional logics perspective (Thornton et al., 2012) and parallel work on emergence and fields (Campbell & Pederson 2014; Fligstein & McAdam, 2012; Padgett & Powell, 2012). And the results here suggest that we might most productively rework those theoretical edges by moving beyond standard methodological repertoires to study ‘‘limiting cases’’ of wholesale failures to diffuse, transpose, recombine, or otherwise succeed in changing institutions.

RESISTANCE AND MULTIPLE LOGICS IN AMERICAN BANKING: THE BANK OF NORTH DAKOTA In its origins and operation, the Bank of North Dakota (BND) is a case of successful resistance to transactional, purely market-based logics of banking in American finance (Hein, Kock, & MacDonald, 2005; Marquis & Lounsbury, 2007; Thornton et al., 2012). It is a state-owned and operated bank, currently the only one in the United States. It is the bank for the state

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of North Dakota, serving as the depository for all taxes and fees collected by the state and its public subdivisions as well as working funds for state institutions (except pension funds and other state-managed trusts). And it uses those resources to fund development, agriculture, and small businesses in the state, mainly by working through the state’s community banks (Center for State Innovarion (CSI), 2010; Judd & McGhee, 2011a). The BND is the heart of a state/community bank hybrid – a case of public ownership in banking organized to foster economic development, small businesses, as well as localism and relational banking via community banks and credit unions. It thus stands as a regionally based alternative to the purely market oriented, increasingly global and centralized system of private, for-profit finance grounded in securitization, high-volume production, and transactional banking via giant money center banks, hedge funds, and the like that came to dominate American capitalism (Fligstein & Goldstein, 2010; Schneiberg & Bartley, 2010). Table 1 summarizes key differences. The BND emerged in 1919 from political struggles between local farmers, state officials, and corporate interests over the control of the state’s grain

Table 1.

Bank of North Dakota Public Ownership/Community Hybrid versus Market Logics of Private For-Profit Banking.

Form of ownership Geographical loci Core banking practice

Core banking goals Banking organizations

The BND Model: State/ Community Logics of Relational Banking

Market-Based Logics of Transactional Banking

Public ownership anchoring local, private, and cooperative forms Regional and circuits of capital and local financial markets: decentralization and localism Relational banking: ‘‘originate and hold,’’ and loan customization via local knowledge and ongoing ties with borrowers

Private ownership, for-profit provision National and global financial markets: centralization and globalization Transactional banking: ‘‘originate and distribute’’ and high-volume production via arm’s length relations mediated by credit and risk rating Financial profits from development and trading in financial instruments Giant money center banks, global hedge funds, mortgage companies and brokerage networks

Local economic and small business development, financial profits via lending Small community banks and credit unions

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trade and its financing, which had been increasingly concentrated in the hands of railroad syndicates, grain exchanges, brokerage houses, and outof-state banks in the Twin Cities and New York (Junker, 1989; Tostlebe, 1924). It was a product of the same populist and progressive era anticorporate mobilizations that had fueled antitrust laws and cooperatives, and was the creation of the Nonpartisan league, which captured all three branches of government in 1918. It was also a centerpiece of the League’s program of using regulation and public ownership of economic infrastructure to reduce farmer’s dependence on out-of-state corporations, a program which included state-financed hail insurance and state-owned flour mills, terminal elevators, cold storage plants, and packing houses. Not surprisingly, the Bank was fiercely contested by the banking, grain, and railroad trusts in Minneapolis and points east. They sought to block the initial legislation by financing an opposition party. They introduced legislation to limit the Bank’s powers, sued in state courts to block state bond sales for its initial capitalization, and later, with their Chicago and Wall Street allies, boycotted those bond issues in national financial markets, delaying its capitalization until 1921. Since then, the BND has used the funds deposited with it in three basic ways (BND, 1975, 1981; Fisher, 1981; Judd & McGhee, 2011a; Junker, 1989). It has provided low cost short term and bond financing for local and state government infrastructure projects in North Dakota. It has done some direct lending to private borrowers in the state, playing a major role in financing farms and grain sales in the first half of the 20th century, and currently lends directly for student loans and agricultural start-ups. But the BND has no retail branches, has not been and is not a retail bank, and has not otherwise provided loans, checking services, or credit cards to individuals or business. Rather, it mainly serves as a wholesale bank for the state’s community banks and credit unions. It participates in loans originated by local banks (by expanding the size of the loan, providing loan guarantees, or buying interest rates down); purchases loans from local bank portfolios (including active participation in the secondary market for Small Business Administration, FHA, and student loans); and purchases and lends community bank stock. It also provides other banking services to local banks, including clearing checks, operating as their depository for reserves, and providing federal funds lines. The BND and its activities create what amounts to an alternative, decentralized, and regionally based circuit of capital for North Dakota’s small business, farmers, local governments, and Main Street institutions, retying banking and the financial sector to the local economy and small

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business development. With the Bank, state tax revenues and funds collected by other public subdivisions are kept within the state. They are deposited in the Bank, channeled through the state’s community banks into lending, and used to support economic development there, rather than being deposited with out-of-state banks, whisked away into national or global financial markets, invested in derivatives, and devoted to financial profits as is virtually universal practice elsewhere. The BND’s activities also anchor a robust small-bank sector of community-based financial institutions within the state, bucking broader trends in which small-scale local banking has steadily lost ground to consolidation, money center banks, and transactional banking (Keeton, Harvey, & Willis, 2003, p. 19; Kodrzychi & Elmatad, 2011, p. 16). Central here have been the Bank’s participation loans. Small community banks often need partners when clients approach them for loans that exceed their capital or lending limits. In most states, the originating community banks turn to large commercial banks like Wells Fargo, CITI, or Chase to participate in those loans, partners who charge them fees, and use their participation to gather information on borrowers and then poach clients away from the originating bank. This has put pressure on small banks to withhold information and pursue growth and consolidation to stay in the business. But the BND does not lend directly in commercial and industrial markets – it only works through the state’s community banks – so its participations are never used to poach or cut out originating banks. This allows state’s community banks to participate in larger loans without growing or consolidating, and thus stay both small and in the game. Moreover, the BND charges partners lower fees and rebate expenses, which helps originators’ cost structures and permits lower cost loans to small business. Through these and other means, the BND has supported a thriving ecology of community banks and relational banking networks in North Dakota that stands apart from dominant trends in American finance. North Dakota’s banking sector has far more branch offices per capita, is far less concentrated than in the United States overall or in comparator states of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana, and has steadily declined in concentration since 1995 (CSI, 2010, pp. 3–6). It was nearly 50% less concentrated than Montana’s in 2009, and an order of magnitude less concentrated than South Dakota’s, which was recently captured by Wells Fargo (Kodrzychi & Elmatad, 2011, p. 13). Small and local community banks accounted for more bank branches in North Dakota (78% in 2002) than in any other state, and more deposits (59%) than in all but Kansas and

