Institutions and Ideology [1 ed.] 9781848558670, 9781848558663

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INSTITUTIONS AND IDEOLOGY

RESEARCH IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF ORGANIZATIONS Series Editor: Michael Lounsbury Recent Volumes: Volume 15: Volume 16:

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Postmodernism and Management: Pros, Cons and the Alternative Legitimacy Processes in Organizations Transformation in Cultural Industries

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Professional Service Firms The Sociology of Entrepreneurship Studying Differences between Organizations: Comparative Approaches to Organizational Research

RESEARCH IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF ORGANIZATIONS VOLUME 27

INSTITUTIONS AND IDEOLOGY EDITED BY

RENATE E. MEYER WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria

KERSTIN SAHLIN Uppsala University, Sweden

MARC J. VENTRESCA Oxford University, UK and Naval Postgraduate School, USA

PETER WALGENBACH Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Germany

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

Emerald Group Publishing Limited Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK First edition 2009 Copyright r 2009 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. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the text, illustrations or advertisements. The opinions expressed in these chapters are not necessarily those of the Editor or the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-84855-866-3 ISSN: 0733-558X (Series)

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CONTENTS LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

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IDEOLOGY AND INSTITUTIONS: INTRODUCTION Renate E. Meyer, Kerstin Sahlin, Marc J. Ventresca and Peter Walgenbach

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GLOBAL ORGANIZATION: RATIONALIZATION AND ACTORHOOD AS DOMINANT SCRIPTS Gili S. Drori, John W. Meyer and Hokyu Hwang

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INSTITUTION, PRACTICE, AND ONTOLOGY: TOWARD A RELIGIOUS SOCIOLOGY Roger Friedland

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PARADIGM SHIFTS AS IDEOLOGICAL CHANGES: A KUHNIAN VIEW OF ENDOGENOUS INSTITUTIONAL DISRUPTION Rick Vogel

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INSTITUTIONAL STREAMS, LOGICS, AND FIELDS Giuseppe Delmestri

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DOMINANT LOGIC, CULTURE AND IDEOLOGY Alistair Mutch

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‘‘BIRTHING’’ VERSUS ‘‘BEING DELIVERED’’: OF BODIES, IDEOLOGIES, AND INSTITUTIONS Elke Weik

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CONTENTS

MODELING FOUCAULT: DUALITIES OF POWER IN INSTITUTIONAL FIELDS John W. Mohr and Brooke Neely

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WORK, CONTROL AND COMPUTATION: RETHINKING THE LEGACY OF NEO-INSTITUTIONALISM Jannis Kallinikos and Hans Hasselbladh

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INSTITUTIONAL ENTREPRENEURS PERFORMING IN MEANING ARENAS: TRANSGRESSING INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS IN TWO ORGANIZATIONAL FIELDS Ann Westenholz

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Giuseppe Delmestri

University of Bergamo, Italy

Gili S. Drori

Stanford University, USA

Roger Friedland

University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

Hans Hasselbladh

Stockholm University, Sweden

Hokyu Hwang

University of Alberta, Canada

Jannis Kallinikos

London School of Economics, UK

John W. Meyer

Stanford University, USA

Renate E. Meyer

WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria

John W. Mohr

University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

Alistair Mutch

Nottingham Trent University, UK

Brooke Neely

University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

Kerstin Sahlin

Uppsala University, Sweden

Marc J. Ventresca

Oxford University, UK and Naval Postgraduate School, USA

Rick Vogel

University of Hamburg, Germany

Peter Walgenbach

Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Germany

Elke Weik

University of Leicester, UK

Ann Westenholz

Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

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IDEOLOGY AND INSTITUTIONS: INTRODUCTION Renate E. Meyer, Kerstin Sahlin, Marc J. Ventresca and Peter Walgenbach The common denominator among researchers of ideology is, apart from the very broad understanding that the term is related to ‘‘ideas,’’ that it is a muddy, nebulous, slippery, chameleon-like concept, an ‘‘almost inexhaustible topic’’ (Therborn, 1980, p. 1). According to McLellan (1986, p. 1), ideology is even ‘‘the most elusive concept in the whole of social science.’’ Indeed, the range of definitions and meanings is so diverse that its usefulness as an analytical category has been questioned altogether. Berger and Luckmann (1966, p. 204, footnote 100), for example, complain that the ‘‘term ‘ideology’ has been used in so many different senses that one might despair of using it in any precise manner at all.’’ Ideology is not only one of the most elusive and colorful concepts in social sciences, it is also among the most loaded and contested. The debate transcends a number of disciplines – philosophy, political science, sociology, and others – and ontological and epistemological positions. While the engagement with ideology is still vibrant in critical strands of research (for critical management research, see, e.g., Grey & Willmott, 2005; Mumby, 2004; Alvesson & Willmott, 1992, 2003; Deetz, 1992; Alvesson, 1987, 1991), the recent cultural turn in sociology, linguistics, social movement theory, and organizational research has interestingly remained disinterested in matters of ideology. This particularly seems to be the case Institutions and Ideology Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 27, 1–15 Copyright r 2009 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X(2009)0000027002

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for organizational institutionalism: Cultural analysis is central to the core theorization and empirical work of the approach and ideology was a frequent reference in some of the earlier publications in this field (e.g., Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Boli-Bennett & Meyer, 1978; Brunsson, 1982; DiMaggio, 1983; Meyer, 1986; Thomas, Meyer, Ramirez, & Boli, 1987; Barley & Kunda, 1992; Guille´n, 1994). Indeed, the founding texts in the organizational institutionalism tradition challenged students of organizations to understand ‘‘institutionalized organizations as myth and ceremony’’ (Meyer & Rowan, 1977), to study ‘‘collective rationality in organizational fields’’ (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983) and to recognize the value of ‘‘ontology and rationality’’ (Meyer, Boli, & Thomas, 1987) as a starting point for empirical study. In their pioneering contribution, Meyer and Rowan (1977, p. 345f.) argued that ‘‘the postindustrial society – the society dominated by rational organization even more than by the forces of production – arises both out of the complexity of the modern social organizational network and, more directly, as an ideological matter.’’ Yet, the latter concept is seldom brought explicitly into the current research conversation (for exceptions, see, e.g., Levy & Scully, 2007; Frenkel, 2005; Creed, Scully, & Austin, 2002; Fiss, 2003). In fact, the term is often only mentioned in passing, that is, without defining or discussing it. The term ‘‘ideology’’ is currently more vivid at the periphery of institutional research, especially at the crossroads to critical approaches (e.g., Mohr & Neely; Westenholz, both in this volume) or the framing approach to social movements (e.g., Davis, McAdam, Scott, & Zald, 2005). Thus, while we see a proliferation of work on discourse, belief systems, meanings, and institutional logics, ideology itself seems to be out of fashion. Therefore, why do we believe that it is important to recharge the debate? Why do we believe that institutional theory is the place to do so? For one, the silence with regard to ideology is surprising since many of the core concepts of institutional theory, such as institution, legitimation, social categories, institutional logics, and theorization, are, in one way or another, closely related to the notion of ideology. The most distinctive and generative contributions of theory and research in organizational institutionalism are centrally concerned with (contested) systems of meaning, collective rationality, taken-for-grantedness, and variants of Selznick’s (1957, p. 17) classic definition of institution as ‘‘infused with value beyond the technical requisites.’’ In short, a distinguishing feature of the new institutionalism is the focus on cultural elements. Moreover, the concept of ideology has highlighted a range of issues that still deserve our attention and are in fact at the center of the current

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institutional research agenda. For example, the renewed focus on actors and interests (e.g., Lawrence, Suddaby, & Leca, 2009), the sociopolitical and cultural embeddedness of agency (e.g., Schneiberg & Clemens, 2006; Fiss & Zajac, 2004; Clemens & Cook, 1999), frames (e.g., Kaplan, 2008; Fiss & Zajac, 2006; Lounsbury, Ventresca, & Hirsch, 2003), inhabited institutions (e.g., Hallett, Schulman, & Fine, 2008; Hallett & Ventresca, 2006), and the notion of institutional entrepreneurs (e.g., Hardy & Maguire, 2008; DiMaggio, 1988) point out once more the relevance of ideology for institutional theory. At the same time as institutional scholars started calling for more attention to meaning (Zilber, 2002, 2008), other scholars began demanding closer attention to power, domination, and inequality (e.g., Khan, Munir, & Willmott, 2007; Lounsbury, 2003; Phillips, 2003; Lounsbury & Hirsch, 1996; Perrow, 1985) – the dark side of institutions and institutional entrepreneurship. This brings ideology – Thompson (1996, p. 7), for example, defines ideology as ‘‘meaning in the service of power’’ – into the center of the institutional research agenda. The chapters in this volume address several of these topics in more detail. A central question for institutional research is of course the relationship between institutions and ideology, which was more central in earlier publications than it is today. For John Meyer, for example, to whom the institutional research tradition owes much more than its starting signal, institutions are fundamentally ideological in the sense that they constitute social entities and the social categories that are at the foundation of any social order. ‘‘Hence,’’ Meyer et al. (1987, p. 29) contend ‘‘in modern social systems, it is fruitful to see social structures not as the assembly of patterns of local interactions but as ideological edifices of institutionalized elements that derive their authority from more universal rules and conceptions.’’ In the world polity approach, institutions and ideology are so closely interwoven that the concern for how institutional structures legitimate and empower social entities as ‘‘actors’’ is tantamount to the question of how ideologies construct social agency. In this sense, Drori, Meyer, and Hwang (in this volume) argue that ‘‘rather than seeing ideology masking unjust conditions of power or material domination, rationalization [y] is fundamentally a cultural process that constitutes and elaborates social entities as actors with ontological standing in the collective project of progress and justice.’’ Similarly, for Friedland (in this volume; see also Friedland & Alford, 1991), institutions shape and transform the social categories through which individuality is created and enacted. Thus, they are inherently ideological not only by legitimating a certain social order but by constituting this order in the first place. Friedland (in this volume) points out that ‘‘institutions are ideological

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formations, not just in the sense that they are organized around languages that legitimate power as control over persons and things, but in that they produce powers by authorizing practices that constitute subjects and objects through which the authority relation is organized.’’

CONCEPTIONS OF IDEOLOGY, A BRIEF REVIEW In this brief review, we do not attempt to provide a comprehensive overview of how the concept of ideology has developed in the different perspectives; this has been done in several publications that classify and discuss ideology in great detail (see Chiapello, 2003; Thompson, 1996; Eagleton, 1991; Lenk, 1984; Therborn, 1980; Larrain, 1979, among many others). However, the brief sketch below is intended to help us find venues for combining theories of ideology and institutions. Furthermore, it helps us to place the chapters of this volume in this broader context. Coined in revolutionary 18th-century France as ‘‘science of ideas,’’ the term ideology became famous because of the Marxian notions of false consciousness and commodity fetishism. In research on ideology, in general, the wide variety of definitions is arranged between two polar traditions stretching from a critical to a neutral – or sometimes even positive – connotation of the term. Basically, the two poles, as sketched below, span from Marx’s ideology critique to Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge. Multiple other conceptualizations are located between these two research traditions (e.g., Eagleton, 1991, p. 28ff.). As is widely known, the Marxist legacy emphasizes ideology as an illusion, a distorted image of the real world. Ideology obscures reality and makes it inaccessible to human recognition. This notion may be best expressed by the famous passage by Marx and Engels (1990, p. 27) in which they compare ideology with a camera obscura that represents the world upside down. In everyday language, the word ‘‘ideology’’ is still typically used in a disreputable and pejorative sense, normally to discredit the perspectives of one’s opponents. Obviously, any image of distortion or false representation of reality is, ontologically, bound to the existence of an undistorted reality and, epistemologically, presupposes that this reality can be known. These assumptions are often reflected in the contrast between science and ideology. Mannheim’s (1972) answer to false consciousness is the argument of Standortgebundenheit, and, thus, the relationism of all knowledge, the denial of the existence of an Archimedian point from which reality can be objectively known. In Mannheim’s total conception – which encompasses

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the Weltanschauung of a social collective or epoch with its entire categorical apparatus – ideology becomes a general problem of epistemology: All human thought is historically and culturally situated, that is, anchored in a socio-historical context, and this context is constitutive for content. Since all knowledge is relational and can be understood only with reference to these socio-historical circumstances, no human thought and no knowledge (according to Mannheim, with the exception of mathematics and natural sciences) is immune to the ideologizing influences of its social context. What is more, relationism is not a flaw of knowledge that ought to be overcome, but its very condition. Without hope to ever grasp the whole, Mannheim urges us to retrieve as many different perspectives as possible. The group in which Mannheim invested his hopes to possibly achieve a synthesis of all the different perspectives is the ‘‘freefloating intelligentsia.’’ Hence, the two primary poles in the conceptualization of ideology are separated not only by different definitions but by different epistemological perspectives. These research traditions obviously appeal differently to more critical approaches to organizational research and to more cultural ones. Institutionalist notions of ideology are essentially shaped by the approach’s phenomenological legacy and roots in sociology of knowledge and are therefore closer to a culturalist sense of the concept. In a cultural tradition, ideology is rooted in the anthropological embrace of symbols and meaning and is in fact constitutive of social reality, albeit one that is collectively constructed and inevitably socially mediated. Ideology is conceptualized as Weltanschauung, a belief system and representations that are shared by the members of a social collective. However, the downside of such a broad cultural understanding is, of course, that if all belief systems and social representations are ideological, the concept itself becomes all-encompassing and, thereby, redundant. In this sense, Therborn (1980, p. 5f.) criticizes that ‘‘these all-embracing definitions [y] drown everything in the same water.’’ In a similar vein, Vogel (in this volume) notes that ‘‘as long as the concept of ideology is used interchangeably with other core categories in institutional analysis, it provides terminological variety, but not analytical value added.’’

IDEOLOGY, INTERESTS, AND INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS In particular, broad cultural perspectives of ideology have been criticized for their non-interest-based, apolitical approach (see, for instance, the debate in the Academy of Management Review more than two decades ago between

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Weiss & Miller, 1987; Beyer, Dunbar, & Meyer, 1988; Weiss & Miller, 1988). The main argument is that by deflecting attention from the political nature inherent in ideological systems, scholars in fact normalize ideology, neutralize it, and run the risk of doing exactly what ideology does: obscure this very bias. Hence, several authors from various disciplines and research traditions tie their understandings of ideology to political interests. From a social movement perspective, Zald (1996, p. 262), among others, regards ideology as ‘‘the set of beliefs that are used to justify or challenge a given social-political order and are used to interpret the political world.’’ From a pragmatist research tradition, ideology is a ‘‘linked set of beliefs about the social or political order’’ entailing an evaluative component and a central claim to morality or judgement (Fine & Sandstrom, 1993, p. 23). And from an institutional perspective, Delmestri (in this volume) contends ‘‘that only by readdressing the ideological interest-laden component of institutional logics, which has mostly been disregarded in new institutionalism [y] can we understand and explain today’s globalized world and the grip that similar institutional logics hold on entire spheres of material life in several countries and places.’’ Berger and Luckmann assert that not all social knowledge is ideological and tie their understanding of ideology to power interests and, further, contestation. According to them (1966, p. 123; similarly, Berger & Kellner, 1984, p. 65), ‘‘[w]hen a particular definition of reality comes to be attached to a concrete power interest, it may be called an ideology.’’ In addition, they argue, it makes little sense to speak of ideology if everyone in a society ‘‘inhabits’’ the same universe: ‘‘The distinctiveness of ideology is rather that the same overall universe is interpreted in different ways, depending upon concrete vested interests within the society in question’’ (1967, p. 123). Similarly, as Mutch (in this volume) points out, for Archer ‘‘the key point about ideology is not just that it involves the identification of the interests of a particular group with a particular set of ideas, but that conflict between ideas exists both at the level of ideas and at the level of social groups.’’ van Dijk (2001) also rejects an all-pervasive view of ideology and calls the ‘‘cultural common ground,’’ that is, cultural knowledge that is shared across ideological group boundaries, non-ideological. ‘‘Indeed,’’ he argues (van Dijk, 2001, p. 16), ‘‘despite their fundamentally opposed opinions about immigration, for instance, both racists and antiracists share at least some general knowledge about what immigrants, countries, passports, and borders are.’’ However, defining ideologies as constitutive of subjects and objects leaves no space for apolitical knowledge or realities no matter how uncontested they might be. In a similar vein, Stinchcombe (1982, p. 147) calls deeper social categories the

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‘‘ideological raw material’’ from which order is constructed. Just as in the debate on the multiple faces of power (Bachrach & Baratz, 1962; Lukes, 1974; Clegg, 1989), the absence of any (visible) form of contestation may in fact be an indicator for ideology working at its best. Hence, to intertwine ideology and contestation would also make necessary a debate on ideologies as foundation of totalitarian systems (e.g., Arendt, 1951), or the relation to total institutions (Goffman, 1961). For institutional theory, the question of how to disentangle ideology and shared belief systems is of course especially challenging with regard to the relationship between ideology and institutional logics (e.g., Friedland & Alford, 1991; Thornton & Ocasio, 1999; Thornton, 2004; for an overview, see Thornton & Ocasio, 2008), a concept that is currently making a substantial impact on institutional research. However, explicit cross-references are rare. Institutional logics were originally conceptualized by Friedland and Alford (1991, p. 248) as material practices and symbolic constructions that constitute an institutional order’s organizing principles and later by Friedland (2002, p. 382) as ‘‘cosmology within which means are meaningful, where means-ends couplets are thought appropriate and become the naturalized, unthought conditions of social action, performing the substances at stake within them.’’ A very similar definition is provided by Simons and Ingram in their study on organization and ideology; however, they do not define institutional logics but rather ideology. They note, ‘‘Ideology is a set of beliefs about how the social world operates, including ideas about what outcomes are desirable and how they can best be achieved’’ (Simons & Ingram, 1997, p. 784). Three pages later, they add, ‘‘Attention to ideology suggests a simple theory of action: actors will pursue the ends their ideology values using means derived from their ideology. In this way, ideologies provide a set of first-order organizing principles’’ (Simons & Ingram, 1997, p. 787). We wonder if the exchange of the terms ideology and institutional logic would make a conceptual difference, particularly when taking into consideration that Friedland (in this volume) regards institutions as fundamentally ideological and that he and Alford criticized the lack of politics as one of the most serious drawbacks of almost all cultural approaches (Friedland & Alford, 1991, p. 253). Still, we would assume that many institutional scholars would refuse to use institutional logics and ideologies synonymously. The understanding of institutional logics as socio-historical belief systems that guide practices in an organizational field extends this question to another prominent concept in institutional research: organizational fields. While in their famous 1983 article, DiMaggio and Powell describe one of the components of the process of institutional definition of a field, the field

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structuration, as ‘‘the development of a mutual awareness among participants in a set of organizations that they are involved in a common enterprise’’ DiMaggio (1983, p. 148); in the same year, DiMaggio (1983, p. 150) speaks of ‘‘the development, at the cultural level, of an ideology of the field.’’ Scott (1994, p. 207f.), in his much-quoted definition of organizational field, explicates, ‘‘The notion of field connotes the existence of a community of organizations that partakes of a common meaning system and whose participants interact more frequently and fatefully with one another than with actors outside the field.’’ Are these meaning systems to be equated with ideologies? Is the notion of institutional logic an opportunity to talk about ideology without calling it ideology? And if not, what differentiates ideology and institutional logic on a conceptual level? The authors in this volume address this question differently. Mutch prefers Archer’s ‘‘cultural logic’’ over ‘‘institutional logic.’’ Vogel suggests differentiating: ‘‘While the term of institutional logic emphasizes the conflation of symbolic constructions and material practices, capturing both, ideology only refers to the former, being reliant on, but separated from, material practices. Thus, ideology and institutional logic, though empirically interwoven, are kept conceptually separated in order to preserve their analytical usefulness. Ideologies are the nonobservable and ideal part of an institutional order which is, and must be, related to material practices.’’ For Delmestri, ‘‘ideologies are the institutionalized interest-laden glue justifying material practices through, and connecting them to, the symbolic constructions that make up institutional logics’’; for Weik, ideology is the link between institutional logics and individual choice. Hasselbladh and Kallinikos are reluctant in using the term ‘‘ideology’’ at all. Instead, they refer to ‘‘institutional logics’’ only. As the following chapters illustrate, the link between institutions, logics, or fields on the one hand and ideologies on the other is not an easy but a challenging one. Seeing the increasing role of ideas and interests in organizational institutionalism (e.g., Scott, 2008; Campbell, 2004) and the call for more structural and political ‘‘grounding’’ (e.g., Lounsbury & Ventresca, 2002), we hope that this volume will inspire a lively debate.

OUTLINE OF THE VOLUME In this brief introduction to the volume, we do not wish to engage in the lengthy debate on what ideology is or how it functions, nor did we encourage the authors of this volume to add another definition to the

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myriad of those that already exist. Our goal in this volume is more modest: We want to encourage re-engagement with the notion of ideology in contemporary institutional research. The chapters to follow all deal with the relationship between institutions and ideology – some in a very cautious way and others in a more explicit way. Focusing on the global expansion of formalized organization across different sectors, levels, and national societies, in ‘‘Global Organization: Rationalization and Actorhood as Dominant Scripts,’’ Gili Drori, John Meyer, and Hokyu Hwang find hyper-rationalization and actorhood to be the driving themes. They argue that rationalized models of organizing and organization that have come to dominate the world society and structure a wide range of activities carry an ideology that emphasizes empowered and responsible actorhood. Although creating winners and losers, they argue, this cultural process ‘‘occurs at the global level in the absence of a clear gravitational center of power.’’ In the second chapter of this volume, ‘‘Institution, Practice, and Ontology: Toward a Religious Sociology,’’ Roger Friedland explores institutions as religious phenomena and politicized religion as an institutional project par excellence. Taking his seminal work on institutional logics further, he explains that an institutional logic is a set of material practices organized around a particular substance that is the unobservable ‘‘sacred core’’ of each institutional field and the principle of its unity. Institutions, he contends, have a logic because the practices, cultural categories, and the unobservable substance are co-constitutive. Institutions depend on the faith in these invisible substances and institutional logics on making the invisible visible. It is not in the sense of legitimating power but by constituting subjects and objects and, thus, powers, Friedland argues in this chapter, that all institutions are inherently ideological formations. Rick Vogel (‘‘Paradigm Shifts as Ideological Changes: A Kuhnian View of Endogenous Institutional Disruption’’) deals with the relationship between institutions and ideology by re-reading Thomas Kuhn’s (1970) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and addressing the notion of a (scientific) paradigm through the analytical lens of new institutionalism. He thereby generates interesting insight into endogenous institutional change. Vogel dissects Kuhn’s dialectical approach to ideology to show that ideologies can be both a stabilizing force in the scientific process and a starting point for change. If the current ideologies do not lead to adequate behaviors to solve present puzzles, they lose their legitimacy, which opens up the possibility for a paradigm shift. In this sense, ‘‘ideologies have an expiration date,’’ which gives rise to a new paradigm.

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In his chapter on ‘‘Institutional Streams, Logics, and Fields,’’ Giuseppe Delmestri sheds new light on the diffusion of institutions across cultures. A key point in his chapter is the view of institutions as products of legitimating discourses and as patterns of action and thought in an institutional context. He defines ideologies as the link between material practices and symbolic constructions in institutional logics. Referring to Czarniawska and Sevo´n (2005), he argues that ideologies, upon which institutions are built, may have a life of their own. They travel either as symbolic systems of abstract ideas or as institutional streams with an ordering potential when carrying elements of taken-for-grantedness. However, institutional logics or ideologies can penetrate institutional contexts only if they help actors to link material practices with specific identities and social worlds. Alistair Mutch’s chapter on ‘‘Dominant Logic, Culture and Ideology’’ exceeds the confines of institutional theory. To deepen the cultural turn in institutional analysis and to provide an alternative to the current focus on institutional entrepreneurship, he suggests learning from critical realism and cultural sociology. Building on a discussion of possible links between the understandings of ideology by Archer and Wuthnow and the notion of institutional logics, he explains changes in logics in the UK brewing industry. His longitudinal study explores in particular how ideologies, even when they remain linked to the interests of particular groups, are riven with contradictions and, ultimately, strengthen other actors and provide them with space in which to develop alternatives. In ‘‘ ‘Birthing’ versus ‘Being Delivered’: Of Bodies, Ideologies, and Institutions,’’ Elke Weik analyzes how broader belief systems shape the cognition and behavior of actors. Comparing German and Dutch practices of childbirth, she shows the interplay between institutions, agencies, and agents in both countries and elucidates how multiple competing logics, contestation of meaning, and practices evolve. Applying Giddens’ theory of modernity and Friedland and Alford’s (1991) model of institutional logic, she argues that competing institutional logics provide individual actors with a choice between several ideologies concerning the same topic, each providing a distinct social identity. In her case study, she especially highlights the material side of ideology and identity – ‘‘body styles’’ as part of the identity construction – and offers new insight on various topics, especially on the influence of individual actors, either as professionals with strategic interests or as agents construing their identity. John Mohr and Brooke Neely argue in ‘‘Modeling Foucault: Dualities of Power in Institutional Fields’’ that from the beginning, institutional theory has always been a transformed ideology theory, and thus, critical ideology

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theory and institutional theory share intellectual lineage and cross-linkages. In this spirit, they read Foucault as an institutionalist and use his work as a guide to generate new insight into the question of how power and ideology operate within institutional fields and constitute institutions as dually ordered systems of truth and power. Empirically, they explore historical data on New York carceral organizations in the late 19th century and apply structural equivalence techniques to model and measure patterns in the data and decode different modalities of power. They impressively demonstrate how subject categories in an underprivileged domain are created together with the categories of ‘‘treatments’’ they receive and how subjection and microphysics of power operate at the level of the institutional field. Jannis Kallinikos’ and Hans Hasselbladh chapter on ‘‘Work, Control and Computation: Rethinking the Legacy of Neo-institutionalism’’ pleads for breaking with the conventional outlook in new institutionalism that considers technology outside the object of institutional analysis of organizations. They argue that the distinctive regulative logic of computational technology which is manifested in the increasing entanglement of domainspecific practices and their underlying cognitive and normative order with the decontextualized principles and methods that have traditionally been deployed in the management and control of work operations needs to be addressed in institutional analysis. Finally, Ann Westenholz asks in ‘‘Institutional Entrepreneurs Performing in Meaning Arenas: Transgressing Institutional Logics in two Organizational Fields’’ how the transgression of the institutional logics of two contradictory organizational fields into a new practice – commercial open source software – occurred. She argues that bringing together traditions of critique of ideology critique and critique of new institutional theory enhances our understanding of political and discursive processes. Ideologies are equated with meaning systems that allocate subject positions and social identities. Instead of one or a few, the study finds many different and scattered institutional entrepreneurs at various levels of legitimacy, the joint effort of whom brought about the change. The volume greatly benefited from the help of many colleagues who devoted their time and energy to reviewing earlier versions of the chapters in this volume. We thank Doug Creed, Marie-Laure Djelic, Michael Dusche, Royston Greenwood, Raimund Hasse, Bob Hinings, Alfred Kieser, Hans Kippenberg, Giovan Francesco Lanzara, Manfred Lueger, John Meyer, Kamal Munir, Alistair Mutch, Gerardo Patriotta, Sigrid Quack, Trish Reay, Marc Schneiberg, Tino Scho¨llhorn, Eero Vaara, Elke Weik, Hugh Willmott, and Arnold Windeler.

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We are also indebted to the authors of this volume for their willingness to engage in intense debates on the relationship between institutions and ideology. Furthermore, we especially thank the editor of Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Mike Lounsbury, for the opportunity to publish the volume at hand. Finally, we thank Susan Dortants for her language editing assistance for all non-native speakers.

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GLOBAL ORGANIZATION: RATIONALIZATION AND ACTORHOOD AS DOMINANT SCRIPTS Gili S. Drori, John W. Meyer and Hokyu Hwang ABSTRACT One of the dominant features of the age of globalization is the rampant expansion of organization. In particular, formal, standardized, rationalized, and empowered forms of organization expand in many domains and locales. We discuss these features of organization, showing that hyperrationalization and actorhood are main themes of organization across presumably distinct social sectors and national societies. We explain the ubiquity of such organizational forms in institutional terms, seeing the global culture of universalism, rationality, and empowered actorhood as supporting the diffusion of managerial roles and perspectives.

INTRODUCTION In this chapter, we discuss the modern global expansion of rationalized models of organizing and organization. These models stress a distinctive sort

Institutions and Ideology Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 27, 17–43 Copyright r 2009 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X(2009)0000027003

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of formalized organization and carry an ideology emphasizing empowered and responsible actorhood. Relevant themes flow around the world, in good part independent of nation-state boundaries. They flow between private and public structures and across essentially all social sectors – for example, business, religion, education, medicine, and recreation. They flow between very central locations in organizational hierarchies and the details of local settings. And strikingly, they flow back and forth between high academic theory, dominant organizational structures, and conventions of practice. These models, in short, help build a world in which highly standardized forms of organizing can be found in the widest variety of countries, sectors, and levels. We analyze why this expansive trend of organizational rationalization, based on strong assumptions of agency and actorhood, occurs. Modern organization involves both hyper-rationalization and dramatic emphasis on actorhood. These two features are intertwined, marking organization in the age of globalization as distinct. The core themes of our analysis of the expansion and diffusion of ‘‘organization’’ are as follows. First, we observe that modern organizations are expected to be bounded, purposive, and rationalized sovereign actors, with great capabilities for effective action toward goals (Brunsson, 1989; Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000). Second, such organizations are seen as necessary and effective in an increasingly globalized (or Europeanized) environment. And third, this is true as the modern environment comes to be seen as highly rationalized and scientized and filled with empowered human agents. Under these conditions, effective organizing – standardized across time and space and social sectors – is both possible and progressive (Drori, Meyer, & Hwang, 2006b). Taken together, these notions about organizing and organization set an ideological basis for today’s managerial and governance schemes. Rationalization, in its varying forms, is a very long-term trend in Western history. Many of its earlier manifestations – the old-style bureaucracy, the traditional family firm, or the classic professional organization (e.g., a hospital or a university) – are clearly undercut by the rise of the forms of rationalized organization we explore here. The older forms were inconsistent with the organizational actorhood that characterizes the modern organizational revolutions (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000; Meyer, 1992). We begin our discussion with an example illustrating the rationalized and scripted character of the modern organization. We then turn to theoretical reflections about the character and culture of the modern global environment that supports the expansion and diffusion of models of the proper organization as a highly rationalized actor. We then survey examples of rationalization across social sectors and across national or cultural

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boundaries. The goal of this survey is to illustrate the expansive nature of organizational rationalization. In the research literature, it is common to take for granted the general global rise in organization, as if it were an endogenous – almost teleological – process driven by the functional demands or power centers of an inevitable global expansion. In reaction, we emphasize that the whole massive organizational explosion of since the middle of the twentieth century is surprising and that its ubiquity calls for explanation. Traditional explanations in terms of local functionality or interest constellations do not adequately account for the extraordinary organizational elaboration involved; they also fail to account for the commonalities across societies and social sectors routinely observed. An Example Consider the following planned organizational reform: Ten expected results: 1. [Local unit] programs that were established, continued, and discontinued on the basis of vulnerability, potential impact, capacity, and [the organization’s] comparative advantages. 2. Quality criteria for service delivery and advocacy in each of the core areas, adopted through policy decisions at national and international levels. 3. [Organization]-wide evaluation system that showed measurable progress in all core areas and a process of achieving the characteristics of a wellfunctioning [local unit]. 4. [Local units] that work with different models of [personnel] engagement. Decision-making bodies that reflected the population with balanced gender, ethnic, and youth representation. 5. [Local units] with more diversified and sustainable financial resource base. 6. An organization that mobilized people and influenced decisions in each core area. 7. Cooperation strategies agreed upon by all, framing humanitarian and capacity-building cooperation programs between [local units]. 8. Increased availability of information, demonstrated information sharing, and learning from experience, regionally and internationally. 9. More [local units] contributing internationally on a long-term basis to development cooperation. 10. All components developed and implemented in parallel against a common strategy for the movement.

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We observe here a 10-year strategic plan of a prominent international organization (quoted from Quelch & Laidler, 2003, p. 27). Elaborate rationalization is involved, along with a dramatic emphasis on organizational accountability. With slight changes in wording, it could describe organizational reform in any locale around the world or in any social sector. The conundrum of such organizational reforms is that their schematic approaches to organizational reform drain plans and organizations from distinct identities or goals. References to humanitarian work, local units, and advocacy provide hints to the organization’s identity, but had these been replaced by profit or subsidiaries, it would be easy to mistake the case for a transnational corporation. This seems to follow from the fact that ‘‘best practice’’ models tend to be conceived as universal and thus eliminate from the individual case much of its individuality. Here – in the ‘‘universalism of particularism’’ (Robertson, 1994) or in the dialectics of ‘‘totalizing and individualizing’’ practices (Foucault, 1977, 1991) – lie the dialectics of organizational rationalization and actorhood. ‘‘Best practice’’ scenarios in the current world are scripts of standardized actorhood, and modern formal organization, because it involves extensive rationalization, generates reliance on formulaic plans. Thus, the fact that the reform plans above describe what was once thought to be a very distinctive organization – the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) – tends to disappear. Along with the name of the distinct organization, schematic plans for reform of what were once distinct challenges and operations also tend to disappear in ‘‘Strategy 2010.’’ Their disappearance is a response to extensive rationalization and to the dominance of standardized notions of organized actorhood. Homogenization is, therefore, the result of the increasingly global reaches of organization and rationalization. It is an outcome of the global rationalization processes involved. In this chapter, we illustrate the expansive nature of models of the organization as rationalized actor, relying on historical accounts of organizational change across different societies and societal sectors. We suggest the extraordinary range of dimensions on which rationalized formal organization arises – across social sectors, around the world, and over time. Our review emphasizes some major dimensions of the modern model of the organization: strategic planning, personnel policies, and formalized and differentiated structures. We observe that rationalization is intertwined with the construction of actorhood, transforming modern organizations into highly agentic and proactive social entities (Drori et al., 2006b). Before turning to the descriptive empirical material, we reflect theoretically on the forces producing the expansion and diffusion of the rationalized

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organized actor. We are interested in the social and cultural conditions that have transformed entities like the International Red Cross, formerly understood to be very unique and particular, into social structures that can now be described as standard instances of organization.

RATIONALIZED ORGANIZATIONAL ACTORHOOD The formalization of social relations is a ubiquitous feature of the modern era. Activities from production and mass education to charity are recast as formal organizations: they become firms, educational organizations, and nonprofits. This has long been a tendency in the stateless American society, as classically observed by Alexis de Tocqueville (1836/2002). The underlying analytic argument is that rationalized actorhood is a cultural ideology that supports social order and control in an expansive stateless society. In the current era, similar conditions of statelessness and expansive organization are evidenced worldwide. While both the reality and the perception of globalization have intensified dramatically since the twentieth century, no world government or other centralized authority emerged to coordinate or control intensifying globalization. In addition, the nationstate as the sovereign mechanism of control, challenged by both the market and the civil society, as well as transnational and sub-national forces, has weakened substantially. Parallel to the earlier American history, a diffuse structure of authority has created opportunities and demands for expanded subunit actorhood. Under such conditions, cultural emphases on rationalized organizational actorhood have become a global feature: formal organizations dramatically multiply worldwide (Drori et al., 2006b, pp. 2–7). The associated formalization of social life is depicted as progress in the achievement of effective social integration, control, and action by theorists from Tocqueville, Dewey, and Mead to contemporaries like Putnam (2000). And it is often criticized as suppressing creativity and diversity and community (e.g., Lewis, 1922; Riesman, 1950; Whyte, 1956). In any case, the expansion of modern organizational formalization has far exceeded any growth in functional complexity. In spite of the common view of formalization as a response to the needs of a growing population and of a more complex economy, we observe that the rates of organizational proliferation outpace growth in population or in economic capacity – in national, sub-national, and international spheres (Drori et al., 2006b, pp. 7–12). Therefore, the construction of world society as an associational society has been largely a cultural phenomenon. Globalization has propelled the proliferation of the formal organization in volume and in reach (Boli &

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Thomas, 1997, 1999). Moreover, the organization that arises globally is of a particular kind. It is formal, rationalized, and empowered organization. Rationalization is a quintessentially cultural process. It refers to ‘‘(1) continuing efforts to systematize social life around standardized rules and around schemes that explicitly differentiate and then seek to link means and ends; (2) the ongoing reconstruction of all social organization – both social activities and social actors, y as means for the pursuit of collective purposes, these purposes themselves subject to increasing systematization’’ (Jepperson, 2002, p. 257). Through the transformation of social life around means-ends logic, the celebration of efficiency, and the valorization of credentialed expertise, rationalization becomes a most pervasive cultural force. Thus, while rationalized action is sometimes explained by long-term competitive evolution and increasing sociotechnical complexity, it is clear that rationalization involves a great deal of cultural enactment, and this enactment relies on images and identities of a broad environment. In Weberian terms, the impact of rationalization is not in the mechanistic routines that it establishes but rather in the ‘‘spirit’’ that it settles on modern social arrangements: ‘‘In the last resort the factor which produced capitalism is the rational permanent enterprise, rational accounting, rational technology and rational law, but again not these alone. Necessary complementary factors were the rational spirit, the rationalization of the conduct of life in general and a rationalistic economic ethic’’ (Weber, 1961, p. 260). The cultural construction of organization as rationalized actor is clearly supported by the rapid globalization perceived in the world of the past half-century and may well reciprocally reinforce the actualities and perceptions of globalization. This period is one of expansion, with increased economic, political, military, social, and cultural interdependence, both actual and perceived. These expansions do not take the form of classic state-building, which might have provided answers to questions of social order, since there is no prospect of an overarching sovereign structure bringing order in the stateless world society (or even in Europe). Instead, sweeping sociocultural movements, promulgated by the widest variety of professional and associational structures, build a global society (Boli, & Thomas, 1997, 1999; Drori et al., 2006b). Much rationalization is achieved through (social) scientific analysis and is based on scientized authority (Drori, Meyer, Ramirez, & Schofer, 2003; Drori & Meyer, 2006a, 2006b). And, accompanying something of a delegitimation of the authority of the traditional national(ist) state, we observe much expansion in emphases on the rights and capacities of individual persons. Both rationalization and actorhood are embodied in the extraordinary worldwide expansion of

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education in the post-war period (Drori et al., 2003; Schofer & Meyer, 2005).

Rationalized Organizational Actorhood as Ideology In this cultural context, the ideological celebration of rationalized organizational actors as natural units of social life makes much sense. The natural and social worlds, formerly filled with the arbitrary and unknown, are now scientifically analyzable places. Arbitrary environments have become the tamed ‘‘uncertainties’’ that call for competent rational analysis and action: modern schooled humans are seen as endowed with extraordinary rights and capacities, not only to act agentically on their own, but also to assemble in and contribute to participatory organizations of every sort. Rationalized organization, therefore, seems to have become the preferred ideology for structuring the widest range of activities across different social contexts. ‘‘Ideology’’ is a loaded term, with a long and complex lineage that cuts across several disciplines and theoretical persuasions (Guille´n, 1994; Thompson, 1984). The central lineage reaches back to the Marxian notions of false consciousness and commodity fetishism. It has been reconceptualized in multiple ways, from the crude, now largely rejected conception of false cognition, or ideology as an inversion of reality, to ideology as the legitimation of dominant groups, and to the more diffuse notion of ideology as stemming from ‘‘the material structure of society as a whole’’ (Eagleton, 1991, p. 30). Despite the varied ways in which the term is used in the abundant literature on ideology, it often retains its close affinity with analyses rooted in conceptions of power, interests, and domination. For instance, Thompson (1984, p. 4) proposed that ‘‘To study ideology y is to study the ways in which meaning (or signification) serves to sustain relations of domination.’’ Rather than seeing ideology masking unjust conditions of power or material domination, rationalization (as discussed in this chapter) is fundamentally a cultural process that constitutes and elaborates social entities as actors with ontological standing in the collective project of progress and justice (Meyer, Boli, & Thomas, 1987). In this context, the value attributed to a model (practice, structural element, or idea) helps drive its enactment: formal organization is prevalent in many social environments (across fields and across countries) because of the qualities attributed to it, such as rationality and agency. Its prevalence in many different social environments with widely different material conditions and power

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constellations questions its primary dependence on simple interest or power relations. It is promulgated by a broad set of participants in world society, especially the professions and their specialized international agencies, as appropriate bases for action and order in this society. And, finally, the expansion of formal organization occurs at the global level in the absence of clear gravitational center of power – that is, with no world state or unified global ruling class (Drori et al., 2006b; Meyer et al., 1987). No one international organization – neither a corporation nor an intergovernmental agency – has been particularly important in delivering the sweeping global changes involved. And the expansion of the field of international action only works to further diffuse the authority of any single group. Dominating participants in world society such as the leading national states (e.g., the United States) and the leading capitalist firms have by no means been special protagonists for the organizational rationalization of everything from hospitals to charitable associations. Rather, rationalization and the change towards rationalized governance are sweeping worldwide processes (Drori, Jang, & Meyer, 2006a). A reasonable use of the term ideology, for our purposes, thus sees rationalized organizational actorhood as a general cultural interpretive scheme (for a similar usage, see Guille´n, 1994). In the particular case we examine here, the ideological models help make sense out of activity prospects of all sorts in an expansive globalizing world with limited prospects for legitimate centrally imposed order. They provide models of governance for society as a whole, including most prominently supranational society.

Rationalized Organizational Actorhood as Governmentality Foucault’s term ‘‘governmentality’’ is directly linked with the mechanisms of state control, and thus, the development of the concept is intertwined with the history of the modern nation-state. With the emergence of national government as the dominant mode of power in the eighteenth century (supported by the burgeoning fields of science), new apparatuses of control were consolidated to address the problem of growing population and its well-being (Foucault, 1991, p. 102). This mode of governmentality is the ‘‘conduct of conduct y a form of activity aiming to shape, guide or affect the conduct of some person or persons’’ (Gordon, 1991, p. 2) and refers not to the ‘‘institution of the state, but to the new tactics of management and methods y and draws on the micropowers of discipline’’ (Mitchell, 1999, p. 88). Governmentality integrates both individualizing and totalizing

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tendencies, and its disciplinary power structures modern individuals and their actions (Foucault, 1977). There remains, in modern uses of the concept of governmentality, ambiguity about whether the term refers to cultural dimensions of state power or rather (as in our usage here) forms of social control operating outside any state or power structure. Recent analyses, paralleling our own, have picked up the issue in the context of the declining Keynesian welfare state and the shift toward a neo-liberal social order and toward globalization. What is conventionally considered to be the ‘‘retreat of the state’’ (Strange, 1996), in this line of research, may be ‘‘a positive technique of government’’ and may suggest ‘‘ ‘a degovernmentalization of the State’ but surely not ‘de-governmentalization’ per se’’ (Barry, Osborne, & Rose, 1996b, p. 11; Rose, 1996, 1999; Rose & Miller, 1992). This may mean the emergence of a new form of governmentality that produces ‘‘governmental results through the devolution of risk onto the ‘enterprise’ or the individual (now construed as the entrepreneur of his or her own ‘firm’) and the ‘responsibilization’ of subjects who are increasingly ‘empowered’ to discipline themselves’’ (Ferguson & Gupta, 2002, p. 989). Obvious changes in the scope and nature of global authority structure, which challenge the control of the state through the integration and expansion of the number and types of global players (see, for example, Ottaway, 2001; Pattberg, 2005), have also challenged the use of the term ‘‘governmentality’’ to describe the current mode or logic of control. Even recent analyses that specifically consider governmentality in the era of globalization and neo-liberalism (Barry, Osborne, & Rose, 1996a; Rose, 1999) still feature the state as dominant. For example, Kerr (1999, p. 174), in his redefinition of governmentality as ‘‘governmental rationality,’’ declares the state as the primary mechanism of power and control, even in the age of greater individual choice and transnationality (see also Gordon, 1991). The current nature of governance (as globalized, decentralized, rationalized, and empowered) requires a substantive reconstruction of the term, as in the suggestion by later Foucauldians to explore it as ‘‘mentalities of rule’’ (Lemke, 2001, p. 194). For example, Rose (1999, p. 5) views the state ‘‘as one element – whose functionality is historically specific and contextually variable – in multiple circuits of power, connecting a diversity of authorities and forces.’’ Similarly, Ferguson and Gupta (2002, p. 990) have argued that the devolution of state functions to non-state entities that are increasingly connected to the global system as a significant feature of ‘‘transnational governmentality.’’ Such attempts to re-orient the notion of ‘‘governmentality’’ to the new conditions of globalization and its multiplicity of players and

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mechanisms of influence strain the original Foucauldian intent. They make it difficult to make a plausible case for governmentality without government. If the use of ‘‘governmentality’’ is anchored in the analysis of the mechanisms of control and the role of the state, retaining the assumption that some (possibly hidden) centers of power operate to generate the new rules and technologies, it is problematic in describing the current world order. But inasmuch as discussions of governmentality emphasize the constitutive and transformative effect of enacted models, codifying expectant formats and behaviors, it has much in common with the idea of rationalization. As a pervasive cultural process, rationalization involves extensive standardization and anchors it with the legitimacy of standard-generating organizations. Modern organizations draw much of their legitimacy from the power of their expertise and their scientized approaches to solving social problems. And scientized approaches also set the bases for empowerment strategies, further enhancing the role of organizations and their standardized scripts. Overall, therefore, formal organization diffuses as a highly scripted social form. There are standardized ways to outline goals and plans, map organizational resources, or define decision structures and control systems. In the following section, we illustrate the extent of rationalization across social sectors (education, religion, management) and across countries.