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Iowa (Keeton et al., 2003, p. 22); money center banks account for far fewer deposits in North Dakota than in any other state (under 20% in 2009) (Hoenig, 2010). And with small, local community banks come an emphasis on relational over transactional banking – a reliance on ongoing personal ties with clients, in-depth and idiosyncratic knowledge of their operations and local business conditions, and tailoring of financial services, rather than arm’s length relations, standardized products, credit scoring or customer profitability models, and volume production of fees via originating and securitizing loans (Berger & Udell, 2003; Hein et al., 2005; Keeton et al., 2003; Rona-Tas & Hiss, 2010). The BND purchased some mortgage backed securities. But it did no subprime lending, avoided credit default swaps and derivatives markets, and substantially decreased its focus on investing in securities in favor of expanding its lending activities between 1990 and 2005, working against the main trends in transactional banking toward securitization (BND, 2008, p. 1; Harkinson, 2009; Kodrzychi & Elmatad, 2011, p. 8). Finally, in meeting regularly with most of the state’s 94 banks, the BND has fostered a network of working relations with and among the state’s community banks, laying foundations for policy discussions and coordinated action in response to crises (Garver, 2011; Junker, 1989, pp. 146–148). As such, the BND anchors a hybrid of state and community banking logics, a thriving ecology of small-scale local banking and relational banking networks not just between borrowers and lenders, but also among lenders and between private banks and the state. Here, too, it is an alternative to transactional, purely market logics of banking grounded in private ownership, securitization, impersonal, arm-length banking, and the relentless pursuit of innovation and profits in global derivatives markets via giant money center banks.

A MODEL FOR OTHER STATES? TRANSPOSITION AND REFORM EFFORTS IN AMERICAN BANKING Perhaps not surprisingly, the Bank of North Dakota has become a reference point for policy entrepreneurs and public interest organizations seeking means to respond to the financial crisis that bypass political gridlock in Washington, that go beyond reviving New Deal regulation, and that speak more directly to local economic development. The crisis has sparked interest in taking the Bank of North Dakota as a model for other states, and

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transposing the ideas, organizational elements, and logics associated with this model more broadly. Since 2009, 19 bills have been introduced in 14 states to commission studies of the feasibility of adopting the BND model locally. Twenty-one bills and an initiative have been introduced in 12 states providing for the creation of some version of the North Dakota state bank model. As Fig. 1 shows, these efforts have been concentrated in the northeast and western states, but include highly urbanized places like New York, California, and Massachusetts, ‘‘mixed economy’’ states of Oregon, Washington, and Colorado, and smaller, less densely populated states Maine, Montana, and Vermont (see appendix for sources). Furthermore, we can document in these efforts precisely the kinds of activities, events, and accomplishments that incrementalist and actor-centric accounts propose as the foundations for the successful transposition of new forms, institutional elements, and logics into new settings. The following

Fig. 1.

States where Bank and Study Bills were Introduced.

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traces the presence of six such foundations, and then links them with outcomes in the states.

Crisis Certainly nothing has figured more centrally in accounts of institutional change than crisis events involving dramatic failures and disruptions of existing institutions. Crises or shocks leave existing institutions and their elites vulnerable to critique, providing challengers or institutional entrepreneurs with an opening for reframing extant institutions, calling their legitimacy and rationality into question, and introducing or transposing new elements and logics into the setting (e.g., Battilana et al., 2009; Djelic, 1998; Fligstein & McAdam, 2012). And certainly nothing better characterizes financial and economic developments since 2007 than crisis, with the sudden collapse of the financial system, the failure of financial titans, dramatic losses in asset values, wholesale foreclosures, and a breakdown of the real economy, producing fiscal crises around the world and the most significant declines in growth and employment since the Great Depression (Lounsbury & Hirsch, 2010). Of pivotal relevance here was the collapse of liquidity and lending, not just in mortgage markets, but also in commercial and industrial loans. The resulting credit crunch profoundly affected small businesses across the United States, leaving them scrambling for funds for hiring, expansion, or simply weathering the storm, and forcing them to credit cards at up to twice the rate charged for average small business loans (Judd & McGhee, 2011a, p. 6). Between 2007 and 2010, the four largest banks curtailed small business (SBA 7(a)) loans by 53%, with Citigroup reducing the number of such loans by 64%, and Bank of America reducing its loans from between 90% and 100% in Oregon, Washington, Maryland, and Massachusetts (Judd & McGhee, 2011b, 2011c, 2011d, 2011e, p. 1). Moreover, with these and other disruptions came controversy, critique, and the introdcuction of new elements and regulatory reforms, ranging from new conceptions of risk and the Basel III global accords through the creation under Dodd-Frank in the United States of the Financial Stability Oversight Council and the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, to grassroots movements to Move Your Money from big banks to Main Street institutions. Crisis and widespread disruption, commonly advanced as foundations for institutional change and successful transpositions of logics across settings, are clearly present in this case.

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Proven Alternatives/Multiple Orders Likewise figuring centrally in accounts of successful transposition and change, and likewise present in the case, is the presence of multiple institutional orders and an established and readily available alternative with a track record of demonstrated success (Battilana et al., 2009; Clemens, 1997; Schneiberg, 2007). Proven alternatives stand both as potent models for emulation and transfer and as material-organizational foundations for claims making, framing, and asserting new logics (Djelic, 1998; Schneiberg, 2005). And in this role, the BND stands out as a case of ‘‘socialism in a red state’’ with a record of good economic performance along multiple dimensions. First, the BND has been run by bankers, first, foremost, and as a forprofit bank, and has shown a profit for each year since 1971, the earliest year for which performance data are available. It has generated returns on assets that were higher, and as much as two or three times higher, than similarly sized private banks in the United States between 1995 and 2010, and has enjoyed increases in net income in every year since 2003 (Garver, 2011, p. 3; Kodrzychi & Elmatad, 2011, pp. 8–9). The BND has also consistently contributed to state revenues, mainly by transferring profits to the state, but also via bridge loans to agencies waiting for Federal money and by reduced interest rates and rate volatility for local government borrowing. Since the mid-1970s, the BND has transferred to the state an average of $30 million per year, or about two-thirds of its annual profits, for a total of $350 million over the last decade (Judd & McGhee, 2011, pp. 7–8; Kodrzychi & Elmatad, 2011, pp. 9–10). This included a $25 million contribution toward a $43 million shortfall in the 2001–2003 state budget, which reduced pressure on the state to cut spending or increase taxes during a recession. Furthermore, the BND has served as a shock absorber, buffering the state’s banking, small farm and small business sector from economic crises, financial collapse, and natural disaster. During the Depression, the BND held farm mortgages, and like banks everywhere, ended up holding the farms themselves as their owners were unable to pay (Junker, 1989; PPB, 2005). But unlike banks elsewhere, which foreclosed and dispossessed farm families, fueling mass migrations, the BND pursued loan moratoriums and forgiveness programs that slowed down foreclosures. It let farmers who were still working their farms stay on foreclosed farms via low or no cost rent back schemes, and it sold farms back to previous owners or their offspring when agriculture recovered in the 1940s. During the 2007–2008 financial crisis, the Bank increased its lending, unlike virtually every other bank, helping mitigate credit