INSTANCES ACROSS SECTORS AND SOCIETIES Taking a macroscopic view, we provide below examples of organizational rationalization, across social sectors and around the world, over the twentieth century. To consider varying degrees of rationalization, (a) we describe changes in international organizations in the fields of business, security, education, humanitarian work, and religion; then (b) we describe such changes in one particular sector, namely, higher education, in various countries. In choosing our examples for discussion from the available literature, we are far from any systematic sampling model. To observe and describe a broad range of processes and instances of organizational rationalization, we maximize variation across social sectors and societies and illustrate the pervasive character of the phenomena we analyze. In doing so, we consider three basic dimensions of rationalization and suggest concrete indicators to assess change on each of these dimensions:  The rise of formalized planning: methodical and scientized approaches to organizational action. This is evidenced by the expansion of strategic

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planning and the formal and explicit depiction of overall goals, means, and resources.  Rationalized personnel arrangements. These explicate role specification, the elaboration of professionalized credentials, and training. They are suggested by the rise of human resources divisions, standardized managerial titles (e.g., chief executive officer), and the formalization of role articulation.  Rationalized structure: articulated differentiation and justification of production and control processes through systematizing core tasks and regularizing quality control. These are evidenced by the proliferation of organizational charts, elaborated goal statements, definitions of tasks, as well as procedures and metrics for assessing quality. In all these areas, one consequence of organizational rationalization is standardization – a phenomenon that can also be treated as an independent dimension. Everywhere, we observe the employment of standard measures of resources, activities, and outputs. The use of elaborate accounting and reporting arrangements is worldwide, as is organizational subscription to a variety of external standards and standardizing organizations. Standards emerge not just from the International Standards Organization system but also from many sites for voluntary, ‘‘soft law’’ (Drori et al., 2006a).

Rationalization across Sectors We consider one (international) nongovernmental or nonprofit organization per field and review evidence of rationalization in each organization’s history. For our cross-sector comparisons, we chose Interpol (International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO)) for security, Harvard Business School (HBS) for education, the Catholic Church for religion, and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies for humanitarian work. Observations Rationalization is indeed prevalent across social sectors and around the world and intensifies over time. More organizations today have strategic plans (Hwang, 2006), focus on governance strategies (Drori, 2006). Furthermore, more organizations are guided by professional managers and accountants (Jang, 2006; Moon & Wotipka, 2006) and conform to universalized standards (Mendel, 2006). The extent of rationalization goes

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beyond the frequency or volume of (rationalized) activities and procedures and to the core nature of such activities and procedures. The Red Cross’ Strategy 2010, introduced earlier, is the pinnacle of the organization’s long-term strategic planning. Strategic planning initiatives are codified in declarations, treaties, and charters and formalize the organization’s expectations, relations, and structure. Adopted in October 1999, Strategy 2010 outlines a 10-year plan, specifying 3 core issues and 10 expected results and aims to establish ‘‘a new capacity-building culture’’ (Quelch & Laidler, 2003, p. 11). The Red Cross also instructs its national societies to explicate and formalize their strategic plans and to derive such plans from the IFRC’s listing of principles. ‘‘In 2002, 80% of National Societies had a development plan that had been updated within the last five years’’ (Quelch & Laidler, 2003, p. 14). A best practice tool titled ‘‘National Society Self-Assessment’’ serves as the basis for strategic planning in national societies. The scheme for a ‘‘well-functioning’’ national society consists of explicit categories: foundation (issues pertaining to mission, legal status, and constituency), capacity (leadership, human resources, as well as financial and material), and performance (activities, relevance, and effectiveness). Monitoring, assessment, and reporting are core practices for strategic planning in the Red Cross (Quelch & Laidler, 2003, pp. 20–22). Evaluation is depicted as a peer-review, horizontal process rather than mechanical and hierarchical (Quelch & Laidler, 2003, p. 14). The formal explication of goals extends to the symbolic matter of the logo. Like other international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), the Red Cross is now focused on its brand valuation and emblem design, involving its leadership in lengthy discussions about the strategic importance of sponsors, partners, and clients. The leaders of the Red Cross imagine that the organization should appeal to its clients and partners, given the increasingly crowded field of humanitarian aid. IFRC’s focus on the emblem, or logo, also suggests the pervasiveness of market competition and selection, which have been less salient in the nonprofit sector. Cross-fertilization between organizational types also appears in the rationalized nature of personnel arrangements. This is most clear in the recruitment of managers and other professionals. Didier Cherpitel, the Secretary General of IFRC (as of 2003), spent 30 years of his career with JP Morgan before joining IFRC in 2000. Cherpitel brought business ideas to IFRC, most clearly the strategic thinking that enhanced the application of ‘‘Strategy 2010.’’ His recruitment embodies cross-sector fertilization under the assumed universality of management knowledge and skills. Furthermore, the IFRC requires that national societies report on personnel (as part of reporting on

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activities), specifically by gender and vulnerable populations. This reflects an analytic approach to personnel: no judgment by character or social standing, but by standard, socially accepted categories. Last, rationalization has also conquered the structure of the organization. The logic of universalism (which allows managers to move between organizations and consultants to advise various organizations) leads to cross-sector fertilization and hybridity. Various organizational elements such as reporting, evaluation, and accounting producers are imitated from presumably successful organizations regardless of the differences in tasks among the organizations or sectors. IFRC’s evaluation procedure was redrafted as a part of ‘‘Strategy 2010’’ to decentralize the structure of IFRC. Each national society was encouraged to conduct self-assessments of its performance, to build partnerships to enhance capacity and funding, and to straighten its administrative and legal status (Quelch & Laidler, 2003, p. 14). All the core concepts involved obviously come from the broader managerialist tradition. Similar markers of rationalization are evident in other international organizations. For instance, the rationalization of planning, evident in the Red Cross’ ‘‘Strategy 2010,’’ is reflected in the global expansion of the HBS. Under the banner that ‘‘knowledge is not contextual,’’1 the HBS tackled globalization with two main steps: establishing a Global Initiative (overseen by the Assistant Dean for International Development) and founding five or six overseas research centers. This is a strategic, rationalized response to globalization. Rather than take a defensive posture either with elitism or with more humble versions, the Business School moved forward with an agentic and planned response. Similarly, the rationalization of personnel, which includes the development and proliferation of formal titles, is evident in the Catholic Church. Whereas the Church has always been a hierarchical bureaucratic organization, traditionally Church leaders served as both religious leaders and administrators, doubling spiritual and bureaucratic roles. Now, with a wave of incorporations of Church dioceses, bishops became authorized members of the board of trustees and are subject simultaneously to both canon and civil laws. As in many instances of organizational rationalization around the world, this process takes different forms in different countries, depending on local historical circumstances and variations in linkages between the Church as a whole and its national embodiments. But broad shifts in roles occur in all sorts of national contexts around the world. The formalization of membership, yet another evidence of rationalization, is clear in other organizations. To address ‘‘disenchantment’’ of the membership

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body, the Interpol (the ICPO) implemented the organizational reforms of 1946 and 1956, which reformatted personnel policies in the organization. These reforms created an executive committee and a five-element structure (with a chart describing responsibilities). Interpol’s Presidency was opened to all member bodies (taking the office out of French hands). Also disenchanting was the growth in the number of the organization’s personnel: since 1980s, the Interpol’s staff grew to 443 from 81 countries in 2004. This expansion and formalization of roles greatly weakened the Interpol’s clublike culture and consolidated its professional image (Barnett & Coleman, 2005, p. 603). The growing restructuring of the Interpol as an organized and professional group breaks with its legendary history as a collegial society of law enforcers, built on casual and informal network ties.2 Professionalization has included the expansion of educational tasks: workshop and skill-targeted information tools are now listed as among the Interpol’s central activities. And as part of its administrative reforms and professionalization process, the Interpol created supervisory boards: for personnel recruitment, for review of laws of information (which is its core task; Barnett & Coleman, 2005, p. 614), and for finances. Paralleling the rationalization of personnel arrangements, rationalized organizations also tighten tasks and structure. HBS, for example, added formal markers of its core task as an education institution over the years: while HBS opened its doors in 1908 and was the first to grant MBA degrees, not until 1922 did the School confer PhD degrees. In adding degree conferral responsibilities and specifications under its ‘‘jurisdiction,’’ HBS displays goal and task differentiation. HBS also differentiated tracks in business education. In 1943, it launched its first executive education program, named initially the Advanced Management Program. In 1947, it started teaching entrepreneurship.3 And in 1973, it opened the International Senior Managers Program in Switzerland as its first program outside the United States. Such curricular changes, often interpreted as political and strategic responses to field-specific changes (see, O’Connor, 1999), are demonstrations of rationalization, here taking the form of differentiation among professional categories and of explication of unique missions. Organizational reforms are pivotal events in the process of rationalization. The Interpol went through several major reforms since its founding in 1923. After its 1946 structural reformulation, the Interpol charted a formal constitution in 1956. And in the late 1960s, it expanded its network ties and redrew its formal goals. The reforms, often justified as responses to external pressures/crises,4 meant tightening the rationalized structure of the organization. For example, (a) there was the creation of bureaucratic and

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administrative functions and agencies through a major constitutional reform in 1956 (which also specified an acronym and settled on an emblem). Similarly, (b) opening the post of the presidency to members from all nations both challenged French dominance and created universalistic rules for personnel recruitment. (c) Seeking formal ties with international bodies had similar effects.5 And (d) in 1956, as part of its reconstruction, the organization changed its name to O (for organization) rather than C (for commission) to signal its move away from being a policing club (Barnett & Coleman, 2005, p. 606). These reforms support the Interpol’s image as a transnational professional group, upholding the apolitical nature of policing information and assistance programs. This was in part undercut during the 1970s by mounting external pressure to join anti-terrorism efforts. Modernizing and rationalizing administrative reforms sweep even the very traditional Catholic Church. In addition to their religious and moral leadership for some 2 billion Catholics worldwide, the Vatican and the Catholic Church are complex organizations. The Church’s long history as a very traditional and pre-modern bureaucratic organization (with all the associated difficulties of unclear and overlapping jurisdictions and secretive rules) has generated a great deal of variation among different national bodies. While much variation remains, the Catholic Church adopted in the twentieth century some very typical modern organizational features. For example, (a) the Church seeks a formal observer status with such international organizations as the United Nations, International Atomic Agency, and WTO (Miller, 2004, p. 3). It also (b) creates a Vatican Press Office to facilitate communications with world community (Miller, 2004, p. 3). It (c) can incorporate a diocese or parish in United States as a nonprofit ‘‘corporate aggregate’’ (where affairs are managed by a board of trustees and the bishop becomes a member of the board) or a ‘‘corporation sole’’ (where assets are held in the name of the local bishop). And it (d) establishes formal procedures for audit and reporting. On the issue of reporting, the Catholic Church, particularly in the United States, has broken with Vatican traditions and come to champion, or at least accept, truisms of modern governance such as accountability and transparency (Drori, 2006). Canon law does not mandate audits or financial reporting (but does now require the establishment of finance councils for each parish or diocese). Traditional financial custom has relied on trust and internal reporting only,6 but by 1984, some 70% of dioceses published their reports, with some 78% of those prepared by external accounting firms (Miller, 2004, p. 9). The Vatican began to professionalize its own financial affairs in 1990s (Miller, 2004, p. 10), including imposing external and public

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auditing for the Vatican Bank (formerly, The Institute for the Works of Religion) in 1994 (Miller, 2004, p. 11), which expended the supervisory domain of the Prefecture of the Economic Affairs (established in 1967). Emulating other organizations is frequent in such pivotal moments of reform. The renowned case method of the HBS, which became its signature product and a major profit-making venture, was adapted from Harvard’s law school teaching strategy (Khanna & Khurana, 2004, p. 2).7 Similarly, the Interpol’s reform initiatives of the 1950s, discussed earlier, were purposefully and pronouncedly modeled after successful international governmental organizations (IGOs) (Barnett & Coleman, 2005, p. 606). In the corporate for-profit sector, it is easy to account for the kinds of rationalization illustrated above, as a natural outcome of functional requirements and competition (Fligstein, 1990). With corporations having clear(er) definitions of output and success, formalization and standardization could be explained as performance strategies for matching means to goals. In the same way, actorhood initiatives could be seen as strategic responses to risk and competition. These interpretations are so entrenched in our perception of corporate change that it sometimes appears to be trivial to apply our analytic framework to this sector. It is more striking to reveal the extent of rationalization in the not-for-profit sector, as we do in this chapter. In reality, the growing hybridity between for-profit and not-forprofit organizational logics blurs any demarcation line built on differential pressures for efficiency: civil society organizations increasingly justify their reforms in managerial terms and adopt appropriate markers of organizational governance (Drori, 2006).

Rationalization across Countries We turn now to discuss commonalities in rationalization across countries, in the illustrative field of education, which is currently experiencing organizational reforms worldwide. Rationalization extends beyond the exponential growth in the number of universities worldwide (Riddle, 1989) and in numbers of students (Schofer & Meyer, 2005). Universities worldwide take more rationalized forms. All three dimensions of rationalization – in planning, personnel arrangements, and structure – are increasingly found in universities around the world. We focus on the organizational histories of Tokyo University (Japan), Harvard University (United States), Oxford University (United Kingdom) and Hanyang University (South Korea). Our aim is simply to suggest the range of venues where rationalization is occurring.

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Observations First, universities engage in long-term planning, calculating their futures under the assumption of an intensifying competitive environment in higher education. Planning is based on comparative logics, embodied in the ranking of universities (Hedmo, Sahlin-Andersson, & Wedin, 2006). Planning is routine in American universities and is often required by evaluation and accreditation schemes. In the past decades, pressures for planning have become overwhelming in Europe, associated closely with the ‘‘Bologna Process.’’ Countries plan university development, as do regions. And universities themselves organize plans, on the basis of which they obtain funding and other resources. But the explosion in university planning goes far beyond the United States or Europe. In Korea, for instance, Hanyang University (an established private institution) announces: Following HY-21, which began in 1994, is Hanyang’s recent ‘‘HYU Project 2010’’ whose vision of ‘fostering global leaders’ incorporates a plan to educate leaders y as well as to develop the university on various levels. The result of this development is to be Hanyang’s ranking as one of the most renowned universities in Korea y Hanyang plans to progress further in order to join the world’s top 100 universities by 2039, acquiring an internationally competitive academic ranking in 10 major areas.

In laying out its present situation, Hanyang reports its ranking on 16 different rating dimensions. Korea University (an elite private institution) takes a similar view: Laying aside one hundred years of honor as the nation’s leading and most distinguished private university, we enter the next thousand years as Korean’s premier global university y The threshold for entering the ranks of the top one hundred universities of the world is now within reach. In the next ten years, Korea University will emerge as a university which possesses the same international competitive edge as Oxford and Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, and Harvard and Yale University in the United States.

Second, universities experience dramatic role differentiation and professionalization. Such trends go beyond the addition of a ‘‘third mission’’ to academic institutions: universities not only add entrepreneurship to their traditional missions of teaching and research, but they also undergo a dramatic managerial reform to realize their goals and verify performance. Managerialism creates ‘‘a wide array of new administrative, service and management posts.’’ For example, in 2005, Stanford University boasted four vice presidents (for public affairs, university resources, business affairs, and general counsel), none of which carries any responsibilities for the university’s core mission as an academic institution (Frank & Meyer, 2006,

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pp. 21–24). With such role differentiation, professionalization occurs everywhere in the field of higher education. The accreditation process became highly professionalized accompanied by corresponding internal organizational elaboration. Differentiation is further supported by the undisputed massification of higher education, which has been ‘‘subjected to a contemporary rationalizing account emphasizing justice and progress’’ (Ramirez, 2006, p. 229). Third, universities differentiate and specify their internal teaching and research missions. This is most clearly evident in the differentiation of academic programs. The roaster of academic degrees conferred in Harvard University grew dramatically: from 12 in 1853 to 43 in 2000, with a very small overlap of only three concentrations (Frank & Meyer, 2006, p. 32). And while departmental structure is frequently rigid, anchored in disciplinary histories, universities have found devices to further encourage differentiation and expansion by creating research institutes and centers, some of which also confer degrees. In Harvard University, only 2 of today’s 33 institutes and centers were established before 1945; similarly, only 4 of the current 29 institutes and centers of Tokyo University were established before 1945 (Frank & Meyer, 2006, p. 33). Differentiation and specification occur while retaining the classical claim to universalistic knowledge. This is clearly evident in the curricular content, which nowadays appeals not only to practical knowledge and skills but also to analytic and general knowledge. And so Imperial University of Tokyo (today Tokyo University) offered in 1899 classes in what sounds like narrow and practical issues of ‘‘horse-shoeing’’ and ‘‘manures’’; yet, the course descriptions appeal to universal rules, by adding an introduction to the culture and history of horse-shoeing or by setting an analytic comparative approach to use of manure in various soils and climates (Frank & Meyer, 2006, pp. 30–31). Overall, such differentiation reveals that ‘‘old-style knowledge cathedrals, celebrating the wonders of a categorically bounded creation, grew outmoded over the twentieth century’’ (Frank & Meyer, 2006, p. 33). The rationalization of universities worldwide is greatly aided by several international initiatives. The Bologna Declaration for European countries, and UNESCO initiatives, have had a great impact beyond their specific foci. But the process is a much broader cultural process (rather than a direct and obvious contribution of social development). In this manner, ‘‘[t]he logic of mass higher education y transcends the national ecologies of universities’’ (Ramirez, 2006, p. 225).

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Actorhood Among the pervasive and highly scripted organization tendencies, worldwide, are the standardized and rationalized forms of expressing agency. There are standardized ways to outline goals and plans, map organizational resources, or define decision structures and control systems. Such standardization implies that choices, decisions, and actions are themselves highly scripted. This is another instance of the dialectics of Omnes et Singulatim (Foucault, 1991): the acceptance of action scripts creates both totalizing and individualizing tendencies among actors (see Robertson, 1994, for the similar idea of the ‘‘universalism of particularism’’). All this rationalization has a distinctive quality and differs from older and alternative forms of rationalization like the traditional hierarchical bureaucracy, which is subject to an external sovereign and lacks autonomy. And it contrasts with all sorts of organizational forms resting on the authority of traditional professions (e.g., doctors, lawyers, or artisans). The distinctive feature of the proper modern organization is that it is a legitimated actor endowed with authorized agency. Agency is a role more than a unique reality (Meyer et al., 1987): as the modern organization acquires the agency central to its existence, it gains legitimacy and stability but sacrifices its unique or particularistic relations to any wider cosmos (Meyer & Jepperson, 2000). In this sense, rationalization and actorhood are intertwined features of organizations in the age of globalization. While rationalization opens up new social frontiers to be organized, empowered actors are mobilized to pursue their interests (Meyer & Jepperson, 2000). Actorhood is ‘‘the principle that social life is built up of actors – human individuals, organizations, and national states with valid interests that others are to respect, and with the capacity (that is, agency) to validly represent those interests in activity’’ (Drori et al., 2003, p. 30; Meyer & Jepperson, 2000). With the rise of the global as a relevant social horizon, individual actorhood – and as a corollary, organizations as free associations among empowered individuals – takes on added significance. The acephalous character of the modern global polity and the rise of a global human rights movement contribute to the expansion of both individual and organizational actorhood and formulate such agentic actorhood in rather scripted forms. Observations Organizations and human persons are now conceived as actors. Actorhood is clearly encoded into organizational practices, procedures, and structures.

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Infused with agentic energy, organizations establish routines that ‘‘function’’ as expressions of their agency. For example, it is the modernist culture of agentic actorhood that propels corporate social responsibility (CSR) to expand. CSR emerges as an affirmation of the secular religiosity of the social agent, now in the form of the for-profit corporation acquiring a sense of civil duty and citizenlike legitimacy. As in other globalizating movements, the global spread of CSR rests on the universal character of a modern morality (Boli, 2006). In the era of globalization and post-modernity, no social entity escapes humanization and its moral code: no social entity is given an inherent amorality, even if we judge many as currently acting in immoral ways. And, if corporations are immoral, we offer them ‘‘salvation’’ through CSR. For instance, Microsoft, reprimanded for not freely sharing its software code, now offers such access to educational institutions; this partly allowed Microsoft to at least partially salvage its civic decency. In the language of Jacques Ellul, the attribution of inherent morality and the offering of a path for moral recovery are expressions of modern secular religiosity. Organizations also reaffirm the actorhood of the individuals within them as observed in the expansion of human resources culture (Luo, 2006). Many organizations routinely offer in-house training to their workers. Employee training and development often do not benefit the employers, but are directed at enhancing personal qualities of employees in general (Luo, 2006). Human resources culture embraces individual employees’ choice and desire for ‘‘personal growth’’ and education. In this way, various common practices – from CSR to strategic planning to benchmarking performance – can be interpreted as instances of the new organizational characteristics of actorhood. Summary of Observations Rationalization is extensive across sectors and across countries. We see dramatic evidence of rationalization along all dimensions: 1. Organizations create strategic, long-term plans and formalize goals in treaties and charters. Counting and accounting for activities, assessing performance, and reporting for internal and external constituencies through professional auditors become central tasks for the organization. 2. Organizations create formal procedures for human resources management with the assumption of workers as empowered individuals. Organizations recruit managers and other professionals broadly from organizations in different sectors and fields. Furthermore, organization provides general training for employees.

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3. Organizational structures reflect clear role differentiation. Organizations constantly initiate and justify reforms in reasoned ways related to the organization’s formal goals. Organizations, through these structural changes, emphasize their decision responsibility, capacity, and legitimacy. Rationalization, as a prime force of modern lawful actorhood, builds legitimate arenas for organizing and formal organization (Drori et al., 2003; Drori & Meyer, 2006a, 2006b). In this sense, rationalization creates, on a global scale, both ‘‘new organizational elements, and new social nodes around which formal organizations can form’’ (Jepperson, 2002, p. 234). At the same time, it undercuts the realities and mythologies of national cultural uniqueness on which so many older social forms depended. Organizational distinctiveness on the core issues of rationalization is weakly defended, particularly in the field of management itself: a country or a firm finds it hard to say ‘‘We are corrupt because this is our heritage’’ or ‘‘We choose to be inefficient because this is in our nature.’’ In an age of globalization, with its universalization of policy logics, national and group traditions collide with the highly theorized universal claims for the application of social laws (Drori et al., 2006a). In this context, it is difficult to claim exceptional status with respect to core issues of rationalization. Consequently, it becomes possible for organizations like Transparency International or Business International to construct ranking based on common conceptions of transparency or corruption. The dialectic of this standardized, yet highly value-laden approach further constructs new social domains for responsible and empowered actorhood.

CONSEQUENCES We argue that sweeping globalization has led to the construction and proliferation of rationalized actors. The pervasive global conceptions of scientized and rational natural and social environments, and an extraordinary expansion in the perceived capacities of human persons to engage in legitimated rational social action, in the absence of supranational political center, facilitate the process. While rationalization (on its various dimensions) is an expansive process, evident across sectors and across countries, rationalization may vary by the degree of embeddedness in world society. Embeddedness can take the form of direct linkages to world society actors, and/or more diffuse cultural affinity with the scripts and ideas circulating in world society.

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Questions naturally arise about the consequences of such global transformations. Popular and intellectual discussions revolve around questions of power and interest often framed in terms of ‘‘ideology’’ and ‘‘governmentality.’’ Such terms posit that the modern system is put in place by powerful and interested actors and benefits those actors. Therefore, it is conventional to attribute the changes to one or another Leviathan, like the aggrandizing state or the power-accumulating multinational capitalists. Such analyses are not convincing, since there is little evidence that strong states created or benefited from the organizational revolutions involved. Rather, it is more useful to see the modern state, plagued with loose coupling and ritual isomorphism, as controlled and fragmented by these changes (Meyer, 1994; Powell, 1990). Also, there is no evidence that expanding organized capitalism particularly presses for, or gains from, the restructuring of religion, education, and culture along organizational lines. Clearly, both great states and powerful firms, along with various professions and their associations, participate in the construction of the modern organizational order. And they do so as culturally embedded social agents of the broader global environment. As a result of the failures of analyses rooted in the most simplistic conceptions of power and interest, gloomy suspicions turn to other possible sources and beneficiaries. The schooled professions, in some sociological analyses, are at the roots of change here: particularly those linked directly to the rapidly expanding managerial roles. It is certainly true that business and management schools have expanded dramatically in recent years (Moon & Wotipka, 2006) and that their products play major roles in the new system. But it is hard to see these programs as a successful power plot, persuading peoples and states in every corner of the world to go along: they are more plausible as a product of this history than as a cause. As we have stressed, simple realist analyses fit poorly with the sorts of change we consider here. The changes we discuss have their protagonists, and these participants have their successes and failure. But both the participant identities and the successes are deeply involved in highly collective and cultural structures – they involve authority more than raw power, and the authority is created more by modern audiences than by dramatic actors. Assessing the effects of the revolution of rationalized organizational actorhood becomes much more tractable if we leave off moralistic and ‘‘realist’’ attempts to assess, with zero-sum models, power and interest. Instead, it is more beneficial to focus on which social roles become more authoritative, and on what grounds, and which lose authority and why. Then the answers are obvious: we can list a few in the simplest way.

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Among the losers are traditional social authorities, rooted in communal and national societies and states: (a) the old heads of families and clans, and familial organizations; (b) traditional professional roles – priests, doctors, individual lawyers, teachers, professors, military officers, and traditional bureaucrats; (c) holders of land and property and (d) communal elites, reflecting local and ethnic authority. These roles lose the diffuse authority they once possessed and come under the constraints and controls of the modern system. Fathers and teachers and officers are less entitled to beat their subordinates into submission. Many of the same people, of course, may retain authority by shifting into the new more organized roles. Winners include, above all else, the highly schooled, who can fit best into the new roles. Familial elites may organize family life on associational (i.e., organizational) terms and acquire a good deal of now-constrained organizational authority. So also with religious, medical, legal, education, military, and state functionaries. They gain impact in society, but at the cost of arbitrary discretion. This is why it is difficult to assess outcomes in terms of ‘‘power’’ or ‘‘benefit.’’ The modern teacher loses the authority to arbitrarily beat pupils but gains a good deal of constrained control over their life chances. Similarly, property holders can shift to managerial roles, losing arbitrary control but gaining impact. And so also with all sorts of communal elites. The old Mafiosi had life or death power over a few people. The modern schooled leader of an ethnic party or association has much more impact over more people, but organized under intensified rules of rationality. In all these cases, one clear term that describes the winners of the modern system is ‘‘professional.’’ From its older Weberian meanings, rooted in notions of the professions as corporate bodies, the term has evolved. It now seems to refer to schooled and highly socialized competence, with managerial competence and capacity. The modern professional, most likely embedded in a highly rationalized organization, carries out special responsibilities and does so with a great deal of legitimated agency and managerial responsibility. This professional has both special competence and generalized responsibility – an ideal recipe for membership in the modern rationalized organization. It is a mistake to imagine that all the changes, which benefit the modern schooled and professionalized roles, are produced by the demonic powers of the people involved. The widest variety of analysts of the supranational modern system, many formally quite disinterested and professional, imagine that this system must be organized and act toward that end. Our central contribution arises from emphasizing the advantages of very broad comparison, in partial contrast to the more case-oriented traditions

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that dominate the field. Studies that focus on one country, one sector, one time period, or one level of analysis run some risks of overemphasizing particular unique causal constellations that operate in the chosen domain. The strategy we suggest – maximizing rather than focusing research variation – is especially useful for studying large-scale organizational change. Rationalizing change in the contemporary world has not been particular to, or caused principally by, events local to countries and sectors and organizational levels. In the modern period, we believe it is a creature of the broadest global (and globalizing) cultural and ideological changes.

NOTES 1. Kim B. Clark, HBS Dean in 1995–2005. 2. See the description below of Interpol’s change of name from Commission to Organization, expressing formalization and professionalization. 3. By adding a second-year elective course titled ‘‘Management of Small Enterprises,’’ designed to ‘‘meet the demands of HBS students eager to start their own businesses.’’ 4. Examples include (a) the hijacking of the organization during World War II by the Nazi regime; (b) the organization’s collapse at the end of the war and (c) in the late 1960s, there was competition from other inter-state policing agencies in response to Interpol’s refusal to politicize its activities by intervening in anti-terrorism activities (Barnett & Coleman, 2005). 5. In spite of its origins as a loosely organized, clublike professional association, Interpol later drew legitimacy from League of Nations and its conventions (Barnett & Coleman, 2005, p. 604). It received consultative status with United Nations in 1949 and was recognized as a proper intergovernmental organization by the United Nations in 1971. Success peaked in 2004, when Interpol opened a liaison office in the United Nations headquarters in New York. 6. In part, the custom relied on the bishop’s ad limina visit to the Vatican, every 5 years, to account for the dioceses’ activities and finances. 7. HBS declares that the ‘‘problem’’ method, as the predecessor to the case method was first named, was introduced to the classroom as businessmen were invited to present real problems to students in 1911. Only in 1924, did this become the primary teaching method.

REFERENCES Barnett, M., & Coleman, L. (2005). Designing police: Interpol and the study of change in international organizations. International Studies Quarterly, 49, 593–619. Barry, A., Osborne, T., & Rose, N. (Eds). (1996a). Foucault and political reason: Liberalism, neo-liberalism and rationalities of government. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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INSTITUTION, PRACTICE, AND ONTOLOGY: TOWARD A RELIGIOUS SOCIOLOGY Roger Friedland ABSTRACT This chapter explores institution as a religious phenomenon. Institutional logics are organized around relatively stable congeries of objects, subjects, and practices. Institutional substances, the most general object of an institutional field, are immanent in the practices that organize an institutional field, values never exhausted by those practices, and practices premised on a practical belief in that substance. Like religion, an institution’s practices are ontologically rational, that is, tied to a substance indexed by the conjunction of a practice and a name. Institutional substances are not loosely coupled, ceremonial, legitimating exteriors, but unquestioned, constitutive interiors, the sacred core of each field, unobservable, but socially real.

INTRODUCTION That my approach to institutional theory has garnered most interest from students in business schools is ironic in that it derives from sources that

Institutions and Ideology Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 27, 45–83 Copyright r 2009 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X(2009)0000027004

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hard-headed management theory would likely consider ridiculous. To put it baldly, it derives from a double messianism, two unobservable subjects to come: the proletariat and God’s messenger. My initial preoccupation with the institutional level of analysis began when I was a neo-Marxist graduate student grappling with the inadequacies of instrumentalist understandings of class on the one hand and with what appeared to be the absurd totalizations of structuralist Marxism on the other. (Given the systematicity they espoused, that Nicos Poulantzas committed suicide and Louis Althusser strangled his wife were emblematic of the failure of their theories.) As a political sociologist, I found it incredible that Marxism lacked any theory of the state, let alone democracy, that structuralist Marxisms could code vast swaths of the public sphere won as the result of popular agitation as ‘‘ideological state apparatuses.’’ I first entered the institutional domain by considering the symbioses and contradictions between market, state, and democracy, and with what my mentor Robert Alford and I distinguished as systemic, structural, and situational powers (Alford & Friedland, 1985). My own understanding of institutional theory began as a religious question. ‘‘Bringing Society Back In’’ was written with Robert Alford after a long immersion in a city where God seemed a palpable political force (Friedland & Alford, 1991). Together with Richard Hecht, a historian of religions, I had been studying Jerusalem’s political struggles for eight years, a city where contests over the organization of space and time were simultaneously struggles over their meaning (Friedland & Hecht, 1996). The city humbled me, shredding my assumption that all social phenomena could be parsed with the categories of interest and power. Initially, I thought this stony redoubt on the edge of the Judean desert was an anomalous zone where the ordinary laws of social gravity had been suspended. But the more I thought about the city’s politicized religions – a phenomenon that neither I nor any of my intellectual friends had taken seriously before – the more I came to believe that there was as much faith in capitalism as there was material interest in religion, that there were commonalities between the bearded zealots of the Gush Emunim, ‘‘the bloc of the faithful,’’ who were assiduously settling the West Bank and Gaza, and the professionals who had captured the American corporations in the managerial revolution. That essay was motivated by a sub rosa desire to explore the notion that rather than being a historical oddity, the social processes I found in this triply sacred center were everywhere. My institutionalism thus emerged out of thinking kapital and God together. It is this latter that seems to have caught hold of me. Ever since my work in Jerusalem I have been exploring the modalities of politicized religion, particularly, religious nationalism that theologically

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invests the nation-state, as a vehicle by which to develop an institutional understanding of the social (Friedland, 2001, 2002). An institutional project par excellence, it seeks to install religion as the basis of state authority and national identity, institution and collective subject, the classical site of societal power, and the agency of collective representation. Unexpected and unheralded by theorists of modernity, to those who guard the intellectual gates, it is a poser, a bastard, or perhaps a monster, an obscene hybrid. Politicized religion is variously judged to be neither truly religion nor sometimes – in what appears to be its most violent and apparently antinomian forms – even politics. Religion is frequently understood as a medium, or an ideology, through which groups reach for power and material resources within the nationstate. The eminent historian of religions Bruce Lincoln, for example, argues in his Holy Terrors that religious conflicts in postcolonial states should be understood in terms of ‘‘rival claims to scarce resources’’ and that politicized religion in opposition to the governing regime is a response to the failure of the secular state to deliver ‘‘on its promise to provide material well-being for its citizens’’ (Lincoln, 2003, pp. 74–75). Lincoln reads politicized religious opposition as a power struggle by those elites displaced or marginalized by the ‘‘dominant fraction,’’ armed with their own legitimating discourse, whether it be secular or religious (Lincoln, 2003, pp. 79, 84). He writes, When objective conditions are good – peace prevails, prosperity in general, and all segments of society are generally healthy and well fed – the task of the religion of the status quo is easily accomplished, and there is little opportunity for religions of resistance to mount a serious threat. (Lincoln, 2003, p. 86)

The implication is that religion becomes an oppositional political medium and thus prone to violence under conditions of material want and inequity. Ju¨rgen Habermas has likewise argued that radical Islam is not really about religion at all. Rather, the politicization of Islam and its turn to violence are the result of the absence of democratic mechanisms by which the ‘‘life-world’’ can resist the ‘‘system-world’’ of an increasingly intrusive capitalism and state. Radicalized violent Islam emerges where the public sphere has been impoverished, internally by gross income inequality and an authoritarian state, externally as the result of the economic subordination and impoverishment imposed on the latecomer, geographically peripheral entrants in the world capitalist order. Additionally, the West’s promotion of human rights is polluted by its promotion of its corporations’ interests and the promotion of its ‘‘leveling consumerist culture’’ (Borradori, 2003, pp. 32–33). When a society’s communicative life-world is subordinated to

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the instrumental system-world of capitalism and the state both inside and out, communication is distorted, distrust endemic, and violent conflict inevitable. ‘‘The spiral of violence begins as a spiral of distorted communication that leads through the spiral of reciprocal mistrust, to the breakdown of communication’’ (Borradori, 2003, pp. 35–37). Political Islam, Habermas contends, is just ‘‘a new and subjectively more convincing language for old political orientations,’’ namely, Arab nationalism (Borradori, 2003, p. 33). Money and votes are the program for the prevention of religious radicalization. Habermas also understands politicized Islam as a defensive reaction to the destruction of pre-modern, traditional forms under historic conditions where the material benefits of modernity – ‘‘compensation for the pain of the disintegration of customary ways of life’’ – are absent (Borradori, 2003, p. 32). Without an improvement in material conditions and the institutionalization of civil and political rights necessary to democracy, violent forms of politicized religion will continue to proliferate. Given that ‘‘fundamentalism,’’ even in violent forms, have also emerged in societies with vital democracies – India, Israel, Turkey, and the United States – and that the demographic core of these movements are often not newly marginalized peasants and craftsmen, but members of thoroughly modern professional and bureaucratic middle class, these arguments are not very compelling (Friedland, 2001). Analysts also deny violent forms of radical Islam the status of politics. The great comparativist Islamicist Olivier Roy argues that al-Qaeda represents a form of what he calls neo-fundamentalism: de-territorialized and anti-national movements that sacralize daily life, focusing on salvation and the purification of self rather than political program, seeking to reconstitute a pure, but egalitarian, umma rather than an Islamic state. Roy claims we must understand their jihad as redemptive rite, not as geo-political strategy. The neo-fundamentalists, Roy argues, ‘‘condemn the very concepts of democracy, human rights and freedom, whereas Islamists try to show how Islam represents the best form of democracy (through the concept of shura, or consultation) y Neofundamentalists refuse to express their views in modern terms borrowed from the West’’ (Roy, 2004, p. 247). Habermas likewise refuses to grant al-Qaeda’s ‘‘terrorism’’ any political rationality. Speaking of the authors of 9/11, he writes, ‘‘they do not pursue a program that goes beyond the engineering of destruction and insecurity’’ (Borradori, 2003, p. 29). Islamic terrorism, Habermas contends, ‘‘bears the anarchistic traits of an impotent revolt directed against an enemy that cannot be defeated in any pragmatic sense.’’ Neither Roy nor Habermas can imagine Islamic terrorism as a meaningful ‘‘political act.’’ That al-Qaeda

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seeks to expel infidel forces from the sacred lands of the umma, to topple regimes that fail to follow the shari’a, regimes that they understand to be sustained by their strategic alliance with the United States, seems to be actionable, realistic goals, at least no less so than the United States’ mission of expanding ‘‘liberty,’’ as Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice put it, throughout the Islamic world. Indeed, one of the consequences of alQaeda’s relentless attacks was the withdrawal of American forces from Saudi Arabia in the lead up to the second Gulf war. One refuses politicized religion its religious ends; the other – at least certain violent forms – its political means. I wish to grasp their conjunction in my work, the ways in which its political modalities are determined by its religious ends, or more exactly, by the way its political practices extend the institutional logic of religion, which derives authority from divine writ, grounds both individual and collective birth in divine creation, and locates agency in a self bound to God as opposed to an autonomous, self-interested monad. I wish, in other words, to consider the possibility that it is the institutional logic of religion, not the material or political situation of social groups recruited to politicized religion, nor even the religion’s theology, that accounts for their political practices, both their violence and their sexual preoccupation. Politicized religion is difficult to grasp, not simply because of sociological doxa of secularization and differentiation (Casanova, 1994), but because in social theory, religion is classically considered an exemplar of the cultural, as opposed to the socially real, indeed as ideology, the conceptual theme of this volume. Most students of contemporary politicized religion likewise understand it as a mediation of a social real – typically a group’s interest – that is, behind or outside, background or base. Others treat it as identitarian, an expressive alternative to interest-based politics, a new social movement or a peculiar form of the politics of recognition as opposed to redistribution (Fraser, 2004). It is precisely for this reason that religion, traditionally understood by social scientists as a medium through which the socially real comes to representation or as alternative to the most important social realities, offers a productive site by which to repose both institution and ideology as sociological questions. In this chapter, I wish to move from religion as an institution to institution as a ‘‘religious’’ phenomenon.

THE INSTITUTIONAL LOGIC OF PRACTICE To understand politicized religion, one cannot reduce the logic of its institutional practice to a misrecognized distributional struggle over commensurable,

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culturally contentless powers. Social theory, and social movement theory in its various iterations of resource mobilization, has tended to focus on the structural question, the legitimate distributions of the good as opposed to the systemic question of the legitimacy and practical logic of goods, on who gets what as opposed to how and what is produced and distributed. Pierre Bourdieu, a brilliant theorist of social practice, for example, believes that institutional fields follow ‘‘invariant laws,’’ deriving from their homologous logics (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 75). The homology derives from grounding the social in group relations, and the dynamism of social change in the struggle for group dominance, groups arrayed according to their differential relation to different forms of capital – economic, social, cultural, and symbolic. It is only because Bourdieu has homogenized the principle of practice across fields – the binary of domination – that he can homologize groups across fields (Bourdieu, 1971, pp. 179–180, 1984, p. 254, 1990, p. 72). The several capitals are ultimately convertible in the ‘‘division in the labor of domination’’ (Bourdieu 1996, p. 265; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 99). In Bourdieu’s hands, the multiplicity of institutional ends evaporates into a unicity of means, capitals, and powers over which groups struggle in their pursuit of legitimate dominance. Power, or authority, is the misrecognized meta-stake organizing each field, such that the value, or stake, in any given field is an illusio, a psychic and material investment in the game, a sense of relevance given by a habitus conditioned by the kinds of capital with which one is endowed, and the playing of ‘‘the game’’ itself (Bourdieu, 1990, p. 66; Widick, 2003). One’s habitus is a disposition resulting from the unconscious incorporation of one’s position vis-a-vis these powers. That one wants what one has a chance of getting and that one enters a field characterized by competition sustains the illusio, ‘‘the tacit recognition of the value of the stakes of the game,’’ the appearance that this arbitrary institutional value has substance (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 117). Although distributional contests sustain the value of institutional values, the institutional logic of practice is otherwise. An institution’s specificity is located in the cultural premises of its production, not its distributions and group positions within that distribution. Institutions are not, as in the original statements of institutional theory, forms of social organization invested with value beyond their practical effects, or, as later work showed, with practical effects because they are legitimate net of their practicality (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). They are themselves practical regimes of valuation, in the sense that they constitute institutional objects of value.

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Institutional theory points to the institutional ordering of means-ends couplets, regimes of practice, to what I have called ‘‘institutional logics,’’ that is, stable constellations of practice, and the subjects and objects coupled to them (Friedland, 2001; Friedland & Alford, 1991). One cannot begin with an autonomous subject in an instrumental relation to an exterior object, a sovereign consciousness confronting a thing present-at-hand. The objects of institutional life are meaningful, ready-at-hand in a particular way, that is, they only exist as collective representations, representations collectively accepted as real (Searle, 1995). It is not only that typifications of actors and actions are co-implicated (Meyer, Boli, & Thomas, 1994; Meyer, 2008). Institutional practices are media both for subjectification in that they enable and possess practitioners and of objectification in that those practices, and hence, the subjects, hinge on their symbolic and performative production of objects. It is through the institutional logic of practice that the two are coconstituted. Every institutional resource allocation – of votes, money, property, force, knowledge, meals, love, territory, blessings, and sacraments – is a material semiosis in which the categories, instruments, and agents through which that object is produced or distributed are brought to life and made real. All objects of institutional life are dually constituted, both conceptually and practically, as categories that point to objects of action and actors who engage in material practices that enact them. Institutional objects, as such, do not exist. They are known only through their conjoint conceptual and practical specificity (Mohr & Duquenne, 1997; Breiger, 1974). The constitution of the object is both causally and narratively linked to the practice, as that from which the practice is understood to derive, not unlike the way placement derives from place (Smith, 2004, p. 50). This interdependent duality of category and practice is the core of an institutional logic (Mohr & Duquenne, 1997; Mohr & White, 2008). Meaning is materially constituted at the same time that materiality is meaningfully constituted. One cannot interpret institutions by relying solely on words or on things, but by both as they are deployed in practice, in that categories point to the nature, and hence genesis, of an institutional object of which the material practice is productive or to which it is responsive. Categories and practices are mutually constitutive, that is, categories are known by the practices applied to them just as much as practices only have sense in terms of the categories to which they are applied. An institutional logic exists when institutional objects have a practical specificity and institutional practices have an objective specificity.

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If materiality is always institutionally meaningful, there are no brute facts, no relation to things that are sufficient to explain practice – no social upon which the cultural is built. If resources are useful because they are meaningful, then interests in resources cannot easily be dissociated from the institutional conditions that establish their value, their use, and hence what they are – no social without cultural constitution. And if institutional categories depend on their practical enactment, there are no institutional objects that do not depend on particular material configurations – no cultural without social constitution. Institutional theory points to powers, and hence interests, which are simultaneously cultural and material, powers and interests that are not necessarily commensurable, but which can contingently be combined in different configurations. The rise of female fasting by medieval European Catholic women, detailed by the religious historian Caroline Walker Bynum, is a pertinent example. Bynum documents a change in religious practice indexing a different attribute of an institutional object – God (Bynum, 1987). Fasting and feasting had steadily declined as church practices. Between the 12th and 14th centuries, women began to engage in heroic forms of fasting, often centered around devotion to the Eucharist, whose consecration, held in the hands of the cleric, had become an object of adoration as opposed to an accessible ritual food consumed in corporate commensality, a worshipped suffering flesh as opposed to a collectively consumed divine food. Although Bynum does not cast her account in this way, these fasting practices were premised on two attribute shifts – one in the ontology of woman and the other in God. These women recast their bodies, not as erotic bodies to be negated – the normative view of the Church – but as an affirmative suffering, nurturant flesh, the meal-giver, and the meal itself. ‘‘Fasting, feeding, and feasting were thus not so much opposites as synonyms. Fasting was flight not from but into physicality. Communion was consuming, that is, becoming, a God who saves through physical, human agony. To feed others was to offer one’s suffering as food’’ (Bynum, 1987, pp. 250, 289). These women, Bynum argued, aligned their identification as food and food preparers with God’s flesh, who in becoming human also became food. And, driven by an insatiable hunger, in their mystical unions with Jesus, they identified themselves with God’s humanity as a feminine substance through Mary’s Immaculate Conception. In response to an increasingly inaccessible host, these fasting practices allowed women to become the Eucharist, to divinize their bodies, not as women, but as the human counterpart of Christ’s divinity, who like them was powerful in his very helplessness and who also bled to give birth to a new world.

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By this shift in practice, these women, of course, contested authority structures. At a time when women were being denied clerical roles, they challenged the authority of the priests, developing forms of lay piety outside clerical control, as well as beyond the authority of fathers whose marriage choices they could refuse and whose material wealth they could evacuate of significance. Those challenges to authority derived from their ability to index the substance of God through new ritual practices that shifted the meaning of both subject and object, affirming woman’s status as food and God’s humanity as woman. This shift in practice cannot, however, be reduced to a challenge to authority. Although these historical religious practices might seem idiosyncratic, shifts in other institutional practices are no different. Mohr and Duquenne’s work on relief organizations in New York City between 1888 and 1917 illustrates the point (Mohr & Duquenne, 1997). They show how material practices – the provision of money, food, shelter, or work – were applied to particular categories of the people without money, thereby creating different institutional objects – the ‘‘destitute’’ and the ‘‘needy,’’ for example – upon which these relief organizations acted. The ‘‘destitute’’ – morally marked, inter-generationally poor – were required to work to receive aid as opposed to the morally unmarked, externally conditioned, downwardly mobile ‘‘needy’’ who were given shelter, food, and money without this requirement, but were subject to investigation. By 1917, practices shifted such that both the ‘‘needy’’ and the ‘‘destitute’’ were subject to investigation, and the classbased, morally marked distinction between them largely eliminated. Poverty, as such, does not explain practice. Researchers have pointed to the way new organizational practices reconstitute both the objects and the subjects of practice. In various domains, major shifts in practice – nouvelle cuisine, alternative dispute resolution, the HMO, brand wine, interest groups and the hospice – were tied to ontological changes in the meaning of a meal, marriage, health care, wine, democracy, and life itself, as well as creating and being carried by new subject positions tied to those practices (Clemens, 1997; McAdam & Scott, 2005; Monin, Croidieu, & Friedland, 2008; Morrill, Zald, & Rao, 2007). It is no different in the corporate marketplace. Beyond the spectacular ontological construction of the corporation as a legal person by the courts, Neil Fligstein has shown how the construction of the American firm sequentially changed from a site of production to a seller of commodities and to a bundle of financial assets, each of which has been associated with distinct practices, organizational forms, and types of subjects thereby

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authorized to assume control over it (Fligstein, 1985, 1990). Conceptions of control are alternative ontological constructions of the corporation, and hence property. What the corporation is cannot be dissociated from subject positions given authority to run it. Patricia Thornton has shown the same thing with regard to American publishing firms, in which the book moved from a literary production in which editors had primacy to a marketable commodity in which managers had control (Thornton, 2004). And Michael Lounsbury showed how new professional finance associations transformed the practices by which money was constituted through mathematical economics in the field of finance in conjunction with governmental deregulation (Lounsbury, 2002). Practice and ontology are coupled in an institutional logic. Institutions are ideological formations, not just in the sense that they are organized around languages that legitimate power as control over persons and things but in that they produce powers by authorizing practices that constitute subjects and objects through which the authority relation is organized. Institutional theory thus points beyond distribution, the classical ground of ideology – measured either as control over objective means or in trans-institutional operators like power, capital, or utility – to the hegemonic construction of incommensurable self-referential domains of activity and the extent of their scope as the systemic, as opposed to structural, ground of ideology. It is important to distinguish between shifts in the institutional architecture of society as opposed to the social architecture of institutions, that is, the difference between extending an institutional logic to a new domain of activity, such as the commodification of health care or the religionization of state authority, from the social extension or contraction of access to practices that follow existent institutional logic to different groups of people, such as the civil rights movement, feminist incorporations of women, or micro-lending, although these distributional shifts may involve institutional shifts elsewhere, as, for example, in the case of the promotion of civil and political equality for women. The movement of African captives and the prerogatives of rule out of the category of property – that is, the end of slavery and the rise of state bureaucracy – were distributional struggles because they were conflicts over institutional boundaries. Giving primacy to the former occludes the determining importance of the latter. Given that institutional ontologies are enacted practically and institutional scope is arbitrary, institutions are inherently ideological, not in the sense of legitimation but of constitution. Institutional languages constitute before they justify, and they can justify only because they constitute. As the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben comments, E´mile Benveniste’s

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category of speech acts points to the institution of the law, in which ‘‘all language tends to assume a performative value.’’ Indeed he argues, ‘‘[to] do things with words could even be considered as a residue in language of a magical-juridical state of human existence in which words and deeds, linguistic expression and real efficacy, coincide’’ (Agamben, 2005, p. 132). Although variable in terms of mechanisms of enforcement, language’s constitutive role is operative in every institutional domain, not to mention the ‘‘events’’ through which they are transformed (Searle, 1995, 2006; Wagner-Pacifici, 2008). From this point of view, authority, or relations of legitimate domination, is a second-order phenomenon, like other forms of social organization in and through which institutional life takes place. Shifts in practice are mediated through, but not derived from, challenges to authority. In the case of nouvelle cuisine, for example, Rao, Monin, and Duran have shown how the rhetoric, roles, and rules of cooking were transformed by a small group of well-placed chefs who transgressed culinary convention by emphasizing different dimensions of food – in both preparation and presentation – joining the promotion of professional autonomy and aesthetic innovation, such that they were certified by the arbiters of taste and gradually took over the professional society of French chefs (Rao, Monin, & Duran, 2003, 2005). The making and the meaning of a restaurant meal were thereby transformed. Although it is certainly correct to move social movement theory away from its state-centricity, it would be misguided to give analytic centrality to ‘‘collective challenges to systems or structures of authority’’ in their definition (Snow, 2004, p. 11). Challenges to institutional practice are necessarily dual, in that shifts in modal practices have huge distributional consequences, whether it be the commodification or de-commodification of an activity, the extension of citizenship rights to workers, students, children, or patients, the extension or contraction of religious codes to the regulation of the life process or citizenship (Scott, Ruef, Mendel, Caronna, & Meyer, 2000). At the same time, the extension of new institutional logics shifts the ontological basis of the social, creating new objects at the same time that they generate new identities tied to those new objectivities. One cannot premise analytic distinctions between instrumental and expressive dimensions of changes in practice on the autonomy and causal priority of the former. Nor can one neatly parse social movements into those oriented to one or the other of these dimensions (Armstrong & Bernstein, 2008; Friedland & Mohr, 2004; Taylor & Van Dyke, 2004). Seeking to wend a way between the old politics of class and the new identity politics Nancy Fraser, for example,

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argues that we need to distinguish analytically between the politics of redistribution rooted in the social relations of class and a politics of recognition rooted in the cultural relations of status. These politics are distinguished by the nature of the collectivities that carry them – classes and status groups respectively. Fraser proposes a ‘‘bivalent’’ conception of justice drawing on both independent domains. For Fraser, ‘‘class is an artifact of an unjust political economy, which creates, and exploits a proletariat. The core injustice is exploitation, an especially deep form of maldistribution, as the proletariat shoulders an undue share of the system’s burdens, while being denied its fair share of the system’s rewards’’ (Fraser, 2004, p. 231). By deriving class from material distribution, Fraser naturalizes capitalism as an objective materiality, making its politics into a conflictual problem of group share. She thereby evacuates the specificity of capitalism’s institutional logic. Exploitation in Marxist theory and hence in much socialist ideology derives not from maldistribution but from the cultural materiality of property relations and the commodification of labor it makes possible. Marx’s theory of exploitation is a cultural theory, a theory of valuation, the labor theory of value asserting a specific regime of temporality through which value is produced, expanded, and reproduced. In their cosmology, distributional conflicts draw their transformative possibilities from their origin in capitalism’s contradictory institutional logic of accumulation. The institutional specificity of capitalism does not afford a culturally empty power contest between the dominant and the dominated, but a struggle over commodification, over the production of capital. Changes in institutional logic not only change the condition of access to things and activities they also create and destroy whole realms of practice and the subject positions that carry and are carried by them. Institutional fields are structures of symbolically constituted, iterated powers whose exercise through interlocked congeries of practices – voting and legislating, buying and selling, officiating and participating in religious rite, marrying, cohabitation and lovemaking, the fighting of wars and signing of treaties, and controlled experiment and observation – carried out by collectively recognized subjects – citizens, owners, congregants, families, officials, and scientists – which presume and performatively produce values – democracy, property, divinity, love, sovereignty, and knowledge. I call these institutional substances the central object of an institutional field and the principle of its unity. 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 that attach to it nor to the materiality of its instances

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(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 obsessively named. While the category of substance may be 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. (Emile Durkheim likewise pointed to the profound gap between the social and its representation, totemic practices that, he argued, were enactments of the force of the clan, a force he named a ‘‘substance’’ (Durkheim, 1995, p. 191; Friedland, 2004)). Here, I am building on Michel Foucault’s distinctive institutional method. In several historical studies, Foucault re-conceptualized sexuality as a practical substance as opposed to a physiological fact. He thereby refused the impulses of the human body – sex – as the primary constituent of sexuality, such that variations in interdiction might account for variations in its expression (Foucault, 1980). In his histories of Western sexuality, Foucault displaced the study of moral codes and the erotic body with another conceptual object: the ethical practices of self-formation (Foucault, 1990, pp. 28, 250–251). He historically differentiated the dominant practices of self-formation not by the behaviors they forbid or promote but by the substances upon which they operate: ‘‘that part of himself that will form the object of his moral practice’’ (Foucault, 1990, p. 28, see also pp. 25, 40–52). Adopting a Hegelian term, Foucault posited the category of ‘‘ethical substance’’ as the hermeneutic key for understanding sexuality as an institutional practice.

HEIDEGGER’S PRACTICAL ONTOLOGIES For Foucault social practice, subject formation and ontology were interdependent phenomena (Foucault, 1990, pp. 26, 63). The same is true for Martin Heidegger, the German philosopher with whom Foucault carried on an unmarked conversation during his intellectual career. Heidegger built his philosophy over what he saw as Western philosophy’s failure to derive either Being or the world from its substantialist ontology. Institutional substance, I would nonetheless argue, is a sociological analogue to God in his phenomenology of Christian religiosity, an approach that has surprising – given his resistance to cast his work as a foundation for

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sociology’s ontic preoccupations – relevance to the institutional project (Heidegger, 2004).1 Heidegger’s phenomenological ontology was worked out through his formalization of the structure of experience immanent to the practices of Paul and Augustine. Heidegger’s phenomenology of religion was written in 1921 six years before his opus, Being and Time, whose origins he locates in a Christian anthropology.2 There and elsewhere, Heidegger claimed that Western metaphysics had collapsed Being into being, the reality of things into their presence, their actuality, or thereness (Heidegger, 1962). Rather than an autonomous subject confronting an exterior world of things, he posited a space of being, Dasein, ‘‘there being,’’ a space where being appears, our condition one of always already ‘‘being-in-the world,’’ that is, ‘‘thrown’’ into a world of meaningful entities, the significance of those entities being co-constitutive of our own. The Being of humans is never present to itself, but located in between subject and object in the circumspective practices of Dasein, stretched along between being from birth and toward death (Heidegger, 1962, pp. 426–427). Heidegger’s ideas contributed to the sociological thought of both Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault through his displacement of the subject-object dualism into an existential ‘‘being-in-the-world’’ and the ‘‘worldhood of the world,’’ inherent in the habitual logic of practice, whose order and significance is only revealed in its disruption or supercession. If Bourdieu sociologizes Heidegger’s temporality, Foucault makes the practical-discursive contours of thinking constitutive of the being that is thought. For Heidegger phenomena are not constituted as the relation between subjects and present-at-hand historical objects, but as experiences, both the experiencing and the experienced. Heidegger’s religious phenomenology thus refused religion as a historical object, and hence God as a contemplative object, rather seeking to ground it in religiosity as ‘‘factical life experience’’ (Heidegger, 2004, p. 19). One can understand the phenomenon of Christian religiosity only by understanding how one’s relation to the central content of its experience – God – is enacted in life, through the Christian’s ‘‘comportment’’ (Heidegger, 2004, pp. 43, 48). In contrast to Paul’s transcendent deity, Heidegger locates religiosity only as an enactment of divinity, a how, a set of practices in which divinity is immanent, hence, to be apprehended through a cultural phenomenology. ‘‘Christian religiosity lives temporality,’’ Heidegger remarks (2004, p. 83, see also pp. 19, 52, 57). Using Paul’s writings to the Thessalonians, Heidegger locates primitive Christianity in the practice of proclamation, not as content in terms of what is proclaimed about Jesus, nor in terms of Paul’s

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relation to the beleaguered congregation of Thessalonica, located in neither the theological or the sociological, but in terms of an enactment of Paul and the Thessalonians ‘‘having become’’ Christians, the congregation through Paul, a mutual knowing from having turned toward God, that is not a past present – a present that is no longer, but a necessarily present past – a past operative in the present, which is itself a projection into a future past, that is, a potentiality already inscribed in ‘‘having become’’ (Heidegger, 2004, pp. 65–66). The bond between Paul and the Thessalonians is not a memory of a past transmission, but a continuing authentic relation. Paul repeatedly proclaims the being-present of God, a shared painful being-present upon which salvation depends. The enactment of Paul’s relation with the Thessalonians as a weak dependent, whose eternal life is contingent on their faith, parallels his and their submissive turning toward God as recipients of grace. Sustaining the knowing of one’s ‘‘having become’’ in the present, repeating the decision that constituted one’s having become, and hence not waiting for the inevitable return are the guarantors that one will be saved in an anticipated, but indeterminate and unknown, future. ‘‘Paul is not concerned at all about answering the question of the When of the Parousia. The When is determined through the How of the selfcomportment, which is determined through the enactment of factical life experience in each of its moments’’ (Heidegger, 2004, p. 75). One does not stop work to await Jesus, one anticipates him in continuing in one’s station as if it were not, that is, stripped of significance, as an enactment of ‘‘having become’’ a Christian (Heidegger, 2004, p. 84). The painful, almost unbearable, hope of having become separates those who can sustain a present past from those who wait for Christ’s second coming as though it were a future present, something that will transpire in objective time considered as a string of temporal locations. God, of course, is an absent presence enacted through the way in which one temporalizes, whether this real is understood as future actuality or present possibility. God, the central substance of Pauline Christianity, is immanent to the logic of practice, a practice that hinges on it. The phenomenology of messianicity depends on a determinate cultural category, on this Messiah. Heidegger will later transpose Pauline temporality, a particular form of temporalizing that derives from the way one enacts one’s relation to God, into the ecstatic structure of temporality in Being and Time, in which one is outside of oneself in the thrownness of having been, the facticity of being among, and the projection of being ahead of oneself. And, replacing God with Being, whose potentiality is accessible through one’s confrontation with the absence of finitude, the possibility of one’s

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impossibility, he will identify a particular form of temporalizing – resolutely anticipating, as opposed to awaiting, death, ‘‘its ownmost distinctive possibility’’ – as the ground of authenticity, enacted in recurrent moments of vision and decision that make possible an authentic historicality (Heidegger, 1962, pp. 435–437). Notwithstanding Heidegger’s presupposition that Pauline temporalizing is authentic while Jewish temporalizing fallen, Heidegger here laid out an important program for the phenomenological study of regimes of practice, in which discursively constituted objects – here God – take on their significance, and become actual, from the way in which they are enacted by individuals who temporalize in determinate ways and are thereby formed as subjects (Heidegger, 2004, pp. 78–79). Heidegger would repeat this phenomenology of regimes of practice when he delineated the ‘‘essence’’ of modern science in the practice of research as a procedure of knowing, based on an ‘‘always-alreadyknown’’ object sphere, an ontology of truth which binds the researcher as the incarnation binds a believing Catholic. ‘‘We first arrive at science as research when and only when truth has been transformed into the certainty of representation. What it is to be is for the first time defined as the objectiveness of representing, and truth is first defined as the certainty of representing y’’ (Heidegger, 1977).3 Modern’s science’s object sphere is constituted through a methodology that both presumes and produces the world through its calculable lawfulness, an objectification that also presumes the modern subject, whose being is identical to its thinking, a subject whose being is the foundation of representedness as the being, and thus the truth, of all things, of both nature and history. As in his study of Pauline Christianity, Heidegger joins ontology, practice, and subjectification. Calculable objectivity located in numeric, lawful representation, the self-grounding, free and knowing subject who arrogates to himself the representative of things, things that derive their being from their objectification, these objectifications structured into a ‘‘world picture’’ – each of the elements is tied to the other. Subject and object are thus produced in concert through practices of subjectification and objectification. Heidegger’s phenomenology of Christianity provided the template out of which he would later develop his own general phenomenological ontology. He philosophically ‘‘secularized’’ Pauline and Augustinian Christianity. He also historicized Western metaphysics as a Christian onto-theology wherein the creation of technology by the ‘‘rational and willful human subject of representation’’ is modeled on divine creation from the mind of God (Carlson, 2008, pp. 41–43). I would suggest the possibility of his transposition is located not just in a Christian anthropology but in the ‘‘religious’’ nature of all institutions. Religion appears to us as a distinctive kind of institution,

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replete with rite, that is, with practices – prayer, penitence, piety, pilgrimage, sacrament, and charity – that have a non-arbitrary relationship to what they signify, that is, symbolic actions, as well as with performative forms of speech, where use of language is a form of action, referring to the reality it itself produces. Both cleric and laity literally speak and act God’s presence into existence, an ontological substance that can never be reduced to its attributes, nor to the practices that access or evoke it. Discourse, explication, is integral, not exterior, to religious practice. Nonetheless, the truth of that discourse, and hence of religious practice, is not primarily denotative. It is rather constitutive – productive and performative, a critical part of its institutional logic.

INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS Institutions have logics. An institutional logic is a bundle of practices organized around a particular substance and its secondary derivatives from which the normativity of those practices is derived. Within any institution, the discursively laden practical organization of bodies and things in its space and time signify those substances. This choreography of practice is not, properly speaking, a form of social signage. The practices through which those substances as well as the subjects they imply – voting, democracy or representation, and citizen, for example – are symbolizations, in that they have a nonarbitrary relation to the signified, here democracy or representation. Institutional substances cannot be directly observed, but are immanent in the practices that organize an institutional field, values never exhausted by those practices, practices premised on faith. Institutions invoke their substances in language; they repeat names. They are not, for all that, loosely coupled ceremonial legitimating exteriors (Meyer & Rowan, 1977), but unquestioned, constitutive interiors, the sacred core of each field, unobservable, but socially real. Unlike lesser institutional objects, they are the God terms of social life, the limited set of things ‘‘for the sake of which’’ we live our lives, what Augustine referred to as that thing which is ‘‘enjoyed,’’ or loved for their own sake, unchangeable and eternal in both their attributes and their possession – obviously God in his case – as opposed to those changeable and uncertain things that are loved because they enable one to possess other objects, and hence not enjoyed, but used (frui vs. uti) (Heidegger, 2004, pp. 203–205). Institutional substances are, I suspect, a basis of common identification, possessions that possess

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institutional players distributed across organizations and groups (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008). John Searle, the American philosopher, also conceptualizes institutional logic and I want to briefly explore its relation to my own. For Searle, all institutions result from collective intentionality, that is, desires and beliefs ‘‘directed at or about objects and states of affairs in the world’’ (Searle, 2006, p. 16; 1995, pp. 23–25). Searle built his theory of institutions from the institution of language, which he posits as the foundation of all institutions (Searle, 1995, 2006). In his theory of speech acts, collective intentions become socially productive only through the constitutive rules of language use. It is the ability of language to assign a status to things they do not have by their physical nature that distinguishes human beings and allows us to construct institutions. Institutions result from the conversion of collective intentionality into constitutive rules – X counts as Y under conditions C – which assign status functions – ‘‘a collectively recognized status to which a function is attached’’ – to ontologically objective ‘‘entities that cannot perform those functions without that imposition’’ – like sound patterns count as words or forms of paper count as money (Searle, 1995, p. 41). These status functions generate powers, both authorizations and obligations. Status functions are not power but ‘‘vehicles of power’’ (Searle, 2006, p. 18). Institutions are composed of nested status functions that generate iterated networks of these enabling and constraining deontic powers (Searle, 2006, p. 15). Searle thus understands the logic of institutions as propositionally ordered power structures in that the acts that they authorize or oblige can be nested and interlocked. These acts have a logic because the intentionality that produces them also does, or as he says, because ‘‘human attitudes y have propositional contents with logical relations’’ (Searle, 2006, p. 15). Status functions fuse a represented status and the function that this collective representation enables it to perform. It is the relationship between status and function, or put differently, practice and purpose, that is at issue. Searle understands status functions as assignments of values, goals, or purposes (Searle, 1995, p. 19). ‘‘Roughly speaking,’’ Searle writes, ‘‘functions are causes that serve a purpose’’ (Searle, 2006, p. 17). For Searle, the normatively laden, observer-relative function derives from the collective intentionality that drives the assignment of the status. ‘‘Where do the purposes come from?,’’ Searle writes. ‘‘In any case, it is not essential for the main argument y that functions are observer relative, though I note it in passing’’ (Searle, 2006, p. 17). Institutions convert exogenous purposes into deontic powers. In Searle’s account, these powers, not the purposes, become the ‘‘desire-independent reasons for action’’ that are understood to ground institutional life

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(Searle, 2006, p. 19). Indeed, these powers are purposes. Searle’s institutional account thus gives primacy to the deontological, to the practices one can and must do, not to the value or purposes they serve, nor for the matter to the institutional objects that occasion these practices (Searle, 1995, p. 36). For Searle, in fact, institutions evolve out of brute power relations. Marriage and property, he argues, ‘‘originate in the sheer physical and intentional facts involved in cohabitation and physical possession, respectively’’ (Searle, 1995, p. 81). Not unlike Bourdieu, institutions reduce to power, these institutions being ways to stabilize possession. Institutions are structures of power whose purposes are analytically external to their constitution, located in an extrainstitutional collective intentionality. Institutions, I would argue, have a logic not because of the propositional qualities of human attitudes and the acts they enable, but because practices and substances are internally co-constitutive. Deontic powers – authorizations and obligations – trace out the logic of practice with respect to a purpose, a value, or in my terms, a substance, the most general ‘‘function’’ in an institutional field. An institutional substance would be part of what these philosophers call a ‘‘free-standing Y,’’ that is, it is a status function that has no brute reality upon which it stands, only the practices through which it is enacted (Smith, 2003, p. 25). Substances are known through their powers but are not reducible to them. By comparison to the presence of things, an institutional substance is an absent presence toward and around which practice incessantly moves, known only through this movement, not unlike the way a space is known through its architectural enclosure. Institutional logics are ontological enactments, a what done through a how, popular sovereignty through democratic election, justice through juridical practices that classify actions according to the binary of legal and illegal, divinity through pilgrimage and prayer, and romantic love through intimate exchange of body and word. Institutional practices subjectify as they objectify. Romantic love, for example, is an institutional logic that specifies how one makes, has, and shows love, and hence is a lover. Love, loving, and lover are co-implicated. These symbolic practices are the visible face and the condition of possibility of institutional substances, and hence the source of their identity across time. Like an unknowable God, a substance is known through its enactments, its operations, and the practices that presume it. These practices come as congeries, a kind of symbolizing skein, whose self-referential interlocking helps substantiate that institutional logic. Belief in the objectivity of the substance affords space in which practices can change; new practices can be added and subtracted, and yet still legitimately claim to

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index the same substance.4 Categories and practices are modular, mobile, and hence recomposable. This suggests the utility of thinking of institutional logics as production functions, the ways in which particular combinations of elements – substances and practices – recombine, and yet cohere and produce particular congeries of effects, as opposed to variable attributes of fields, in other words, more like chemistry than physics (Mohr & Duquenne, 1997). The telos of each institutional field is to produce, accumulate, control, distribute, manage, express, perform, or access the substance. The substance becomes a basis for hierarchical ordering, the institutional content of power. Given that substances are knowable only through the practices that perform and appropriate them, how this is done cannot be dissociated from what is produced, accumulated, or accessed. This means that it is not possible to cleanly differentiate between behavior driven by a logic of consequences and a logic of appropriateness, between the ontological and the de-ontological (March & Olsen, 1989; Thornton & Ocasio, 2008). Appropriate practices are reciprocally tied to substantive consequences, the deontological to the ontological. Like religion, an institution’s practices are ontologically rational, that is, tied to a substance indexed by the conjunction of a practice and a name. An institutional substance is the highest, most general value in a field. It does not matter whether one believes in the reality of a substance; what matters is that one knows that others believe, and to participate in the practices of an institutional field, one cannot act as if one does not believe. Prayer to God is not so different from the realization of profit, which is, after all, an accounting convention derived from monetized property rights. (Likewise, capital or equity only exists through representations, not as the thing itself (Smith, 2003, p. 28)). Property does not exist in itself, but is rather a substance immanent to the exercise of a set of rights, which are themselves created ex nihilo by the state. Like God, one can never know the substance in itself, either through one’s senses or through one’s reason. Institutions all depend not on illusio but on faith in the substances around which their practices are organized. Every institution is a religious institution: a linked set of practices, subjects, and an unobservable substance that joins the two. This means one cannot delimit religion’s institutional specificity, as Bruce Lincoln has done, in a discourse that claims for itself a ‘‘transcendent status,’’ ‘‘whose concern transcends the human, temporal, and contingent y’’ (Lincoln, 2003, p. 5). Every institution rests on transcendent claims, on a metaphysical foundation that cannot be reduced to the phenomenal world, even if it does not invoke a God. The creator God is only known through His creation. Institutional substances are not divine beings, but

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they are first causes, ultimate reasons that explain human behavior. Institutional practices render immanent the central institutional substance, the God term necessarily invoked by name while it is evoked by practice. In that institutional powers are organized around these substances, indexed and evinced through institutional practice, themselves unobservable, they depend on faith, on submission to the institutional logic of practice, and on an institutional enchantment. Institutional logics depend on making the invisible substance visible. Those substances are as gods. The philosopher of religion Thomas Carlson has described the word of God in the thinking of John Scotus Eriugena, a substance is ‘‘seen in all things visible while remaining itself invisible,’’ or as Eriugena himself wrote it, ‘‘creates all things and is created in all things’’ (Carlson, 2008, p. 93). The energy and creativity of institutional life derives not just from the indeterminacy of the ‘‘God’’ term but from the tension between these transcendent terms and the practices, which make them immanent.5 As every prophet knows – not to mention the mystics – divinity can never be reduced to church practice, but neither can it be divorced from it either. Institutional life requires us to act as if we believe in the value, and, in fact, we tend to refuse to reduce it – knowledge, property, sovereignty, love, let alone divinity – to the organizational structures, the social relations, and the practices, which index, perform, produce, and distribute it. Practices enact substances, but as the case of the medieval mystical women and the rise of the hostile takeover both indicate, practices can change because the substance – God and property in this case – is always excessive to the practice, excessive because they are themselves indeterminate. And institutional practices can change in part because they are themselves excessive to the substance, dependent on mechanisms and other logics far distant from their core, and yet always insufficient in that they can never secure their own operations without reference to the primary substance. Not only do transformations in ontology imply changes in practice, but practical changes can create the conditions under which the ontology itself is transformed. Institutional logics all likely generate their own internal contradictions. That open, even dialectical, relation between substance and practice – between transcendence and immanence – whose effects thinkers have a tendency to absolutize as either idealism, the influence of analytically separable values or categories, or materialism, the influence of control over the analytically separable materialities of practices – is a critical source of agency and institutional change, where actors seek to promote alternative practices to index, produce, perform an institution’s central substance (for the changing practices of romantic love, see Swidler, 2001), or take practices and

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categories from one field and import them to another (for the migration of disciplinary technique, see Foucault, 1979). An enormous amount of politics within and between institutional fields revolve around these relations.6 The variable relation between practice and substance remains to be explored.

INSTITUTIONAL LOGIC: THE CASE OF JUSTICE AND THE LAW We can see the transcendent-immanent relation between substance and practice within the institution of the law, in which justice must translate into juridical practices of ascertaining and producing legality and illegality. Juridical justice has an institutional specificity. As legal theorist Gunther Teubner points out, juridical justice depends just as much on inequality within the law as on equality before it. Juridical justice, unlike political justice, which hinges on a universalizable aggregation of equal citizens, depends on the production of inequalities, ‘‘the unequal treatment of what is not equal, which provokes the search for more and more elaborate legal constructs y’’ (Teubner, 2009). Justice is required by four insurmountable gaps, or indeterminacies, in juridical practice: first, between code and case, that is, between the rule and its application; second, between code and social norm, that is, the transformation of extra-legal norm into law; third, between different social norms and their respective legal codes, law’s mediation between institutional heterologies or incommensurable logics; and fourth, between law and life, that is, the institutional limits of the law to regulate domains of social activity that cannot be legalized, the recognition of the incommensurabilities of law to life. In the first instance, justice is a question of referentiality; in the second, translation and what Teubner calls ecological adequacy; in the third, commensuration, partitioning, allocation, and segregation of incommensurable domains of activity and their codes; and in the fourth, suspension, restraint, and positive inaction that demarcates the limits of juridical justice. It is in this last indeterminacy, in the presumption that one knows what juridical justice is not and cannot be, that the inequality, or impassibility, of law to life must be enacted beyond justice, if not unjustly. Law cannot reason without this substantive rationality as its principle of practice, which is, as Teubner points out, no principle at all. Although Teubner casts justice as a process of legal self-transcendence through ‘‘which the law protests against itself ’’ (Teubner, 2009, p. 11), I would argue that

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justice, like God, is the transcendent substance necessarily immanent to the practice of law, grounding the elaboration and application of the structural code of legal and non-legal by which new categories of action are produced so that unlikes are not equalized. Each of these four indeterminacies requires justice as substantive reason, as an absent presence that is forever deferred in practice, but must be cited and believed in for law not only to be justifiable but also to be actionable. Although each is excessive to the other, the law depends as much on justice as justice depends on the law. As Teubner writes, ‘‘No philosophical theory of justice or other external authority can dictate the normative content of law. It is law itself that puts the law on trial’’ (Teubner, 2009, p. 14). Justice and law are mutually supplementary. These four aporia each pose problems insoluble by law alone. Justice, however, functions differently according to the indeterminacy. In the first three, it is the content of the law (determining a violation, formulating a rule, deciding which legal code shall be relevant) that is at stake as instances of justice; in the fourth, it is both the law’s existence and its limit and hence the limits, the possibility and impossibility, of juridical justice. In the first three, justice is transcendent, but not contradictory to the law. In the fourth, justice is contradictory to the law and thus destroys both law and justice. In the first three, justice bridges between law and world, which conditions both the code and its application; in the fourth, justice marks the limits of the law, and hence of justice itself. In the first three, justice must be immanent to a legal practice that is always inadequate to it; in the fourth, it cannot be. Here, justice is truly blind. Justice, Teubner argues, is ‘‘the subversive practices of law’s selftranscendence,’’ that process that ‘‘interrupts, blocks and sabotages the routinized recursivity of legal operations’’ (Teubner, 2009, p. 12). The institutional logic of juridical justice, he contends, is unique: ‘‘Justice begins where the law ends’’ (Teubner, 2009, p. 16).7 Putting aside its uniqueness, he thereby locates the dialectic between transcendent substance and immanent practice between an external justice and an internal self-referential legal system. To effect this move, Teubner draws on Derrida, who makes the incalculability of justice the condition of possibility of deconstruction, to ground an approach to justice that points beyond the polyvalent rationalities of Luhmann’s systems theory (Derrida, 2002, p. 243). In this understanding rather than a contingency formula within the domain of the law, but excessive to practice, justice becomes a formula for transcendence, indeed a religious experience without God. Derrida makes justice the extra-institutional ground of every institution. Radicalizing Carl Schmitt’s (1985) decisionist understanding of sovereign

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authority, Derrida argues that the foundation and the implementation of the law, its formation and application, partake of the same logic of indeterminacy, of incalculability, because the decision can never be accounted for by the law, that there is a necessary lawlessness – both a violence and a faith – within the law. For Derrida, justice requires a decision, an immediate, undecidable decision that cannot be decided by rule, a madness, ‘‘that must rend time and defy dialectics’’ (Derrida, 2002, pp. 244, 255). Derrida generalizes this aporetic structure as an attribute of religious institution, not religion as institution, but institution as religious, in that it relies on ‘‘a general structure of experience,’’ the phenomenological ground of religiosity (Derrida, 1998, pp. 18, 19, 33). Religion here comprises two separate sources – faith and the experience of belief to which it is integral, on the one hand, and the sacred, or the unscathed, on the other (Derrida, 1998, p. 33). Messianicity and chora are Derrida’s names, his proper names, for faith and the unscathed respectively, the two sources of the religious. Messianicity refers to the unexpected coming of an other, the elemental faith, the second, a Greek name for place, to a memorial space inaccessible to memory, a place named in Plato’s (1976) cosmogony, the Timaeus (Derrida, 1998, p. 17). The sacred, the unscathed, points to an inviolable, unmarked space, which is neither the inscription nor the inscribed, but the space of its possibility (Derrida, 1998, p. 27, 1995, p. 106). If the first operates as an uncertain, temporal event forever repeated in the performative conventions of institutions, an event repeating the logic of the first institution, the second operates as a singular impassible space upon which all territorialities – both bodily and national, as well as the languages they deploy – are premised. These two constitute an illegible structure of experience, which is itself not experienced but is the trans-historical, transcultural basis of justice. The religious figures the secret of sociality, of address, of authority, and of institution. There is, Derrida declares, an ‘‘abstract messianicity’’ in the institution of the institution, of the founding of the law, ‘‘a ‘performative’ event that cannot belong to the set that it founds, inaugurates or justifies. Such an event is unjustifiable within the logic of what it will have opened.’’ Faith in a ‘‘present-absent witness,’’ in an absent God, a living dead, guarantees every pledge and property and every naming and nomination. The logic of the address contains both sources of religion, the faith that must undergird the promise to respond, the promise to tell the truth, which presumes an absolute witness guaranteeing iterability and truth, and the sacred, or the unscathed, in which the singularity of both self and other, which presumes an abstract space of inscription, which he calls a desert in

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the desert, in which the finite, embodied self and other, and the events of revelation, take place. It is from this faith and this sacred that ‘‘an invincible desire for justice’’ derives (Derrida, 1998, p. 18). Justice for Derrida is an impossible approach to the singularity of the other who arrives unexpectedly that must be confronted in applying the law to each person, each case, an excessive nonjuridical inside juridical practice. Justice is other to law, grounded in a relationship to an unexpected and unscathed other, to an unassimilable singularity, grounded beyond the law in friendship, generosity, and indeed love (Derrida, 1998, 1990). Justice here locates those space/times where the law cannot go. This messianicity points to the just society as ‘‘a universalizable culture of singularities, a culture in which the abstract possibility of impossible translation could nevertheless be announced’’ (Derrida, 1998, p. 18). Such a justice is trans-institutional. Justice here would not be the figure that love takes within the law, but as it effects law’s decomposition. Such a justice is not the transcendent paradoxically immanent to the law, it is the outside inside of not only every law, but every institution, every social bond, and hence no longer juridical justice, except as it appears in the extraordinary, extra-legal authority of judges and the sovereigns under which they serve to suspend the law, or what is the same thing, decline to apply it, that is where they grant a pardon, declare an emergency, determine that some aspect of existence is outside the law, or look the other way, transcendent moments of profane messianicity. Justice cannot determine the limits of the law. But when justice loses the possibility of a relation to the law, when it is no longer law’s supplement, it is its effacement. Derrida, and hence Teubner, refuse to divide the aporetic between those internal to the practice of the law and those that cannot, indeed must not, be assimilated to the law. As Derrida notes, we risk both the very best and the very worst from the incalculability of decision. The danger of the worst is too great to lose the institutional specificity of justice. And this is, I think, the salvific meaning of Teubner’s statement: ‘‘In the last instance, justice is the attempt to overcome the rupture between immanence and transcendence’’ (Teubner, 2009, p. 18).

INSTITUTIONAL CONTRADICTION AND THE MOVEMENT OF THE SOCIAL Institutions create the conditions of possibility of a specific practical regime of valuation, but cannot assure the value will in fact be valued. Just as

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rationality cannot account for its own application, rational choice cannot derive values, only preferences based on them. Or put in their language, they can derive preferences but not ‘‘affects,’’ which here refer to the value of the consequences of the performance of an act (Abell, 1996). The incalculable boundary between institutions, and hence what regimes of valuation will be hegemonic, is the single most important political issue facing a society. The referential scope of an institutional logic – to what objects, persons, and activities it refers – is explosive because institutions depend on the naturalization and inconspicuousness of their conventions, on the taking of institutional(ized) ontologies as inhering in the nature of things. Extending alternative metaphorical orders profanes, not by an absence or abrogation of the deontological but by the breaching of an ontological other, the intrusion of an alternative, heterologous presence. Institutions cannot guarantee their own boundaries, the scope of their reference. Beyond the realist distributional struggles among groups – including struggles over what Fraser has labeled ‘‘recognition’’ – that have animated social theory, the contingency of valuation and the incommensurability of expansive regimes of valuation are what make institutional boundary politics possible (Cloutier & Langley, 2007; Thornton & Ocasio, 2008). As the failure of theories of market failure and secularization both attest, we, in fact, have no adequate theory about how the boundaries of institutions shift, the ways in which different activities, persons, and objects are appropriated, claimed, and/or captured by one field as opposed to another, or subject to their blending as in the case of religious nationalism (for institutional transformation as a result of ‘‘turbulent overlay,’’ here rock and roll and early Christian Church, see Mohr & White, 2008). Based on values that are incommensurable and that cannot be rationally adjudicated, values unobservable and thus dependent on faith, whose actual valuation is always contingent, institutional boundaries are vulnerable to political contest, to extension and constrictions of material reference, to the promotion of new practices to index existent values, and even the development of historically new institutional logics (Clemens, 1997; Meyerson, 2003; Meyerson & Tompkins, 2007; Scott et al., 2000). Institutional boundary shifts involve the prospect of incommensuration, of a kind of placelessness, and the indeterminate subjectification that these open make institutional boundary movements explosive, energized, the playground and the battlefield of the gods. These are the politics of world-making and hence the privileged locus of some of the most important social movements whose condition of possibility is the production of institutional contradiction. Although all

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social movements may be involved in ‘‘targeting system of authority in institutional structures’’ (Taylor & Van Dyke, 2004, p. 268), it is important to distinguish movements that contest authority to shift distributions from those that contest ontological orders. An institutional approach should be capable of restoring the sociological relevance of meaning to such social movements’ means and ends, in contrast to state-centered approaches that stress the structure of power between authorities and challengers as a determinant of whether and how social movements emerge to challenge the status quo (Tilly, 1978; McAdam, Tarrow, & Tilly, 2001). In this approach, social movements are analyzed as organizational means, instruments by which groups realize interests such as power or income, or attain exogenously given goals. The problem with such an approach is not only that movements with ‘‘cultural’’ goals that do not target the state fall out, but the content of collective subjectivity, the institutional ground of activism, is never of primary concern (Armstrong & Bernstein, 2008; Taylor & Van Dyke, 2004; Van Dyke, Soule, & Taylor, 2004). As the school of ‘‘contentious politics’’ recognizes, institutional conditions – the historical emergence of a national, democratic, and capitalist state – shaped repertoires of action (McAdam et al., 2001). The implication is that other institutional sources of social movements also shape social movement practices, which may or may not be transported into the state arena (Clemens, 1993; Van Dyke et al., 2004; Young, 2002). On the other side, an institutional approach also challenges those who argue that social movements preoccupied with identitarian cultural issues are somehow distinct from ‘‘old’’ class-based movements, given the emergence of post-industrial society with its appropriations and productions of private life, the increasing autonomy of culture as both a product and a force of production (Melucci, 1996). Social movements seek to create new subjects, both collective and individual, at the same time, they reconfigure the object world. They thereby not only make history, they seek to enact new forms of historicity – rationality, progress, redemption, liberation, and domination. The production of new identities and new forms of historicity has been emphasized, in particular, as the distinctive quality of what are called ‘‘new’’ social movements. Alberto Melucci speaks of the new movements like environmentalism and feminism as symbolic assaults on the dominant codes, while Alain Touraine understands them as producers of new forms of historicity (Melucci, 1996; Touraine, 1981). If the emplacement of a new institutional logic always involves the formation of new subjects, objects, and practices linking the two, it is not clear what constitutes the ‘‘newness’’ of these social movements.