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crunches in the state’s commercial and industrial loan markets, and providing financial support for small businesses to weather the storm. From 2005 through 2011, the BND more than doubled its funding of industrial and small business, steadily increasing its commercial and industrial loan portfolio from $431 million to $1.064 billion in 2008, with only small dips in 2009 and 2010, and a new height of $1.068 billion in 2011 (BND, 2009, p. 3; BND, 2011, p. 5; Judd & McGhee, 2011a, p. 2; Nichols, 2010). During the massive flooding that crippled Grand Forks in April 1997, the BND and state agencies worked with banks across the state to coordinate a relief effort that saved the city, unlike its sister city across the river in Minnesota, which lost nearly a fifth of its population after the floods (Garver, 2011). Indeed, the BND has successfully preserved the state’s financial system itself from crisis and fostered a thriving small-bank sector, whether by participating in loans, lending directly to North Dakota residents to finance their purchases of local bank stock, creating secondary markets within the state for SBA, mortgage and student loans, or by using its federal funds market access to purchase loans from smaller North Dakota banks during the current crisis (ILSR, 2011; Junker, 1989, pp. 148–149; Kodrzychi & Elmatad, 2011, p. 10). Such policies have created a ‘‘crowding in’’ effect (Judd & McGhee 2011, p. 7) for local banks and private funding, checking tendencies toward concentration, and keeping money, credit and capital local. They have also helped the state’s banks to stay liquid, stay focused on lending, and weather the recent storm (CSI, 2010, pp. 3–6; Judd & McGhee, 2011, p. 1). There were no bank failures in North Dakota during the financial crisis, which indicates in perhaps the most dramatic way the presence of second key condition for successful transposition and institutional change. As a proven alternative to money center banks and purely ‘‘market’’ based systems of intermediation, the BND hybridization of public ownership and private community banking provides a viable model for emulation and experimentation and a tangible foundation for introducing, advocating, and defending new logics and reforms in other settings. To be sure, crises and the presence of multiple orders or viable alternatives do not themselves yield change. To the contrary, exploiting those foundation for transposition and reform requires work, skillful action, and institutional entrepreneurship (Battilana et al., 2009; Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006). It requires as recent scholarship emphasizes: 1. the creation and mobilization of boundary or field spanning networks (Boxenbaum & Battilana, 2005; Djelic, 1998; Padgett & Powell, 2012);

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2. the organization of conferences and other face-to-face fora for making meaning, sustaining independent discourse, and forging collective identity (Phillips, Lawrence, & Hardy, 2004; Zilber, 2007, 2008); 3. the effective framing of alternatives and new logics (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012; Lounsbury, Ventresca, & Hirsch, 2003; Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005); and 4. the editing, recombination, and articulation of new logics and elements with local institutions (Berk & Galvin, 2009; Boxenbaum & Battilana, 2005; Campbell, 2004; Czarniawska & Joerges, 1996; Padgett & Powell, 2012; Sahlin-Andersson, 1996; Sahlin & Wedlin, 2008). All four processes or forms of institutional work were present in the case.

Boundary Spanning Networking First, supporters of the public bank model have forged a nationwide network of policy entrepreneurs, public interest organizations and advocacy nonprofits that spans regions, levels, and fields. Demos, a public policy and research organization based in New York and affiliated with The American Prospect, and the Center for State Innovation (CSI) based in the University of Wisconsin—Madison seem to be central nodes in the advocacy network. They have worked closely together and with veterans of the Service Employees International Union’s banking campaign to promote public banking, but have also connected with: the Institute for Local Self Reliance and its New Rules Project, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Minneapolis and Washington devoted to local community development in banking, energy, locally owned small business and other areas; the Public Banking Institute, a think tank and educational organization formed in 2011 to promote state and local publicly-owned banking; and other progressive groups, like the Center for Working Families. Since 2009, Demos and CSI have been active in conducting and coordinating research on the BND, developing policy briefs for state officials and legislators based on econometric analyses of the potential benefits of public banking in each state, and bringing state officials, regulators and policy advocates together with Bank of North Dakota officials. They have likewise been active in providing legislatures with model laws, working directly with treasurers and legislators to introduce bills in their states, testifying at hearings, as well as tracking bills’ progress and operating a clearinghouse for information about legislation across states.

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CSI, Demos, and PBI have also forged connections with a fairly extensive collection of state-level policy groups and nonpartisan advocacy organization in order to tap into existing coalitions and mobilize politically within the states to support specific legislation. These include Opportunity Maine, Pennsylvanians for a Public Bank, Illinois Citizens for Public Banking, the Main Street Alliance in Washington and other states, and Oregonians for a State Bank, many of which are themselves local, boundary spanning networks. Washington’s Main Street Alliance, for example, is both a chapter of a national federation and a network of small business owners, local business associations, and attorneys. Oregonians for a State Bank is a coalition of small business owners, farmers, faith groups, community bankers, and community organizations, embracing among others the Working Families Party, the Rural Organizing Project and Jobs with Justice. And as a key part of its strategy, Demos and CSI have forged ties with both sympathetic community bank owners to help them become active in state bank coalitions (and to bring them to conferences, see below), and with Bank of North Dakota officials and former officers, building bridges not just across sectors and levels, but also across domains populated by different logics.