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Social movements often seek to effect institutional boundary shifts, transformations in the dominant institutional logic. Social movement theorists shied away from the force of ideas because they wanted to avoid the assumption that institutional order depended on consent. I would suggest it is just the opposite: The reorganization of consent often depends on historical force. Institutional transformations require power, the deployment of resources, self-conscious collective organization, and even – especially – the exercise of force. Shifts in institutional architecture are occasions in which hegemony fails, and power, denuded of legitimacy, is on display. But while it may be central to institutional transformation, an institutional approach requires that we rethink power, premised as it now is on the hard side of the materialist-idealist dualism, in part a Christian legacy of late medieval nominalism whose omnipotent God could no longer metaphysically guarantee the world nor render its order accessible (Blumenberg, 1983, pp. 170–173). Social theoretical approaches to power have followed in the tracks of the materialization of nature that arose in the wake of nominalism in which we take a natural material substrate upon which we are presumed to imprint exterior categories and values, identifying the first with the social and the second with the cultural. Theoretical frameworks typically understand power as a social relationship to materiality, a control over bodies and things. William Sewell’s now-classic essay, revising Giddens’ concept of the duality of structure through the categories of ‘‘rules’’ and ‘‘resources,’’ is a case in point (Sewell, 1992). Rules refer to ‘‘cultural schemas.’’ Resources, in contrast, are objects and attributes of human beings that can be used to ‘‘enhance or maintain power.’’ Schemas are deep and virtual, resources evident and actual. (Sewell has elsewhere defined culture as the semiotic dimension of human social life and practice as purposeful practical activity (Sewell, 1999, pp. 44, 47–48).) Social structures conjoin the two. Sewell thereby de-culturalizes power, locating it in the control of resources specified independently of the institutional sites in which they are produced and allocated. Resources, Sewell argues circularly, are known by their capacity to ‘‘enhance or maintain power,’’ which is known by control of resources. An exemplary analysis of 19th-century American anti-abortion politics that applies Sewell’s schema-resource approach also reveals its limits. As Beisel and Kay show, power was a central stake for abortion’s opponents (Beisel & Kay, 2004). Both physicians and suffragettes opposed abortion because they were concerned about the low fertility rates of Anglo-Saxon Protestant women and its implications for racial, political, and cultural dominance (Beisel & Kay, 2004). Both racialized and religionized citizenship – Anglo-Saxon and

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Protestant; both understood abortion as murder. However, the difference between the two hinges on the social ontology of the sexual body. While both physicians and suffragettes identified woman with her womb, they did not align body and property the same way. For the physicians, the married woman’s womb belonged to her husband and to the polity, as a white, Protestant nation-state. For the suffragettes, who had fought against abolition, no human body – neither slave working body nor female sexual body – could be alienable property. Suffragettes argued that abortion was a woman’s response to involuntary sexuality imposed on them by their husbands, a problem whose resolution hinged on their being given equal political and civil rights. For the physicians, male sexual drive was natural and woman had no right to deny it; for the suffragettes, who cast unwanted sex as ‘‘marital rape,’’ they did. For the physicians, sexual difference translated into political inequality; for the suffragettes, it did not. The feminists sought to expand the logic of citizenship into the family; the physicians did not. Resources, in fact, are not shared, but contested, between the feminists and the physicians. There are no powers, hence resources, which are not culturally constituted, nor are there meaningful rules that are not materially conditioned. The conditions of use of resources, indeed their constitution and the subjects who use them, are organized through institutions. In 19th century antiabortion politics, Anglo-Saxon babies only ‘‘count’’ because they are mediated through the institution of democracy. It is particularly tempting to treat groups as though they are present-athand, materially substantial, the sociological contingency being their political mobilization, the classic in-itself/for-itself conundrum. Collective subjects – whether classes, nations, or races – always presume an unfoundable ontology (Anderson, 1983; Brubaker, 2002). The politics of ethnic groups provide a pertinent example. Rogers Brubaker and David Laitin have argued that the weakening of states, ‘‘the decline y in states’ capacities to maintain order by monopolizing the legitimate use of violence in their territories,’’ and the reluctance of regional powers to intervene in the domestic conflicts of their neighbors and allies, helps explain the recent rise of ethno-nationalist violence (Brubaker & Laitin, 1998). This takes as an explanation what needs to be explained in that ethnic violence is both an indicator and a source of breakup of the state’s monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Brubaker and Laitin understand the rise of ethno-nationalist violence in part as a result of the declining payoffs to ‘‘framing’’ conflicts as ideological struggles between capitalism and communism (Brubaker & Laitin, 1998). ‘‘Today,’’ they write, ‘‘these incentives to frame conflicts in grand ideological terms have disappeared.’’ ‘‘Ethnicity,’’ they underline,

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‘‘is not the ultimate, irreducible ‘source’ of violent conflict in such cases. Rather, conflict driven by struggles for power between challengers and incumbents are newly ethnicized, newly framed in ethnic terms’’ (Brubaker & Laitin, 1998, p. 425). While I applaud their denaturalization of the ethnos and their emphasis on its political construction, I do not think that some objective power struggle can be posited as an explanatory motor of the transformation. This formulation neutralizes what needs to be explained, namely, the ethnicization of power, its constitution as a collective subject in whose name it is possible to speak, or as Brubaker writes elsewhere, ‘‘groupness as an event’’ (Brubaker, 2002, p. 168). This formulation treats ethnicity as a resource, instrumentalized by powers constituted outside it who, through violence and framing, are able to constitute groupness. Power, which has no cultural content, cannot explain the conditions under which its resignification, the substance of the units through which it is organized and hence its interest, becomes thinkable, possible, and effective. Political representation, and hence power, is not culturally neutral, but has specific institutional contours. The whole analytic emphasis on ‘‘framing’’ assumes that there is some objective social space on which the ‘‘framers’’ stand. The social, as such, does not exist. Power is both culturally constitutive and constituted. It is constitutive in that resources, and particularly human bodies, their presentation and their risk, are the elemental mechanism through which an institutional substance is substantiated in the sense that that for which one is willing to stand, to risk bodily pain and even death, must consequently be real. The presentation of human resources, and the human above all, simultaneously signifies and produces meaningfulness. Power is also culturally constitutive because the reach of institutional boundaries can be adjudicated by neither reason nor experience. Power is necessary to institutional transformation because institutions depend on faith, on unsecured credit, and on ungrounded knowledge. It is often through social movements that power, and hence the arbitrary faith, upon which existent institutions ultimately depend, is forced to reveal itself; denaturalized, culture ‘‘exposed’’ as mere ideology. Social movements aim at and are founded on the production of institutional heterologies, on the revelation of arbitrary regional ontologies, of which the displays, often spectacular, of power are indicative. Instituting, the movement of institutional boundaries, tends toward violence. Most major institutional emplacements – the establishment of law, capitalism, and wage labor; the nation-state, democracy; and, of course, established and disestablished religions – have occurred only through the sustained exercise of violence. It is important to remember that it was the

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unprecedented barbarity of the wars of religion that prompted efforts to attenuate or sever the link between sovereignty and God (Lincoln, 2003, pp. 56–58). The violence accompanying religion’s recent entry into the public sphere was matched by an even greater incidence and intensity of violence accompanying its displacement as the original ground of the nation-state, not to mention the violence over which religion would be the religion of state. Indeed, in Europe, it was the struggle over which God represented the absolute that contributed to the absolutization of the sovereign state (Blumenberg, 1983, pp. 89–91). And reciprocally, it is also the case that power is culturally constituted. Ann Swidler has argued that culture – as symbols, stories, and rituals – provides a ‘‘tool kit or repertoire y from which actors select differing pieces for constructing lines of action’’ (Swidler, 1986, p. 273). Swidler reverses Parsons’ instrumental organization of means in pursuit of culturally defined, internalized ends, by stressing the external cultural delimitation of actionable means. We should, she proposes, analyze culture as conditioning action ‘‘not by shaping ends they [‘its holders’] pursue, but by providing the characteristic repertoire from which they build lines of action’’ (Swidler, 1986, p. 284). Institutional theory points to the ways in which means and ends are not necessarily independent. The ends, the ontological projects, which movements pursue, often shape the means through which they seek to attain them. It is not just that fact and value, what is and what ought to be, are bound up with each other in the constitution of any new project. Means of action are bound up with the ends, which give instrumental actions sense and put them in motion. For example, Richard Hecht and I studied the struggle over the organization of space and time in Jerusalem in the post-1967 period (Friedland & Hecht, 1996). These contests were simultaneously over the material choreography of space and time, as well as over the meaning of that space and time. In Jerusalem, social movements’ spatio-temporal practice was an instrument both to achieve material control and to express and secure its ontology. Movement strategies were conditioned not just by their powers but by their cosmologies. The means chosen were meaningful, emblems or instances of the distinctive reality in which the movement was grounded. Comparing the religious nationalist Jewish movement known as the Gush Emunim, or ‘‘Bloc of the Faithful,’’ with the secular Labour Zionist movement that dominated the foundation of the state of Israel indicates the ways in which means are made simultaneously actionable and meaningful by their integral connection to the ends pursued. While both the Labour

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Zionists and the Gush Emunim sought to conquer and settle land, the land’s meaning as an instrument and the means by which it was to be achieved diverge. Religious nationalist Jews understand their settlement within a redemptive historicity, one in which the land taken is promised by God to the Jews as an eternal patrimony, in which the settlement of the land is taken to be an indicator and a means by which the messianic movement of history is to be realized. Because the Gush Emunim elevated the religious commandment for Jews to settle eretz yisrael above all other obligations enumerated in the Torah, they were able to cooperate with secular non-observant Jews, who would not accept religious regulation of other aspects of their lives, as well as to coopt the Zionist tradition of settlement. In contrast to the Labour Zionists, who evaluated settlement by its contribution to state power and economic autonomy, the religious Zionists settled the land without regard to its defensibility, usually making their first, typically extra-legal, moves into places to which a ritual connection could be established. Unlike the Labour Zionists who embraced socialism and saw a land-based life as a way to ‘‘normalize’’ the Jew, the religious Zionists rejected socialism, creating privatized suburbs. This enabled them to reconstitute the pioneering tradition with a middle-class base and to exploit the natural logic of metropolitan suburbanization. It also made them oblivious to the fact that because of the often-exposed geographic positions and the absence of most adult males during working hours, their settlements have been a drain on the military capacity of the state. The contests between religious nationalist movements and the secular nation-state do not seem so different from those faced by 18th- and 19thcentury nationalists, democrats, or socialists who reached for power against existent classes and powerful institutions developing in the process distinctive identities, forms of organization, and new social practices (Hunt, 1984; Sewell, 1985). The expressive tactics of feminist movements, likewise, have been conditioned by and sought to extend the practical logic of gendered identity grounded in the logic of families and non-state arenas (Clemens, 1993; Taylor & Van Dyke, 2004). Eyerman and Jamison have shown the ways in which successful social movements from environmentalism to socialism created new public spaces in which new identities, new knowledge, and new organizational forms conjointly emerged (Eyerman & Jamison, 1991, pp. 66–93). While theorists like Swidler are rightly concerned to move away from models that analyze culture as consensual, internalized subjectivities, the move toward publicly available, externalized ways of organizing action reverses the old instrumental-expressive, means-ends dualities, in which the instrumental world remains as an external, objective

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limit to cultural refashioning. The role of culture in constituting that world and its intelligibility drops from view. The cultural constitution of means is evident in contemporary politicized religions. These are characterized by a particular conjunction of practices. On the one hand, they are preoccupied with the regulation of sexuality – homosexuality, abortion, marriage, divorce, pre- and extra-marital sexuality, and evolution. On the other hand, they tend toward bodily violence – the killing of officials, of non-believing opponents, and of enemies inside and out. That violence is either enacted in the present or anticipated in an apocalyptic future. In the former case, its violence is typically by their own hands, not a distant technical killing, but one in which their own lives are close at hand, if not consumed, in the acts themselves. Politicized religions seek to ontologically recast both life and history and to rejoin the two (Friedland, forthcoming). For them, the collective return to God, like the original turn, is a miracle, something not assimilable to natural law, to the temporality of progress, and to the machine logic of rationalization. Their violence expresses the extraordinariness of that divine force. It expresses God’s historicity, in which the adherents of politicized religion not only believe but also participate. Where Shi’ites traditionally endured, waiting for the return of the missing Imam, a kind of hidden messiah, the Ayatollah Khomeini built the doctrine that one was to actively emulate the model of Hussein in Karbalah, cut down by the Ummayads, to struggle against injustice and to seek martyrdom. This model was subsequently diffused among Sunni militants, who increasingly celebrated the suffering of their enemies, which they took to be indicators of Allah’s intercession (Israeli, 1997). Religious Zionists likewise understand themselves to be preparing the ‘‘footsteps of the Messiah,’’ preparing the ground, by their settlement of the covenanted lands helping to speed the Messiah on his way. Many Christian fundamentalists in the United States understand history as a struggle between Christ and the anti-Christ, through which the latter seeks the erosion of American sovereignty particularly through international financial regimes, leading to a violent struggle in which they will be called upon to bear witness and from whose horrible devastation they will be delivered. Hindu nationalists likewise historicize the coming of their gods, seeking the modern-day restoration of Ram’s mythic kingdom (Friedland & Hecht, 1998). The religious nationalist political practices of sexual regulation and physical violence are ontological enactments, comportments that index God’s absent presence, the divine as sovereign, whose sovereignty is grounded in its relation to life, a life that must be excessive to the law, and

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whose excess is precisely what grounds the sovereign’s authority (Friedland, 2007). Although it is hardly the solution they would imagine, politicized religion thus aims precisely at what Hannah Arendt and Giorgio Agamben discern as the crippled core – life – of modern politics (Arendt, 1958; Agamben, 1998). Indeed, one could argue that politicized religion displaces death, which Foucault identified as the ground of the modern episteme and its ‘‘positivities’’ of language, life and labor – each constituted by ‘‘man’s’’ finitude – ‘‘the spatiality of the body, the yawning of desire, and the time of language.’’ Politicized religion effaces man as the sovereign observer, strives for an anti-hermeneutic original language, restores an origin to man, and thereby displaces death as the basis of value (Foucault, 1971, p. 314). The conditions under which it is possible to reject the classical Weberian approach emphasizing the role of ‘‘world images’’ in shaping both the ends and means to and through which action is oriented still must be specified (Weber, 1946). It is a daunting task, but it is our task for in most social movements, reality is at stake, not just distribution, access, or power. Successful social movements must remake the world according to their own codes, must make their ideas matter, that is, make them material. Instances and referents must be created in the practice of the movement. Social movements reach for resources as a condition of their reality-making, but they do so in ways that are conditioned by the reality they are seeking to make. We must stop the dance between angels and grain prices, between expansion to ideals and reduction to interest. To extrude meaning as a proper analytic object on the grounds that it is not observable is to fail to observe that taken-for-granted, unobservable meanings are the condition for the observability of the social effects of resources. Such a social science represses the conditions of its operations; it fails to understand the conditions under which sense is no longer common; it resorts to the catch-all, the Bermuda triangle of materialist social science – crisis – to explain what needs to be explained – crisis. The conditions under which particular ideas and identities mobilize large numbers of people to enact their projects and transform the world are largely unexplored territories.

NOTES 1. For example, ‘‘[T]he analytic of Dasein is not aimed at laying an ontological basis for anthropology; its purpose is one of fundamental ontology’’ (1962, p. 244). 2. ‘‘The way in which ‘care’ is viewed in the foregoing existential analytic of Dasein, is one which has grown upon the author in connection with his attempts to

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interpret the Augustianian (i.e. Helleno-Christian) anthropology with regard to the foundational principles reached in the ontology of Aristotle’’ (1962, p. 492). 3. ‘‘The real system of science consists in a solidarity of procedure and attitude with respect to the objectification of whatever is’’ (Heidegger, 1977, p. 127). 4. As John Searle argues, institutional practices are ‘‘referentially opaque’’ (1995, p. 29). 5. Thomas Carlson links the indeterminate human and the negative anthropology implied by mystical theology, the unknowable human who models and is modeled on his divine unknowable counterpart, the God who, as Borges writes, is a ‘‘substance capable of endless modifications’’ (2008, p. 35). I understand my own institutional theory as a sociological parallel to Carlson’s understanding of the ‘‘indiscrete image’’ of the human who can only create in his indistinction, his incompleteness, and his lack of self-sovereignty, that is, we have always been post-humans submitted to institutional substances that we cannot know, objectify, and represent for certain, but upon which our subjectivity and our agency depend. 6. Understanding the variability of institutional logics will require a theory of the conditions of symbolization, that is, when categories become constitutive as opposed to nominal and legitimating. 7. The legal paradox poses the question: ‘‘Is it lawful to apply the distinction between lawful and unlawful to the world?’’. I do not see why this is not the paradox of every institutional logic, inherent in the indeterminacy of its referential scope. One could pose the same question of truth, salvation, and love and their vexed relation to science, religion, and kinship, for example. What would make juridical justice unique is that justice is exterior to the law.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank my friends and colleagues for their suggestions, commentary, and critique on this chapter, including Elizabeth Armstrong, Ron Breiger, Thomas Carlson, Michael Dusche, Doug McAdam, Huggy Rao, Gunther Teubner, Verta Taylor, Robin Wagner-Pacifici, Colleen Windham, as well as an anonymous reviewer. I am particularly indebted to Renate Meyer for her (and Peter Walgenbach’s) critique and suggestions for revision.

REFERENCES Abell, P. (1996). Sociological theory and rational choice theory. In: B. S. Turner (Ed.), Blackwell companion to social theory (pp. 223–245). Oxford: Blackwell. Agamben, G. (1998). Homo sacer: Sovereign power and bare life. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Agamben, G. (2005). The time that remains: A commentary on the letter to the Romans. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Alford, R., & Friedland, R. (1985). Powers of theory. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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PARADIGM SHIFTS AS IDEOLOGICAL CHANGES: A KUHNIAN VIEW OF ENDOGENOUS INSTITUTIONAL DISRUPTION Rick Vogel ABSTRACT In this article, my goal is to approach Thomas S. Kuhn’s account of scientific development from the perspective of institutional theory. Reading it this way, his main work can be seen as a treatise on endogenous change of an institutional order, occurring under circumstances that do not allow the expectation of such discontinuities when deploying common institutional arguments. To elucidate the underlying mechanisms, I draw on ideology as the set of beliefs incorporated in the system of orientation Kuhn calls paradigm. From his dense description of paradigm shifts, I deduce five propositions on the role of ideology in radical institutional change. Subsequently, I reconcile these propositions with assumptions of institutional theory and identify, in addition to some convergences, points of divergence, which give impetus to extend conceptions of institutional change.

Institutions and Ideology Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 27, 85–113 Copyright r 2009 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X(2009)0000027005

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INTRODUCTION In its early stages, new institutionalism was frequently criticized for its shortcomings in explaining the dynamics of institutions and for its overpreoccupation with permanence, path dependence, embeddedness, and isomorphism (Clemens & Cook, 1999; Dacin, Goodstein, & Scott, 2002; Greenwood & Hinings, 1996; Kondra & Hinings, 1998; Hirsch & Lounsbury, 1997b). In response to this criticism, a branch of institutional theory has developed, which deals with issues of institutional change, thereby contributing to significant progress in the field. This research has helped to open up institutionalism to several related theories such as resource dependence (Sherer & Lee, 2002; Oliver, 1991), structuration (Hirsch & Lounsbury, 1997a; Barley & Tolbert, 1997), and practice theory (Lounsbury & Crumley, 2007). Moreover, it offers valuable empirical insights into institutional fields that have undergone profound changes, such as health care (Scott, Ruef, Mendel, & Caronna, 2000; Galvin, 2002; Reay & Hinings, 2005), the photography industry (Munir, 2005; Munir & Phillips, 2005), and banking (Marquis & Lounsbury, 2007; Tihanyi & Hegarty, 2007). Despite these and other contributions, however, Schneiberg (2005) and, similarly, Clemens and Cook (1999) state that the theoretical tradition of institutionalism has brought about biases with regard to both the kind and the triggers of change investigated in research on institutional dynamics. Firstly, institutionalists prefer to focus on evolutionary, continuous firstorder change as opposed to revolutionary, episodic second-order change (Bartunek, 1984; Pettigrew, 1985; Weick & Quinn, 1999). Little is known, however, about the conditions under which an institutional order is replaced by one that departs from its predecessor fundamentally rather than gradually. Secondly, triggers of institutional change are commonly traced back to sources outside the predominant institutional arrangement. While institutional change is most often explained by exogenous jolts, existing institutions are prevalently neglected as endogenous impetuses of change and, lastly, as a cause of their own dissolution. In light of this imbalanced concern with institutional change, surprisingly scant attention has been paid in scholarly research to a field of social life in which shifts both of a noncumulative, substitutive nature and mainly (though not exclusively) triggered by internal forces have occurred throughout history: the field of science. The institutional changes that disrupt scientific disciplines are best captured by terms such as ‘‘scientific revolutions’’ and ‘‘paradigm shifts,’’ connected with thinkers such as Copernicus, Newton, Lavoisier, and Einstein. The fact that institutional

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theory has not engaged so far with social studies of science is even more surprising, since, as I argue in this article, a very dense analysis of institutional change in scientific fields already exists, albeit using a different vocabulary and not directed at an audience of institutionalists. This analysis was presented by the originator of the above-quoted notions, Thomas S. Kuhn, in his main work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn, 1970a) (hereafter referred to as Structure). My underlying motive in this article is to advance an institutional re-reading of the Kuhnian account of science to better understand radical, endogenous change of institutional orders. To assess how effective Kuhn’s arguments are in informing investigations of institutional change, the study centers on a reconceptualization, from the perspective of institutional theory, of core concepts and mechanisms on which his approach is based. This reinterpretation will form the basis for a discussion about the respects in which and extent to which the Kuhnian account fits common institutional arguments and where deviations encourage scholars to rethink the general assumptions of institutionalism. In pursuing this goal, I especially draw on the concept of ideology and its role in institutional change. Although ideology is frequently used in new institutionalism, particularly, in some of the initial publications in the field (e.g., Boli & Meyer, 1987; Meyer, 1986; Meyer & Rowan, 1977), it has not yet been a core category in institutional analysis, at least not explicitly. This is surprising, since ideology relates to some of the topics institutionalism has recently begun addressing, that is, agency, interest, conflict, and power (Beckert, 1999; Hargrave & Van de Ven, 2006; Hensmans, 2003). While these developments, most visible in research on institutional entrepreneurship (e.g., Garud, Hardy, & Maguire, 2007; Lounsbury & Crumley, 2007; Munir & Phillips, 2005) and competing logics (e.g., Lounsbury, 2007; Marquis & Lounsbury, 2007; Morrill, forthcoming; Reay & Hinings, 2005), have not yet led to a revaluing of ideology, the term is more significant at the margins of institutionalism, especially at the intersection with social movement analysis. Recently, there has been a lively interaction between these strands of research, which allows for the linking matters of ideology with issues of institutional change (Davis, McAdam, Scott, & Zald, 2005; den Hond & de Bakker, 2007; Hensmans, 2003; Lounsbury, Ventresca, & Hirsch, 2003). These studies retrace the patterns of strategic action of institutional agents to the ideological stances they act upon either to sustain or to challenge the prevailing power arrangement and thus draw a more comprehensive picture of dynamics at both the organizational and the field levels. In social movement research, ideology is understood as a set of interconnected beliefs, values, and attitudes that are shared by members of a

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group and provide guidelines and justifications for their actions, strongly related to social or political topics (Fine & Sandstrom, 1993; Zald, 2000). The intensifying transfer with social movement research would lead one to expect that the notion of ideology will gain rising importance in institutionalism, especially with regard to institutional change. The article at hand aims to contribute to this development. However, unlike in social movement research, where the view prevails that ideology is an exogenous factor that motivates its adherents to participate in attempts either to preserve or to alter the dominant power arrangement, I consider ideology as an endogenous factor of radical institutional change and argue that the Kuhnian approach to scientific development provides valuable insight into the underlying mechanisms. Although ideology and science are often seen as irreconcilable opposites (McLellan, 1995; Walker, 2003), approaching institutional change in science from the perspective of ideology is not necessarily a forced marriage of opposites. The antagonism of science and ideology evolves from a distinct understanding of ideology in its more critical variants. Ideology is indeed one of the most colorful notions in sociology, but the wide variety of definitions stretches between two polar understandings, depending on whether the term is used pejoratively or analytically (Alvesson, 1987; Alvesson, 1991; Chiapello, 2003; Hartley, 1983). In the one extreme, ideology is a misdirecting social consciousness that enforces material interests by way of distortion and dissimulation. This Marxist tradition of ideology, the most pervasive variant, mainly evokes the perceived overall contrast between science and ideology; this corresponds to the opposition of true and false beliefs or rationality and irrationality. In contrast, the other position conceptualizes ideology as representations shared by the members of a social collective. According to this culturalist variant, ideologies are basic frameworks of knowledge that evolve from social interactions and serve as vehicles of thought. In this positive reading, mainly influenced by anthropological traditions in sociology, science and ideology are not extreme poles. Obviously, an institutionalist framing of ideology leans toward this culturalist sense of the term, since institutionalism itself has been influenced strongly by anthropology (e.g., Geertz, 1973; Gehlen, 1988; Plessner, 1928). The communitarian nature of scientific practice, which is crucial for the explanation of scientific development in Kuhn’s approach, suggests making use of the explanatory potential of ideology in these more moderate variants. This article aims to explore the insightful observations offered by Kuhn’s account of science with regard to radical, endogenous institutional change. Taking this view, attention should briefly be devoted to what defines

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institutional change as radical. In what follows, as opposed to a more evolutionary perspective, institutional change is considered to be radical in terms of content rather than time. This means that radical change is a matter of (ideological) differences between the states of a scientific field before and after the revolution, which Kuhn calls paradigm shift. This process of change may be time-consuming to a varying extent and sometimes, according to Kuhn (1970a), requires the turnover of an entire generation of scientists before it is completed. Thus, ‘‘radicalness’’ is defined here by scale rather than by the pace of change. Another noteworthy point is that the dynamics underlying scientific development may not, of course, apply generally to all fields of human affairs. I am strongly aware that the everyday knowledge institutional theory is primarily concerned with (Berger & Luckmann, 1967; Schu¨tz, 1972; Schu¨tz, 1973; Schu¨tz & Luckmann, 1974) differs qualitatively from scientific knowledge in terms of reflexivity, explicitness, substantiation, and formalization, among others. What makes this endeavor promising nevertheless is that the processes active in radical institutional change can be assumed to be more easily identified and studied when they occur in an extreme form. As I show in this article, Kuhn provides such conditions of observation. Using them to offer new perspectives on institutional change, the remainder of this article is organized as follows. In the next section, I advance the proposed institutionalist approach to Structure by discussing how the concept of paradigm, which is widely known as being central to the Kuhnian philosophy of science, relates to analytical categories in institutionalism and to ideology in particular. Subsequently, to explore how the respective mechanisms interact, I review Kuhn’s analysis of paradigm shifts and deduce several propositions concerning the forces underlying radical institutional change. In the discussion section, I assess how these propositions contradict or confirm findings of institutionalism and identify aspects of radical institutional change that have not yet been illuminated.

UNPACKING PARADIGMS: INSTITUTIONAL LOGIC AND IDEOLOGY [The explanation of scientific progress] must [y] be a description of a value system, an ideology, together with an analysis of the institutions through which that system is transmitted and enforced. (Kuhn, 1977, p. 290)

Although my emphasis in this article is on the change rather than the maintenance of an institutional order, it is first essential to analyze the forces

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that stabilize this order in the framework of institutionalism. If the triggers of radical institutional change are considered to be endogenous, the same mechanisms that create and maintain an institutional order must at a certain point in time – paradoxically – give rise to the replacement of the predominant order with a new one. I proceed with a discussion of the core concepts, which matter in this respect and their relationship to one another.

Paradigm The notion of paradigm is certainly the most central, but also probably the most complicated idea in Kuhn’s philosophy of science. To his own regret, its prominence is partly due to varying meanings in Structure, evoking differing interpretations by the reader. To clarify further, I feel it helpful to differentiate between a strict and a broad sense of the term ‘‘paradigm’’ (Kuhn, 1970a, pp. 181–187). In the strict, original sense of the term (to which Kuhn later returned), a paradigm is an exemplary solution to problems acknowledged by the scientific community (Kuhn, 1970a, pp. viii, 10–11, 45–46, 186–191; Kuhn, 1977, pp. 229, 298, 351; Kuhn, 1970b, p. 273; Kuhn, 1963, pp. 351–352). It is an authoritative model based on prior achievements of scientists who are, once the results of their endeavors are recognized as breakthroughs, dignified as outstanding representatives of their specialization. As such, a paradigm is a template that guides the problem-solving behavior of the members of a scientific community in the course of their daily work. In the period of normal science, this work resembles ‘‘puzzle solving’’ (Kuhn, 1970a, pp. 35–42). While the ‘‘big questions’’ in the specialization are assumed to be solved by the originator of the paradigm, his or her achievements leave several ‘‘small questions’’ – the puzzles – to which the community members seek answers. Through the commitment to the paradigm, they are not burdened by the need to justify the methods they apply to solve the fine-grained puzzles. What counts for the investigation of a scientific problem and for its adequate solution is predefined by the paradigm. Since the success attributed to individual scientists depends on the amount of puzzles he or she solves (Kuhn, 1970a, p. 169; Kuhn, 1977, pp. 270–271), the members of the community have strong incentives to preoccupy themselves with the application and extension of the paradigm. Every successful solution of a puzzle confirms the paradigm and thus releases its self-legitimizing forces. In the broad sense of the term, a paradigm is a coherent and integrated system of orientation that incites certain ways of thinking and behaving

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shared by the members of a community (Kuhn, 1970a, pp. 181–187). In particular, the adherents to a paradigm do their research on the common ground of values. Examples of such values could include the imperative of social utility of research, the preferability of quantitative over qualitative predictions, certain margins of permissible errors, and aesthetic standards like simplicity, plausibility, and compatibility of theories. These values can be shared by scientists to a greater extent than other components and greatly contribute to their sense of community. Furthermore, the paradigm in the broad sense includes metaphysical elements. These are pretheoretical dispositions, manifested in the adherence to an epistemological position or the belief in certain active principles in the natural or social world. The next type of components is called symbolic generalizations. They compose the theoretical level of the paradigm and can take the form of laws, formulas, and definitions. Finally, parts of the paradigm in the broad sense are paradigms in the strict sense, meaning shared examples. Although the various elements of the paradigm are not logically deducible one from the other, they are to a certain extent interdependent and thus reinforce the integration and coherence of the orientation system as a whole.

Institutional Logic From an institutionalist perspective, I recommend an interpretation of the paradigm in the broad sense of the term as the community’s institutional logic. In their seminal article of 1991, Friedland and Alford stated that each institutional order rests on a central logic that organizes and integrates the social collective of whose it is the source of symbolic constructions and material practices (Friedland & Alford, 1991). This institutional logic is accessible to each member of the community who elaborates and thereby sustains it. While Friedland and Alford’s initial considerations on institutional logics focus on (higher order) macrologics of contemporary Western societies, recent applications of the concept deal with competing (lower order) micrologics in specific fields (Lounsbury, 2007; Marquis & Lounsbury, 2007; Reay & Hinings, 2005; Thornton, 2002). Whereas the macrologic of science is truth (Friedland & Alford, 1991), the historical, contingent micrologic of a certain community taking part in the scientific endeavor is its paradigm. What is most central to Friedland and Alford’s arguments on institutional logics, of whatever societal reach, is that they are simultaneously observable and nonobservable, material and ideal. Symbolic constructions are not independent from material practices. Rather than

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occurring singularly, they gain their power from the various actions, rituals, relations, artifacts, and other means by which they are expressed and through which they are sustained. These material practices, as substantiations and conversions of symbolic systems, are likewise fundamental to an institutional logic. In this line of reasoning, the adherents to a specific community logic are simultaneously believers and practitioners in as far as, for them, the paradigm is both a system of beliefs and a set of practices. Here, I follow Rouse, who makes clear that paradigms should not merely be understood as beliefs agreed upon by community members, but also ‘‘as exemplary ways of conceptualizing and intervening in particular situations’’ (Rouse, 2003, p. 107). They acquire content only through articulations of concrete material engagements with the world (Rouse, 1998; Rouse, 1987, pp. 26–40). This view breaks with a frequent misreading of the Kuhnian paradigms in the sense of abstract world views. Although paradigms do indeed comprise very basic assumptions on the nature of reality and on causal relationships within it, they amount to much more than that: namely, as I have outlined above, they also provide guidelines for the accomplishment of tasks on the part of the community members. These templates, to which the community members try to find analogies in their research activities, convert the set of values, metaphysical elements, and symbolic generalizations into material practices directly related to their horizons of action. They are further expressed in related artifacts like textbooks, classic works, metaphors, instrumentations, experimentations, and laboratory exercises (Kuhn, 1970a, pp. 46–47).

Ideology While the templates of actions emanating from socially approved past achievements in the specialization have already been captured by the notion of paradigm in the strict sense, the symbolic constructions organized in the paradigm in the broad sense are best delineated by the term of ideology. In broad fields of institutional analysis, as signified in the introduction, ideology is, if at all, only cursorily defined and thus lacks analytical rigor. In this respect, institutionalism is not an exception in the social sciences (Hartley, 1983; Fine & Sandstrom, 1993; McLellan, 1995; Weiss & Miller, 1987). What makes the term in institutionalism even more elusive is its indeterminate relation to the notion of institutional logic, which some writers, perhaps unintentionally, equate with it (Kim, Shin, Oh, & Jeong,

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2007; Kitchener, 2002; Reay & Hinings, 2005). However, as long as the concept of ideology is used interchangeably with other core categories in institutional analysis, it provides terminological variety, but not analytical value added. To leverage its analytical potential, I define ideology here as a system of beliefs shared by a particular social group for whose members it has immediate behavioral implications. According to this definition, there are four essential features of ideology. (1) Substantially, it consists of beliefs and thus is a cognitive framework. These beliefs can be both empirical (stating how reality is) and normative (indicating how it should be) (Hartley, 1983). (2) It is to a certain degree systematic in that the belief elements are interconnected. This coherent nature is highlighted when writers refer to ideology as a ‘‘set’’ (e.g., Beyer, 1981) or ‘‘cluster’’ (e.g., Starbuck, 1982) of beliefs and ideas. In terms of how the elements relate to each other, however, intensity and kind are often nebulous and do not always correspond to logical deducibility. Rather, ideologies may create considerable internal contradictions (Patt & Williams, 2002; however, cf. Starbuck, 1982). (3) Ideologies are linked to social groups whose consensual positions they are and for which they are a main source of group consciousness and identity. Ideological conformity is the main criterion for group membership, although personal beliefs may partly deviate from the intersubjective ideology (Brunsson, 1982; Starbuck, 1982). The strong linkage of ideologies to social collectives signifies that they are and must be socially transmitted to be maintained and reproduced. (4) Ideologies relate to the behaviors of group members (Fine & Sandstrom, 1993; Hartley, 1983). Ideological stances provide legitimizations and delegitimizations for certain behaviors and nonbehaviors (Meyer, 1982). This understanding complies with the ‘‘cultural turn’’ in the study of ideology according to which the concept is applicable to any social group whose members hold common beliefs and not only to groups involved with social issues and political affairs. This perspective has been criticized for its neglect of material interest, class structure, and societal conflict, from which ideologies arise. For Weiss and Miller (1987), this treatment of ideology is an ahistorical distortion because it disregards the question of social origins of ideas and thus strips it of its tradition in Western philosophy. However, a broader account of ideology nevertheless has analytical merit as long as it cannot be reasonably replaced by equivalent categories (Beyer, Dunbar, & Meyer, 1988). Therefore, the definition of ideology I have suggested above differs from what is commonly understood as institutional logic. While the term institutional logic emphasizes the conflation of symbolic constructions and material practices, capturing both, ideology only refers to the former,

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being reliant on, but separated from, material practices. Thus, ideology and institutional logic, though empirically interwoven, are kept conceptually separated to preserve their analytical usefulness. Ideologies are the nonobservable and ideal part of an institutional order that is, and must be, related to material practices. Once in the state of ‘‘routinization’’ through ongoing repetition, these practices release ideologies from continuous requirements of discursive legitimization and instead make them a subconscious part of everyday action. By making them available in tangible actions, these rule-based practices contribute to the endurance of ideologies through time and space. Thus, the relationship between ideology and practice should be thought of as a recursive constitution in which they mutually stabilize each other, providing both cognitive and social coherence. Consequently, a paradigm cannot simply be equated with an ideology, as some writers maintain. For example, Dunbar, Dutton, and Torbert (1982, p. 21) state that ‘‘ideologies are to social organizing as paradigms are to scientific practice’’. Similarly, Bresser (1984), in an investigation of how ideologies affect the structural dimensions of university departments, assumes that the strength of the commitment to an ideology is manifested by the degree of paradigm development in the respective subfield. As I have proposed above, this is a too narrow a view on paradigms, which are only captured in their ideal and symbolic dimension when equated with ideologies. Since they also encompass material practices, I feel it more appropriate, from the perspective of institutionalism, to speak of institutional logics. This perspective on ideologies as being inherent, but not equivalent, to paradigms, differs from another definition of the relationship between these notions. In the context of ideology, some writers cite Kuhn when portraying scientific development as not being entirely based on rationality, but as also including nonrational factors such as aesthetic standards, emotional expressions, or political interests (Beyer, 1981). In this view, the lack of determination by pure reason facilitates ideological imprints on scientific practice from outside. Paradigms, then, serve as vehicles for broader cultural beliefs and societal interests, which penetrate science ideologically (Alvesson, 1991). This perspective pursues a different understanding of not only paradigm but also ideology. In a more critical vein, it views ideology as deriving from social conditions and aiming to enforce a power arrangement. According to this critical perspective, ideology is associated with certain political content. This is in direct contrast to a cultural account that supports a neutral definition by addressing the common thought stances on the basis of which the members of a social group take action. Without

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doubt, such a critical variant of ideology, as represented in numerous branches of political science and sociology, has some appeal for institutional theory, especially with regard to explanations of stability and change of social orders. Applying it to Kuhn, however, would be both intentionally and conceptually a deformation of his account. Intentionally, Kuhn by no means understood science as an irrational endeavor driven by interests other than scientific ones, and conceptually, the forces he assumed to be active in scientific development are primarily of internal origin without referring to a broader societal context. To conclude, an institutionalist re-reading of Structure must first and foremost address the notion of paradigm. Approaching the Kuhnian account of scientific development from the perspective of institutionalism, a paradigm appears as a composition of institutions. They constitute a coherent and integrated system of orientation, which frames und unifies the cognition and the behavior of the community members. This institutional logic is both symbolic and material. The nonobservable, ideational component of the logic can be referred to as the community’s ideology in the culturalist sense of a belief system.

PARADIGM SHIFTS: THE KUHNIAN ACCOUNT OF RADICAL INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE After having repositioned the concept of paradigm in analytical categories of institutionalism, I now trace the picture of radical institutional change drawn in Structure. In pursuing this goal, I selectively reflect Kuhn’s description of paradigm shifts (for further reading, see Bird, 2000; Hoyningen-Huene, 1993; Nickles, 2003; Sharrock & Read, 2002; von Dietze, 2001) and deduce five propositions on the underlying mechanisms, which I assume to give worthwhile food for thought in institutional analysis. In the first instance, these propositions claim significance only in the framework of the Kuhnian account. The aspects in which they contradict or confirm assumptions of institutionalism will be discussed in the subsequent section. According to Kuhn, most research activities take place under conditions of normal science, the equilibrium of which is only occasionally punctuated with noncumulative breaks. Such developmental leaps mainly advance scientific progress. However, scientific revolutions only complete a longer period of crisis into which the specialization has blundered. The point at which the community leaves the stage of normal science and enters that

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of extraordinary science is the occurrence of anomalies (Kuhn, 1970a, pp. 52–65). These are contradictions in expectations that evolve from a failure in the problem-solving behavior of community members. In the course of normal science, the adherents to a paradigm are preoccupied with the application of the ‘‘recipe’’ knowledge it provides, while the paradigm itself is not a matter of concern. Rather, it is the ‘‘taken-for-granted’’ framework in which all research activities are embedded and by which they are legitimized. As Kuhn puts it, ‘‘the research worker is a solver of puzzles, not a tester of paradigms’’ (Kuhn, 1970a, p. 144). The occurrence of puzzles shows that anomalies are an ordinary feature of normal science, not only in its late stages. Therefore, the anomalies that create a grave crisis for the group must be distinguished from other contradictions. Firstly, they are serious problems in the sense that they could not be resolved in spite of considerable efforts to do so. Secondly, they are socially accepted by the group members as being serious. Only anomalies of this type can cause a crisis. Previously, the ideational components of the paradigm, that is, values, metaphysical orientations, and symbolic generalizations, remain unquestioned. I conclude, Proposition 1. The trigger of radical institutional change is the failure of social practice legitimized by the predominant ideology. It is impossible – and partly a matter of coincidence – to predict when crisis-evoking anomalies will appear. However, what is definite is that they will appear – it is simply a matter of time. That means that normal science necessarily leads to crisis. At the very beginning of normal science, pioneers convert to the new paradigm because they believe in its problem-solving potential. At this early stage, the paradigm is not much more than a promising source of hope. The few supporters of a potential paradigm successively explore its possibilities and thereby gain an impression of what it would be like if they were guided by it (Kuhn, 1970a, p. 159). If their expectations are not disappointed, more and more scientists become convinced to join their endeavors of elaborating the novel paradigm and to establish a new scientific tradition. Each puzzle solved in this tradition is a completion of a minute part in an initially (and permanently) incomplete paradigm. This completion of the paradigm can take the form of refinement, extension, and articulation of the paradigm, which alone is the repository for legitimate puzzles. In this early developmental stage of the paradigm, its resistance to change quickly increases because the community members first deal with those puzzles of which they can expect a solution. This implicit

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guarantee of success releases the self-affirming forces of the paradigm through which doubts are successively dissipated. I deduce, Proposition 2a. The more elaborated a developing ideology becomes, the less liable it is to change. This does not hold true, however, for all stages of the life cycle of the paradigm. By further elaborating it, the community members, paradoxically, establish conditions under which anomalies appear: ‘‘Whatever the level of genius available to observe them, anomalies do not emerge from the normal course of scientific research until both instruments and concepts have developed sufficiently to make their emergence likely and to make the anomaly which results recognizable as a violation of expectation’’ (Kuhn, 1977, pp. 173–174). Other than in its developing stages, the liability of the mature paradigm to produce anomalies grows with its elaborateness. The more implications the paradigm has, the more likely it is now that observations contradict expectations. Although the paradigm, when the community converts to it, offers the prospect of solving the problems that brought the specialization into crisis, no paradigm will ever solve any problems (Kuhn, 1970a, pp. 79–80, 110). In paradigm choice, there is a problem-solving trade-off. While the paradigm for which the community members opt usually solves problems they consider crucial in the given historical situation (i.e., those problems that caused the current crisis), it will, the more advanced it becomes, produce other crisis-evoking anomalies. Thus, I state, Proposition 2b. The more elaborated a mature ideology becomes, the more liable it is to change. If anomalies are essentially violations of expectations, then the source of these expectations casts doubt on its own validity when anomalies persist. The same applies to the emerging crisis of the discipline when the community members’ intentions reverse from confirming the paradigm to questioning it. When they enter this stage, the ideational components of the paradigm come to the fore, since paradigm critique is first and foremost a cognitive process. This is perhaps best expressed in Kuhn’s observation that a new paradigm may emerge ‘‘all at once, sometimes in the middle of the night, in the mind of a man deeply immersed in crisis’’ (Kuhn, 1970a, p. 90). Despite the cognitive nature of these processes, material practices also play a role in the early phase of paradigm development. A paradigm only proves itself if scientific practices that allow for a steady mode of daily work become part of it. However, the emergence of new practices as part of

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paradigm revisions remains subsequent to (meta-)theoretical progress, which is essentially an achievement of thought. However, since the renunciation of the paradigm would fundamentally change the way science is practiced in the field, the community members first try to modify the old paradigm to bring the abnormal problem under control. In this local search, new versions of the paradigm virtually proliferate (Kuhn, 1970a, pp. 71, 80, 83), and in the face of these variations, it may even become unclear what the paradigm really is (Kuhn, 1970a, p. 83). Correcting the old paradigm is indeed a way of resolving the crisis and of returning to normal science (Kuhn, 1970a, p. 84). But if a satisfying resolution of the crisis cannot be achieved by incremental improvements of the old paradigm, various delineations of a new paradigm are developed by the community members, whose attention is now almost solely directed at the trouble spot of the specialization. They have lost faith in the paradigm, and the field it has dominated no longer appears the same to them (Kuhn, 1970a, p. 83). The eroding authority of the old paradigm relaxes the rules of scientific practice and thus opens up the possibility for a wider search for a new paradigm. At this stage of the crisis, the activities of the group members roughly resemble the ideal of falsification as described in critical rationalism, because their collective endeavor is no longer to preserve the old paradigm, but to reject it (Kuhn, 1970a, p. 146, but cf. 77). However, most attempts to do so fail, because it can easily be demonstrated that the respective, potential paradigm is false. How long this period of trial and error will last is indeterminate. What is worth noting is that the old paradigm will not be rejected until promising potential for a new paradigm is found. That means, the community members keep adhering to the old paradigm even though it is profoundly permeated with doubts. Once a field has left the stage of pre-paradigmatic science (Kuhn, 1970a, pp. 10–22), it will not fall behind this developmental stage (Kuhn, 1970a, p. 17). Research without paradigm, then, is impossible: ‘‘To reject one paradigm without simultaneously substituting another is to reject science itself’’ (Kuhn, 1970a, p. 79). Therefore, if a new paradigm is permanently out of sight, the community adheres to the old paradigm and returns to normal science. This makes it possible to conduct research under a paradigm that is – in the strict sense – already falsified (Kuhn, 1970a, p. 77). The anomaly that has brought things into crisis is then restored for subsequent generations of scientists. I deduce, Proposition 3a. The delegitimization of the predominant ideology is necessary, but not sufficient for radical institutional change.

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The scientific revolution can be brought to an end when one promising draft of a new paradigm stands out of the mass of false candidates. This aspirant paradigm resists all initial attempts of falsification. While it is not predictable when such a breakthrough will occur, there are some regularities in terms of who is likely to become the originator of a new paradigm; namely, scientists who are young and/or newcomers to the specialization (Kuhn, 1970a, pp. 90, 144). The reason is that ‘‘practice has committed them less deeply than most of their contemporaries to the world view and rules determined by the old paradigm’’ (Kuhn, 1970a, p. 144). In the course of the crisis, the emergence of a new paradigm, though it cannot be enforced, becomes likely, because it is only now that the replacement of the predominant paradigm is socially accepted. The incentive structure during crisis radically differs from that in normal science. In the latter, as already outlined, the confirmation of the paradigm by puzzle-solving is positively rewarded (Kuhn, 1970a, p. 169; Kuhn, 1977, pp. 270–271), whereas in the former, the origination of a new paradigm is the most desirable end of research. Nevertheless, it is very possible that the paradigm to which the community finally converts has its roots in normal science prior to the current crisis. As Kuhn puts it, ‘‘[o]ften a new paradigm emerges, at least in embryo, before a crisis has developed far or been explicitly recognized’’ (Kuhn, 1970a, p. 86). But even if this rudiment promises to become more compelling than the predominant paradigm, the great majority of the community does not even take notice of it. Through the commitment to a paradigm, perceptions become highly selective and are almost exclusively directed at the problems the dominant paradigm elucidates. The paradigm, that is, facilitates intolerance toward phenomena that cannot be subsumed under it (Kuhn, 1970a, pp. 24, 63; Kuhn, 1977, p. 235). What results is what is perhaps the most surprising feature of science, the break with the prevailing view in history of science: its resistance to innovation (Kuhn, 1970a, pp. 24, 35–42, 52). As long as the dominating paradigm is out of the question, alternatives are commonly not considered at all. Analog to the previous proposition, I propose, Proposition 3b. The availability of a legitimizable new ideology is necessary, but not sufficient for radical institutional change. A paradigm shift only occurs when both of the following are true: the community members have lost trust in the old paradigm after the appearance of serious anomalies and a trustworthy, potential new paradigm has emerged. Under these conditions, a controversy over the acceptance of the new paradigm arises. While the comparison of the problem-solving capacity

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of the old and the new paradigm plays a major role in this debate, the superiority of the new one in terms of the amount and importance of problems it solves is by no means sufficient for it to be accepted. If paradigms were only assessed in rational terms, scientific revolutions would be very rare events (Kuhn, 1970a, p. 157). Paradigm choice is never dictated by logic alone (Kuhn, 1977, p. 292) but is additionally influenced by subjective criteria such as ‘‘faith,’’ ‘‘feeling,’’ ‘‘aesthetic,’’ and ‘‘persuasion’’ (Kuhn, 1970a, pp. 152, 158). Although most of the community members – except for some stubborn supporters of the old paradigm – can be convinced one way or another, the appeal of the new paradigm for the successor generation is even more important for the reconstruction of the field (Kuhn, 1970a, pp. 150–152). Consequently, it sometimes requires a whole generation to build the new consensus. Afterwards, the world in which the scientists live and work is completely different from what it was before. They even feel ‘‘suddenly transported to another planet’’ (Kuhn, 1970a, p. 111). The most visible artifacts of a successful revolution are new textbooks, which, beside their didactic function, contribute to the retention of the new paradigm by suggesting that readers participate in a long-term tradition that, in fact, never was as continuous as presented (Kuhn, 1970a, pp. 1, 137).

INSTITUTIONALISM MEETS KUHN: CONVERGENCES AND DIVERGENCES After outlining how radical institutional change is conceived according to the Kuhnian account of scientific development, I now successively discuss the deduced propositions, elaborating where there is supporting evidence in institutionalism or, if not, in which respects they deviate from what institutional analysis would lead one to expect. This reconciliation is necessary because the conditions under which Kuhn observes institutional change appear idealized when compared to the complex, still poorly understood interdependencies in which disruptions of nested institutional orders occur. With the exception of extraordinary science when divergent ideologies compete for prevalence, the group members collectively adhere to only one exclusive ideology, which is incompatible with any other. The closeness of the community to its environment inhibits external ideological influences. Furthermore, scientific communities are small groups that do not reach the size of social collectives commonly investigated in institutional analysis. They often consist of approximately one hundred scientists, though

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sometimes considerably fewer (Kuhn, 1977, p. 297; see also Kuhn, 1970a, p. 181). However, I assume the segregation of processes active in such changes as a precondition for our understanding of the underlying mechanisms. They stand out more clearly when observed under idealized conditions.

Proposition 1 Essentially, the causality hypothesized in this proposition is the basis for the endogenous account of radical institutional change advocated by Kuhn. At this point, the Kuhnian conceptualization clearly deviates from the mainstream of institutionalism, in which extra-institutional factors dominate explanations of radical change (for an overview, see Schneiberg, 2005). This holds true for research on the responses of organizations to their institutional environments as launched by initial authors in new institutionalism (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Meyer & Rowan, 1977) and continued by their followers with growing emphasis on strategic, interest-based compliance or noncompliance (Chizema & Buck, 2006; Kim et al., 2007; Oliver, 1991). Moreover, the primacy of exogenous factors in explanations of radical change is also valid at the analytical level of organizational fields. Corresponding studies of institutional change rarely focus on the self-destruction of institutions but instead highlight external shocks, boundary rearrangements, and incumbent challengers as key drivers of change (Greenwood, Suddaby, & Hinings, 2002; Mazza & Pedersen, 2004; Munir, 2005). In contrast, in the case of endogenous change, the object of change coincides with its trigger. That means the initial impetus for changes in institutionalized practices evolves from these practices themselves. Although they are in a minority, some scholars have addressed endogenous change, which they have commonly conceived as resulting from an incompleteness of the institutional order. Zucker (1988), for example, contemplated that practices may become such an ordinary part of life that they are ‘‘forgotten’’ and no longer practiced. If so, the self-preservation of the institutional order is violated because the institutional macroorder is only sustained through continuous repetition of the corresponding practices at the microlevel. In another effort to explain endogenous change, DiMaggio (1988) considered institutionalization processes to create new actors whose interests the dominant order does not serve. These ‘‘winners’’ of institutionalization – that is, profiteers in terms of autonomy, legitimacy, and power – subvert and rearrange the institutional order after gaining the resources to do so. This paradox has subsequently been discussed under the term ‘‘embedded agency’’

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(Dacin, Ventresca, & Biel, 1999; Holm, 1995; Reay, Golden-Biddle, & Germann, 2006; Seo & Creed, 2002). Other scholars have focused more on the ‘‘losers’’ of the game and have pointed to mechanisms of social exclusion. Clemens (1993), for example, demonstrated that existing institutions marginalize some groups that have, through their exclusion, both the incentives and the capabilities to create new institutions. If these are simultaneously familiar yet novel, they become appropriated by incumbent actors who thereby turn into agents of institutional transformation. Moreover, Edelman, Uggen, and Erlanger (1999) observed that ambiguous and contested legal institutions evoke strategic responses by creating myths of rational compliance, which serve managerial goals of efficiency. Although the rationalized procedures initially had no serious legal status, the courts begun to legitimate them and incorporated them in their rulings. When reinterpreted in the framework of institutionalism, Kuhn’s account contributes to the still narrow branch of institutionalism that focuses on endogenous change. However, he deploys arguments in direct opposition to those introduced in the previously cited works. While these authors assume that the probability of institutional change decreases with the extent of completion of the institutional order, Kuhn states that it increases after a certain point in time. Consider that in normal science, there is no multiplicity of institutional logics, there are no exogenous forces acting from outside the field, and the completion of the order proceeds continuously. Institutionalist arguments, including those revisited above, do not lead one to expect that radical institutional changes occur under these conditions. I put forward here that the key to understanding why these radical changes nevertheless take place is the concept of ideology. The hegemonic ideology, as any ideology, will sooner or later produce internal contradictions indicated by the failure of problem-solving behavior. Once institutionalized practices have failed and caused problems that are collectively assessed as being serious, the underlying ideology is called into question, falls into disfavor, and is deprived of its legitimacy. Finally, it is replaced by another if such an ideology emerges in the course of crisis when the former adherents to the old ideology become its opponents. Until the community members are disappointed once again, they believe in the superior power of explanation and guidance of the new ideology. The merit of this perspective is that it points to the significance of higher order systems of beliefs, which serve as ultimate grounds of experience and behavior. In so doing, it fosters an understanding of institutional changes as ideological shifts. The very few works that seek explanations of endogenous change without referring to the incompleteness of the dominant order instead draw on economic arguments. Leblebici, Salancik, Copay, and

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King (1991) and Sherer and Lee (2002), for example, argued that once an institutional standard is established, the resources needed to conform to it become scarcer. In an attempt to save costs, some actors in the periphery of the field deviate from the standard and seek alternative practices that attract imitators. Similarly, Schneiberg (2005) showed that institutions designed to solve particular economic problems cause inefficiencies by leaving other problems unsolved. They finally undermine themselves through rising prices generated by their expansion. In contrast to these accounts for economic mechanisms, Kuhn’s approach, revisited from an institutionalist perspective, explains radical change of institutions with endogenously created discontinuities in their ideological legitimization.

Propositions 2a and 2b These propositions essentially state that ideologies are their own gravediggers. On the one hand, an ideology is reliant on its elaboration and refinement in institutionalized practices if it is to be sustained. On the other hand, after having acquired maturity, its practice brings it closer to its own dissolution. Examining whether this paradox matches theoretical assumptions or empirical findings in institutional analysis is made difficult by the circumstance that therein, ideology is seldom used in an explicit manner. Moreover, as I have already criticized, it partly interferes with other analytical categories. Among the scarce sources to which one can refer to for comparative purposes is a study by Brunsson (1982, p. 41), who remarks that ‘‘the refining and elaborating of ideologies are steps toward abandoning them’’. He argues that the more factors an ideology considers and the more internal causal links it has, the more likely it is that observations violate what the ideology would lead one to expect. Thus, the fallibility of an ideology increases with its precision and complexity. This specifically addresses the causal relationship proposed above, but Brunsson generalizes it without differentiating the stages of the life cycle of an ideology. Hence, his presumption tends to support only the latter of the above-stated propositions, while the former finds no confirmation. The propositions discussed here have, albeit more implicitly, consequences for the understanding of institutionalization processes, deviating from what is common sense in institutionalism. Models of change posed in institutional theory typically assume that institutions pass through various stages and thereby converge to a final state of institutionalization. From each stage to the next, their extent of legitimacy and ‘‘taken-for-grantedness’’

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increases until the process is finalized. Tolbert and Zucker (1996), for example, label these stages as pre-, semi-, and full institutionalization, while Greenwood et al. (2002) similarly refer to the components of the process as deinstitutionalization, preinstitutionalization, theorization, diffusion, and reinstitutionalization. Sequential models like these implicate that the degree of institutionalization ceteris paribus correlates negatively with the probability of institutional change. Simplified, this relationship is displayed by the negative slope of line 2 in Fig. 1. Since the elaboration of an ideology, as described in the Kuhnian account, can be interpreted as institutionalization through its sedimentation and perpetuation in the practices of the community members, for whom it successively becomes taken for granted, the underlying process can be compared to standard models of institutional change. With regard to the institutional order’s liability to change, a strikingly different characteristic of this process can be deduced from the propositions discussed here. Put graphically, the relationship between the degree of institutionalization and the likeliness of change takes an inverse U shape (curve 1 in Fig. 1). Initially, the process of institutionalization is highly compatible with sequences commonly assumed in institutional theory (and thus takes on a declining curve shape). Along the lines of these arguments (e.g., Tolbert & Zucker, 1996), it can easily be subdivided into habitualization when new ways of looking at the phenomena of the world and new ways of dealing with them become routines through repetition, objectivation when the consensus broadens through education of newly socialized members who experience the new institutional order simply as the way science is practiced in the field,

(1) Probability of Change

(2) Degree of Institutionalization

Fig. 1.

Rival Assumptions on the Relationship between Institutionalization and Change.

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and sedimentation when the availability and transportability of the ideology is ensured through experiments, instruments, articles, and textbooks. While common institutional arguments stop at this stage and assume the institutionalization has been completed until further notice, the discussed propositions implicate an understanding of the process more as infinite and cyclical. With progressing institutionalization, the probability of institutional change, after a certain point in time, no longer decreases, but increases. That is, the causality between the degree of institutionalization and the probability of institutional change reverses due to the growing fallibility of the underlying ideology. Of course, it can neither be determined when this shift occurs nor stated precisely what separates a developing ideology from a mature one, as the propositions archetypically do. However, although it is radicalized here to elucidate it, the pattern of institutional change, which can be extracted from the Kuhnian approach, prompts rethinking some wisdoms in institutional theory. Here, I consider a dialectical perspective to provide worthwhile alternatives to conventional accounts. In such a manner, Seo and Creed (2002) focus on institutional contradictions as the fundamental triggers of radical change. Drawing on Benson’s (1977) dialectical perspective, they argue that institutional arrangements, the more total they become, create various inconsistencies and tensions as by-products of institutionalization. When these contradictions accumulate, they enable and foster change processes since under certain conditions, some actors in the field, being subjected to a contradictory reality, engage in the transformation of the institutional order. The Kuhnian account to radical institutional change complies to a great extent with this dialectical framework. While institutional contradictions are not generally new to explanations of radical change, institutional analysis has recently begun to primarily appreciate contradictions among divergent logics in the multiplicity and heterogeneity of a nested institutional system as both facilitating and constraining change processes (Lounsbury, 2007; Marquis & Lounsbury, 2007; Morrill, forthcoming; Reay & Hinings, 2005). In contrast, the approach discussed here takes into account internal contradictions of a discrete ideology, which are uncovered through its ongoing process of institutionalization.

Propositions 3a and 3b The preceding discussion suggests investigating the reverse of institutionalization more closely. While in early works in new institutionalism, little

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attention was paid to the erosion and dissolution of institutions, some later contributions acknowledged the other side of the coin as being no less important for the understanding of how institutionalization works (DiMaggio, 1988; Oliver, 1992; Zucker, 1988). However, under the umbrella of institutional entrepreneurship, the emergence and creation of institutions is still more intensely discussed than their implosion and dissolution (e.g., Garud et al., 2007; Lounsbury & Crumley, 2007; Munir & Phillips, 2005). Taken together, the propositions I deal with here state that neither the delegitimization of the old ideology nor the availability of a new ideology is a sufficient condition for institutional change. Only if both conditions cooccur do they pave the way for institutional renewal. Put differently, the exit from one ideology is necessarily coupled with entry into another. As long as a new ideology is not within sight, the community members continue to subscribe to the old and behave in accordance with it, even though it has already lost its legitimacy. That is, an ideologically structured order, once in a state of institutionalization, profoundly changes only through reinstitutionalization as an ‘‘exit from one institutionalization, and entry into another institutional form, organized around different principles and rules’’ (Jepperson, 1991, p. 152). In contrast, the mere abandonment of the institutional order without substitution by another is a possibility precluded by the propositions derived above. This calls into question whether deinstitutionalization occurs at all if covered in the original sense as an ‘‘exit from institutionalization, toward reproduction through recurrent action, or nonreproductive patterns, or social entropy’’ (Jepperson, 1991, p. 152). In the terminology of other scholars, however, deinstitutionalization and reinstitutionalization are not categorically distinct types of institutional change but are understood as preceding each other in a sequential process (Greenwood et al., 2002; Oliver, 1992). Viewed in this light, the propositions discussed here stress the competitive and contested character of the transition phase from deinstitutionalization to reinstitutionalization. Scholars in institutional theory have recently drawn attention to the contested and fragmented nature of institutional changes, influenced by competing logics and occurring at multiple levels (Clemens & Cook, 1999; Lounsbury, 2007; Marquis & Lounsbury, 2007; Morrill, forthcoming; Reay & Hinings, 2005; Schneiberg & Soule, 2005). This research suggests departing from the view that a single logic uniformly shapes an institutional field by successively interpenetrating it with novel practices, but instead emphasizes that multiple logics constantly produce tensions and mismatches. According to this perspective, institutional change is the outcome of controversial negotiation,

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opportunistic behavior, and strategic choice in an ambiguous institutional environment. The competing logics imagery closely fits the intermediate stage Kuhn describes as segregating periods of normal science. The propositions described above assert that in this zone of uncertainty, when the consensus of the field is broken, ideologies are not absolute concepts but are strongly intertwined with one another. Neither the rejection of the old ideology nor the acceptance of the new can be decided on the basis of the old or new ideology alone. Rather, in the struggle for ideological primacy, the decision of which ideology to adhere to is a highly comparative activity. In the Kuhnian account, the state of competition between divergent ideologies is exacerbated by what he calls incommensurability (Kuhn, 1970a, pp. 109, 148–150). By this, Kuhn essentially means that paradigms cannot be translated into each other. Since the supporters of each paradigm argue on the basis of this very paradigm, no neutral acceptance criteria can be constructed outside of any paradigm. This makes the stage Kuhn calls extraordinary science resembling religious wars. However, this is only a transient status as opposed to the persistently competing logics currently discussed in institutional theory. In Kuhn’s approach, each state of competition is ultimately resolved either by means of a return to the old ideology or by conversion to a new. It is these models of punctuated equilibria that institutional theory renounces under the conceptual lead of competing logics.

CONCLUSION In this article, my goal was to bring together institutional theory and Kuhn’s approach of scientific development in an attempt to address the still littleresearched problem of what endogenous sources of institutional contradictions are and how they trigger collective endeavors for institutional change (Seo & Creed, 2002). Approached in this manner, Kuhn’s main work is a treatise on the dialectic of ideology. That is, the picture Kuhn draws of ideology is a somewhat ambiguous and even paradoxical one. In the Structure, ideology is both the origin of unquestioned durability and the trigger of fundamental change. On the one hand, by providing its adherents with cognitive guidance and social affiliation, it stabilizes the institutional order and puts it beyond discussion; on the other hand, its internal contradictions finally cause the subversion of this order. What mediates this shift from a pillar to a hazard of the social organization is institutional failure. According to this conceptualization, the failure of ideologically

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legitimate practices – after a certain point in time – becomes more likely with progressing institutionalization. Put simply, ideologies have an expiration date. Although I have supported a culturalist notion of ideology as the set of beliefs incorporated in the system of orientation, which Kuhn calls paradigm, the tendency toward self-destruction is a feature of ideology that is stressed in the Marxist sense as well. In this article, I have highlighted some congruencies of the Kuhnian account and contemporary institutional theory that appear despite of the peculiarities of the scientific field. However, the points of divergence give more impetus to institutional theory because they raise some questions of generalizability that could be addressed in future research. Above all, the role of higher order belief systems in institutional change should be appreciated to a greater extent than it currently is in institutional analysis. In this respect, the Kuhnian approach inspires to ‘‘endogenize’’ ideology in explanations of radical change instead of taking ideological shifts into account as mere exogenous forces. This perspective enriches accounts of endogenous change, which are still very scarce in institutional analysis. However, endogenous and exogenous factors of change should not be thought of merely in an ‘‘either/ or’’ manner. Yet in this article, I have focused on an endogenous account in a relatively pure form and have contrasted it with the exogenous approaches that dominate institutional theory. Favoring one factor of explanation over the other does not present an appropriate avenue for future research in institutionalism. Rather, the complex interplay of endogenous and exogenous processes of institutional change is in need of further inquiry. In this regard, some recent developments in institutional theory have advanced our understanding, especially on the level of field changes (e.g., Lounsbury, 2007; Marquis & Lounsbury, 2007; Morrill, forthcoming; Reay & Hinings, 2005; Greenwood & Hinings, 1996; Greenwood et al., 2002; Seo & Creed, 2002), although in these works, the distinction between endogenous and exogenous is more implicit. Acknowledging endogenous processes more explicitly without simultaneously discounting exogenous factors would contribute to a more balanced understanding of institutional change and guard institutionalism from one of its most persistent lines of criticism. Moreover, the question appears how the degree of institutionalization of an ideology relates to the probability of institutional change. If the Kuhnian assumption of a convex relationship finds supporting evidence in other realms of human affairs, this would have important implications for strategic agency in institutional fields. The information on where approximately the imagery reversal point is situated after which the liability

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to change no longer decreases but increases would empower challengers of the institutional order to bring it closer to its dissolution. If this point is reached, the ideology upon which the institutional order is built must be further elaborated (i.e., articulated, expanded, refined) to increase the probability of change. Finally, the insight that in periods of instability, ideologies are relativized to each other suggests that institutional agents have poor prospects of success when they engage either in the deconstruction of the prevailing ideology or in the construction of a new ideology. Instead, they will only bring about radical change when they simultaneously pursue both.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank the editors and two anonymous reviewers for providing eminently thoughtful comments on earlier drafts, which significantly helped improve the article. I am also grateful to Joanna Rowe for linguistic help in preparing the manuscript.

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INSTITUTIONAL STREAMS, LOGICS, AND FIELDS Giuseppe Delmestri ABSTRACT Ideology is discussed as the missing link between material practices and symbolic constructions in defining institutional logics. Institutional streams are proposed as disembedded institutional logics traveling as ideologies that are taken for granted. They affect specific (inter)action contexts on a global level providing institutional entrepreneurs and workers with symbolic elements to translate into local institutional arrangements. Such translations can give rise to institutional change. Local translation of nonlocal elements advances the interests of the elites of the ‘‘sending’’ institutional context, as well as it may advance those of the receiving one. Dominant transnational streams may or may not coalesce to form a global world order.

INTRODUCTION Institutions have a grip on entire spheres of material life. Corporatized health care has reduced equal access to medicine for millions of Americans (Scott, Ruef, Mendel, & Caronna, 2000). The adoption of a shareholder value orientation as a key logic of action among firms within the United

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States (Fligstein, 2001), but also in other places such as Germany (Fiss & Zajac, 2004) and Italy, has multiplied the incomes of top managers relative to those of wage earners. The logics guiding societal institutions directly impinge both on the practical accomplishments of individual life projects and on the identities social actors may use in trying to improve their material situation. For instance, the social identity of a ‘‘professor’’ in a marketized and managerialized university (Kru¨cken & Meier, 2006; Williams, 2008) may not allow the individual academic subject to influence the criteria by which research funds are distributed as would be the case in a university characterized by democratic academic self-governance. Another example is that the fading legitimacy of the organizational identity of the ‘‘family firm’’ may endanger its possibility to continue sustaining the ambiguous but productive tension between the logic of exchange and the logic of need; the higher order logics of ‘‘organizing’’ (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2006) and of ‘‘scientization’’ (Drori, Meyer, & Hwang, 2006) are draining legitimacy from the family as an institution compatible with the organization of economic activities. Institutional logics affect social life and economic activities and constitute actors’ identities in culturally specific ways (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008). They are associated with sets of ‘‘material practices and symbolic constructions’’ (Friedland & Alford, 1991, p. 248), which provide meaning to the social reality of individuals (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008). However, symbolic constructions of social reality do not only provide meaning, they may also conceal the interests of those who profit from the prevalent material practices: ‘‘When a particular definition of reality comes to be attached to a concrete power interest, it may be called an ideology’’ (Berger & Luckmann, 1966, p. 123). According to Marx, an ideology can be conceived as the product of real contradictions in material life mediated by ‘‘a level of appearances which are constitutive of reality itself ’’ (Bottomore, Harris, Kiernan, & Milibrand, 1988, p. 220) – to which the material practices in which institutional logics are embodied (Friedland & Alford, 1991) also belong. Finally, following Gramsci (1971, p. 328, cited in Bottomore et al., 1988), an ideology can be conceived as a socially pervasive ‘‘conception of the world’’ that gives rules and orientation for action, assigns individuals to social positions, but also allows them to ‘‘acquire consciousness of their position’’ (ibid., p. 377), and serves as the means through which specific power interests (a class in Marxian terminology) can exercise hegemony over other groups. These views are in accordance with recent advances in social psychology that distinguish the attitudinal and behavioral effects of values and

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ideologies. Therefore, ‘‘whereas values are the underlying or implicit causes of attitudinal and behavioral decisions, ideologies are the value based, explicit constructions used in consciously thinking or talking about decisions’’ (Rohan & Zanna, 2002). Although they did not use the term ‘‘ideology,’’ Greenwood, Suddaby, and Hinings (2002) already defined theorization as ‘‘the development and specification of abstract categories and the elaboration of chains of cause and effect’’ (p. 60), which must ‘‘appeal, in a compelling way, to the particular values embedded in the setting’’ (p. 75) – Rao and Kenney (2008) explicitly defined such theorization work as ideological. According to Gramsci (Bottomore et al., 1988, p. 222), such explicit and conscious constructions can display different ‘‘order[s] of rigour and intellectual articulation,’’ decreasing from philosophy to religion, common sense, and folklore. Therefore, ideologies are the institutionalized interest-laden glue justifying material practices through, and connecting them to, the symbolic constructions that make up institutional logics. As explicit and conscious symbolic constructions connecting material practices to specific identities/social positions and their social worlds, ideologies are the component of institutional logics that can most readily travel across institutional contexts. As the taken-for-granted quality of some social element (Jepperson, 1991; Searle, 1995; Berger & Luckmann, 1966) laying at the background of debates (Campbell, 2004, p. 93), ‘‘an institution cannot travel’’ (Czarniawska & Sevo´n, 2005, p. 9), unless abstracted into an idea and then materialized into some social object (a traveler’s words, a book, a web page, or other artifacts). When traveling ideas assume a systematic character, in relation to both their ‘‘intellectual articulation’’ (Gramsci, cited in Bottomore et al., 1988) and the articulation of ‘‘power interest[s]’’ supporting them (Berger & Luckmann, 1966, p. 123), then they become traveling ideologies. As such, as systems of ideas, they tend to travel at high speeds across institutional borders (Hannan, Carroll, Dundon, & Torres, 1995; Czarniawska & Joerges, 1996; Hannerz, 2001/1996). In this chapter, I contend that only by readdressing the ideological interest-laden component of institutional logics, which has mostly been disregarded in new institutionalism (see Campbell, 2004 for an exception) and by organizational scholars in general (Weiss & Miller, 1987), can we understand and explain today’s globalized world and the grip that similar institutional logics hold on entire spheres of material life in several countries and places. The concept of institutional logics alone, deprived by its interest-laden ideological component, seems to provide little help in explaining how logics travel and become reinstitutionalized in different places. Indeed, the most recent review of the concept of institutional logics

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(Thornton & Ocasio, 2008, p. 121) makes only cursory referral to the idea of ‘‘cross-national institutional logics.’’ Moreover, the worldwide spread of neoliberal ideas, policies, and institutions, which followed the Washington Consensus (Djelic, 2006; Sheppard, 2006; Ferraro, Pfeffer, & Sutton, 2005) and consisted of great movements toward deregulation in nation-states, curbing welfare programs and opening of national markets to international competition, has been theorized to unleash the effects of pure technical, economic forces (Ohmae, 1995) that would undermine the utility of institutional analyses. Globalization is portrayed by authors advancing the globalization thesis, a variation on neoliberal ideology, as threatening ‘‘the utility of institutional analysis for understanding today’s world’’ (Campbell, 2004, p. 2). To the contrary, I contend that the grip of institutional logics on the material lives of individuals and organizations has not ceased, but rather has increased and become more uniform (and therefore less visible) on a global scale. However, I also contend that understanding and explaining this requires bringing organizational and cross-national comparative institutionalism closer together (for a similar plea, see Greenwood, Oliver, Sahlin, & Suddaby, 2008, p. 28). Notoriously, cultural studies conducted by natives in their own culture, that is, US scholars in the United States, tend to be blind to ‘‘obvious’’ characteristics of their institutional environment, which become immediately evident in cross-cultural comparisons. Therefore, for instance, in an international study of pharmacy, pharmacies, and pharmacists, the strength of the logic supporting the capitalist market institutional order typical of the United States became particularly evident when confronting it with the traditional family and guildlike professional logics of the Italian and German cases or the state bureaucratic logic of Sweden. The virulent power of managerialist and marketist ideologies to potentially disrupt existing logics was quite apparent when these traveled to Italy, Germany, or Sweden (Lindberg et al., 2008). Moreover, the relatively blurred epistemological conception of the term ‘‘institution’’ in organization studies makes it difficult to distinguish it from other terms such as ‘‘ideas’’ or ‘‘ideology,’’ which may not only be the foundations of institutions but also have a life of their own (Czarniawska & Sevo´n, 2005). Ideas and ideologies travel the world carried by texts and actors wishing to advance their interests and become institutions only when these actors are successful in the local translation process. For instance, although the ideas behind and the ideology of New Public Management were readily available in Austria, these ideas were not institutionalized, or only partly so, in the identities of Austrian public servants (Meyer & Hammerschmid, 2006).

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Similarly, although the managerial university is an ideology that right- and left-wing governments in Italy have attempted to institutionalize throughout the past decade, their reforms have so far failed due to successful local resistance, and the system is still the prime example of an academic monopoly (Kyvik, 2004). Therefore, I propose to revisit the main concepts guiding institutional analysis – that is, institutional logics, organizational fields, and the travel and translation of ideas – from a new angle that takes ideology and international, cross-contextual, translocal processes into account. On the basis of Barley and Kunda’s (1992, p. 363) definition of ideology as ‘‘a stream of discourse that promulgates, however unwittingly, a set of assumptions about the nature of the objects with which it deals,’’ I wish to advance the concept of institutional streams to mean traveling disembedded institutional (ideo)logics that transcend and affect specific organizational fields, accounting for the convergent grip that specific (e.g., neoliberal) ideologies have on social worlds and material lives on a global scale.

INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS, IDEOLOGIES, DISCOURSES, AND ACTIONS An account of institutional logics that takes power and interests seriously should begin with understanding how ideologies, which represent the interest-laden component of the symbolic constructions to which institutional logics are associated, emerge in the first place. According to Marx (cited in Bottomore et al., 1988, p. 220), ideologies are products of real contradictions in material life. For instance, the contradictions inherent in the material practices of market capitalism would induce the symbolic constructions needed to legitimize them. The ideology that considers freedom and equality, preserved by the existence of property rights, as characterizing market capitalism also theorizes the material practices of actual market exchanges as a testimony of freedom and equality, contributing to construct the appearances of market exchanges as reality itself. Again according to Marx (cited in Bottomore et al., 1988, p. 220), the ideology of market capitalism connects material practices to symbolic constructions by concealing that the actual reality of salaried workers is one of ‘‘inequality and unfreedom.’’ This means that the material practices and symbolic constructions that constitute institutional logics are not two poles of a traditional opposition between materialism and idealism – this interpretation would represent reductionist materialism also criticized by Marx (Bottomore

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et al., 1988, p. 218). Material practices can be considered as objectified cultural constructions, while symbolic constructions can be as real as constituting elements of internalized social identities – Bourdieu (1998, p. 118, my translation) spoke similarly of the habitus that ‘‘passes into flesh and blood.’’ The distinction between material practices and symbolic construction is one between processes connecting actors through institutionalized practices and systems of ideas and discrete social identities constituting actors and their powers to act. Even without subscribing to Marx’s interpretation in toto, the institutional logic of market capitalism would entail, if not a real contradiction, at least a tension between the reality of material practices and the ideology of symbolic constructions. The greater this tension, or the closer Marx’s interpretation is to reality, the more articulated and theorized – and hence ideological – the social construction of a specific institutional logic in a specific context will be. For instance, Ferraro, Pfeffer, and Sutton’s (2005) analysis of economics language and assumptions has led them to consider neoclassical economics as a self-fulfilling ideology. It may be noted that neoclassical economics, although a global phenomenon, has had its most prominent champion at the University of Chicago, the United States being an institutional context strongly endorsing market capitalism, both materially and symbolically, and displaying striking tensions between the ideology of freedom and the reality of vast parts of the population. Antonio (2007), in analyzing the cultural construction of neoliberal globalization with its American imprint, comes to similar conclusions: By emphasizing the value of global fluid networks of independent self-regulating nomadic subjects and by justifying through meritocratic arguments the inequality and the legitimacy of an ownership society limited to stockholders, neoliberal ideology is the result of tensions existing in reality, where the majority of the world population does not have equal access and future generations will pay the environmental cost of present wealth accumulation. When analyzing societal or local institutional contexts or fields, the tension existing between competing institutional logics, often resolved through a truce between one dominant and several ancillary logics (Reay & Hinings, 2005), is the most apparent phenomenon. However, from a crosscontextual or translocal point of view, the strength of the tension within an institutional logic becomes even more evident. Institutional logics represent the socially and ideologically constructed (provisional) resolution of the contradictions and/or tensions that are embodied in material practices and symbolic constructions in a specific context. The strength of the tensions inherent in a logic has the effect of intensifying the theorizing ideological

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constructions. The higher the degree of intellectual articulation of an institutional ideology, the higher its travel potential will be, as abstract ideas are more prone to diffusion. In other words, institutional logics are always related to a specific institutional context (be it of any scope from organizational field to society or even transnational field), because they necessarily resolve contradictions and/or tensions specific to a set of actors (individuals, groups, organizations, classes). In this sense, institutional logics can be ‘‘cross-national’’ (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008, p. 121) only insofar as we accept or empirically ascertain the existence of a global polity level (Drori et al., 2006). However, even without positing a global polity level of analysis, institutional logics can be set into motion if they have sufficient strength to do so. Strength is provided by the level of internal contradictions and/or tensions, which produce articulated abstract ideas prone to travel. Thus, when institutional logics travel, they do so either as pure ideologies (i.e., symbolic systems of abstract ideas) or as institutional streams (i.e., they carry with them some institutional property, which, although not equal to the ordering power of context-specific institutional logics, must at least to some degree be taken for granted). To date, the highest level of intellectual articulation has been reached by ideologies that have their origin in institutional logics specific of the US institutional context. Marketization and corporatization, for instance, are ideologies that can be defined as institutional streams, because they carry with them the legitimacy and taken-for-grantedness of several hundred years of international theorizations about the efficiency of markets (Djelic, 2006), and about a century of theorization on and diffusion of scientific management, systems rationalism, and formal organizing (Barley & Kunda, 1992; Djelic, 1998; Ahrne & Brunsson, 2006). However, institutional streams, when they transect institutional contexts other than their origin, do not have the same ordering power as institutional logics have. The degree to which some of their elements are taken for granted (see below) gives institutional streams an ordering potential, but this must be exploited by institutional entrepreneurs or through institutional work in the new context. Institutional streams as ideologies and legitimating meta-discourses need to be mobilized ad hoc to support certain configurations of interests and hegemonic projects. In the following, I ground these arguments in extant theory. First, I discuss the notion that institutions differ from other social elements such as ideas, norms, and rules – whether or not these are embedded in wider symbolic systems such as ideologies – in that they represent a distinctive quality of them. Second, I contend that institutions are both patterns of

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action and legitimating discourses that have attained the status of social acceptability and taken-for-grantedness. Third, I present an integrative account of the processes of diffusion and translation of patterns of both action and legitimating discourse.

Institutions as a Property of a Social Element Institutions, shaped by a set of cultural and historical forces, are multifaceted, relatively self-activating social reproductive processes made up of symbolic elements (Jepperson, 1991). Institutions emerge when symbolic elements, such as ideas, goals, ideals, structures, ideologies, artifacts, or actors’ identities, have attained a state of legitimacy (i.e., social acceptability and credibility). This status is achieved through objectification (Berger & Luckmann, 1966); through the repetition of acts of imitation; through the recurring use of legitimating discourse such as examples, referral to authorities, support of rationalized accounts, ideologies, and narratives (Vaara, Tienari, & Laurila, 2006); and through the connection of social elements to meanings, values, or rules that are wider and of a higher order than the (inter)action context under consideration. An institution exists when a community takes its definition for granted, along with the functions, status, and powers ascribed to it (Searle, 1995). Beliefs, scripts, norms, and rules (even when they are systematized into ideologies) must be taken for granted or considered objectified constraints by a sufficient number of people to acquire the status of institutionalization: ‘‘A new institutional reality is brought about when a sufficient number of people accept its definition and the action consequences that stem from it’’ (Tsoukas, 2005, p. 99). Social beliefs, norms, and rules have a stabilizing influence. This is true when they are internalized, when they are considered objectified constraints, and when they are imposed by others. In this latter case, the stability in (inter)action patterns is not due to institutional effects but rather due to power and resource dependence effects: Rewards and sanctions are not constitutive of institutions (Searle, 1995) and the actual use of sanctioning power is rather a signal of lacking or fading legitimacy (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). Moreover, if institutionalization is a property of a social element, then not all rules, norms, ideas, and ideologies represent institutions. They are institutions insofar as they are characterized by taken-for-granted objectification or even unconscious internalization (Campbell, 2004, p. 93). We can therefore speak of the diffusion of ideas, objects, and the like, but not of the

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diffusion of institutions or of the adoption of institutions. What can be adopted are practices, materialized ideas, rules, and norms containing some institutional element. In this respect, ideas, ideals, and ideology precede institutionalization in taken-for-granted assumptions, norms, and regulations. Ideas are cognitive contents; ideals add a normative and emotional component to ideas; and ideologies, as normative systems of abstract beliefs, are intentionally regulative. However, none of them per se represents an instance of institutionalization. Ideas may float freely, but they do not when they come to be ‘‘embedded in surrounding institutions’’ (Campbell, 2004, pp. 110, 112). Ideas may become ideals (value-rational) or tools (instrumental) for a social movement, coalescing into ideologies. By way of theorizing, ideologies may belong to the tool kit of institutional work directed at creating, maintaining, or disrupting institutions (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006). ‘‘[L]ogics and ideologies compete for meaning and legitimacy’’ (Hoffman & Ventresca, 2002, p. 21) and become institutions, intendedly or unintendedly, when they are taken for granted. We may term institutional work intendendly directed at theorizing the legitimacy of certain organizational forms or social arrangements as ideological work. In the next section, I move to the next logical level by advancing the position that institutions cannot be reduced to legitimating discourses, as was recently proposed (Phillips, Lawrence, & Hardy, 2004) and that preserving their conceptualization as patterns of action and of (tacit) thought (Scott, 2003) is fundamental to understanding institutional phenomena. Otherwise, we risk losing the distinction between ideologies and institutional logics.

Institutions as Patterns of Action and Thought and as Legitimating Discourses Discourses have been defined ‘‘as sets of statements that bring social objects into being’’ (Grant & Hardy, 2003, p. 6). What discourses bring into being as objective social facts, that is, as institutions, are ‘‘objects of knowledge, categories of social subjects, forms of self, social relationships, and conceptual frameworks’’ (Grant & Hardy, 2003, p. 6). According to Phillips et al. (2004, p. 637), ‘‘all institutions are discursive products.’’ The discursive perspective on institutionalization is very promising (Campbell, 2004) and offers opportunities to overcome some of the inconsistencies plaguing institutional theory, as I will show below. It is, however, important to analyze whether it is sensible to abandon the traditional conception that

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institutions also derive from recurrent actions, that is, the conception of institutional logics holding together symbolic constructions and material practices. From an empirical viewpoint, if institutions can be understood as products of the discursive activity that influences actions, the opposite also holds true, as is the case with the formal institutionalization of customs in laws. Discourses are intertwined with practices (Shenhav, 1995). Tsoukas (2005, p. 98) introduced the concept of ‘‘discursive practice,’’ according to which human conduct cannot be understood without grasping the meaning that informs it. ‘‘But meaning is now understood to be not just in the mind, in the way people think. It is rather manifested in the way people act’’ (ibid.). Words, the medium through which concepts are expressed, derive their meaning from how they are used in specific language games that are played when engaging with others in meaningful activities: ‘‘Even when saying and doing are relatively distinct, they do represent a functionally indissoluble unit’’ (ibid.). Searle (1995, pp. 144–145), from a critical realist position, goes so far as to define ‘‘the background,’’ that is, ‘‘unconscious dispositions and capacities,’’ ‘‘know-how’’ acquired through socialization and action – which Bourdieu would call habitus – as a precondition for the (inter)actionstructuring power of institutions. In the next section, I put forward an integrated perspective on the diffusion and translation of patterns of action and discourse, which will constitute the foundation for proposing a new understanding of institutional contexts, organizational fields, and other sources of institutional influences.

Process of Diffusion and Translation of Patterns of Action and Discourse Following their conception of institutions as exclusively discursive products, Phillips et al. (2004) have proposed a process theory on how actions become embedded in texts and thus have a chance at being institutionalized. An alternative theory has been proposed by Czarniawska and Joerges (1996), who espouse a different view that puts at its center the materialization of ideas in quasi-objects1 and the process of their institutionally mediated diffusion through local translation. The process of the materialization of ideas ‘‘can be observed when, out of the myriads of ideas floating in the translocal organizational thought-worlds, certain ideas catch and are subsequently translated into substance in a given organization [y]’’ (p. 16). According to Czarniawska and Joerges (1996), only ideas translated into objects (a text, a picture, a prototype) can travel; these are sent

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(translated), by way of disembedding, from a moment/place A and, through reembedding as ideas, in a moment/place B, where the ideas may again be translated into objects. Institutions arise in any moment/place only if materialized ideas are translated into actions that are repeated and stabilized. Materialized ideas are carried by humans, by magazine articles and media reports, by books, by newsletters, and by trade conferences (see also Zbaracki, 1998; Scott, 2003). They travel ‘‘when incorporated in human bodies or prescribed in detail,’’ through imitation as ‘‘straightforward ‘broadcasting,’ mostly from US centers,’’ or through ‘‘chains of translations, where each imitator knows only the previous translator,’’ or else by way of ‘‘organized bodies that take care of accrediting and ranking’’ (Czarniawska & Sevo´n, 2005, pp. 10–12). In the same line of thought, Vaara et al. (2006, p. 791) recognize that ‘‘legitimating accounts involve an adaptation of broader discourses to local needs’’ and conceptualize legitimacy as ‘‘a temporal, context-specific, ambiguous, and even contradictory phenomenon.’’ This viewpoint is shared by Creed, Scully, and Austin (2002, p. 476), who, commenting on Czarniawska and Joerges’ (1996) idea of translation, recognize that ambiguous translocal ideas can never be identically reproduced in local action contexts and that ‘‘legitimating accounts might inevitably be more reinterpretations than recitations of cultural schema.’’ In Table 1, I compare the two perspectives on how Phillips et al. (2004) and Czarniawska and Joerges (1996) describe the relationship between ideas, texts, actions, and institutions.