Conferences: Making Meaning and Collective Identity In addition, public banking advocates have actively created fora for assemblies and face-to-face meetings in which activists and experts theorize possibilities, engage in dialog, develop independent discourses, and sustain a sense of common purpose and collective identity within the network core. Demos has regularly organized small conferences and plenary sessions challenging market logics and corporate dominance in banking and more generally. These include public events around the country like ‘‘Taking on Wall Street’’ and ‘‘Wall Street’s Game, Main Street’s Pain: the All Important Battle for Real Financial Reform’’ (http://www.demos.org/ events), as well as ‘‘Banking on America: A Conversation about State Partnership Banks,’’ a small conference cosponsored with CSI that assembled advocates, former BND officials, and legal scholars to consider design features of a public banking model and prospects for legislation. Similarly, the Public Banking Institute has convened a series of both public debates (http://www.publicbankinginstitute.org/debates.htm), and annual two-day conferences (http://www.publicbankinginamerica.org/conference2012.htm) on public alternatives to private banking. As venues for meaning

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making, theorization and sustaining independent discourses and collective identities, conferences like these can figure centrally in supporting institutional projects, especially when the relevant collectives or fields experience hard times or challenges (Zilber, 2007, 2008). Indeed, they may be uniquely important in a world where advocates of financialization, securitization and money center banking have ideologically captured the state, virtually monopolizing the means of intellectual production in finance, and exercising enormous influence over the ideas and discursive context in which the Federal Reserve, federal agencies, professionals and policy makers operate (Johnson & Kwak, 2010). Consider how its organizers and participants of PBI’s first annual conference in Philadelphia place themselves in the world, articulating and projecting possibilities and identities (see also Brown, 2011). The program boldly declares its agenda, ‘‘Public Banking in America: Democratizing Money, Restoring Prosperity,’’ across the bottom third of the program cover. A picture of Ben Franklin appears in the upper left corner, laid over an image of the Constitution with ‘‘We the peopley.’’ announcing the mission – self-governance – of the assembled presenters and participants. A crossroad sign on the right locates the audience in socio-political space, ‘‘Wall St. 1500 miles, Main St. Three blocks,’’ identifying the direction in which they shall move. Inside, the program proudly announces the collective proceeding’s moral provenance, grounding its efforts and identity in long standing roots, colonial America and the founding of the nation: The first US public bank was founded by the Quakers in Philadelphia. We are honored to be meeting in their hall, where we will observe a moment of silence in the Quaker tradition, in order to tune into their vision for a sustainable, democratic Commonwealth.

Yet, as the titles of presentations listed in Table 2 suggest, the proceedings mainly look to the present and forward, declaring at the outset and reaffirming throughout the pressing moral agendas, imperatives – and exciting possibilities – of public banking – an ‘‘America Beyond Corporate Dominated Capitalism,’’ a ‘‘Resilient Financial System,’’ a move ‘‘From Austerity to Prosperity.’’ They project promise and hope in the world, declaring a new pragmatism (‘‘Dropping Ideology and Doing What Works’’) and proclaiming new approaches, a ‘‘New Paradigm in Change in Finance,’’ and ways of thinking that escape exhausted antimonies and hold out new prospects for reform, moving ‘‘Beyond Left and Right’’ and ‘‘Working the ‘Edges’ Between the Public and Private Sectors.’’ They draw inspiration from, celebrate and scrutinize already existing possibilities and

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Table 2. Presentations and Keynotes. Friday

Saturday

Is there an America beyond corporate dominated capitalism? The Bank of North Dakota: Political struggle and economic realities From austerity to prosperity with publiclyowned banks Toward a resilient finance system: Working the ‘‘edges’’ The Bank of Canada: The People’s Bank? Foreclosures, eminent domain and public banking The promise of public banking State legislative update

Bankrolling the green transition Beyond left and right: Dropping ideology and doing what works University central banking: Financing the Great American Renaissance A new paradigm in change and finance: The end of financial crisis Redesigning America’s money system The surest way to overturn the existing basis of society Public banking: The foundation for free and fair markets Defending monetary reform Interest-free loans for spreading the real economy to every person

Source: From PBI Conference on ‘‘Public Banking in America: Democratizing Money, Restoring Prosperity.’’

established working models – drawing, of course, on ‘‘The Bank of North Dakota’’ but also ranging far and wide to ‘‘The Bank of Canada, A People’s Bank?,’’ ‘‘University Central Banking’’ and even the environmental sciences in their efforts to theorize, reimagine and redesign ‘‘America’s Money Systems.’’ And they invert or break the hold of neoliberalism on the imagination, whether by retheorizing the relation between market and state, finding new potentials and purpose in working the edges, making the short trip to Main Street, or in reinvigorating the public sphere, with public banking figuring prominently as the ‘‘The Foundation for Free and Fair Markets,’’ access to low cost capital, and an escape from austerity programs. Framing and Framing Contests Equally important, advocates have also looked outward toward the states in their politicocultural work, using framing strategies in position papers, media releases, policy reports, legislative preambles, public meeting, and hearings in order to support public banking proposals and mobilize legislators, local

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communities and business groups to the cause. In this work, promoters of the BND model have drawn deeply on broad cultural codes to: (a) provide diagnoses of problems that resonate with target audiences’ core concerns; (b) cast public banking measures both as credible solutions to those problems and consistent with highly salient identities and value commitments; and (c) respond directly to counter-frames in framing contests. State bank advocates faced two counter-frames that functioned almost as default options in public debates. These comprised a market liberal frame that invokes broadly resonant values and antimonies (market vs. state, freedom vs. oppression) to delegitimate public banking generally, and a comparative inapplicability/irrelevance frame that undermines transposition by focusing on particulars and isolating North Dakota as unique. Participants projected market liberalism quite bluntly. Karl Marx ‘‘would be proud of Bernero,’’ the Michigan GOP declared in response to a statebanking proposal by gubernatorial candidate Virg Bernero and senate Democrats, denouncing a party ‘‘agenda to take over every aspect of our private lives’’ (Gomsytn, 2010). An Independent Community Bankers of America official mobilized the same rhetoric three years later. A state-owned bank? Why don’t we just re-label the state capitols the Kremlin?yIt’s a socialistic idea. If you get a state-owned bank that is allocating credit, it can slide very quickly into a situation where those in favor get credit and those not in favor don’t get credit. (cited in Hall, 2013)

As did economic experts like the Boston Federal Reserve’s New England Public Policy Center, which combined market liberal frames with inapplicability/irrelevance arguments that sharply distinguished potential adopters from state-banking exemplars. Its 2011 report, ‘‘The Bank of North Dakota: A model for Massachusetts and other states?,’’ established ‘‘the context for considering a state-owned bank’’ by using charts and a discussion of the distribution across countries of ‘liberal’ (free of government control) and ‘repressed’ (government controlled) banking systems,’’ and by linking that binary to the ‘‘large divide’’ between developed and developing nations where ‘‘repressed’’ systems were more common (Kodrzychi & Elmatad, 2011, pp. 5–6). The report then posed the matter as one of ‘‘extrapolating North Dakota’s experiences in the early twentieth century to the circumstances facing Massachusetts and other states today.’’ And it devoted 7 of 20 pages to establishing differences in order of magnitude between the cases. It highlighted how Massachusetts ‘‘is about 11 times the size of the North Dakota economy’’; how North Dakota depends far more on agriculture and energy than other states; how the two