Table 1.

Ideas, Texts, Actions, and Institutions: Two Conceptualizations. Czarniawska and Joerges (1996)

Concept Process Concept Process Concept Process Concept Process Concept Process Concept

Abstract ideas may translate into 1. objects which can travel to new places and be translated into new objects and 2. actions which, if repeated, stabilize into Institutions which may be described and summarized through abstract ideas that can translate again into objects and actions

Phillips et al. (2004) Actions may generate Texts which may embed in Discourse and may produce Institutions which constrain and enable actions

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I shall now try to combine the above-presented perspective on the travel of ideas in quasi-objective repositories (Czarniawska & Joerges, 1996) with that of institutions as discourses (Phillips et al., 2004). The combination is possible because the meaning of translation, albeit a linguistic metaphor, ‘‘far surpasses the linguistic interpretation’’ (Czarniawska & Joerges, 1996, p. 24). In this integration, I consider institutions not only as discourses but also as quasi-objects, and ideas, norms, and regulations not necessarily as institutions. Besides, institutionalization is bound to the ecology of acceptance and taken-for-grantedness. The integrated process theory proposed here is summarized in Fig. 1.

ORGANIZATIONAL FIELDS, INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXTS, AND INSTITUTIONAL STREAMS After having discussed the mechanisms through which ideologies become disembedded from institutional logics of specific institutional contexts and are set in motion in institutional streams, the next step is to better integrate the notions of institutional logics and institutional streams with that of organizational fields, a central category of institutional research. Problems of Traditional Conceptions of Organizational Fields As regards the concept of organizational fields, most of the problems derive (1) from its complexity, which combines too many different elements, and (2) from the tendency to reification, which is implicit in the use of words that recall physical/spatial metaphors. Concerning the first point, organizational fields are dealt with current debates as something greater than industries defined only in economic terms. When we think of organizational fields, we imagine organizations producing similar products or services, in addition to the other organizations with which these organizations are interdependent, along with the nation-state, the professions and cultures that affect the field with their regulations, norms, and cultural rules, and also the field-level institutions that regulate the relations among all these actors. Reviewing the seminal and more recent contributions to its theorization, an organizational field (along with its synonyms of institutional environment, space, domain, area, organizational field of forces, interorganizational network, and issue-based field; DiMaggio & Powell, 1991; Scott & Meyer, 1991/1983; Scott, 1991; Hoffman, 1999) is

Fig. 1.

DISCOURSE

which

INSTITUTIONS

NEW OR HYBRID MACRO OR SITUATED

may produce and be stabilized into

may embed in

can travel to new places and be translated into

if repeated may stabilize into

if repeated may stabilize into

constrain & enable

ACTIONS

may translate into

which

to generate

INSTITUTIONS

EXISTING

and may combine with

The Production, Enactment, and Travel of Institutions through Ideologies, Texts, and Actions.

and may be described and summarized through

NEW

ABSTRACT IDEAS (IDEOLOGIES)

by repetitive use in unchanged form may be inscribed into

SOCIAL OBJECTS (TEXTS,…)

NEW SOCIAL OBJECTS (TEXTS,…)

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composed of the following: (1) the structure of the relations of functional interdependence among a specific set of actors, whereby the form of interdependence can be competitive or cooperative and can be triggered by both similarity and common issues; (2) the vertical and horizontal structures of cooperation, competition, and domination among these actors, which can partition the field into antagonist populations or classes of constituencies; (3) its internal and external identity and the identities of its classes of constituencies; and (4) the local and nonlocal sources of institutional, material, and financial influences impinging on it. The concept of organizational fields is evidently highly multidimensional. It is used to signify both concrete networks of communication and cultural and cognitive meaning systems. It is both a network of variously interrelated actors and a cognitive construction or identity. The organizational field contains social actors, their functional interdependencies, their self-perception, the taken-for-granted foundations of their cooperation and competition, the legitimate structures of domination in the domain of their interactions, and the several sources of legitimate influences that impinge on them. If all of this is contained in only one construct, it is not surprising that ambiguities emerge. On the second point, fields, spaces, environments, and recently also local communities have tended to be reified in institutional analysis, which is a paradox given the phenomenological roots of this perspective in Berger and Luckmann’s (1966) conception of social construction. These metaphors have pushed empirical researchers to inadvertently consider levels of analysis (organization, local community, field, nation-state, world polity) in spatial and not in analytical (functional, issue-based) terms, as theoreticians originally suggested (Scott, 1991; Scott & Meyer, 1991/1983; DiMaggio & Powell, 1991; Hoffman, 1999). Hence, such metaphors reduce the capability of institutional analysis to explain phenomena like the salience for action of institutions belonging to other fields or communities than the one under scrutiny, or the structuration of social spaces at the intersection of different institutional fields, ‘‘areas of overlap and confluence between institutional spheres’’ (Scott, 2001, p. 188), which provide actors opportunities for critical distance and strategic manipulation (Whittington, 1992). According to Berger and Luckmann, ‘‘The appearance of an alternative symbolic universe poses a threat because its very existence demonstrates empirically that one’s own universe is less than inevitable’’ (1966, p. 126). This implicit reification moreover renders it impossible to conceive of institutional influences operating across fields or geographical communities or of conflicting legitimacy deriving from institutional orders understood as being at ontologically different levels.

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The ambiguity of the organizational field concept becomes a problem in the face of globalization, because the areas of overlap and intersection among fields and communities are increasing, which gives rise to phenomena like hybridization, deinstitutionalization, translation, and a combination of institutional elements in a situation of increasingly conflicting legitimacies. As a consequence, social and economic action, social order, and cultural persistence can to a lesser extent be predicted on the basis of higher order institutional constraints as delimited by notions of fields (or environments, sectors, or spaces) defined in ways that do not clearly specify the relationships among different interfering fields (Delmestri & Walgenbach, 2009). The use of these concepts in institutional theory has tended to be metaphorical, which in itself is not a problem for a social science (Rorty, 1989). But these metaphors tend to lose explanatory power in the face of the phenomena of overlapping, combination, and confluence of institutional influences triggered by globalization: It is difficult to imagine the confluence, overlapping, and mixing of spaces and fields in a situation where multiple meaning systems coexist and get in contact: The fact that, in the same social group, a plurality of contradictory systems of order may all be recognized as valid, is not a source of difficulty for the sociological approach. Indeed, it is even possible for the same individual to orient his action to contradictory systems of order. [y] In that case each is ‘‘valid’’ precisely to the extent that there is a probability that action will in fact be oriented to it. (Weber, 1978/1921, p. 32)

Disentangling the Concept of Organizational Fields I propose here to disentangle the concept of organizational fields into the concepts of (1) institutional contexts, (2) dominant institutional contexts, (3) macro institutions, (4) (inter)action contexts, (5) organizational fields (in a more restricted sense), (6) situated field-level institutions, and (7) (dominant) institutional stream(s). I also suggest treating all of these concepts independently, without precipitating them into only one, namely, the traditional idea of organizational fields. Each of these concepts could be a starting point for institutional analysis. Let me begin with the concept of institutional context and use the term context in a broader sense than simply a setting. The word ‘‘context’’ derives from the Latin word contextus, which means ‘‘woven together’’ or ‘‘joined together.’’ Its first connotation has to do with the chain of meanings to be found in a text that surrounds a particular passage and determines its meaning. The word ‘‘context’’ does not recall any spatial metaphor; it is

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rather a linguistic metaphor to represent the embeddedness or ‘‘interwovenness’’ of any social element in wider systems of meaning. The identification of specific institutional contexts is not an automatic task. The proponents of European versions of institutional theory tend to identify in the nation-state or in civil society the macro-institutional context (Whitley, 1992; Maurice & Sorge, 2000). Meyer and colleagues (1997) and Drori et al. (2006) see the global society as the overarching institutional context, weaving all meanings together. Also, the organizational field is a context in that it contains the idea of connection and sharing of meanings. But I need to be more precise. An institutional context is constituted by a distinct set of macro institutions and discourses that contribute to constitute these institutions. As discourses may intermingle, any social actor may be interwoven in different contextures at the same time, and especially those actors who happen to be at the confluence of different institutional influences, like those located in border regions or managers in multinational firms (Delmestri, 2006; Kostova & Roth, 2002; Kostova & Zaheer, 1999). Macro-institutional analysis could study institutional contexts per se and how they evolve over time. But if the primary interest is in understanding how a specific (inter)action context is structured, then I suggest to consider the dominant institutional context(s) as the one(s) that contribute to the definition of the social identities of the actors participating to the specific (inter)action context object of study. For instance, if one wanted to study the specific structuration of the (inter)action context of artisan metalworking production in Northern Italy,2 he or she would need to consider the national laws granting specific rights and the regional cultural tradition constituting specific artisan identities as the dominant institutional contexts. The choice of the institutional context in terms of identity constitution is (inter)action context–specific, as individuals could bear multiple social identities, even contradictory ones, related to the various institutional contexts to which they participate (Friedland & Alford, 1991). The institutional context is composed by the macro institutions that construct actors, stabilize patterns of activities, and give meaning to these activities. When we speak of an organizational field in a more restricted sense, we could consider the set of social actors, connected by relationships of ‘‘transaction’’ or ‘‘collective action’’ interdependence (Grandori, 1997) displaying an internal and external identity and whose relationships, besides being structured by macro institutions, are also structured by situated fieldlevel institutions. Conti and Giaccaria (2006) use similar arguments for identifying productive territorial local systems in physical territories. Actors can strategically choose to change relationships and enter into a new set of

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interdependencies and therefore in a new field, but they are bound by their identities, no matter whether these are social identities in the case of individual actors or organizational identities in the case of collective actors. The organizational field in this restricted sense is only in exceptional cases coterminous with the institutional context or with the actual pattern of interdependent relationships of its member organizations among themselves and with organizations external to the field. The traditional conception of organizational fields, on the contrary, assumed all of these elements to be coextensive – and did not explicitly consider unstructured interdependent relationships, that is, relationships with actors located outside of the field regardless of the intensity of the interdependency. To return to the previous example, in the process of identifying the organizational field of artisan metalworking producers, one could determine that the actual field is indeed constructed at a translocal European level. Because its members recognize the field identity at that level (limited to some similar regions within European nation-states), the field is recognized as such also by relevant other European actors, and its members have started to connect to each other through interfirm and intergovernmental networks (Wolfe, 2000). Another building block of the theoretical framework is the analytical concept of (inter)action context (see Meyer, 2008, p. 529, for the use of the term ‘‘(inter)action context’’). The (inter)action context is the structure of the relations among a set of actors who are interdependent due to some common issue, imposed, institutionally given, or strategically chosen. (Inter)action contexts are manifold, overlap, and connect networks of actors who are in some way interdependent. It is a research design choice as to which specific (inter)action context shall be addressed. The idea that (inter)action contexts are different from organizational fields helps researchers to be more clear when identifying influences impinging on a field and when distinguishing between interdependent relationships. The problem here is that in a globalized world, interdependencies and sources of influence are widespread and almost the entire world could enter into any organizational field. To give an example, Alan Greenspan’s decisions had important economic but also normative and cognitive effects in different parts of the world in different contexts, but it is doubtful that the US Federal Reserve should, for instance, be considered part of the Finnish pulp and paper organizational field. The nation-state – and often nation-states other than the one in which an actor resides (Glassman, 1999) – is a relevant source of institutional influences, but should it always be considered part of the organizational field? If, on the contrary, too much emphasis is placed on

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strong interdependent relationships, then the field risks being reduced to the stable organizational arrangements that regulate the relationships within an interfirm network (Grandori, 1997). The idea of an (inter)action context helps a researcher to avoid both risks, but at the same time allows him or her to maintain the original preoccupation of the concept to involve all relevant field actors beyond competing firms. It also seems more precise than simply considering organizational fields as ‘‘relational spaces’’ (Wooten & Hoffman, 2008, p. 138), because this latter notion seems to imply that all mutually aware interorganizational relationships should give rise to an organizational field, while they may simply be conceived as (inter)action contexts of actors belonging to different fields.

Combining the Different Strands The institutional context defines the macro identities of the social actors participating in it, while an organizational field may translate these identities into more situated identities or define new field-level identities (coherent or not with the macro institutions). An (inter)action context identifies the specific social actors who, enabled and constrained by a set of macro-, situated, and field-level identities, are connected by relations of interdependency. The specific (inter)action context may include actors who participate in different contexts and fields than the one under investigation. Therefore, to return again to the previous example, let us identify the (inter)action context as that which forms around the issue of preserving quality and standardization when producing fine mechanics (a relevant problem in metalworking given the complexity of production and the shortage of skills); the members of the organizational field may have strong interdependent relationships with client or supplier firms located in the United States and with other Italian firms, which may not consider themselves, or be considered, as members of the organizational field. The above considerations are summarized in Fig. 2, in which two situations are presented. The first refers to the above example of artisans and fine mechanics in a globalized world; the second to a closed economy version of the previous example in a Westphalian world (Djelic & SahlinAndersson, 2006a). I also present the second example here to illustrate one of the factors that may have brought institutional researchers to precipitate all these dimensions into the traditional concept of organizational field. When the concept of organizational fields was introduced, in the 1970s, the world was less interconnected and nation-states were still meaningful

Fig. 2.

The selected (inter)action context: fine mechanics

X

X

X

X

X

X

The US institutional context

Institutional stream 1

Institutional stream 2

X

X

X

The organizational field: metalworking in Italy

X

X

X

The selected (inter)action context: fine mechanics

Institutional context: the Italian nation-state and its cultural traditions

Institutional Context(s), Organizational Field, and (Inter)Action Context in a Neoliberal and a Closed Economy.

X = social actors

Institutional context A: the Italian nation-state

Institutional context B: cultural traditions in Lombardy and Veneto

X

X

The organizational field: metalworking in Lombardy, Veneto, Baden-Wuerttemberg

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borders of institutional analysis (Djelic & Sahlin-Andersson, 2006c). The concentration of the first studies on public organizations may have reinforced this tendency. Therefore, it was a viable simplification to consider all the discussed dimensions as defining the same concept. It was meaningful to consider the institutional structure of any single country as a system. Now it is not, as the degree to which a single country is still a system is an unanswered question (Whittington & Mayer, 2000; Bellofiore & Vertova, 2006). Globalization, in its current neoliberal cultural and ideological mantle (Antonio, 2007), and the considerations of sectors other than public administration have rendered this simplification untenable. In the left side of Fig. 2, I added two dotted lines labeled ‘‘institutional stream.’’ I inserted two lines crossing the different contexts and the field, but their number is an empirical question. It was not by chance that the source of one of the institutional streams was placed in the US institutional context. I shall now present the more innovative part of the theoretical framework proposed here; namely, the issue of institutional streams.

The Role of Institutional Streams Let me first go back to the relationship between institutions and institutional context. A context is institutional if institutions are somehow interwoven with it. Institutions are held in place in contexts by recurrent actions and by ‘‘multiple sets of more or less structured discourses’’ (Phillips et al., 2004, p. 647), which can be coherent or conflicting, be specific to the context, or have their origin in other contexts. The reason for this overlap lies in globalization, and overlapping cultural worlds ‘‘are often a source of unanticipated ‘pre-existing meanings’’’ (Brannen, 2004, p. 599). All regions of the world are in present times exposed to different types of intersecting cultural traffic (Hannerz, 2001/1996). Besides, any discourse is connected to other discourses, a situation called interdiscursivity or intertextuality. In discourse analysis, intertextuality is ubiquitous, as it is ‘‘impossible to attend to all potential intertexts of any particular discursive event’’ (Keenoy & Oswick, 2003, p. 140). The same authors propose ‘‘the term ‘textscape’ to refer to the multiplex intertextualities which inform and underpin the meaning(s) of any given piece of discourse’’ (ibid.) and to push researchers away from using spatial metaphors. In agreement with the position of European institutionalists (Whitley, 1992; Maurice & Sorge, 2000), I contend that one or a few dominant institutional contexts exist and that intertextuality does not go so far as to

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transform the fabric of the institutional side of the social world into one common patchwork. Rather, intertextuality represents a situation in which different actors belonging to different institutional contexts will knot their specific bricolage of fabrics into an institutionally specific coherent whole. But intertextuality also means that any specific context will be crossed by streams of discourses and actions coming from unpredictable sources. Institutional streams are embedded in these discourses and actions, and the dominant institutional context represents, metaphorically speaking, the riverbed that canalizes these streams and, with the passage of time, is modified by these streams. Change occurs because contradictions in institutional streams are likely to require sensemaking and thus to produce new texts, which, in terms of Fig. 1, might become stabilized into new institutions interwoven within the riverbed itself. Streams can be contradictory by chance or because of political struggles. A riverbed might become so tightly coupled, impermeable, and isolated as to be transformed into a lake, protected ‘‘from ideas practiced in other sectors’’ (Greenwood & Hinings, 1996, p. 1023). Institutional streams interact among themselves and with general economic processes in the structuration of specific (inter)action contexts. Streams in time define path-dependent structuration (‘‘bricolage’’); streams in space define (de)structuration processes based on translations (Campbell, 2004). Fields, national business systems (Whitley, 1992), and the like appear as special cases: They appear historically when the structuration of a field is realized through the building of symbolic ‘‘dams’’ – the nation-state appeared only a few centuries ago and has begun to become stable only since the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia. However, in a globalized world, order appears more due to the symbolic ‘‘canalization’’ of streams than due to the definition of closed, tightly coupled, systems (Djelic & Sahlin-Andersson, 2006c). In the absence of symbolic dams or canalizations, (inter)action contexts are only loosely structured and open to symbolic ‘‘floods’’; they cannot be considered as systems with their own organization (Conti & Giaccaria, 2006). I consider institutional influences, deriving from sources other than the dominant institutional context(s) to which social actors belong, as streams in which actors in specific (inter)action contexts are immersed to various degrees. The stream metaphor is better suited than that of the environment, field, and also force – proposed anew by Djelic and Sahlin-Andersson (2006a) referring back to Kurt Lewin’s concept of field of forces derived by theoretical physics – to help conceptually grasp the phenomena related to globalization discussed above. Using a physical metaphor has the risk to neutralize and objectivize a cultural phenomenon. The idea of institutional

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streams has two advantages in comparison to the idea of field of forces: (1) Streams originate somewhere and are culturally imprinted at the spring; therefore, researchers are pushed to not forget that the cultural imprint was forged by specific ideologically supported interests; (2) Streams are not pure forces; rather, they flow and, picking up symbolic debris in their course, also change their color and purity. Surely, the notion of institutional streams embedded in discourses ‘‘is merely a linguistic device (or, perhaps, a methodological metaphor)’’ (Keenoy & Oswick, 2003, p. 141), which can be employed to symbolize some symbolic element crossing a context without being already interwoven within it. The idea of a stream stresses the dynamical path-dependent character of processes of institutionalization. The actual social mechanisms by which streams flow have been already described (see Fig. 1). An institutional stream is a connection to a wider and higher order of ideas, rules, and norms inscribed in social quasi-objects (such as texts) or in actions. What is taken for granted is this connection of the idea, rule, or norm to the higher order. Ideas come to be recognized as attached to particular orders. Even if their translation is different in each context, two aspects may become institutionalized: the practice and the original imprint, its source. Therefore, a stream of materialized ideas becomes institutional if it is characterized by the property of institutionalization: ‘‘when an idea legitimizes an already existing practice, this is possible precisely because the idea already has the status of an institutional carrier and therefore is expected to transfer this status to existing actions’’ (Czarniawska & Joerges, 1996, p. 39). Streams are also institutional only if some of their parts are characterized by this quality, such as their source: ‘‘Billing a project as a straight replica of an unquestionably successful venture in an ‘advanced’ country (or organization) makes it acceptable even under very different conditions’’ (Czarniawska & Joerges, 1996, p. 19). Thus, the discourse of authorization usually refers to specific authorities (such as the London Stock Exchange, a highly institutionalized actor in today’s neoliberal world), to attempt to legitimate some practice or identity (Vaara et al., 2006). Accordingly, Phillips et al. (2004, p. 643) speak of ‘‘actors who are understood to have a legitimate right to speak’’ and Kieser (1997) speaks of the reputation of fashion setters as key for the success and institutionalization of a proposed model. Streams of institutional influence can be inherently normative, cognitive, and/or regulative/coercive, and their source can be very distant from the actors involved (like for the features of the national institutional context of a foreign multinational firm or for the norms of a global professional

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community) (Delmestri, 2006). Streams differ in their spatial and temporal reach. The streams are of various stickiness, depending on a series of factors. Streams made of ideas are very fluid and can easily cross national borders (Hannan et al., 1995), while the transfer of regulations is a more contested terrain (Henisz, Zelner, & Guille´n, 2005), and norms tend to be more viscous and need some kind of socialization process to be passed through a relational system (Scott, 2003). Streams may also be of different strengths. When they combine cognitive, normative, and coercive elements, they are stronger than when they carry only one component. Streams that have their origin in dominant countries are stronger than those originating from less central economies (Smith & Meiksins, 1995). Moreover, if the contents carried by a stream are consonant with the actors’ interests, then their effect may be stronger. Actors themselves are equipped with different sets of capabilities and resources to sustain their efforts to float on these currents or even to change their direction, either by building symbolic and material ‘‘dikes’’ in the form of ideologies to protect their vested interests (Rao & Kenney, 2008, p. 356) or resist cultural invasion, or by mixing two or more currents into a ‘‘hybrid’’ one. In the next section, I will present the consequences of the above discussion on the future direction of our field.

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH I urge the reader to take a final look at Fig. 2. Considering the situation of institutional analysis after the disentanglement of the ideas contained in the traditional concept of organizational fields, several research strategies emerge with greater clarity. A macro strategy would be to study the historical evolution of institutional contexts. Another possibility is to study the relationships between institutional and (inter)action contexts, specifying the conditions under which the nation-state, for instance, is to be considered an actor in the (inter)action context and those under which it is only to be considered as a constituting part of the institutional context. One common strategy is to study the evolution of organizational fields over time. A new strategy would be to investigate the relationship between relevant (inter)action contexts and the organizational fields to which their actors belong. The identity of organizational fields can be formed in ways that include or exclude actors present in the relevant (inter)action contexts, and the degree of inclusion could have important effects that we could predict. Take for instance the case of the movie industry in Europe: As long as the

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organizational fields remain national, the capacity of European cinema to respond to Hollywood’s dominance will remain weak. I also wish to put forth some propositions that could be derived from the above discussion. At the level of the organizational field, we may expect that the number, the strength, and the coherence of the institutional streams crossing it should have effects on its evolution. Proposition 1. The higher the number of institutional streams crossing a field, the higher the probability is for the field to change. Proposition 2. The higher the number of institutional streams crossing a field, the higher the probability is for the field to be populated by diverse institutionalized identities, socially constructed as hybrid bricolage and translations of such streams. At the level of the (inter)action context, we may expect that, Proposition 3. The stronger the institutional streams that cross an (inter)action context, the higher the probability is for them to become salient in its structuration, even in contradiction to the structuring influence of the dominant institutional context. Propositions could also be developed on the level of the individual actor, including the current discussion on institutional entrepreneurship (Hwang & Powell, 2005), with the advantage of using the same constructs at different levels. I will mention only a few of the possible directions that theory building could take. We could for instance expect that, Proposition 4. The more an actor is exposed to an institutional stream, the higher the probability is that he or she will enact the institutions carried by that stream. As individual actors carry past experiences in their situated personal identities as well, we could also anticipate the following (Delmestri, 2006): Proposition 5. The lower the exposure of a specific actor was to a variety of institutional streams, the higher the probability will be that he or she will enact institutions deriving from the dominant institutional context. Conversely, we could expect that, Proposition 6. The higher the exposure of a specific actor has been to a variety of institutional streams, the higher the probability will be that he

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or she will produce new or hybrid institutions through bricolage or translation. These considerations are particularly relevant if we abandon the purely abstract domain of theoretical concepts and embed them into today’s world, which is globalizing according to a neoliberal template of American origin (Glassman, 1999; Djelic & Sahlin-Andersson, 2006c). The relevant issues with regard to what some authors consider as the now dominant institutional streams crossing the world, that is, scientization, marketization, managerialism, formal organizing, corporatization, formal educating, democratization, and moral rationalization (Thornton, Jones, & Kury, 2005; Drori et al., 2006; Djelic & Sahlin-Andersson, 2006c), regard both their strength in light of the traditional logics and to what extent they may be considered as distinct and independent phenomena. With regard to the first issue, the question is whether the strength of the dominant streams in the actual neoliberal world is enough to overturn traditional local cultures and institutional logics such as religion, nationalism, artisanship, statalism, professionalism rooted in guild traditions, and clanic or ethnic pre-modern discipline and hierarchy. The issue is whether the dominant streams only trigger superficial rhetorical adoption (Zbaracki, 1998). Local translations of global streams may leave the reality of organizational life and the institutional texture of organizational fields largely unaffected; the dominance of traditional logics may be preserved, and the transnational streams might only be ceremonially hybridized within the existing institutional arrangements (Kieser, 2004). Research designs should actively consider these (partially) rival hypotheses; otherwise, global similarity is more presumed than ascertained. Forms of possible resistance to transnational forces should be sought, and, once identified, their reality must be also verified: they might as well turn out to be ceremonial acts characterized by a deep constitutive consonance with the dominant transnational streams (Djelic & Sahlin-Andersson, 2006b). With regard to the second issue, the question is whether these logics are embedded in different streams or can only be subsumed in a dominant one, which has been called Americanization (Zeitlin & Herrigel, 2000; Djelic & Sahlin-Andersson, 2006b). If the different institutional streams flowing transnationally converge as affluents into only one main stream, then the possibility for a common overarching world order, a global ocean to overstretch the liquid metaphor, indeed exists. This world order would reconstitute Weber’s iron cage at a global level, be it a golden cage characterized by empowered actorhood, human rights and collective actors

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freed from arbitrary sovereigns (Drori et al., 2006), or a background of invisible forces acting in the dark with ambiguous results for the interests of the non-US actors involved, but with clear advantages for American actors (Djelic & Sahlin-Andersson, 2006b), or even the bloody field of international necrocapitalism (Banerjee, 2008). Future research should address these issues to establish whether it is reasonable to argue that the dominant institutional streams currently have their origin in the United States. The aim of this piece, however, was to show how the disentanglement of the concepts of institutional logics and organizational field permits fruitful avenues of future theory building and research. The concept of institutional streams in particular reduces the risk of neutralizing and objectivizing phenomena that are eminently cultural (Berger & Luckmann, 1966), helps understanding how logics travel through institutionalized ideologies that are themselves the interest-laden link between the material practices and symbolic constructions associated to institutional logics, and opens the minds of researchers to the social processes by which streams flow, picking up symbolic debris in their course.

NOTES 1. ‘‘The simplest way of objectifying ideas is turning them into linguistic artefacts by a repetitive use in an unchanged form, as in the cases of labels, metaphors, platitudes’’ (p. 32). 2. The example of artisan metalworking production in Northern Italy is based on my experience as the Director of SDArt, the School for Artisan Entrepreneurs founded at the University of Bergamo by the SdM School of Management; the Local Association of Artisans (AAB), one of the premier craft-related/entrepreneurial associations in Italy; and Confartigianato Imprese, the national level body to which AAB adheres.

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DOMINANT LOGIC, CULTURE AND IDEOLOGY Alistair Mutch ABSTRACT This article applies ideas drawn from the work of Archer and Wuthnow to strategic and organizational change in the UK brewing industry from 1950 to 1990. Changes to the management of public houses formed part of the ideology of a group of ‘modernizers’ linked to broader discourses. However, these changes brought in their trail logical entailments that were seized upon by other actors to foster the growth of managerial trade unionism. From Archer are drawn ideas about contradictions between ideas at the level of what she terms the ‘cultural system’ and their relationship to conflict at the sociocultural level. From Wuthnow is taken a focus on processes of the production of culture. These ideas can contribute to broader institutionalist approaches by, in particular, helping to deepen the ‘cultural turn’ and by providing an alternative to the focus on institutional entrepreneurship.

INTRODUCTION Focus on questions of agency and interest in institutional change brings into sharp relief the articulation between ideas and action (DiMaggio, 1988).

Institutions and Ideology Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 27, 145–170 Copyright r 2009 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X(2009)0000027007

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Framed, in particular, in terms of institutional logics, this brings into play questions of contradiction and struggle (Clemens & Cook, 1999; Schneiberg, 2007; Seo & Creed, 2002). A renewed focus on the politics of change raises the nature of ideology as an important consideration for institutional theory. Ideology is the classical formulation for the link between the interests of a particular social group and their articulation in ideational form. This is particularly the case when a new grouping seeks to assert its interests against a previously dominant group. As Archer (1996, p. 241) notes, the latter may content themselves with relatively undeveloped appeals to vague traditions, but an assertive group needs to employ ideas to both legitimate its claims and negate the legitimacy of the incumbents. However, there are dangers that crude formulations of the notion of ideology simply reduce ideas to a pale reflection of the material needs of particular groups and ignore contradiction. These concerns are a prominent feature of Archer’s work on the relationship between culture, agency and structure. This article explores these ideas, developed on the terrain of social theory, in the context of organizations and change. Archer’s ideas are developed within the tradition of critical realism. Critical realism is a philosophical tradition that asserts the existence of a reality independent of our knowing of it (Collier, 1994; Sayer, 1992, 2000). Our understanding of this reality is dependent on theories, theories that advance our understanding but which are provisional, reversible and corrigible. It follows from these assumptions that for critical realists it is a mistake to conflate ideologies and theories. Ideologies are an important subset of collective beliefs, but critical realism rejects the notions drawn from post-structuralism that there are no criteria by which we can distinguish theories from the social interests that seek to use them. An alternative risk is that of arguing that ideologies by their nature are false and distortions of the nature of the world. This has been particularly the case in the widespread promulgation of the ‘dominant ideology’ thesis. This draws on the influential formulation of Marx in The German Ideology: ‘The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force’ (cited in Callinicos, 1989, p. 140). Versions of this thesis suggest that there is a consistent ruling class ideology that, because of their control of the means of dissemination, is widely propagated. Because of this, subordinate groups come to accept this view of the world as inevitable and natural and so do not challenge the existing state of affairs. Such a situation is clearly in the interests of dominant groups. This account of ideology and how it operates has been

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widely criticized, including within Marxist circles (Callinicos, 1989). Archer (1996) suggests that it contains a number of fatal flaws. The first is that it assumes that there is such a thing as a coherent set of interests within a ruling group that can in their turn be reflected in a coherent body of ideas. Apart from the difficulties of ascertaining what such interests might be, this is to ignore the possibility of different interpretations of the world within ruling groups. Even if there could be some agreement amongst the group, and even if one were to assume complete control of the means of transmission, such a perspective assumes that there is perfect congruence between the aims of the ruling group and their achievements. Archer’s particular focus here is on the education system where she shows that assumptions of a smooth flow of ideas from formulation into the education system ignore patterned and systemic factors that make such seamless transition implausible. If this is to make the case against a simple undifferentiated set of ideas at the level of the ruling group, then there are also problems with assumptions about the uncritical reception of such ideas by subordinate groups. In particular, it is to ignore the existence of thriving and resilient bodies of ideas arising out of the life experience of subordinate groups. In his critique of the dominant ideology thesis, Callinicos (1989) presents extensive evidence to show, for example, the resilience of preChristian notions amongst the peasantry of medieval Europe despite the all-pervasive influence of the Catholic Church. He further demonstrates that there is widespread evidence in more contemporary social surveys to cast considerable doubt on the notion of shared norms that characterizes Parsonian structural functionalism. We have to accept, that is, multiple and contesting sets of ideologies. This means for Callinicos dropping the equation, ultimately derived from Enlightenment attacks on religion, of ideology with false beliefs. He suggests, The daily workings of the market economy encourage individuals to see it as an autonomous process governed by natural laws y The social relations between producers are mediated by the exchange of their products on the market: it is this real feature of a commodity economy which facilitates the perception of capitalism as a natural phenomenon outside human control. (Callinicos, 1999, p. 95)

Thus, the idea that the socially constructed categories of capitalism are natural kinds grows not out of some manipulated consensus but out of practical experience. As Archer argues ‘what is ideological is the uses to which they [ideas] are put – in the context of interests but in arguments’ (Archer, 1996, p. 242; emphasis in original). Ideologies thus remain linked to

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the advancement of the interests of particular groups, but the relationship between groups and ideas is riven with contradiction. The key aspect of Archer’s argument, to be pursued in more detail below, is that ideas themselves have to be considered as forming an interrelated system of propositions, not only escaping their immediate conditions of creation but in their turn forming situational logics under which material interest groups play out their struggles. She suggests when she discusses ideological formations that ‘their most striking common denominator is a claim to universal acceptability and a concealment of their intrinsic sectional character’ (Archer, 1996, p. 234). To this we might add, drawing on Giddens (1979), that ideology also presents socially constructed notions as natural facts. Ideology, then, is a set of ideas related to the interests of a particular social group, which pertains to certain aspects of the world, purporting to be universal and natural in character. In this contribution, I seek to relate this formulation to the domain of organizations by exploring the notion of ‘dominant logic’. However, much needs to be done before this can be attempted. At one level, Archer’s ideas, and others discussed here, are developed on the terrain of social theory and they require translation for application to organizational analysis. I seek in this endeavour to relate Archer’s ideas to those of others in cultural sociology, notably those of Wuthnow (1987, 1989). However, this undertaking requires some further explication of the relationship between critical realism and substantive theorizing and of the relationship between Archer’s morphogenetic approach and aspects of institutional theory. The balance of these introductory comments treats these issues, as well as outlining some of the sources of empirical evidence on which I draw. The main body of the article then considers the nature of culture and its relationship to agency and structure in more detail. This then frames a consideration of organizational change in the brewing industry in the United Kingdom from 1950 to 1990. The article concludes with some implications of the discussion for institutionalist perspectives and further research.

CRITICAL REALISM AND INSTITUTIONALISM Critical realism is a philosophical tradition which seeks to act as an under-labourer for a wide range of investigations in the natural and social sciences. Developed in particular by Bhaskar in the philosophy of science, the concepts developed have been seized upon by a number of social theorists who have found them useful in developing their own substantive

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investigations (Collier, 1994). Among the most significant concepts are notions of emergence and stratification (Sayer, 1992, 2000; Elder-Vass, 2007). For critical realists, the real is to do with the mechanisms that produce the world that we experience. This reality, which exists independently of our knowledge of it, is stratified in that phenomena emerge from particular levels of existence but are not reducible to it. Structures, in this conception, are not some free floating phenomena but emergent from human activity (Clemens & Cook, 1999). However, once having emerged, they have properties and powers appropriate to them as structures that are not reducible to individual action, although obviously dependent on continuing action for their reproduction and change. Archer uses these ideas to argue for a relational approach to the perennial problem of structure and agency as developed in her morphogenetic perspective (Fig. 1). Her summary of this is as follows: every morphogenetic cycle distinguishes three broad analytical phases consisting of (a) a given structure (a complex set of relations between parts), which conditions but does not determine (b), social interaction. Here, (b) also arises in part from action orientations unconditioned by social organization but emanating from current agents, and in turn leads to (c), structural elaboration or modification – that is, to a change in the relations between parts where morphogenesis rather than morphostasis ensued. (Archer, 1995, p. 91)

Of particular importance here, as explained in more detail below, is the way in which Archer uses these concepts to suggest, drawing heavily on Popper (1979), that ideas that emerge from human activity form an ontologically distinct layer. That is, once created, ideas escape their creators and enter into relationship with other ideas. These relationships can be

Fig. 1.

The Morphogenetic Cycle. Source: Adapted from Archer (1995, p. 82). Reproduced by permission of Cambridge University Press.

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obscured, manipulated, denied, censored, but they cannot be destroyed. Once in existence, they form relations of contradiction or complementarity, which then form the situational logics for action. There is increasing interest in the application of these ideas to the study of organizations, although it would be reasonable to acknowledge that much of the focus has been on the formulation of agency and structure, in particular, as found in Realist Social Theory (Archer, 1995), rather than on the more cultural focus explored here (Ackroyd, 2002; Ackroyd & Fleetwood, 2000; Fleetwood & Ackroyd, 2004; Mutch, Delbridge, & Ventresca, 2006; Reed, 2005). Some of these sources also mark an engagement with aspects of institutionalist approaches, although the alternative formulations of Giddens have found more favour in the latter (Clemens & Cook, 1999; Scott, 2001). I will return to some implications for institutionalist lines of argument in my concluding remarks. It is useful to note at this stage that critical realism is compatible with a range of substantive theories about particular domains, even where there is disagreement between the proponents of those substantive theories. Thus, we will see that Archer’s ideas are by no means immune to criticism from within the camp of critical realism. By the same token, those who find her ideas persuasive on some levels can belong to different approaches to the same phenomena. Therefore, for example, there has been recent interest in the application of her formulation of the relationship between structure and agency within the comparative business systems perspective (Whitley, 2003) and within versions of institutional economics (Hodgson, 2007), both approaches sharing elements of a common target domain of inquiry, even if with somewhat different readings. Therefore, there is the potential for these ideas to inform aspects of the institutionalist project. However, in doing so, it is as well to record a number of concerns with some prevalent approaches in new institutionalist analysis from a morphogenetic perspective. One relates to the very issue of terminology. For Archer (1995, 1996), in common with most mainstream sociology, institutions belong to the social domain and refer to a limited set of supraorganizational arrangements, much as expressed in Friedland and Alford’s (1991) formulation. Thus, what is expressed as an ‘institutional logic’ (Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006, p. 28) in organizational institutionalism is what Archer would term a ‘cultural logic’. This is to agree with the observation of Clemens and Cook (1999) that more attention is paid in many institutionalist accounts to, in their terms, schema than to resources. While the focus of this article is necessarily on culture, it should be remembered that this is to be seen in dynamic relationship with other forms

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of structure and with agency, a point to which I will return in the conclusions. In addition, from a morphogenetic perspective, influential currents in institutionalism, especially as manifested in the debate over the ‘institutional entrepreneur’, tend to exaggerate agential choice. However, the ideas we have discussed so far have been elaborated at the level of social theory. In translating these ideas to the organizational level, I will be drawing upon work that I have done in the field of brewing in the United Kingdom between 1950 and 1990 (Mutch, 2006a). This work examined the transfer from what might be termed a logic of production to a logic of retailing. These terms will be explored more below, but in examining this shift, I employed the notion of the ‘dominant logic’ drawn from the work of Prahalad and Bettis in the domain of strategic management. This is a concept developed without reference to the streams of thought that I have explored above and one which has been little deployed or developed since its original formulation.1 The notion was suggested by Prahalad and Bettis in 1986, drawing in particular on experience from mergers and acquisitions (Prahalad & Bettis, 1986). The experience here was that logics of action, which conditioned organizational action, were transferred, often inappropriately, from the host company to the new operations. They suggested that such logics were formed in particular from the history and experience of senior executives and from the history of the organization. Therefore, this is very much an internal perspective and one, moreover, with a focus on the formation by senior decision makers of ways of seeing the world. It would be fair to say that the idea has not been developed in great detail, and certainly not in the context of debates about ideology, but it suggests a way into the organizational antecedents and consequences of logics in two ways (Bettis & Prahalad, 1995). One is that the very term ‘dominant’ suggests not only the possibility of subordinate (and potentially competing) logics but also the important link to systems of authority within organizations. Another is that Prahalad and Bettis suggest that historical analysis might be one fruitful approach to the investigation of the formation of such logics. The research was based on a variety of sources, chiefly archival but also involving interviews with senior managers. The archival work drew on not only company documents but also on the papers of trade bodies at the field level, further details of which are presented in Mutch (2006a). This current endeavour represents an effort to tease out the ideological elements of the construction of a dominant logic both within companies and at the level of the field. Following Archer’s construction, I seek to show how the notion of the customer was at the centre of this endeavour, presented as a natural and universal imperative, but one which also contained logical entailments that

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could be seized upon by other actors, notably by collective actors such as trade unions. However, before I am able to do that, I need to explore the relationship of ideological constructions to knowledge more generally. It is clear that for Archer ideology is a subset of all knowledge and is not to be reduced to the simple relation between a particular set of actors and the particular sets of ideas which they articulate. Accordingly, the next section explores her work on culture in more detail, in particular, attempting to relate it to the work of the cultural sociologist Wuthnow.

DEVELOPING THE STATUS OF CULTURE The notion of culture as ‘a social structure with an underlying logic of its own’ in the words of Hays (1994, p. 65) drew attention from a number of writers in the 1990s. Some were inspired by the work of Bourdieu, whose work also influenced some strands in new institutionalism. Aspects of this work have also influenced the relational sociology of Emirbayer (1997) and the calls for a ‘new structuralism’ on the part of Michael Lounsbury and Marc Ventresca (2003). Hays suggested that there was a long and important project of determining the ongoing interconnections between systems of meaning and systems of social relations. This project includes the recognition that these systems are empirically connected but analytically distinct, with an underlying logic and dynamics of their own. (Hays, 1994, p. 71)

This is where we can bring in the work of Wuthnow, whose sociology of culture in general and religion in particular has been rather neglected in the organizational literature (Ferraro, Pfeffer, & Sutton, 2005). There are many parallels between the work of Archer and Wuthnow, which will emerge in the course of our discussion.2 It is worth noting, however, that the theoretical focus in Wuthnow’s work appears to shift depending on the subject under consideration, whereas Archer has been more single-minded in her development of a consistent body of ideas founded on her commitment to a critical realist form of inquiry (Zeuner, 2003). The task of what follows is not, however, to attempt a full-scale integration of their perspectives, but to use their work to suggest promising lines of investigation for organizational sociology. Archer developed her approach in the context of culture first in a book produced in 1988. This was subsequently revised to be consistent with her focus on social structure (Archer, 1996), and a schematic overview of this work is presented in Fig. 2. This draws attention, in very crude form, to the

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System

Social

Fig. 2.

Systems Institutions Organizations Roles

Debate Conflict

Culture Propositions Institutional logics Dominant logic Routines

Stories Myths Narratives

Outline of Archer’s Key Sociocultural Categories.

crucial distinction that Archer draws between the system and the social levels, and the reciprocal relations between each. It also suggests the relative autonomy of culture and system. The terms in italics are those that we have drawn attention to above (pp.134–5), rather than Archer’s; their appearance here relates to our efforts to apply her framework to organizational rather than societal concerns.3 Archer (1996) starts with what she styles the ‘Myth of Cultural Integration’. She sets the development of ideas about culture in the context of anthropology, where mistaken notions of cultural homogeneity were developed. Such ideas can be seen in notions of organizational culture as ‘shared’ systems of meaning, in which the focus is on explication of the myths and stories that circulate. Archer seeks to challenge this focus on homogeneity by bringing the same tools of emergence and analytical dualism to bear on culture as she deploys on social structure. The significant influence here is Karl Popper’s (1979) ideas about Objective Knowledge. In this work, Popper suggests three ‘worlds’ of knowledge. World One is the world of physical sensations. World Two is our embodied perceptions of and reaction to the world. World Three is the domain of abstract theory, theory that by being written, as it were, in the ‘library’ of human knowledge, transcends the conditions of its production and becomes a resource to be drawn upon. In being so divorced from its conditions of production, Archer argues, it contains logical relationships between elements as a system in its own right, regardless of whether these connections are recognized by or acted upon by any particular human actor. Archer uses this idea of objective knowledge as one that transcends contexts, knowledge without a knowing subject, to suggest that we use

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analytical dualism to conceive of culture as the relationship between cultural interaction on the one hand and a cultural system on the other. The cultural system is the result of cultural interaction, but items once written into the cultural system form objects of relationship with other aspects. These relations can slumber unnoticed for generations, either because they fail to attract attention or because they lack champions with sufficient heft at the level of cultural interaction. However, they continue to exist and either when new elements enter the cultural system, thus forming new relations with them, or when their existence is noted by new groups at the level of cultural interaction they can be activated. Thus, much of what is the focus of investigation in the domain of organizational culture, the myths, metaphors and narratives are for Archer at the level of cultural interaction. Excessive focus here fails to take into account the way in which the cultural system provides a formative context. That formative context is specified by the particular sets of relationships that exist between items in the cultural system. Archer suggests that we conceive of the cultural system as consisting of propositions about the state of the world. Stated thus, the constraints of propositional logic can be applied to suggest that items stand in logical relations of contradiction or complementarity. These are logical relations that exist regardless of their being perceived as such. It is, of course, quite common for contradictory ideas to be held at the level of cultural interaction, either because the contradictions are not recognized or because they are not significant for action – one only has to think of the stock of contradictory proverbs that are deployed or the perusal of horoscopes by the self-declared ‘rational’. However, this does not mean that the relationships do not pertain at the level of logic. Archer goes further to suggest a number of ways in which these relationships are worked out. At a straightforward level, items can stand in relationships of either logical contradiction or complementarity, distinctions that feature in the first row of Table 1. Complementarity means that ideas fit well together and form a harmonious and self-reinforcing web of relationships. This she terms the ‘concomitant complementarity’. Such is the classic form of the myth of cultural integration, but Archer suggests that not only is this not as common as anthropology suggest, but that it is also subject to strains over time. Her classic example is that of Hindu India, in which a complex and interrelated set of ideas contribute over a long period to stasis and reproduction. However, the problem with such systems is that they become complacent, inward looking and unresponsive to broader change. Of more significance, she suggests, are related sets of ideas that contain within them ‘constraining

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Table 1.

Cultural Systems and Logical Relations. Cultural System Types of logical relations

Which condition

Situational logic CS level S-C level

Contradictions

Complementarities

Constraining

Competitive

Concomitant

Contingent

Correction Syncretism Unification

Elimination Pluralism Cleavage

Protection Systematization Reproduction

Opportunity Specialization Sectionalism

Source: From Archer (1996, p. 270).

contradictions’. By this she means sets of ideas that contain within themselves logical contradictions. She draws here in particular on Durkheim’s characterization of the development of Christianity, yoked as it was to ideas drawn from classical paganism, against which it struggled but could never be free. Archer then brings in the activities of groups at the level of interaction, which she terms the ‘socio-cultural’ level (S-C) as distinct from the cultural system (CS), to suggest the development of further logical relations. Working on the tensions supplied by the constraining contradiction, groups seize on one set of ideas or another to work them up in opposition in a way that often mirrors their social interests to create a ‘competitive contradiction’. This is the classical territory, as we will see, of ideology. However, groups can also explore the cultural system to put together sets of unrelated ideas in a way in which they complement each other. This is the territory of the ‘contingent complementarity’ and is the source, she argues, of tremendous creativity in domains like the sciences, in which new and fertile combinations of ideas are put together in ways in which the complementary features are created at the level of interaction, not at the level of systemic complementarity. Archer suggests, therefore, that change can come about either at the level of the cultural system or at the level of cultural interaction. What she develops from this is the idea that the relationships so created and registered at the level of the cultural system can form situational logics at the level of cultural interaction. Of particular interest for our later discussion is the situational logic supplied by the competitive contradiction. This forces a logic of elimination, where the struggle is to destroy the opposing ideas, because they stand in

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such stark contradiction to other ideas. However, when we add in the consequences under this overarching situational logic in column two of Table 1, we see two suggested outcomes. At the level of the cultural system, when opposing parties are equally matched, the result is the proliferation of bodies of ideas, that is, of pluralism. This in turn simply reinforces cleavages at the level of cultural interaction. By contrast, ideas that fit together well foster a logic of protection, where ideas and their interconnections are elaborated. At the level of the cultural system, this produces a dense and elaborate system that in turn reinforces reproduction at the level of cultural interaction, where cultural symbols will manifest and encourage stasis and homogeneity. This is the all-enveloping system of the Myth of Cultural Integration. What has to be brought into play here is longer term development that will bring strains. In the case of the concomitant complementarity, this may well be exogenous, but even here, internal dynamics can play their part, for as cultural relations become ever more complex and sophisticated, they require longer to acquire. The long process of cultural acquisition produces a cadre of specialists who often cannot obtain the material benefits that their cultural status seems to dictate, and therefore, they begin to explore other aspects of the cultural system for contingent complementarities. Clearly, for logical relations at the level of the cultural system to have an impact, they need to be seized upon and articulated by groups at the sociocultural level. It is here that we can bring in social and material interests, as groups from the social system seize upon aspects of the cultural system to seek to further their ends. However, Archer is anxious to see that ideas are no pale or simple reflection of such interests. For as groups positioned in the social system take up ideas from the cultural system, they cannot avoid also taking on the situational logic that the whole system of ideas brings with it. Such groups cannot simply take up one part of a related complex of ideas; they must also inherit the bundle of logical relationships, which has been created in the cultural system. Thus, those rulers who sought to utilize Christianity to cement their social standing also took on the challenges of censoring or hiding the uncomfortable aspects of classical thought which came with it in the nature of constraining contradictions. When these contradictions were seized upon by new social groups, groups that had emerged thanks to developments in the social system, then they were developed into competitive contradictions through the conflicts of the Reformation. The Reformation supplies one of the key events of Wuthnow’s (1989) analysis, an event that he examines in considerable depth and to great effect as he teases out the implications of the relationship

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between sociocultural action and the development of ideas. As Archer develops her ideas at a high level to explicate her broader conceptual framework, it is useful to turn to Wuthnow’s work to get some sense of how the interaction between ideas and social practices develops over time. Wuthnow is a sociologist of religion who has sought to tackle the notion of culture as objective structure. His concern was with ideas of culture as meaning, arguing that meaning was extraordinarily difficult to investigate and attribute. He preferred to see culture as ‘the broader set of statements that either exists or is conceivable’ (Wuthnow, 1987, p. 147). He suggested in his 1987 work that much existing work had taken what he termed a ‘subjective’ approach and argued for the importance of structural, dramaturgical and institutional perspectives. These ideas were then developed in much greater depth in his 1989 Communities of Discourse in which he sought to explicate what he saw as three key moments in the relationship between social structure and ideas: the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the rise of European Socialism. The crucial moment for Wuthnow is that of articulation. This is where ideas need to come into relationship with their social milieu. If they are seen as too esoteric, then ideas will not be adopted, but if the ideas are too tightly bound with their social context, then they will not endure, being seen as too bound to a particular time and location. Articulation is thus a delicate balancing process which involves processes of production, selection and institutionalization. Many more ideas are produced than are selected and this is where the domain of culture has relative autonomy from the social world. However, there needs to be some selection process, where ideas are taken and adopted by particular social groups. Those that endure are those that are institutionalized, built into enduring social practices. In this focus on institutionalization, Wuthnow prefigures work such as that of Patriotta (2003) in contemporary organizational analysis, who suggests the importance of artefacts and practices as carrying the results of organizational knowing and in turn shaping future modes of knowing. For Wuthnow (1989, p. 15), what is important about such conceptions is that ‘culture, as conceived here, is explicitly produced rather than simply being implicitly embedded in, or constitutive of, social arrangements’. What he also does is, in his focus on discourse, to supply details of the ways in which the articulation occurs, of the techniques that are deployed to carry through the processes of production, selection and institutionalization effectively. In the Reformation, for example, the use of printing, distribution networks of booksellers and adoption of the pamphlet form were all important factors in developing ideas that had existed previously.

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For Wuthnow, ideology is the seizing of a particular set of statements by a particular social group from the broader universe of cultural statements. It is the detail of the process of articulation that requires to be explored, and his account reminds us that in this process, particular institutional contexts are important, as are the development of particular methods for dissemination. As we have seen, for Archer, the key point about ideology is not just that it involves the identification of the interests of a particular group with a particular set of ideas, but that conflict between ideas exists both at the level of ideas and at the level of social groups. As she notes, ‘part of the very instrumentality of ideology means that ideologies are matters of convenience, often hastily fabricated, rather than studiously elaborated and double-checked to eliminate contradiction’ (Archer, 1996, p. 51). That is, the ideas adopted are not simple reflections of material interests but have been selected because they involve a competitive contradiction and seek to mask this through a claim of universal applicability. Explicating this relationship, claims Archer, requires an attention not only to conflict at the sociocultural level but also to logical contradiction at the level of the cultural system. In this, we might suggest that a key difference between the two authors is the emphasis that Archer places on the constraining and shaping nature of situational logics. Wuthnow tends to place his main stress on culture as a source of resources for social action, whereas Archer, while allowing for this, tends also to suggest that the adoption of ideas brings with it logical entailments that then shape the range of action possible. This can only be a brief overview of this rich set of ideas. Both authors have not only generated extensive theoretical schemes but also sought to apply them to extensive historical examples that have required significant books – Communities of Discourse runs to 583 pages of text. Both draw upon extensive bodies of secondary literature, rather than primary empirical work, to generate syntheses that use comparative analysis across great sweeps of time. In both cases, the focus is on events at the levels of societies rather than at the level of organizations. The challenge, then, is to suggest how these ideas might be translated to the study of organizations. From Archer, we have a focus on how social action articulates with bodies of ideas. In particular, her work differentiates ideological formulations from more general relationships between particular groups of people and bodies of ideas. In addition, it suggests that ideas carry with them their own logical entanglements. In this way, her approach suggests ways of fleshing out the focus in contradictions within and between resources and schema as suggested by Clemens and Cook (1999). However, this approach is drawn at a schematic level and it is Wuthnow’s focus on the way in which culture is

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produced, which complements this, by suggesting a closer examination of the material conditions of the production and transmission of symbols. In the following section, I draw upon work on changes in logics within the brewing industry in the United Kingdom to suggest ways in which these ideas might be developed.

FROM PRODUCTION TO RETAILING IN UK BREWING 1950–1990 In this section, I seek to relate a change in logic at the level of both the field and the organizations within it both to the broader changes in cultural logics (to use Archer’s term) and to the efforts of collective actors to appropriate ideas and use them to foster their material interests. At the field level, I am concerned not with the replacement of a broadly ‘professional’ logic with a more ‘market’ logic, but rather with a clash between two forms of a market logic. One saw the most effective means of securing economic success as embodied in a commitment to efficient production. The second, drawing, I argue, on broader shifts in cultural logics, sought to place a conception of customer needs at the centre of what I have termed a retailing logic. I seek to show how a particular organizational innovation, that of direct management of public houses, was linked to this shift in logics and how it formed a core part of the ideology of a particular group of actors. However, I also seek to show how viewing such ideas through the lens of the competitive contradiction casts light on some unexpected consequences, notably the strengthening, at the sociocultural level, of another collective actor, managerial trade unionism. In the United Kingdom, there was not until 1990 any restriction on the ownership of public houses (i.e., outlets licensed by the state for the consumption of alcohol on the premises) by companies who also brewed beer (Mutch, 2006a).4 In that year, certain restrictions were placed on the ability of larger brewers to own pub estates over a certain size. This was seen by some to mark the end of a distinctive UK practice whereby pubs were run by tenants obliged to rent their property from the brewery and to take all their supplies (the ‘tie’) from the brewery who owned their premises. However, examination of the historical record, from archival and trade sources, indicates that a shift from a logic in which brewing dominated and in which pubs were simply seen as outlets in a distribution network (a production logic) to one in which pubs were seen as the focus for meeting

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customer demand (a retailing focus) was actually under way considerably earlier. The 1970s were the key decade which saw the acceleration of trends that had begun to gain momentum in the 1950s. While regulation was important in forcing certain companies to move along with this trend at a much faster pace, several had already begun the process. While changes in market demand account for part of the reason for this secular shift, they cannot explain the different pace of adoption nor the different interpretation put on the trends by different companies. The sector was dominated by six major pub-owning brewers – Bass, Allied Breweries, Scottish & Newcastle, Grand Metropolitan, Courage and Whitbread – but it was the last three, and Whitbread in particular, who went furthest and fastest in reacting to the new shift at field level. The details of this are developed elsewhere, but for the purpose of the current account, the focus is on one significant shift in organizational practice, that towards the direct management of pubs. The direct management of pubs, that is, their management by salaried employees as opposed to nominally independent tenants, was not a completely new practice. Indeed, it had been practiced within certain locations by certain companies since the middle of the nineteenth century. Liverpool, for example, was a stronghold of the managed house. However, it was not a widely accepted practice, and the significant shift from the 1950s was its adoption by all companies on a national scale. It was seen as a key step towards the running of outlets in a consistent fashion. However, its adoption also brought in its wake certain consequences that were not as welcome, most notably the emergence of a managerial trade union of some effectiveness. In this fashion, the emergence of house management illustrates the situational logic where the adoption of a set of ideas also brings in its wake certain logical entailments that were not desired or even anticipated by those who adopted them. We examine firstly the broad set of cultural changes, which brought about what appeared to be a powerful set of complementarities but which contained within them a constraining contradiction. We then relate these broad ideas to the specific notion of house management with its contradictory impacts. These ideas can be related to a specific group of ‘modernizers’ within the industry, closely linked on the one hand with marketing and on the other with the breaking down of traditional patterns of governance within the industry. Finally, we can see how in this process the contradiction was revealed and seized upon by other social forces. The master trope that unifies a variety of cultural discourses following the Second World War in the United Kingdom is that of modernization. In a variety of fields and emerging strongly in the 1960s, the appeal was to a

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number of practices, amongst which was management, which were held to represent progress. Within this there were some specific developments that affected the brewing industry in particular. There had been a long tradition of attacks on the consumption of alcohol in the name of a powerful nexus of Liberal Party politics and nonconformist religion. This had put the brewing trade into a defensive posture and placed restrictions on the attempt of some within the industry to move away from the domination of a brewing logic and towards a more rounded view of customer needs (Gutzke, 2006) (Chief amongst which were the efforts of Whitbread.). The prestige that adhered to the role of the pub in sustaining wartime morale under the conditions of the mass bombing of civilians and the triumph of the Labour Party in post-war elections put paid to the anti-drink lobby as an effective force and meant that the weight shifted from a defensive and extremely utilitarian conception of the role of the pub towards one which emphasized a more positive and welcoming conception, one in which elements like food might start to play a more significant role. Such developments were enhanced by the growing prestige of retailing within the national economy. Despite the growth of some significant national retailing chains before the 1950s, retailing had low status within the ranks of businessmen. However, innovations such as the self-service supermarket saw a significant change, especially as retailers began to rise in the ranks of the most significant companies in the economy. These changes, that is, took material form that in itself influenced practice within brewing. While there had been moves towards branded outlets much earlier, it was the 1950s that saw the widespread adoption of standard fascia across the high streets of the country. In turn, this influenced the built form of the pub. In its pre-war version, this took the form of enormous buildings redolent of the English country house and expressing a somewhat Olympian view of the customer. By contrast, the move to ‘theme’ the interior of pubs saw stumbling efforts to respond to what were perceived as customer demand (Mutch, 2004). This accompanied a significant shift towards a language of customer choice and sovereignty, mirrored in the internal affairs of companies in the growing importance of marketing. Specific companies, notably Unilever and Imperial Tobacco, were in the forefront of these shifts. Brewing companies had historically formed a distinct sector that shunned many developments elsewhere, but a growing integration into the broader economy, especially with the shift towards a higher profile on the stock market, broke down some of these barriers. In particular, there was the beginning of a small but significant movement of personnel from other sectors into the hitherto rather insular brewery sector.

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As some brewing companies were influenced by these broader changes at the social and material level, they began to adopt practices more closely associated with retailing, in particular, the adoption of house management. This was its most marked in areas such as London, which had historically proved resistant to the idea of direct management, both amongst the ranks of licensing magistrates (those responsible for setting local licensing arrangements under the aegis of the state) and amongst senior leaders of brewing companies. The argument for direct management was that it would ensure that a consistent centralized response to the meeting of customer demands could be made. This was seen as particularly important in the context of food, where not only would new approaches to customer service be required, but the companies could not guarantee that tenants would undertake the necessary investment. However, the adoption of management was also accompanied with a language of modernization. In this way, we can see that ideas were produced in domains other than that directly affected. There was a widespread discourse of modernization in the years following the Second World War, strongly influenced by US examples, which suggested that dramatic improvements would be needed in the UK’s management cadre. While often couched in the language of manufacturing, this had a broader impact. This impact was made stronger by two processes that lead to the selection of particular ideas. One was the widespread merger movement that created opportunities for learning. Within the new companies, component units who had never used direct management learned from those which had. The second was that, in part due to the nature of the new companies, there was the growth of openness at senior levels to recruits from outwith the brewing industry, such as the appointment of a Marketing Director in Whitbread in 1972 from Unilever. Having selected ideas about direct management, these were then institutionalized in particular organizational practices. Of particular note here was a shift in linguistic marker from supervisor or inspector to area manager to denote those who controlled groups of outlets (Mutch, 2006b). These shifts were not, however, the product of external forces nor the result of a unified corporate elite. Rather, the ideas were seized upon and formed the ideology of a particular group of younger managers who pursued a modernizing agenda against what was seen as the obstructive traditionalism of established managers. Thus one of the significant companies for the emergence of a management discourse was Ind Coope. While on the surface this conformed to a standard brewing template of a board full of landed gentry and military figures, it was distinguished by having senior executives not drawn from a controlling family or the ranks of the military, but from an

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emerging cadre of professional managers. Edward Thompson, managing director, had pursued an early career in the law before being persuaded to join the ranks of Ind Coope management. Here, he was responsible for the development of younger professional managers and the institutionalization of their direct representation at senior levels of decision making, introducing the first executive directors to the board of a UK brewer in 1955. In particular, Bernard Carfoot, who had managed a number of districts as part of his grooming for senior management following war service in the RAF, took charge of the managed houses and hotels of the company in 1953, marking the start of centralized policy. In this position, he was responsible for the institution of a number of policies that were designed to improve the status and training of managers. What is particularly significant about Carfoot is the connection with changes in the wider field. Policy at this level was coordinated by the Brewers’ Society. This long established organization had often operated as a defensive body in the years before the Second World War, resisting the attacks of the temperance organizations. In many instances, it was a profoundly conservative body, concerned with status in an industry keenly aware of such fine distinctions. However, in the 1950s, it started to concern itself with more forward looking aspects of policy. Carfoot by 1957 chaired the Managed Houses Committee, which sought to develop the retailing focus which managers represented. He continued in this role for ten years, until in 1968, his place was taken by H. E. Hunter-Jones who held a position in marketing with Bass. In a ‘strictly confidential’ note to other members of the committee in December that year, he declared that it has been the long term aim of the Management and Hotels Committee to improve the status and rewards of the pub manager so that he may attain a position akin to that of brewery executive staffs. It is most important that managers should feel themselves on ‘our side of the fence’ rather than merely foreman of other pub workers.5

Such observations have to be seen in the context of the contradictions that necessarily accompanied the adoption of ideas about management in the context of other institutional arrangements. Managers were favoured in retailing settings over tenants as companies could exercise more control over their activities. This was particularly important where a consistent approach was desired across geographical locations. However, the major brewers had large production workforces that were increasingly unionized, a process that accelerated in the 1950s. Tenants had historically been organized into licensed victuallers’ associations that had welfare and representation concerns. These had tended to be centred in local communities and to have

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enjoyed the patronage of brewers, whose senior managers often held honorary office and presided over annual events like the celebratory dinners. They were thus part of the nexus of organizations that were firmly under the patronage of the brewers and marked the traditional paternalist approach to relations within the industry. The tension for brewers in introducing more managers and seeking to improve their status was that they risked allowing union organization to spread amongst their managers. The counter to this was to encourage the growth of organization within the tenants’ associations. Hunter-Jones’ memo cited above has to be seen in the context of this strategy by the ‘modernizers’. As he continued, speaking of nascent efforts to create a separate association of managers out of the existing section within the retailers’ organization it does appear somewhat urgent that every encouragement is given to them to strengthen their present organisation as rapidly as possible if trades unionism is not to spread fast, at any rate in certain parts of the country.

Of course, there were those who resisted such efforts, both in the name of a commitment to the primacy of brewing and in adherence to a traditional pattern of relations with staff, which set its face firmly against any form of collective organization. However, by now, the genie was out of the bottle. The advocacy of higher status for managers in the name of retailing and tighter control was seized upon by the managers themselves to promote their agenda of collective organization. In this way, the modernizers could not simply ally themselves with particular bodies of ideas about retailing and direct management without also bringing in all the sets of relations that were involved. Ideas about the status of managers which had no necessary implications for collective organization where there was no large body of unionized workers played out very differently where such a body existed. The full story of the relationship of the organized bodies of managers to the broader trade union movement is too complex to be discussed here, but what is important is the recognition that ideas at a field level have an important relationship to conflict within organizations. Such conflicts existed not only between senior managers and other constituencies but within senior management itself. One public marker of such conflicts was the rare move of a senior manager from one brewer to another. This happened in 1978 with the move of Bernard Kilkenny from being chairman of the brewing division of Allied Breweries to head the beer division of the smaller Scottish & Newcastle Breweries. Kilkenny had been particularly associated with a push to expand and enhance production facilities at Allied Breweries, something which later

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internal reviews suggested was out of line with market demand and which drew capital away from efforts to modernize the estate of public houses (Mutch, 2006b). Even this level of debate is not clear from the public comments at the time, but it seems that when we dig behind public pronouncements, then we can see that notions of the smooth appropriation of logics at the level of either the field or the organization are mistaken. Rather, it can be helpful to see both the process and the logics themselves as shot through with contradictions, contradictions that mean that the process of adoption of a particular logic is not a smooth or homogenous one. In particular, the example of Kilkenny alerts us to the continuing strength of ideas associated with production, which explain why Allied Breweries, in particular, lagged behind much of the field in adopting a retailing logic.

CONCLUSION The injunction to critical realists is to seek to build domain-specific concepts by engagement with existing bodies of work (Cruickshank, 2003). This points to the fact that there are many forms of analysis, which, if not explicitly (or even implicitly!) drawing on critical realist notions, appear to have much in common with the ideas. In the present context, a particularly germane example is the work of Sharon Hays, whose work on culture, structure and agency suggested the need to undertake ‘the specification of the characteristics of both cultural and relational structures: their logic, systematicity, the ways and the contexts in which they operate, and the relative resilience of their layers of patterning’ (Hays, 1994, p. 71). This is remarkably similar to the task that Archer was engaged in without any evident cross-fertilization. Another important example is the call by Mustapha Emirbayer (1997) to develop a ‘relational sociology’; the formulations of agency, which he subsequently developed with Ann Mische, seem to map well onto the broader framework supplied by Archer (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998). Hence, the claim being made here is not that critical realism and the morphogenetic approach of Archer either specify the problems de novo or provide completely unfamiliar solutions. Rather, it is that these ideas can fruitfully be brought into engagement with existing approaches for mutual benefit. However, in the process, it is as well to recognize that such an endeavour also brings into relief some fairly sharp differences in the way that certain concepts are approached. I have already noted above that Archer would use the term ‘cultural’ where those in the institutionalist tradition tend to use ‘institutional’.

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Wuthnow, too, is a sociologist of culture in general and of religion in particular. Their work can help provide resources to complete what we might term the ‘cultural’ turn in new institutionalism. That is, from an initial position in which the main concern of new institutionalism seemed to be with the noneconomic, there has been a welcome shift to conceptualizing the economic, too, as culturally constructed (Dobbin, 1994; Fligstein, 1990). However, the full implications of this are yet to be worked through, with accounts of changing logics often seeming to consider what seems to be the replacing of professional forms of logic with more clearly ‘economic’ logics whose connection to broader cultural shifts seems a little unclear (Thornton, 2004). In making these links more explicit, drawing on Archer and Wuthnow supports the focus of those such as Whitley (2000, 2003) who emphasize the deep roots of taken for granted assumptions shaped by phenomena such as patterns of religious practice. In so doing, the focus on contradiction draws our attention to the spaces for action, which are provided by contradictions not just between sets of ideas and material and social relationships but also between and within those sets of ideas. In this way, it enables us to see categories such as the ‘customer’ as contested social constructions that entangle their supporters in perhaps unanticipated contradictions. The second challenge to some influential perspectives in new institutionalist thought is to the formulation of change and interest in terms of entrepreneurship. As Callinicos (1989, p. 156) notes ‘a particular ideology invites us to accept a particular kind of social identity’. However, the degree to which individuals can pick up both such identities and indeed choose aspects within such identities is open to debate. Therefore for Meyer and Hammerschmid (2006, p. 1012), ‘actors pick elements of a logic, thus giving the global concept a specific local flavour’. Aside from questions about which elements are available for selection in this manner, this does tend to suggest that the selection of items does not carry with it costs. That is, from a morphogenetic perspective, this grants too much freedom to agency. While, as we will see, actors may select elements under different degrees of freedom, with such choices come constraints. Employing a morphogenetic approach, that is, may enable us to preserve key elements of institutionalism, such as the both constraining and enabling aspects of structure. Clemens and Cook (1999, p. 443) provide us with some useful methodological prescriptions: ‘disaggregate institutions into schemas and resources; decompose institutional durability into processes of reproduction, disruption, and response to disruption; and, above all, appreciate the multiplicity and heterogeneity of the institutions that make up the social world’.

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To an elaboration of these prescriptions through the work of Archer and Wuthnow, we have added a key part of the articulation of action and ideas. From Wuthnow comes an injunction to examine the way in which culture is produced. This directs our attention to the bundles of material practices by which logics are mediated. However, Archer enjoins us to view this as more than a process of skilled choice of particular resources. Ideology is not a matter of free choice but comes with constraints of its own. Such constraints supply specifications for social positions and their corresponding implications for identity (Meyer & Hammerschmid, 2006). They also introduce logical contradictions that can supply other actors with space in which to develop alternatives. Archer suggests that our approach to the exploration of such situations is the construction of analytical narratives that explore the relationship between structure, culture and agency over time. This points us firmly in the direction of historical analysis that looks at the unfolding of several cycles of action with a view to determining the degree of morphogenesis (or, more likely, morphostasis) and the underlying causes. Here, the criticism of some within the critical realist project is that this account is developed at too abstract a level and, crucially, neglects the spatially situated nature of action (Jessop, 2005). Further criticism might be that her account neglects the importance of the analysis of symbolic forms themselves (Fairclough, Jessop, & Sayer, 2002). These are issues, that is, on which there is continuing vibrant debate within the network of those broadly aligned as critical realists. One way of progressing this debate would be to take the emphasis of Wuthnow on the analysis of culture as production and to explore the circuits of production and transmission, which cultural symbols undertake. In taking such an approach, however, our reading of Archer would counsel us against viewing this as a matter of the selection of items from a cultural repertoire. Rather, our analysis has to be sensitive to the way in which such symbols are part of a complex web of logical relationships, which provides its own situational logic, a logic that may ensnare the proponent as firmly as other more material and social entanglements.

NOTES 1. But see Wilson and Jarzabkowski (2004). 2. These parallels are noted by Zeuner (2003), who provides an extensive review of the work of Archer and Wuthnow, together with that of Bourdieu, as representing the leading thinkers in contemporary cultural sociology. However, the level of

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comparative analysis is rather unsatisfactory and some of the limited interpretation, especially of Archer, seems misleading. Another piece that addresses the two together, although from a very different perspective, is Rambo and Chan (1990) although this seems rather unfair and selective in its reading of Wuthnow. 3. It would be wrong, however, from this account to see Archer as simply restating structuralist perspectives (Archer, 2007). Her work has continued with a series of books that have explored the nature of agency in considerable detail, seeking to specify the mechanisms that bring agents into collision with structure (Archer, 2000; 2003). A consideration of this project is beyond the scope of this article. Rather, our focus is on the relatively neglected attempt to examine the nature of culture. 4. The following account is based on the material contained in Mutch (2006a) supplemented in places by that in Mutch (2006b). In order not to burden the text with detailed references, reference should be made to these sources for detailed evidence. The focus here is on the interpretation of the material, which develops that presented in the book (where Wuthnow was not used). 5. This material is taken from the records of the Brewers’ Society, held at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick. Full reference details are in Mutch (2006b).

REFERENCES Ackroyd, S. (2002). The organization of business: Applying organizational theory to contemporary change. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ackroyd, S., & Fleetwood, S. (Eds). (2000). Realist perspectives on management and organisations. London: Routledge. Archer, M. (1995). Realist social theory: The morphogenetic approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Archer, M. (1996). Culture and agency: The place of culture in social theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Archer, M. (2000). Being human: The problem of agency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Archer, M. (2003). Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Archer, M. (2007). Making our way through the world: Human reflexivity and social mobility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bettis, R., & Prahalad, C. (1995). The dominant logic: Retrospective and extension. Strategic Management Journal, 16(1), 5–14. Callinicos, A. (1989). Making history: Agency, structure and change in social theory. Cambridge: Polity. Callinicos, A. (1999). Social theory: A historical introduction. Cambridge: Polity. Clemens, E., & Cook, J. (1999). Politics and institutionalism: Explaining durability and change. Annual Review of Sociology, 25, 441–466. Collier, A. (1994). Critical realism: An introduction to the philosophy of Roy Bhaskar. London: Verso.

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Cruickshank, J. (2003). Realism and sociology: Anti-foundationalism, ontology, and social research. London: Routledge. DiMaggio, P. (1988). Interest and agency in institutional theory. In: L. Zucker (Ed.), Institutional patterns and organizations: Culture and environment (pp. 3–19). Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. Dobbin, F. (1994). Forging industrial policy: The United States, Britain, and France in the railway age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Elder-Vass, D. (2007). Re-examining Bhaskar’s three ontological domains: The lessons from emergence. In: C. Lawson, J. Latsis & N. Martins (Eds), Contributions to social ontology (pp. 160–176). London: Routledge. Emirbayer, M. (1997). Manifesto for a relational sociology. American Journal of Sociology, 103(2), 281–317. Emirbayer, M., & Mische, A. (1998). What is agency? American Journal of Sociology, 103(4), 962–1023. Fairclough, N., Jessop, B., & Sayer, A. (2002). Critical realism and semiosis. Journal of Critical Realism, 5(1), 2–10. Ferraro, F., Pfeffer, J., & Sutton, R. I. (2005). Economics language and assumptions: How theories can become self-fulfilling. Academy of Management Review, 30(1), 8–24. Fleetwood, S., & Ackroyd, S. (Eds). (2004). Critical realist applications in organisation and management studies. London: Routledge. Fligstein, N. (1990). The transformation of corporate control. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Friedland, R., & Alford, R. (1991). Bringing society back in: Symbols, practices, and institutional contradictions. In: W. W. Powell & P. J. DiMaggio (Eds), The new institutionalism in organizational analysis (pp. 232–266). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Giddens, A. (1979). Central problems in social theory: Action, structure and contradiction in social analysis. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Greenwood, R., & Suddaby, R. (2006). Institutional entrepreneurship in mature fields: The big five accounting firms. Academy of Management Journal, 49(1), 27–48. Gutzke, D. (2006). Pubs and progressives: Reinventing the public house in England 1896–1960. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press. Hays, S. (1994). Structure and agency and the sticky problem of culture. Sociological Theory, 12(1), 57–72. Hodgson, G. (2007). Institutions and individuals: Interaction and evolution. Organization Studies, 28(1), 95–116. Jessop, B. (2005). Critical realism and the strategic-relational approach. New Formations, 56, 40–53. Lounsbury, M., & Ventresca, M. (2003). The new structuralism in organizational theory. Organization, 10(3), 457–480. Meyer, R., & Hammerschmid, G. (2006). Changing institutional logics and executive identities: A managerial challenge to public administration in Austria. American Behavioral Scientist, 49(7), 1000–1014. Mutch, A. (2004). Shaping the public house, 1850–1950: Business strategies, state regulation and social history. Cultural and Social History, 1(2), 179–200. Mutch, A. (2006a). Strategic and organizational change: From production to retailing in UK brewing 1950–1990. London: Routledge.

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Mutch, A. (2006b). Allied breweries and the development of the area manager, 1950–1984. Enterprise and Society, 7(2), 353–379. Mutch, A., Delbridge, R., & Ventresca, M. (2006). Situating organizational action: The relational sociology of organizations. Organization, 13(5), 607–625. Patriotta, G. (2003). Organizational knowledge in the making: How firms create, use and institutonalize knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Popper, K. (1979). Objective knowledge: An evolutionary approach. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Prahalad, C. K., & Bettis, R. A. (1986). The dominant logic: A new linkage between diversity and performance. Strategic Management Journal, 7, 485–501. Rambo, E., & Chan, E. (1990). Review: Text, structure and action in cultural sociology: A commentary on ‘positive objectivity’ in Wuthnow and Archer. Theory and Society, 19(5), 635–648. Reed, M. (2005). Reflections on the ‘realist turn’ in organization and management studies. Journal of Management Studies, 42(8), 1621–1644. Sayer, A. (1992). Method in social science: A realist approach. London: Routledge. Sayer, A. (2000). Realism and social science. London: Sage. Schneiberg, M. (2007). What’s on the path? Path dependence, organizational diversity and the problem of institutional change in the US economy, 1900–1950. Socio-Economic Review, 5, 47–80. Scott, W. R. (2001). Institutions and organizations. London: Sage. Seo, M., & Creed, D. (2002). Institutional contradictions, praxis and institutional change: A dialectical perspective. Academy of Management Review, 27(2), 222–247. Thornton, P. (2004). Markets from culture: Institutional logics and organizational decisions in higher education publishing. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Whitley, R. (2000). Divergent capitalisms: The social structuring and change of business systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Whitley, R. (2003). From the search for universal correlations to the institutional structuring of economic organization and change: The development and future of organization studies. Organization, 10(3), 481–501. Wilson, D., & Jarzabkowski, P. (2004). Thinking and acting strategically: New challenges for interrogating strategy. European Management Review, 1, 14–20. Wuthnow, R. (1987). Meaning and moral order: Explorations in cultural analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wuthnow, R. (1989). Communities of discourse: Ideology and social structure in the reformation, the enlightenment, and European socialism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Zeuner, L. (2003). Cultural sociology from concern to distance. Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press.

‘‘BIRTHING’’ VERSUS ‘‘BEING DELIVERED’’: OF BODIES, IDEOLOGIES, AND INSTITUTIONS Elke Weik ABSTRACT This chapter at hand applies and extends Friedland and Alford’s model of institutional logics to the case of birth practises focusing on a number of interrelated topics, namely, identity, trust, and ideology. It draws on Giddens’s theory of modernity to ‘‘bring society back in,’’ as Friedland and Alford have formulated one major point of critique against existing institutional approaches. In its theoretical discussion, the chapter will focus on two issues: first, the treatment of conflict as a motor of institutional dynamics, and second, the relation between institutions and agency. The empirical data is based on participant observation, qualitative interviews with midwives and obstetricians, and a review of magazines and television material concerning birth and parenting.

BRINGING SOCIETY BACK IN Within the context of institutionalist theory, Friedland and Alford’s (1991) work aims at (re-)introducing a meaningful perspective on society to a field

Institutions and Ideology Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 27, 171–201 Copyright r 2009 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X(2009)0000027008

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that has traditionally focused on the relationship between organizations and institutions (Zucker, 1987). For this purpose, they propose two conceptual moves: first, to regard conflict (between various institutional logics) as the primary motor of institutional dynamics, and second, to develop the relationship between individual agency and institutions. The conflict perspective challenges the assumption of the (perfect) normative integration of an institutional field – and thus an ‘‘oversocialized’’ view of agency. Establishing a link between agency and institutions, on the contrary, counters an ‘‘overindividualized’’ view of agency by showing how individual interests are institutionally shaped. Both issues – conflict and agency – have been the prime focus of critique leveled against institutionalist theory, especially in its classic expressions by Meyer and Rowan (1977/1992), DiMaggio and Powell (1983/1991), and Scott and Meyer (1991). The idea of change through isomorphism and related assumptions concerning the ideational homogeneity of a field has been criticized, among others, by DiMaggio and Powell (1991), Walgenbach (2002), and Munir (2005). On a more general plan, Barley and Tolbert (1997) as well as Hoffman (1999) have noted the lack of the political dimension characteristic of classic institutionalist theory (Selznick, 1996), which temporarily seemed to have been lost in the wake of discussions on efficiency and means-end rationality. The relation between institutions and agency has only recently received the attention some critics have felt was lacking for so long (e.g., Meyer & Jepperson, 2000; Scott, 2008). Before, institutionalist theory was perceived to occupy the ‘‘structuralist’’ pole and was criticized for neglecting individual or collective agency in its explanations altogether (Beckert, 1999; Colomy, 1998) or for portraying social actors as ‘‘dopes’’ (Fligstein, 2001; Jepperson, 1991; Jepperson & Meyer, 1991; DiMaggio, 1997; Hensmans, 2003). And even if agency has been taken seriously, it was defined quite narrowly as providing the impulse for the emergence of new practises (Zilber, 2002). This chapter follows Friedland and Alford’s lead by using Giddens’s theory of modernity (1992) to develop a deeper understanding of the processes shaping individual agency in a dynamic institutional context. In particular, it will explore the connections between individual identity construction, trust, and control. In suggesting a close degree of proximity between structuration and institutionalist theory, I follow several other authors (Barley & Tolbert, 1997; Fligstein, 2001; Lawrence & Phillips, 2004; Walgenbach, 2002). My focus, however, will be less on structuration theory and more on Giddens’s analysis of the relationship between individuals and institutions in high modernity (Giddens, 1991). His reflections fit the institutionalist approach

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exceptionally well as his fundamental credo is that ‘‘modernity must be understood on an institutional level’’ (Giddens, 1992, p. 1). In a movement that he calls ‘‘dialectics of modernity,’’ modern institutions interconnect global and personal aspects and choices. The importance of institutions to modern individuals and societies is, according to him, due to a changing concept of self-identity. In contrast to its pre-modern predecessors, selfidentity has become increasingly reflexive, a matter of choice between various lifestyles that are offered by society. This choice, at the same time, calls for a more reflexive stance, that is, the willingness to question and evaluate certain lifestyles. Reflexivity, however, is not limited to these personal choices but rather permeates modern societies on all levels. One consequence is that many beliefs that were once taken for granted are now called into question, which increases personal insecurity. At the same time, societal and global interdependencies grow and thereby create events and processes that are too complex to understand. Both developments – increasing complexity and increasing insecurity – lead to the necessity to rely on expert systems to assess or cope with the risks presented. This reliance is based on institutional, not personal, trust and often results in the (further) de-skilling of the individual users. The knowledge incorporated in expert systems is traditionally control knowledge – again a major characteristic of high modernity. Control or mastery of potentially dangerous situations is almost a modern obsession and has resulted in a number of general changes in the modern worldview. One of them is the replacement of the notions of destiny and fate with the concept of risk. Risk is based on rationality and calculation and implies the possibility of control, whereas destiny and fate display an aspect of superhuman influence or inevitability. In a similar vein, situations incurring existential anxieties or dangers are excluded from modern daily life, as their ‘‘raw’’ qualities often resist human mastery. Instead, these experiences become mediated – and thus controlled – through fictionalization. In his discussion of expert systems, however, I believe that Giddens misses one rather important point, which is their use of (existing or new) ideologies to promote their own position. As my case study will show, ideology is necessary to understand how institutional logics are ‘‘transmitted’’ to individual actors and how they influence them. The concept of ideology, however, not only refers to a contested subject but also constitutes a contested subject itself. Authors who use the concept agree that participation in social life creates and presupposes an understanding of the social world and that this understanding is communicated by verbal and nonverbal means. From here, definitions branch out – not only regarding

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different interpretations of the concept forwarded by different authors or schools but also regarding the distinction between ideology and discourse – to the point where certain definitions of discourse and ideology converge or even merge (for an in-depth discussion, see Purvis & Hunt, 1993; Chiapello, 2003). For the present purpose, I shall use ‘‘ideology’’ with the following connotations:  Ideology is not linked to distortion or false consciousness, but to a certain set of social representations forwarded by a certain group of actors sharing the same interests. Due to these interests, ideology always has a political dimension.  Multiple ideologies exist within a society. Ideology is not restricted to the ruling class or dominant group within a society.  Ideology does not presuppose a conscious subject in the classical tradition but is a condition for individual identity construction as it provides a ‘‘set of ready-made and preconstituted ‘‘experiencings’’ displayed and arranged through language’’ (Hall, quoted in Purvis & Hunt, 1993, p. 485).  Ideology has material as well as symbolic aspects; it is not ‘‘just talk.’’ It is rather based on a theory of action than on a theory of language.  Practises and institutions function through ideology but are not reducible to it. Set before this theoretical background, the case study finally aims to provide a more in-depth account of how  technology and organizational demands create, sustain, and enforce different institutional logics,  dangerous situations are instrumentalized to create trust,  institutional logics and individual choice are linked through ideology,  dominant institutional logics use communication to maintain their power position.

BIRTH PRACTISES IN GERMANY: THE INSTITUTIONAL BACKGROUND At first glance, the institutional context regarding birth practises is similar in all industrial countries: The two professional groups involved in the field are midwives and obstetricians. Expecting mothers1 have a choice between

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giving birth at home, at a birth center, or at a clinic. Home births are attended by midwives, while birth centers are run either solely by selfemployed midwives or, rarely, by a team of midwives and obstetricians. In clinics, obstetricians are hierarchically superior to the midwives employed there. In all countries, except the Netherlands (see below), the home birth rate ranges between 1 and 2% of all births. Countries differ, however, with regard to the pace of the development toward this figure. At the end of the 19th century, all births in all countries took place at home. In the course of the 20th century, this situation was reversed so that now about 98% of births take place in a clinic. The speed of the reversion in each country depended on various factors such as the speed of the modernization of hospitals, the financing of clinic births through insurance policies or government grants, government policy supporting clinic births, or the societal status and lobbying power of midwives and obstetricians respectively. The United States saw the quickest development with the greatest change from 1935 (36.9% clinic births) to 1944 (75.6% clinic births) and had reached 97% clinic births by 1960 (Declercq, De Vries, Viisainen, Salvesen, & Wrede, 2001). In contrast, Britain still saw 30% of births taking place at home in 1966. This figure was then rapidly reduced to the current 1% by 1979 (Declercq et al., 2001). In West Germany, the major change came in 1968 when national health insurance policies began covering clinic births even for unproblematic pregnancies (Gubalke, 1985). The Netherlands form a remarkable exception to this general development. Here, 30% of all births still take place at home. Declercq et al. (2001, p. 16) see this as ‘‘a product of the organization of health care, Dutch politics, and Dutch cultural ideas about home, women, family, medicine, and science.’’ With regard to health care, the Dutch system has always strengthened the position of the midwives, with national laws on certification and legitimation dating from as early as 1818. Even today, only 75 of 1000 applicants are accepted to start midwifery training (Damer, Lorenzen, & Rietmann, 1999). This strengthening was accompanied by a clear distinction between normal and high-risk pregnancies, which is quite important as it demarcates the competence of the midwife from that of the obstetrician. Although this distinction is used in most other countries as well, it is often vague and left to the discretion of the caregiver. The Netherlands, however, have defined the difference very clearly through a state regulation called the Kloosterman List. Since the 1970s, legislation has also stipulated that it is the midwife, not the obstetrician, who is responsible for prenatal care and who decides if a pregnancy shows pathological signs and an obstetrician should be consulted. Moreover, health insurers will not

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pay for an obstetrician-attended clinic birth if the pregnancy has been without complications and an unproblematic birth is expected. Although the system is harshly criticized by Dutch gynecologists, the midwives’ political standing is strong enough to block these interventions. In cultural terms, there is an unbroken tradition of home birthing with intact social mechanisms such as birth parties in the home or neighbors and professional carers (Kraamverzorgende) supporting the new mother full time in the household. The underlying perception seems to be that midwives function as socio-psychological counselors for the mothers during pregnancy and birth and that they protect them from unnecessary medical interventions (Damer et al., 1999; RWTH Aachen, 2006). However, there seems to be an, albeit slow, convergence to the overall European trend in that mothers increasingly choose midwife-attended clinic or birth center births, which has led to a decrease of home births from 69% in 1965 to 31% in 1991 (Wiegers, Keirse, Van der Zee, & Berghs, 1996). The present institutional context in Germany is characterized by a predominance of clinic births (98%) and a powerful lobbying position of obstetricians.2 The midwives’ group is divided into clinic midwives, who are employed by a clinic, and self-employed midwives,3 who assist at home births, work in birth centers, or accompany women to the clinic on the basis of ‘‘renting’’ the delivery room from the clinic. Birth centers were only introduced in the 1980s, and the 40 centers that currently exist are normally found in larger cities. In principle, mothers may freely choose between home births, birth centers, and birth clinics. Health insurance covers the costs in all cases, either by paying the bills directly or by refunding the mother’s expenses. In the past two decades, the non-clinic birth and ‘‘natural’’ birth (i.e., without technology intervention) factions have slowly gained some influence (Schu¨cking, 2003). This has resulted in a growing pressure on birth clinics to introduce homelike settings (e.g., rooming-in) or ‘‘soft’’ practises (e.g., water births, homeopathy). There is also an increase in short-stay clinic births (i.e., 2–24 hours after birth as opposed to the 3–5 days considered ‘‘normal’’ for a clinic birth). These institutional arrangements are embedded in a sociopolitical context that has seen a constant decline in the absolute number of births since 1970, and one of the lowest net reproduction rates in Europe at less than 0.4 per woman (Braun, 2006). German women have their first child very late at the age of 28.5 on average (Braun, 2006). About 40% of all female academics remain childless (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2005). These figures have sparked major debates in the public discourse, and recent administrations have felt pressure to offer substantial incentives for couples to have children.