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states’ banking sectors ‘‘occupy opposite ends of the spectrum in the US,’’ reflecting idiosyncratic and ‘‘inherent economic and geographical characteristics’’ like North Dakota’s being a ‘‘sparsely populated rural state with numerous small relatively isolated banks’’; and, finally, how institutions already exist in Massachusetts to fulfill functions advocates assert for a BND model. Such contrasts placed North Dakota in an entirely different category than other states, rendering its institutions irrelevant as a model for potential adopters. Its ‘‘experience turns out to be less helpful than some commentators have suggested,’’ the report concludes, it is ‘‘an unlikely state from which to draw policy lessons for Massachusetts’’ (Kodrzychi & Elmatad, 2011, p. 4). For their part, CSI, Demos, and other state bank advocates mobilized three potent frames to support the BND and subvert rhetorical dismissals of the public bank model. They drew first on value commitments to Jeffersonian republicanism and a populist producerist localism that valorized state banking by juxtaposing Main Street middle class communities, economic self-sufficiency, local and small business development, and banking for investment in productive activities, on the one hand, against Wall Street institutions, concentration and economic dependence, predatory policies of giant, out-of-state banks, and banking for speculative profitmaking, on the other (see also Brown, 2010a, 2011). ‘‘High finance has failed local economies,’’ ‘‘big banks stop betting on Main Street,’’ ‘‘big out-of-state banks are failing Oregon small business,’’ ‘Massachusetts small business’ and small business elsewhere, Demos and its local partners repeatedly declared in policy reports and position papers, as ‘‘Washington bets on big banks,’’ bailouts, ‘‘consolidation and implicit subsidization of the ‘Too Big to Fail’ Wall Street bank business model’’ that swept up deposits and then abandoned local economies. ‘‘Now more than ever, the future of Washington’s [Oregon’s, Vermont’sy] middle class depends on the health of our small business,’’ briefs explained to state legislators. Yet the engine of a thriving small business economy – affordable credit – has stalled in our state since the financial industry set off the Great Recession in 2008. While [our state] has lostyjobsyand family farmland, the largest banks have returned to profitability after taxpayer bailouts. Many of these same banks have refused to restore lending for credit worthy business to pre-crisis levels. (Judd & McGhee, 2011e)

Such a frame lets advocates diagnose the problem and ground state bank proposals in immediate concerns about lack of credit, while appealing to increasingly salient republican-populist sentiments, and linking both to a

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proven solution. The financial and economic crisis, Demos and CSI stressed in their ‘‘Banking on America’’ report, have exposed how little control communities have over the local economies. When economic disaster hit, policy makers had few tools at their disposal to stop the flight money out of their local economies. States had no reliable way to keep money flowing to local banks, local businesses and local governments. All except one: North Dakota. (Judd & McGhee, 2011a, p. 2)

BND type banks, the report continued, ‘‘help small business [and] fulfill their local economy mandate by supporting the private community banks that our national banking policy has largely left behind’’ (Judd & McGhee, 2011a, p. 6). ‘‘States demand more local economic control,’’ and can use state banks for ‘‘putting Maine money to work for Maine,’’ Vermont money for Vermont, Maryland money for Maryland – ‘‘to keep public money home, where it will create new jobs y generate new revenue y strengthen local banks y and make public funds count’’ (Judd & McGhee, 2011a, 2011b, 2011c, 2011d, 2011e, 2011f, 2011g). Washington [State] can put deposits of state tax revenues to use in ways that tilt the economic playing field back toward Main Street businesses and our community banks, local infrastructure investments, and long-term job growth. A Washington Investment Trust – like the successful Bank of North Dakota – will generate new revenue for Washington, save local governments money, and make our business less dependent on the Wall Street banks that have cut back on lending to small businesses and consumers. (Judd & McGhee, 2011c, p. 1)

Populist republican themes of local self-governance and economic independence clearly resonated in the states, with locals and public officials amplifying and linking those frames to local contexts to support a BND model. They resonated on the left, who saw in the BND an ‘‘independent method of funding,’’ a lever against the ‘‘State/Capital cabal,’’ and a foundation for ‘‘sensible banking based on loans for productive enterprises, not derivative speculation’’ (Hall, 2013). They also struck chords on the opposite end of the political spectrum, including a Republican candidate for the Idaho state senate. An important part of sovereignty is the monetary authority. Currently, banks are allowed to multiply many times over the tax receipts deposited in their institutions. This special privilege is responsible for the ‘‘sucking sounds’’ in our local economies, as regional banks send their assets to central banks that are playing the derivative markets of the world. A state bank would restore this privilege to the people in a public trust and would give us the opportunity to back our deposits with the wealth of our public land. (cited in Brown, 2010b)

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Oregon officials likewise framed the crisis and way out. These included Treasurer Ted Wheeler, who posed the problem as ‘‘how to get capital flowing again’’ for small businesses in a ‘‘recovery that posts record profits for Wall Street, but [is] leaving Main Street behind’’ (Wheeler, 2011b), and gubernatorial candidate Bill Bradley, who saw the state bank as the means to both ‘‘put Oregonians back to work’’ and ‘‘declare economic sovereignty from multi-national banks that in large part are responsible for much of our current economic crisis’’ (cited in Brown, 2010b). So did drafters of legislation, whose preambles framed measures in populist, local developmental and producerist terms. For California legislators, a state bank was a solution to ‘‘bankruptcies among small businesses and individuals,’’ tight credit, and the limited resources of ‘‘local communities y to address their economic and community development challenges’’ (AB2500, February 24, 2012, Chapter 1). For Washington’s, it was a solution to how ‘‘the lack of accessible capital’’ has deepened hardships of ‘‘working families and business,’’ and provided legislators with the means to ‘‘best direct economic developmental policy initiatives, build a strong and resilient economy, and use the people’s collective resources for their own benefit’’ (Washington SB 5238: 1). And for New Mexico’s, it was the way to both promote ‘‘a balanced and productive economy’’ and ‘‘encourage the flow of private capital for investment in productive enterprises’’ (HB290: 2) Second, advocates mobilized a partnership banking frame which distinguished the BND model from statism, defining a third option that escaped market liberal antinomies, and highlighting how BND programs are joint private/public ventures that support rather than displace community and private banking. Policy reports and position briefs increasingly cast proposals and the BND model as ‘‘partnership banks’’ or ‘‘Main Street partnership banks’’ in order to clarify its core role, dispel anxieties about socialism, and link the proposal to voluntary, private action. Demos and CSI took great pain to thus frame matters to the states. In an FAQ brief, they emphasize that the Partnership Bank works with community banks to ‘‘help increase a private bank’s lending power and small business’s job creating power’’ (Judd & McGhee, 2011h). They then consider the boundary between public and private action, ‘‘Q: Does a Partnership Bank Compete with community banks?’’ A: No. In fact, as ‘‘participation lenders,’’ Partnership Banks are designed to complement community banks, not compete with them. Partnership Banks are primarily banker’s banks and do not have branches. They generally do not originate business loans, take in deposits from businesses or individuals, or offer consumer banking products y.

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Not competing over loans A partnership Bank has no interest in competing for the origination or refinance of private loans, so private banks need not fear that allowing participation will lead to a loss of customers. Not competing for deposits A Partnership Bank can be prohibited from taking private deposits, as well as local government depositsy. Overall competitiveness of the banking market Due in part to BND’s supportive roleyNorth Dakota has more community banks that Hawaii, Maine and New Hampshire combinedy The North Dakota Bankers Association and its member banks strongly support the Bank of North Dakota. (emphases in original; Judd & McGhee, 2011h).

‘‘We were designed and set up to partner with [private sector banks],’’ BND president Eric Hardmeyer explained in an interview with Mother Jones, ‘‘not to compete with them. So most of the lending we do is participatory in nature’’ (Harkinson, 2009). Drafters of legislation also took pains to frame measures in these terms. ‘‘Rather than competing with private banks,’’ a Hawaii measure’s preamble emphasized, ‘‘the Bank of North Dakota has created partnerships with over one hundred other North Dakota financial institutions to assist them in meeting the needs of the citizens of North Dakota’’ (Hawaii HB 853: HD1). In its first lines, Maine’s bill for a Main Street Development Bank stressed its roles of ‘‘increasing access to capitalyin partnership with local financial institutions’’ and providing financial stability, ‘‘but not to compete with state-chartered community banks, credit unions or other financial institutions’’ (Maine HP 1066: 1). And to avoid ‘‘the mistake of hir[ing] new public employees to compete against Oregon’s network of community banks and credit unions,’’ Treasurer Ted Wheeler cast his state’s proposal in the Oregonian as a ‘‘’virtual state bank’’ that would ‘‘unlock additional lending capacity in partnership with existing institutions,’’ arguing that ‘‘we don’t need a new bricks and mortar institution in your town – or anywhere else in Oregon’’ (Wheeler, 2011a). Finally, advocates mobilized economic pragmatism/fiscal conservatism frames that emphasized facts, experience and rational assessment over ideology and that cast the BND as a practical solution to credit problems which can also help states balance budgets and raise revenues without raising taxes. The BND is ‘‘A Solution from the Heartland,’’ declared CSI

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and Demos in their materials for the states, a characterization that moved the BND from the periphery to the center, drew analogies between exemplar and potential adopters audience, and invited listeners to join a peer group of sober, rational folks with solid heartland sensibilities. ‘‘We’re a fairly conservative lot up here in the upper Midwest,’’ BND’s president Eric Hardmeyer emphasized his interview, And we didn’t do any subprime lending and we have the ability to get into the derivative markets and put on swaps and callers and caps and credit default swaps and just chose not to do it, really chose a Warren Buffet mentality – if we don’t understand it, we’re not going to jump into it. (Harkinson, 2009)

Furthermore, in presenting the BND model to the states, CSI, Demos and their local partners both appealed to facts and experience and deepened analogies and relevance in two ways. They used econometric analyses to determine the benefits that adopting a BND model would yield for each particular state, providing estimates of the number of added jobs, growth in lending and new revenues for the state. And they picked up on a BND practice of using stories of small businesses helped by the Bank to ground the institution in experience, juxtaposing those with hardship cases for small businesses in Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and elsewhere, and redefining the relevant comparisons as practical, sober folk in places where small business, independent farmers and local communities still matter.

Editing and Recombination Last, but not least, advocates and public officials working to transpose the Bank of North Dakota/state bank model edited the original model, and recombined its elements in various ways to fit the innovation with receiving states and the local lingua franca. Editing involved decomposing and trimming the BND model’s elements in response to local concerns and condition, producing a new stand-alone institution with most or some of the BND’s key features. Recombination involved decomposing the model to fit, fold, and integrate key elements into already existing state development or lending programs. Oregon Treasurer Ted Wheeler expressed the logic of this strategy in his ‘‘virtual’’ bank proposal. [S]ome say we should follow the footsteps of North Dakota. After all, its model has worked very well for the state. But I’m urging our state’s leaders to craft an Oregon solution. There are elements of North Dakota’s approach that are not workable here [including] a new brick and mortar institution [or hiring] new public employees. (Wheeler, 2011a)

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Such elements may even include deposit taking as a funding basis. And as a political matter, trimming, reconfiguring and integrating elements with existing programs is one way to ease opposition and make innovations palatable, facilitating transposition. Table 3 maps the key elements of the institution proposed in each of the 21 bills introduced in the 12 states where bill were introduced between 2009 and 2013 to create a state, public or development bank. Multiple bills were introduced in four states. The table codes the proposed institutions for how they would obtain funds (the first group of features), whether and how they can loan or use funds (the second group), and whether they would serve as a banker’s bank (the last line). An ‘‘X’’ in the table denotes the grant to the institution of a power or specific authority; no ‘‘X’’ indicates the absence of a specific authorization or power or the imposition of a ban or restriction on the proposed bank’s powers or scope. The 12 bills on the left create deposit-taking institutions; those on the right create institutions funded from other sources. Moving from left to right represents a progressive trimming of the BND model. The set on the right reflect an effort to decompose and recombine elements of the BND model into existing programs. A number of states sought to create full-fledged or even slightly expanded versions of the BND, as seen most dramatically with the five bills on the left hand side. All propose new stand-alone deposit-taking institutions, authorize them to take deposits from state institutions and require state agencies to deposit their funds the bank. Two authorize taking deposits from private individuals and institutions. All five also grant the institutions a full range of lending powers, explicitly authorizing loans to public institutions, participation loans, loans to various private parties or all types of lending, with no restriction on the types of loans it can make. And all authorize banker’s bank functions. Yet some proposals trimmed elements to help fit the model to local contexts. The Massachusetts partnership bank proposal, Hawaii’s SB194, the Colorado initiative and the California measure left the core of the BND model intact, creating stand-alone banks with mandated public deposits, authorization to make participation loans via community banks, as well as loans to private borrowers and/or public agencies. But the Massachusetts measure trimmed away bankers’ bank functions (but added bonding authority); the Hawaii measure trimmed banker’s bank functions and was less generous in explicitly authorizing direct lending to private and public borrowers; and the Colorado and California measures, while either keeping banker’s bank functions and/or authorizing direct lending to public

X X X X X

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X X X

X X X

X X X X X X

X

X X X

X X X X X

X X X X X X

X X

X

X X X X X

X X X X X

X X X

X X X

X X

X X X

X X X

X X

X X

X X X X X X X X X

X X

X X

X

X X X X

X X

X X

X X

X X X

X X

X X X X

X X X X X

X X X X X

X

C

X

C

X

X

X

X

X X X X X X

X

X X X

KEY: Deposit: bill authorizes deposit taking of any sort (X=Yes) Public authorized/Public required: bill authorizes accepting deposits from state agencies/requires states to deposit funds (X=Yes) Private auth’d/Private not banned: authorizes deposits from private parties (X=Yes)/does not ban private deposits (X=no ban, no X=ban) Bonds/State funds: bill grants bonding authority/access to specific state funds (X=Yes) Public loans/Participation: bill authorizes lend to public agencies/participation loans via community banks (X=Yes) Private authorized: bill explicitly authorizes direct lending to private borrowers or lending to all borrower types (X=Yes) Private not banned: bill does not ban lending to private parties (X= No ban, no X=ban) General purpose: bill allows lending for any purposes (X=Yes, no X=loans only for special purposes) Banker’s bank functions: bill authorizes reserve deposits, check clearing and other banker bank services (X=Yes) ‘‘C’’ indicates coordinating or advisory body without explicit lending authority  measure passed

Deposit Public authorized Public required Private authorized Private not banned Bonds State funds Public loans Participation Private authorized Private not banned General purpose Bankers bank

Editing and Recombination of State Bank Proposals in the States.

X

X

WA WA AZ IL IL MA HI CO CA MT OR WA ME OR OR OR OR OR NM LA WA HI

Table 3.

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agencies, expressly banned taking private deposits (removing one potential source of competition for private banks). Measures in Montana, Oregon (HB2972) and Washington (HB2434) did more drastic surgery and cut more to the core, lifting the requirement that state agencies deposit their funds with the bank, and in the Washington bill, also restricting lending to new and existing public infrastructure. And in Maine, legislators probably went as far as possible while staying with a stand-alone bank, proposing one that could not take private deposits, that could accept, but not require public deposits, and that could lend though commercial banks, to public agencies, but not directly to private parties. The other group of eight measures more radically decomposed the BND model and abandoned its deposit-taking features entirely in favor of ‘‘banks’’ or coordinating bodies funded from existing state funds or specialized lending programs dedicated to specific purposes. All of these proposals involved isolating, combining or folding the directed lending elements of the BND into already established economic and development agencies. Lawmakers in Oregon, for example, began with the bill noted above for a somewhat edited stand-alone bank funded from public and private deposits. But they worked to dispel opposition and further harmonize innovation with existing institutions with bills that simply created instead a Board or Financing Authority within the state to consolidate and more efficiently direct some existing lending programs (HB3452, SB889, HB4040) or simply to coordinate with relevant agencies as to their use (SB889A; HB2519). ‘‘This bill has been labeled the ‘State Bank Bill’,’’ Treasurer Wheeler once again explained, but ‘‘does not set up a capitalized financial institution. The result is going to be a ‘bank’ in the sense that a ‘bank’ can be a repository and coordinator of resources – like a ‘seed bank’ or a ‘blood bank’’’ (Wheeler, 2011b).

The Outcomes of these Efforts have been Striking Crisis. Proven alternatives. And deep and sustained institutional work, including the mobilization of advocacy networks across sectors and states, conferences for supporting meaning making, dialog, independent discourse and collective identity, framing and rhetorical activities that struck deep chords on the left and right, and sustained editing and recombination of innovation to support transposition. The odds from the perspective of recent institutional theorizing seemed stacked. And the outcomes of all that institutional work are striking.

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Of the 17 bills introduced in 12 states to commission studies on the feasibility of adopting and implementing the BND model, one and only one passed, in Massachusetts. Whether or not that was a broader success is debatable, as that was the study gave the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston an opportunity to contest and reframe the Bank model as irrelevant and inapplicable. Of the 21 bill introduced in 11 states providing for the creation of some version of the North Dakota state bank model, efforts went furthest in Oregon and Washington. But even in combination, the activities, accomplishments and events that prior work associates with successful transposition bore remarkably little fruit, leaving the logics of localism, public ownership and state-supported community banking associated with the BND effectively sealed off in North Dakota. One and only one measure passed, Oregon’s HB4040 (starred in Table 3), a measure which created not a new stand-alone deposit-taking institutions, but simply a Growth Board that consolidated existing funds and programs mainly for venture capital loans to seed start-ups. ‘‘This is most decidedly not a state bank,’’ CSI partner Oregon Working Families complained, highlighting what was lost in transposition. [In] many instances the community banks don’t even know of the existence of these fundsy[The bill] leans heavily toward venture capital investments (and grants) rather than participations with community banks and credit unions y The State’s $10 billion plus in the Short Term Fund will still go to Wall Street banks, with the resultant investment and profits leaving the State. The [Fund] will not be run by bankers and will have as a principle purpose the stability of our local banking sector. (Oregon Working Families Party 2012, emphasis in original)

CONCLUSIONS/IMPLICATIONS What, then, accounts for what looks like a consistent failure to transpose the core of the North Dakota state bank model into other states? In tackling that question, the case poses a cautionary tale and an analytical dilemma both for 1) actor-centered institutionalisms that emphasize the potency of generative, reflexive action, and 2) emphases on the explanatory power of mechanisms that neglect the structural conditions under which mechanisms become efficacious. Two potential answers to the question are that institutional entrepreneurs involved were insufficiently skillful and that change takes time, due partly and simply to inertia. Absent arguments that specify precisely what skills are

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needed, how one might empirically determine their presence (or absence), and how long one should wait, such claims remain unacceptably post hoc. That said, there is some evidence from interviews and the bills themselves that some proposals and supporting rationales were sometimes too hastily crafted to be effective, raising concerns among local advocacy groups and banking law experts that safeguards against moral hazards including the political use of bank funds were not fully worked out. Moreover, time frames and failure rates typically associated with legislative proposals that eventually pass in the American states may exceed two years and 1 out of 21 by an order of magnitude. Other, more intriguing possibilities, involve: (1) the prevalence of societal level ‘‘meta’’ logics or ideologies of anti-statism, neoliberalism and the market that make defending and transposing any kind state bank an impossibly steep rhetorical or discursive uphill battle, (2) the broader balance or configuration of political forces and coalitions surrounding banking and finance in the states, and (3) state structural forces rooted in political gridlock in legislatures. Each of these arguments are quite plausible and gain some traction in the evidence. BND President Hardmeyer is an ‘‘unabashed champion of his bank’s success,’’ the American Banker reported in its interview, but ‘‘he is also ‘‘brutally honest’’ and points directly to such meta-logics. ‘‘In the age of Tea Parties and ‘government is the problem’ rhetorics, he says, the possibility of starting a state-owned bank now seems wildly optimistic’’ (Garver, 2011). Indeed, the Fed’s intervention and report one month later directly mobilized those meta-logics, highlighting the possibility that some actors and bricoleurs are a priori more potent discursively and better equipped to dominate framing contests than others, whether due to their alignment with broader societal logics, their place in power structures, or both. Moreover, real politics proved decisive at key junctures, as in first round efforts in Hawaii, where a full feature state bank pit national and local advocacy groups, organizations representing distressed homeowners and Hawaii nonprofits against the unified opposition of the state’s banking association, its credit unions, bank regulators and the department of finance. Perhaps less relevant here or in other states like Oregon were direct interventions or political organizing by money center banks than more structural forms of power, community bank fears of competition, and their worries over transition costs, including the potential of disrupting or disturbing their depository arrangements with local municipalities and relations with bigger banks on whom they depend (Garver, 2011; Jacklet, 2011; Kodrzychi & Elmatad, 2011, p. 19; Matthews, 2013; Van den Heuvel,

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2011). Those key coalition partners balked, at least initially. And while repeated trials, editorial and recombinatorial work, reframing, and extended networking in Hawaii, Washington, Oregon and elsewhere made serious headway in uniting conservatives with Democrats and in getting local banks on board with small business suffering from a credit squeeze (Moberg, 2011; Swearington, 2013), a political standoff between the two parties killed Oregon bill HB2519, leaving it to die in session. Fully nailing down which factors mattered awaits systematic comparative and sequential analyses of the legislative histories of the bank bills. But the observations just considered raise the prospect that even the most skilled advocacy group/nonpartisan policy organization centered effort is not quite up to the task of transposing state banking and its core elements across states, no matter how effectively it builds boundary spanning networks, retheorizes possibilities, sustains independent discourses, frames a BND model, or creatively edits and recombines its elements. They suggest instead that little is likely to happen in the states, even incrementally, absent a more broadly-based producerist or anticorporate movement that could authoritatively contest neoliberal frames, overcome gridlock either by threatening or replacing recalcitrant political incumbents, and produce or credibly threaten either enough support or enough disruption to overcome community banker concerns. In the final analysis, power-politics, dominant societal logics of neoliberalism, the power of some players to frame debates, and politycentered dynamics of gridlock may explain the failure of institutional entrepreneurs to transpose the logic and core forms of the Bank of North Dakota outside that state. But invoking those kinds of forces poses a troubling dilemma for incrementalist and actor-centered approaches. It risks shifting the explanatory terrain back toward broader, more structuralist claims about isomorphism, constraint, political dominance, and macro-cultural determinisms that recent emphases on action, the creative capacities of border-crossing recombinant entrepreneurs, and mesoor micro-level mechanisms hoped to escape. Can we imagine any accumulation of small victories, any crises more potent than the recent debacle, any amount of institutional work or reflexive action, or any set of entrepreneurs with sufficient skills that could successfully transpose a stateowned and operated bank into other states in the US in this era of financialization? Or are constraints in this case so overwhelming that they render such efforts moot? Such a dilemma will force analysts to rethink more carefully the relationship between structural factors and institutional work, to re-embed actors and mechanisms in their contexts, and return, but hopefully with new

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lenses, to the structuralisms and increasingly multilevel institutional systems that had been set aside. In fact, this is the very imagery put forward in the institutional logics perspective (Thornton et al., 2012) and work on fields and emergence (Campbell & Pederson 2014; Fligstein & McAdam, 2012; Padgett & Powell, 2012) that emphasize the need to focus on cross-level dynamics and embed actors within their wider institutional and interinstitutional milieu. Such a dilemma will also push researchers to consider new ways for how empirical research might proceed in that effort. The Bank of North Dakota case highlights the central methodological importance of studying failures– cases of wholesale (or near wholesale) failures to diffuse or transpose. The idea that studying success cases and that finding recombination and other forms of institutional work creates potentials for premature inference is well understood, prompting analyses of cases with both successes and failures. But even this strategy might fall prey to ‘‘selective sampling of empirical settings’’ (Denrell & Kova´cs, 2008) insofar as it still selects for partial successes, leaving aside – and begging questions about – cases in which no amount or combination of framing, recombination, meaning making or boundary spanning activity will yield diffusion, transposition or change. Actor-centered institutionalism rightly asserts the leverage of cases of change where structural conditions seemed to preclude transformation, but the converse methodological claim also holds.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank Michael Lounsbury, Patricia Thornton and other participants in the ABC network conference, ‘‘Organizing Institutions: Creating, Enacting and Reacting to Institutional Logics,’’ held in Banff, Canada on June 14-16 for helpful comments and suggestions. I also thank the staff at Demos and the Center for State Innovation for allowing me to participate in some of the conversations and Erdis Ovel Perla, Jr., Vasishth Srivastava, and Joseph Warren for their research efforts and assistance. Any errors of commission and omission are, alas, mine.

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APPENDIX: A NOTE ON SOURCES Fig. 1 and the analyses in Table 3 relied on a compilation and coding of legislative bills to commission studies or create state banks since 2009. I identified and compiled legislative proposals in a multistep process. I began with the listings of bills maintained by the Public Banking Institute (http:// publicbankinginstitute.org/state-info-htm) and the Center for State Innovation (http://www.stateinnovation.org/statebanks.aspx). I followed up each lead through web searches of newspaper article, magazine, or blog mentions of the bills, by searching the web site of local advocacy partners, and by searching the web sites of each of the state legislatures. Together, these yielded detailed legislative histories and copies of the bills or initiatives as they were introduced, amended, reintroduced, decided upon or allowed to die in committees. The bills charted in Fig. 1 and tabled in Table 3 reading from the left are: Washington HB1320 and SB5238, Arizona HB214, Illinois HB 2064 and HB5476, Massachusetts HO1192, Hawaii SB194, Colorado #95, California AB2500, Montana HB643, Oregon HB2972, Washington HB2434, Maine HP1066, Oregon HB3452, SB889, HB4040, SB889A and HB2519, New Mexico HB290, Louisiana SB233, Washington HB2040, and Hawaii HB2103. Authorities for making special purpose loans were created by WA HB2434 (public infrastructure and student loan guarantees), LA SB233 (transportation projects), WA HB2040 (mainly public works), HI HB 2103 (to acquire distressed homes).