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METHOD To inquire into institutional logics, identity, and power relations, I have adopted a life-world perspective and in consequence a constructivist, phenomenological approach in the tradition of Schu¨tz and his followers. Although Friedland and Alford do not explicitly refer to Schu¨tz, I believe his ideas on lifeworlds and multiple realities (Schu¨tz, 1962/1973) fit quite well into this line of thought. As far as methods in the present study are concerned, three basic concepts derived from this philosophy are important: Verstehen, ideal types, and narrative. Verstehen as a sociological method involves empathy and a certain familiarity with the lifeworld in question to gain the ‘‘context knowledge,’’ as Strauss (2004) would call it, necessary to understand the actors’ sensemaking and purposes (Patton, 2005). I have gained this context knowledge from my experience in giving birth to three children – once in the clinic, once in a rented delivery room, and once at home – which brought me into close contact with the respective caregivers over a comparatively long time and which, naturally, gave me an insight into the maternal perspective, bolstered by many informal talks with other mothers and mothers-to-be. I believe this insight was important because the topics discussed are of an implicit nature and cannot be fully captured by direct questions and conversations, but instead presuppose observation and understanding of the practises involved. As always in this type of (very modest) ethnography, the participant observer faces the task of switching between the insider and outsider perspective becoming a ‘‘marginal man’’ or ‘‘professional schizophrenic’’ (Honer, 2005). In a second step, this participant observation was complemented by 15 qualitative, semi-structured interviews with self-employed midwives, clinic midwives, and obstetricians. The organizations involved (three midwife practises, one birth center, one perinatal center,4 one regular hospital) were all located in Chemnitz, a German city of 260,000 inhabitants. Each interview lasted between 30 and 60 minutes. These interviews were mainly intended to describe the identity of each professional group as well as their relationship to one another, but they also served in a minor way as expert interviews on mothers’ preferences and decisions. Finally, the aspect of ideology was researched by reviewing media reports (TV, women’s magazines, books) on births and birth practises.5 Concerning the presentation of the material, I have chosen a narrative approach. ‘‘Narrative is retrospective meaning making,’’ as Chase (2005) puts it, and I thus consider an appropriate device to present a constructivist study (for the use of narrative accounts in organization studies, see also

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Boyce, 1995; Czarniawska-Joerges, 1995; Langley, 1999; Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001). Within this narrative approach, I tried to portray the two institutional logics as ideal types (see below), which, again, is something Weber and Schu¨tz have proposed as adequate method for scientifically describing life-world phenomena (Gerhardt, 2001).

PUTTING THE THEORY IN CONTEXT: BIRTH PRACTISES AND PERINATAL INSTITUTIONS Institutional Logics The field of perinatal care is split rather dichotomously between two logics, which I shall refer to as ‘‘clinic view’’ and ‘‘home birth view.’’ I shall portray them in this chapter in what my observations suggested to be the ‘‘mainstream version.’’ This version is, of course, incomplete as there are always more ‘‘conservative’’ or ‘‘progressive’’ proponents in the empirical manifold, as Weber would call it. Moreover, by contrasting the one to the other logic in a rather condensed fashion, both logics are fitted with sharper contours than they may have in the minds of many adherents. I am, nevertheless, confident that their opposition as two categorically different logics is correct. To cite Weber again, they could be viewed as based on different value rationalities, which basically precludes a rational hybridization, as the competing ultimate values cannot be placed in a transitive order. Individuals may switch from one logic to the other by adopting first the one, then the other ultimate value, but they cannot rationally construe a hybrid logic including both. This underlying value tension to a great extent drives the institutional dynamics as both parties continuously strive for acceptance and promotion of their positions without ever reaching a satisfactory compromise. The two logics also divide the professions rather clearly. Almost all obstetricians subscribe to the clinic view (with differences in how much freedom the clinic midwives should be given); those few who are critical of it are often not accepted and isolated in their professional community. They do not work in a birth clinic but have their own practises or birth centers. With regard to midwives, the logics basically distinguish self-employed from (clinic) employed midwives. There are, however, a number of employed midwives who would like to work autonomously (and favor the home birth logic) but have chosen to work in the clinic for financial reasons or to ensure regularity of their work hours. Self-employed midwives, on the contrary,

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all adopt the home birth logic, but may differ in the degree to which they accept or refuse the clinic view. This is most obvious in the distinction between self-employed midwives who only assist home births and those who also rent delivery rooms in a clinic.6 The logic of the home birth faction can be rendered as follows: Birthing is a perfectly natural, basic process that a female body is fit to deal with. Nature has had thousands of years to equip women not only with an appropriate anatomy but also with the necessary instincts, endurance, hormones, and so on to cope with the exigencies of giving birth to a baby. Unless pathological developments are observed, every intervention on the part of the caregivers must be considered unnecessary and in most cases either impeditive or even damaging. This is due to not only the initial perfection of the natural process but also, firstly, the limited knowledge of medicine concerning physical and psychological consequences of the birth for mother and baby. But even this concern, the home birth faction argues secondly, has hardly been paid attention for many years while the dominant themes were organizational and/or efficiency considerations. Until a decade ago, for example, giving birth to a baby while lying on one’s back was the only accepted practise in clinics. In many clinics, it still is, at least for the final phases. This is in spite of the – by now well-known – fact that this position, as one caregiver once remarked, is ‘‘the stupidest position to deliver a child right after standing on your head’’ (for a detailed account of the physiological disadvantages, see Schmidt, 2000). Still, the position was very convenient for obstetricians and midwives, who otherwise would have had to kneel in front of the mother; consider the symbolic as well as the physical discomfort. Although the worst of these organizational sins may be a thing of the past, clinics’ willingness to put these concerns before a natural or mother-determined mode of delivery, critics say, still prevails. As a consequence, the birth is made more difficult, with ensuing health risks for mother and baby. On the contrary, highly sensitive technical instruments sometimes misread (in birth terms) ‘‘normal’’ phases of physiological overactivity or non-activity as pathologies. For example, the CTG (cardiotocography, a device that measures the fetal heartbeat and the contractions during birth) has been shown to sound false alarm in 80% of all cases in which it is used (Lutz & Kolip, 2006). The error is, statistically speaking, always a type II error: While it almost never fails to detect a pathological development, it indicates that problems exist in many non-pathological cases. The alarm, again, causes stress for the mother worrying about her baby, but also may lead to further interventions. This especially occurs when, as is often the case, the clinic midwife must look after several mothers

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in several delivery rooms and thus relies almost solely on the CTG for monitoring. This even results in a certain de-skilling of the clinic midwives. In contrast to this, home births involve no technology and no organizational demands and routines. The midwife has only one woman to attend to. She is thus continuously present and follows all developments during the birth process. She also knows the history of the pregnancy, the family situation, and so on and is thus better able to classify symptoms as harmless, momentarily problematic but to be overcome, or pathological. She is not tempted to intervene because, first, she believes it to be detrimental, and, second, she lacks the equipment. The mother is in a familiar environment. Moreover, women opting for a home birth seem to be in a different frame of mind concerning their responsibilities. They (and the midwives) are very clear about the fact that it is the mother and the baby who do the work. That, to me, is the essence of this sentence [uttered by doctors]: ‘‘I carry the responsibility.’’ That’s not true. I don’t carry the responsibility either. I carry the responsibility for the examinations I make and for those I don’t. But the responsibility for the child and the life lies with the mother, and I can’t take that away from her. (Self-employed midwife) That’s what I tell the women who go to the clinic with me [renting the delivery room]: ‘‘I am a guest at your birth. You have invited me to attend and to see if everything is okay in medical terms.’’ (Self-employed midwife)

Mothers giving birth at home do not expect and often do not want help from technology or obstetricians. They expect and want to set the pace and mode of the birth and to be in control of the birth environment. This active stance is captured in the will to ‘‘birth’’ the child instead of ‘‘being delivered of ’’ it. In contrast, the clinic logic is based on the all-pervading view of obstetricians and clinic midwives captured by the following quote: And it’s a simple fact, and that’s the principle I work by: The longer I am in this profession, the more I know what can happen. (Obstetrician of 23 years)

Even seemingly normal births can develop pathologies, and in those cases, every minute counts. If we knew for sure that no pathologies would develop, home births would be a viable alternative, but since we never know for sure, giving birth at home means taking an unnecessary risk. Furthermore, birth clinics have changed for the better in the way they approach births: delivery rooms have been redecorated to look like a living room, technology has become small and portable so as not to impede the mother, midwives are

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trained in alternative birth practises and sometimes in alternative medicine, and the mother and baby can leave the clinic two hours after the birth if they wish. Hence, there is no difference in comfort between clinic and home births, but clinics offer a quantum leap in safety, as every desirable technology waits literally ‘‘behind the next wall.’’ Still, interventions are kept at a necessary minimum. The minimum is defined by (1) arresting pathological developments, (2) relieving mother and baby of the duress of the birth when it becomes obvious that they can no longer cope, and (3) the explicit wish of the mother. The latter is especially important with regard to the application of PDA (peridural or epidural anesthesia, an anesthesia administered to the spine that numbs and paralyzes the body below the rib cage), a practise that is carried out in 80% of the births in some clinics. The mothers deciding on a clinic birth mostly want and expect technology to be ready, especially if it is their first birth. Moreover, they are prepared to surrender control and autonomy over the birth to the obstetricians. I just went with it because they knew better than I did. They are more experienced in childbirth, so I just let them y. (Mother, quoted in Kornelsen, 2005, p. 1500)

The quotation shows two characteristic features of clinic birth mothers. First, a birth, although it takes place within the woman’s body, is so complicated that it is not she but an expert who possesses key knowledge about it. The quotation is made even more poignant by the fact that more often than not, women with this attitude are referring to a male doctor, that is, someone who will never give birth himself. We shall return to this point in the section on trust. Second, the woman is referring to the obstetrician, not to the clinic midwife, although it is the midwife that is present during the birth, while the obstetrician only attends at the end (unless pathologies arise). Clinic midwives tend to be neglected both in the planning of the birth and in subsequent stories about it (‘‘Doctor X delivered my baby’’). This leads directly to the view of the clinic midwives themselves, who, in contrast to their self-employed counterparts, subscribe to the institutional logic of the clinic birth. I have been a midwife for 33 years now, and I always say: For a long time, nothing happens at all. But if something serious happens – and that has dominated my actions – then five minutes are too long. (Clinic midwife)

While German law states that a midwife is solely responsible for a normal birth, and that she must surrender responsibility to the obstetrician if and only if the birth becomes pathological, the division of labor in reality is much more subtle. The continuum extends from clinics where the

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obstetrician is more or less continuously present and the midwife is merely his or her assistant to clinics where midwives work alone and doctors only attend at the end, if at all. Between these extremes is a large gray zone of individual negotiation, which more often than not depends on the individual characters and professional experience of the midwives and obstetricians involved. Still, in comparison with their self-employed colleagues, clinic midwives are more prepared to surrender responsibility to the obstetrician. My assumption is that this is due to the dominance of a pathological view expressed in the statement ‘‘I know what can happen.’’ The persisting prevalence of this pathological view, at least in a large clinic, is confirmed by one obstetrician: You always smell the danger. That’s very problematic if you have, for example, four delivery rooms, and in three of them you’ve got pathologies, multiples, early births, bleedings, then it is difficult to switch in the fourth room, where you’ve got a normal woman at due date, and not look at her through the lens ‘‘What’s the problem here?’’ There is none. But it is difficult to go back to the normal level. [y] You’re a bit warped mentally. [y] That’s surely a problem in all big clinics. (Obstetrician at a perinatal center)

Working in a birth clinic, however, does not only involve hierarchy as an organizational fact. In all my interviews with clinic employees, financial and particularly the legal aspects of perinatal care were mentioned as factors structuring the task at hand. Almost all interviewees were aware of the legal dangers7 of their work, although none had ever been sued. They all, however, agreed that they would do things differently if they were not afraid of being sued. As a rule, ‘‘differently’’ meant the use of less (control) technology and fewer interventions. And indeed, other studies show that this fear of legal prosecution is one major cause for the rise of caesarean sections in Germany. The caesarean section rate in Germany has risen from 15.2% in 1991 to 25.5% in 2003 (Lutz & Kolip, 2006). About 90% of these are performed without an absolute medical indication, that is, a state that puts the baby’s or mother’s life at risk (Lutz & Kolip, 2006). When asked about this development, obstetricians replied as follows: That’s just the fear you have. Just the fear that if something happens you can’t justify to not have performed a caesarean section. (Assistant obstetrician) And in Germany – that’s unfortunately true – some things are done just so you can’t get sued. And that’s one of our problems. [y] I think that is one reason why so many caesareans are performed, just because they say, ‘‘We don’t want to have a problem: she’s getting a caesarean, then the baby is out and it’s over’’. For in Germany, nobody has ever been sued for performing a caesarean. (Obstetrician)

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Other organizational considerations also contribute to the rise in caesarean sections. For example, a disproportionate number of the smaller clinics with fewer than 500 births p.a. have a section rate of over 50% (Lutz & Kolip, 2006). The reason is quite simple: While a vaginal birth can take 24 hours or even longer, a caesarean section is performed in 30 minutes – and is even better paid for by health insurers. Especially small clinics that do not have a complete surgery team on duty around the clock tend to prefer the quick solution over the long one. To date, this development has in some respects come full circle, such as with regard to babies in breech position.8 As a consequence of their lack of practise, young obstetricians become de-skilled to the extent that they must opt for a caesarean section because they cannot assist vaginal births with such complications. In comparison, this strong presence of organizational demands has no counterpart in the statements of the self-employed midwives, although the same legal and market rules apply to them. As for their salaries, although they may not be entirely happy with their pay, they have accepted that midwifery is not the path to wealth or prosperity. Some even adhere to the tradition9 that you need a husband with an income to survive as a midwife. Legal aspects, too, were only mentioned if I inquired about them, and then rather shrugged off. Compare the following quotations: If a child today at the age of six does not speak four languages, they will go and look if something went wrong at birth. And hence, naturally, you protect yourself, no question. (Obstetrician) y you sometimes walk on thin ice. (Self-employed midwife)

Organizational demands can thus be seen as perpetuating and strengthening the logic of the clinic from which they originated,10 even to the extent of becoming dysfunctional. Above, I discussed the example of de-skilling with regard to handling vaginal births. I also suspect (but have no supporting data) that the rise in the number of lawsuits, which has such negative effects on the daily work of all clinic employees in the delivery room, is a consequence of the implicit or explicit promise of absolute control and safety promoted by clinics. Parents may feel betrayed if they opt for a clinic birth and the baby still dies. Therefore, one obstetrician asked to speculate on the reasons for the rise in lawsuits replied as follows: Everything has to be perfect. It has to go according to plan. The child must be perfect, the woman must not be harmed. Fate is completely ignored. There is no fate. Today you

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can plan everything, organise everything to the point of perfection. Where is there room for fate in this? Nowhere.

This leads us directly to the issue of trust in the respective birthing institutions. Trust With its strong secular tradition, western culture has apparently foregone metaphysical concerns and now focuses on the physical-medical aspects of the well-being of mother and baby. When asked, mothers-to-be, obstetricians, and midwives unanimously reply that this is their prime concern. Upon closer investigation, however, this clearly defined concern dissolves into several aspects, most of which carry some existential anxiety. In his study on risk perception, Langford (2002) classifies four fundamental arenas of existential anxieties, namely, death, isolation, meaninglessness, and the burden of freedom/responsibility. All of them concern the individual as well as the social level. And all are present in the birth situation, as the child or the mother may die (death), the woman is set apart from many of her previous living circumstances by her special physical and emotional condition as well as the need to care intensively for the newborn (isolation), and the need to reconsider and rearrange life plans (the meaning of life). In the modern context with its lack of rigid social control, this places a rather heavy burden of choice and responsibility on the prospective mother. Thus, birth constitutes one example of what Giddens calls ‘‘fateful moments.’’ According to him (Giddens, 1991, pp. 109ff.), high modernity has – mostly successfully – sought to ban existential concerns from daily life. In the case of birth, society has relegated it to secluded institutions – clinics – where only the mother-to-be, the midwife, an obstetrician, and perhaps one other person close to the mother are present. This together with the fact that the number of births in Germany has been in constant decline since 1965 means that a considerable percentage of the population has never attended a live birth. The gap is filled by the media in a roughly inverse relation: the fewer people who see a live birth, the more films and reports are produced on the subject. Giddens calls this ‘‘fictionalization,’’ a process intended to fill the void created by the loss of an existential experience. This exclusion on the one hand creates a certain demand for this experience (which is, after all, fundamental to the existence of human beings), but on the other hand calls for a mediated form of the experience that can be controlled and mastered. The existential angle is important for the discussion of trust in the context of birthing. Many authors, among them Giddens (1991) and Zucker (1986),

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distinguish between (at least) two forms of trust, one personal and one abstract-institutional. As Giddens maintains, both forms are interrelated, or as Knights, Noble, Vurdubakis, and Willmott (2001, pp. 314f.) put it, ‘‘No institution can remain trusted without the continual reproduction of trust through interpersonal relations. However, the latter is facilitated by a reputation of trust at the institutional level.’’ Still, practises and institutions may differ with regard to the extent to which they rely on either form. Congruent to their institutional logic, personal trust is the basis of home births. The mother-to-be contacts the midwife several weeks before the birth with the aim of both of them getting to know each other. If the ‘‘chemistry’’ between the two does not fit, they normally decide to part ways before the birth. Clinics, on the contrary, build up institutional trust by way of professionalization, standards, certificates, technology, and other means. Even if a mother-to-be visits one of the prenatal courses offered by the clinic or has her examinations there, she can never be sure if the same midwife and the obstetrician she has met in person will be on duty the day she goes into labor. Trust, however, is not just an internal state of the mother. Perinatal institutions also play an active role in producing the form of trust that works in their favor. Zucker (1986) gives three reasons for the emergence of institutional trust: social distance, geographic distance, and an increase in the interdependency of transactions. Of those three, only the latter plays a significant role in the production of ‘‘clinic trust.’’ In this case, birth is portrayed as a complex medical-physiological process that can only be handled and controlled by medical experts, that is, doctors. A number of smaller factors contribute to this picture:  The birth must take place in a special location (i.e., the clinic) with special technology.  If a familiar person accompanies the mother, he or she is made unfamiliar by having to wear sterile clothing.  The mother herself is transformed into a de-sexualised person/object, for example, by shaving her pubic hair. As a cluster, these practises destroy the possibility of developing personal trust between mothers and clinic staff because they eliminate the required degree of familiarity and confidence. Among the most influential factors, however, are the series of medical examinations a pregnant woman undergoes from the beginning of her pregnancy. In Germany, almost 90% of pregnant women see a gynecologist by the end of the 12th week of pregnancy, and about 75% of them will

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continue to do so roughly every 3 weeks until birth (Schu¨cking, 2003). These examinations produce several effects:  The woman is de-skilled with regard to reading the signs of her body and trusting her instincts. Instead, it is the doctor and his or her technology that tells her whether she and the baby are in good condition.  Particularly with the rise of prenatal diagnosis techniques, the continuous and sophisticated monitoring suggests that it is possible to master the birthing process and that with the help of medical expertise, it can be made perfectly safe.  The mother-to-be becomes used to talking to a doctor instead of to a midwife about her pregnancy. Hence, she is more inclined to expect a doctor to be present at birth.  A physiological bias: The progress of pregnancy is measured in quantitative-scientific terms alone. Results from blood tests, CTG, and ultrasound examinations are valued much higher in their validity than psychosocial factors or the mother’s feeling for herself and the baby (Schu¨cking, 2003).  A pathological bias: Doctors tend to look actively for pathologies, while midwives tend to wait until clear pathological signs show. As a consequence, two-thirds of pregnant German women are considered to have ‘‘risk pregnancies’’ – a global pole position (Ru¨b, 2004).  In some cases, the woman is actively discouraged by the gynecologist from contacting a self-employed midwife: y there are gynecologists in Chemnitz who tell the women – I quote: ‘‘If you go to a midwife, they’ll send me to prison.’’ [y] Not: ‘‘If something happens y’’ but ‘‘If you go to a midwife, they’ll send me to prison, because I carry the responsibility.’’ (Self-employed midwife)

In sum, these practises bolster the institutional logic of the clinic birth while devaluing the assumptions of the home birth logic. They create, or at least enforce, the feeling of being in danger, of not being able to cope on one’s own, and needing help from a professional doctor. Apart from these effects that are produced in more or less direct contact with the caregivers, there are a number of supporting issues, of which I shall discuss two, namely, technology and the preference for mastery or morality. Technology is strongly linked to giving birth in a clinic; hence, the woman’s attitude toward technology plays an important role. In his study on the decision between home and clinic births, Kornelsen (2005) was able to show that women choosing to give birth in a clinic had a much more positive attitude toward technology than their home birthing counterparts, some of

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whom expressed an outright aversion to technological interference. The reverse was true when asked what they considered embarrassing or uncomfortable: a higher proportion of the clinic birthing mothers cited being touched or examined by a person. In terms of trust, the de-skilling of the ‘‘users’’ creates a demand for expert systems as described by Giddens, which can only be satisfied by an institution. Second, other related institutions, namely, antenatal care and perinatal technology, ‘‘socialize’’ the mothers-to-be into taking the clinic and its assumptions and procedures for granted with regard to giving birth. Last but not least, fictionalization works in favor of institutional trust, because in most birthing stories the clinic birth is either taken for granted or portrayed as the rescuing institution in a horrible situation the mother is unable to cope with on her own. Finally, Giddens’s concepts of mastery and morality come into play if we look at the degree of the mothers’ self-reliance and acceptance of ‘‘fate’’ if something unexpectedly goes wrong. Mothers who give birth at home seem more prepared to accept an adverse outcome as something that can happen even under the best circumstances or as God’s will. [In response to the question of what distinguishes home birth from clinic birth mothers]: ‘‘often, perhaps, people who believe in God, who in a way trust in God, [believe] that [birth] is something natural, and who can accept whatever comes. Those who do not say: ‘‘If something goes wrong, I’ll blame myself for the rest of my life.’’ (Self-employed midwife) If you want to cut the baby out, fine, you’ve got control. But that’s not birthing a baby. (Mother, quoted in Kornelsen, 2005, p. 1499)

The latter attitude supports the idea of birth as a fateful moment, one that cannot be completely controlled. Hence, women entertaining this attitude are more inclined to follow the institutional logic of home birth and invest personal rather than institutional trust in those assisting them. In fact, the desire for mastery is one of the major impulses for the creation of modern institutions in the sense of expert systems. In terms of trust, people driven by this desire value institutional trust (i.e., trust in expert systems) over personal trust as institutional trust suggests a higher degree of control (provided by examinations, professional standards, etc.) over its members and procedures. Personal trust, on the contrary, becomes important in fateful moments. In fateful moments, existential dangers and anxieties arise, and our familiar modern world including its institutions becomes, in Heidegger’s words, unfamiliar or uninhabitable (un-heimlich). It is then that individuals turn to older and simpler forms of interaction and

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communication, in our case to personal trust. Moreover, the strong emotional nature of these moments may prompt some to forsake reflexivity and ‘‘trust their gut,’’ which again works in favor of personal trust.

Ideology and Identity Ideology and identity are related phenomena (Patriotta & Lanzara, 2006; O’Doherty & Willmott, 2000/2001; Foucault, 1976/1978). Identity, especially social identity, is built on narrative or, in Giddens’s words, is ‘‘the capacity to keep a particular narrative going’’ (Giddens, 1991, p. 54). On the contrary, texts are reproduced and thus become ideologies if and only if they discuss topics that are somehow central to people’s concerns (Phillips, Lawrence, & Hardy, 2004), and one major concern is identity construction (Foucault, 1976/1978). Competing institutional logics provide individual actors with a choice between several ideologies with which to view the same topic. Giddens (1991) refers to this phenomenon, which he considers characteristic for high modernity, as ‘‘choice of lifestyle.’’ This paves the way for institutionalist approaches that argue for a ‘‘toolkit’’ perspective (DiMaggio, 1997) in which people incorporate into their identity various elements their culture offers them more or less at will. At the same time, the influence of socialization or other collective formation processes is relegated to the background. From an empirical angle, Meyer and Hammerschmid (2006, p. 1005), for example, have also argued for the existence of ‘‘hybrid selves’’ who incorporate different, at times even conflicting notions concerning the same issue. To them, social identity is a feature ‘‘of a social situation, not a person.’’ In consequence, identity should be viewed not as a collection of stable properties the individual ‘‘carries’’ but rather as an enactment of selective responses to a certain situation the individual considers appropriate. In this perspective, identity is an active process with many elements of choice, although, of course, certain restrictions or structural determinants to influence this choice are still in place. Discussing the relationship between identity and birth practises, two types of ideology seem important. The first is the safety ideology. It goes hand in hand with the institutional logics as portrayed above, for which safety is the central concern. In answer to my question why mothers would choose the clinic, all interviewees indicated ‘‘safety’’ as the prime and often sole reason. This finding is confirmed by other studies (Fisher, Hauck, & Fenwick, 2006; Kornelsen, 2005; Longworth, Ratcliffe, & Boulton, 2001) as well as my own informal experience with other mothers-to-be. However, as we have seen

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above, the notion of safety, as the complementary notion of ‘‘risk,’’ is subject to very different interpretations resulting in very different logics. Basically, and in accordance with the competing institutional logics, safety is on the one hand defined as ‘‘letting nature do what she is equipped for best’’ with risks lying in human or technological intervention. On the other hand, it is defined as ‘‘being in control to the best of scientific-medical knowledge’’ with risks lying in underestimating the potential dangers of childbirth. In conclusion, the competition and dynamics of institutional logics is partly based on the indexicality of language, that is, the fact that words may take on different meanings in different contexts. This feature allows individuals to entertain various interpretations for various situations (and thus create hybrid selves, e.g.) and collectives to integrate actors with different interpretations in one group (and thus create, e.g., overarching logics). In the long run, this indexicality can also provide room for the establishment of new institutional logics based on yet another interpretation. The link between institutional logics and mothers’ identities has been discussed above as well: In the first case, mothers tend to see themselves as (sometimes solely) responsible for the birth (‘‘giving birth to a baby’’). Part of that responsibility is the strength to forsake the apparent (but false) safety of a clinic and the superficial (but ultimately damaging) comfort medical technology can offer. In this instance, being a woman implies being equipped with a number of unique (in comparison with men) physical and emotional qualities that make it possible to give birth. In the second case, mothers tend to see the birth expertise as resting with the professional caregivers, and here mostly with the obstetricians. They are prepared to sacrifice their personal wishes and expectations, at least to a certain degree, for medical prescriptions and routines. The availability of medical technology is comforting for them, either as a worst case option or quite actively as something included in the birth plan from the start (e.g., planned PDA or elective caesarean sections). In terms of identity, the ‘‘worst case’’ patients accept that they must go through the birth experience, but hope that if it exceeds their strength, someone will be there to rescue them from their plight. The ‘‘birth plan’’ mothers, on the contrary, take a more active stance in stating and asserting their wishes vis-a`-vis the obstetricians. They are essentially motivated by a purely negative image of the birth process connoted with unnecessary and avoidable pain. It seems that these fears are spread and worsened by the fictionalization of birth discussed above (Fisher et al., 2006; Lutz & Kolip, 2006). In the absence of personal experiences to correct them, the ubiquitous

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‘‘horror stories’’ about birth can thrive to a much greater extent than they did decades ago. Ideology and identity, however, possess not only cognitive and emotional features but also a material side that is often overlooked and undertheorized11 – this is, among others, Friedland and Alford’s objection. In consequence, to my knowledge, no empirical studies12 exist that describe different ‘‘body styles’’ as part of the identity construction, at least not as far as mothers and their decisions are concerned. Thus, the following argument is new and mainly speculative, although I believe the styles to be well documented in magazines, TV, and other forms of public discourse. This second kind of ideology important to the identity construction and subsequently the choice of a birth practise is the way mothers-to-be view their body and its relation to the ‘‘I’’ or self. Public ideologies offer a number of different ‘‘styles’’ that construct this relation a bit differently each time. Table 1 does not claim to give a comprehensive list as styles change or merge, but should give an idea of some basic claims and differences in an ideal-typical fashion. Taken together with the safety ideology, an explanation for the choice of a certain birth practise based on identity and ideology emerges. The first three types portray a view of the body as something material and separated from the spiritual soul or self (note the proximity to the Cartesian dichotomy of body and soul, which has provided the basis for modern science). The body hence can be designed or optimized like an object to suit individual aesthetics or other needs. Technical or medical intervention is viewed here as something comparatively unproblematic. On the contrary, these types, in their efforts to model or optimize it, value the body quite highly, which provides the motivation to escape pain or potential bodily damage induced by birth. Hence, identities based on these types will tend to Table 1.

Body Styles.

The Body as y Object, carrier of clothes, jewellery, tattoos y Sculpture Machine Natural organism embedded in environment Part of a spiritual-corporeal whole Receiver of supernatural influences Political object Unimportant

Stereotype

Preferred Logics

Model Cosmetic surgery Fitness Muesli Yoga Esoterics ‘‘My belly belongs to me’’ Couch potato

Clinic birth Clinic birth Clinic birth Home birth Home birth Home birth Home birth Clinic birth

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opt for a clinic birth as they, on the one hand, do not fear interventions and, on the other, see a chance to minimize pain and physical risk of the mother through anesthesia and surgery. The following three types see the body as part of something larger, and thus may be less inclined to tamper with it as the results of an intervention for the (individual or supra-individual) whole cannot be determined or are at least not unproblematic. They are likely to favor giving birth at home, as they have a very positive image of nature and/or other forces guiding the birth and trust their own body (as part of these forces) to accomplish the task. They may also be better prepared to accept an adverse outcome as part of ‘‘nature’s plan’’ or ‘‘God’s will.’’ The seventh type refuses intervention for different reasons. Its emphasis is on the control perspective and the opposition against dominant (male) societal mechanisms. Women of this type may refuse a clinic birth because they do not want to be treated by a male obstetrician and/or prefer the rather egalitarian atmosphere of the midwife–mother relation (see above: the midwife as guest) over the more directive doctor–patient relationship. Finally, the eighth type is basically not interested in the choice between giving birth at a clinic or at home nor in the ideologies involved, but simply goes along with the mainstream for reasons of convenience. This is the classic type for institutional reproduction, as it accepts the dominant logic without any reflection or desire to modify the status quo. While this section has focused on the role of ideology for the individual mother’s identity and choice, the subsequent section will deal with the question of how these ideologies are sustained and manipulated by the respective institutions.

Ideology and Control Ideologies are not only key for individual identity construction but perhaps even more so for collective identities from group level up to the institutional logics of an institutional field. All collective identity construction is, by necessity, based on communication. As identity construction is closely linked to legitimation and symbolic resources, this communication, in turn, is a mirror of the power relations structuring the collectivity or field. It is thus never neutral or ‘‘just language,’’ but creative (or destructive) in the Foucaultian sense of ideology (Foucault & Gordon, 1980/1992). Incumbent groups will use certain forms of ideology to retain power, while opposition groups will use different forms to challenge or acquire power. Vice versa,

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power and even more so legitimacy will determine which ideologies become ‘‘listened to’’ and reproduced.13 Hensmans (2003) distinguishes between systemic power and performative power. The former belongs to the already powerful group seeking to maintain the status quo, the latter to the challengers seeking change. Thus, in the case of perinatal institutions, the powerful clinic faction can use the well-established high regard for the competence of the natural sciences and medicine to present themselves as the ‘‘obvious choice.’’ Three hundred years of Western medicine have already institutionalized the doctor as the superior expert and the patient as a passive, subordinate object, the exclusion of existential concerns, a materialist view of the body, and other notions, so that very few additional arguments are required to make mothers-to-be comply with these rules. Critical studies on the dangers of medical intervention or clinic hygiene are suppressed rather easily because, first, competence is seen as residing with the doctors rejecting the studies, and second, it is the obstetricians, not the academics producing those studies that come into contact with the mothers. A closer look at historical studies of birth and mortality rates even shows that history has been rewritten to suit the clinic ideology of safety. There is, of course, no doubt that maternal and infant mortality are currently at an all-time low. In Germany, 8 out of 100,000 mothers die in the course of pregnancy and birth (Lutz & Kolip, 2006), and roughly 5,000 out of 750,000 babies are stillborn or die in the first 7 days of their lives (WHO, 2006). Obstetricians argue that this decrease is due to the high percentage of clinic births and take it as proof that home births are dangerous. This view is supported by the popular belief that in pre-modern times, women bore many children, most of whom died early on (Laslett, 1991). However, the apparent danger of births in former, that is, non-clinic, times is grossly exaggerated. Based on studies of church registries in the 18th century, Labouvie (1998, p. 160) estimates an average mortality in the first 4 weeks after birth of 5–7% (albeit with considerable regional differences). What is comparatively high – and always has been until the 19th century – is the level of infant mortality, that is, the mortality of children up to 1 year of age. In some places at certain times (e.g., the German Danube valley in the 19th century), this mortality reached sad peaks of up to 50% (Ko¨lbl, 2004). Infant mortality, however, must not be confused with perinatal mortality, that is, the death of the baby during birth or in the first 7 days. It is perinatal mortality that may be affected by the decision for a clinic birth, while the decrease of infant mortality in Western countries has many reasons. And although there is no doubt that perinatal mortality rates have fallen in the course of the 20th century,14 the

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fall has never been as dramatic as common belief, based on infant mortality, suggests. Moreover, the causes for the decline are not as clear as clinics might like them to be. The WHO explains, Neonatal deaths and stillbirths stem from poor maternal health, inadequate care during pregnancy, inappropriate management of complications during pregnancy and delivery, poor hygiene during delivery and the first critical hours after birth, and lack of newborn care. Several factors such as women’s status in society, their nutritional status at the time of conception, early childbearing, too many closely spaced pregnancies and harmful practises, such as inadequate cord care, letting the baby stay wet and cold, discarding colostrum and feeding other food, are deeply rooted in the cultural fabric of societies and interact in ways that are not always clearly understood. (WHO, 2006, p. 2)

This implies that the decrease is not a result of selecting the clinic over the home, but a consequence of the high overall living standard in industrialized countries. Indeed, a look at the Netherlands shows that their perinatal mortality rate in 2000 is at 0.8% only insignificantly higher than Germany’s rate of 0.6% (WHO, 2006) despite the high percentage of home births. The apparent neutrality of the systemic ideology is suggested not only by the clinic but also by a number of other interest groups, most prominently politicians and health insurance companies. Both suggest that the choice for either clinic or home birth is an entirely free choice made by the mother between two equal institutions and that any political or financial action on their part would result in ‘‘unfairness’’ or ‘‘infringement of the right of free choice.’’ Thus, the German government replied to a formal query of the Left Party regarding political measures against the ‘‘discrimination of births outside the clinic’’ as follows: The government does not influence the decision on where an expecting mother gives birth. This is an autonomous decision of any pregnant woman which is taken in agreement with the respective obstetrician or midwife if necessary. (Deutscher Bundestag, 2006)

The fact that almost 98% of all pregnant women opt for a clinic birth therefore seems to be based on rational, neutral facts alone. This view, however, makes it difficult to explain why, in the ELTERN survey (Pohl, 2006), 76% of the respondents did not even consider a home birth, or why most mothers-to-be still believe that it is the obstetrician who is responsible for a birth. Moreover, it glosses over the fact that the medical lobby is very strong in Germany, as opposed to the – almost non-existent – lobbyism of the midwives’ association. In addition, although home birth is now at least mentioned as a possibility in most parenting magazines, the emphasis is still on clinic births. They are

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often mentioned in articles with detailed instructions on ‘‘how to pack your suitcase for the clinic,’’ for example, while no such lists are given for home birth preparations. Against these odds, the opposition ideology is mainly based on forming coalitions with other groups and ideologies promoting alternative lifestyles. Thus, the programs of a midwife practise and a birth center in Chemnitz offer the following courses on a regular basis:     

Bioenergetics, Yoga, System constellations, Bhajan singing, and Homeopathy for children.

One example concerning coalitions is that Hess, a major German producer and distributor of clothing made from natural textiles, promotes birth centers in its catalog. Another sponsor is Dydimos, the company that introduced baby slings to the German market as alternative forms of transporting one’s child. In sum, distinctive ‘‘genres’’ or forms of communicating the respective ideology can be discerned. Powerful groups tend to use, first, their own power (e.g., their recognized expertise and legitimacy); second, the power of other already established groups (e.g., the government); and third, the historical process of institutionalization that has worked in their favor. With the help of these factors, they can exert rather unobtrusive power and portray their stance as the ‘‘natural’’ or ‘‘reasonable’’ one (see, in a similar vein, Bourdieu, 1992). With regard to their competitors, they tend to take a coopting stance portraying them as differing only slightly from their own position: I would wish for all of us meeting somewhere in the middle, all midwives; I would be happy if our [local] birth center, that sends the women to me when things go bad, if they said in advance y It is the woman who should take priority. And as we open ourselves and let midwives act more and more on their own, then they should take the step as well. They can have their women give birth here. (Obstetrician)

Opposition groups, on the contrary, tend to ally themselves with other marginalized groups. To challenge the status quo, they are forced to argue and act more openly political. A common generic theme of their argument is a certain form of liberalism or pluralism according to which ‘‘Everyone should be allowed to decide for themselves (having been given full information).’’ The latter part of the sentence is important as it appeals,

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again, to the ‘‘facts,’’ which, if unsuppressed, are seen as arguing in favor of one’s own position. In terms of my theoretical model, it is important to see that both institutional logics appeal to the knowledge or reason of the individual decision-makers, although with very different arguments, and that these arguments are generic in the sense that they are not tied to the case of perinatal institutions, but rather can be found whenever competing logics are analyzed.

CONCLUSION Returning to Friedland and Alford’s two conceptual concerns – conflicting institutional logics and the relationship between agency and institutions – we can now describe certain institutional processes in greater depth. I shall begin with four more detailed observations before discussing two results on a more general plane. First, institutional logics are shaped by, and in turn shape, technology and organizational (financial, legal) requirements. This, at first glance, seems like a simple application of Giddens’s duality of structure. However, the case is not as straightforward as Giddens has portrayed it since there are two (or more) conflicting logics involved. Those logics deal with (in material terms) the same technology or requirement, but construe it quite differently. Thus, for example, a permanent CTG can be regarded as either a means of ensuring the baby’s well-being or as a rather unnecessary, disturbing, and potentially malfunctioning device. Thus, Giddens’s simple reproduction circle ‘‘technology 3 logics’’ must be extended to include a second circle ‘‘logics A 3 technology 3 logics B.’’ Both logics affect the technology to a different extent at different times and are vice versa affected by it. Moreover, logic A may sometimes take logic B into account when changing the technology, for example, when pro-technology clinics seek to attract antitechnology mothers. Hence, this double cycle can reframe the duality model to incorporate the notion of change (rather than reproduction). Second, the establishment of institutional trust results in the de-skilling of individual actors. Again, Giddens has observed a similar phenomenon in his discussion on trust and expert systems. He, however, was concerned with the layperson, that is, the individual actor that seeks advice from or trusts the expert system. My case shows, moreover, that sometimes the experts themselves can become de-skilled, such as young obstetricians no longer capable of performing a vaginal breech birth. This is due to the fact that practises that are considered too risky will be replaced by other practises to

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avoid legal, financial, or reputational repercussions. The establishment and maintenance of institutional trust here results in an extremely risk-averse culture, where professionals would rather not act at all than act in a way that involves personal or institutional liability. Further comparative research could help determine whether this is a feature of all expert systems, or limited to institutions with an explicit ‘‘safety logic,’’ as is the case with birth clinics. Third, the case shows how a special class of occasions, namely, existential ones, is reinterpreted to establish institutional trust. Zucker (1986) has listed two forms of distancing (social and geographical) as major reasons for the emergence of institutional trust. In the case of ‘‘fateful moments,’’ we find a third form of distancing, which reflects the modern trend of denial or exclusion of sexuality, madness, and death. The fictionalization of birth causes affectual distancing, which paves the way for institutional trust in the same manner as social and geographical distancing do. Fourth, actors’ choices and institutional logics are connected by ideology. On the one hand, institutions try to control ideologies to promote their goals and values. They may do so by investing certain speakers with legitimacy, by rewriting history, or, in the case of dominant logics, by appealing to an apparent neutrality of the status quo, which is already set in their favor. Actors, on the other hand, draw on certain – sometimes various – ideologies to enact their self-identity or construe their body style. On a more general plane, two further results seem to be relevant with regard to Friedland and Alford’s initial concerns. With regard to the dynamics of competing institutional logics, it should be noted that their interaction pattern is far more complex than mere competition would suggest. First, as they define themselves in difference to one another, they are much more dependent on each other because changes in the one will force the other to shift in response. Second, they are, to a certain extent, manipulated by skilled actors with a strategic interest. Hence they will, for example, react to fashions by including the fashionable elements to become more attractive to potential ‘‘users.’’ Third, they are, as we have seen, bound to different forms of argument (systemic vs. performative). Thus, they will reinterpret external stimuli in accordance with these different forms. These forms of argument, moreover, depend on the relative power position (challenger vs. incumbent) and thus can change with a change in that power position. As for the relationship between institutions and agency, I believe it makes sense to take the semantic distinction between agent and agency seriously. As I have tried to show in the previous sections, institutions produce agency

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by providing the resources necessary to act, such as legitimacy. This conviction forms a central part of many ‘‘structuralist’’ social theories and institutionalist approaches. However, what is often overlooked is that institutions create agency but not agents. Agents, that is, human individuals or collectivities, are not just products, but to a certain extent free and skilled beings, as ‘‘voluntaristic’’ social theories assume. Agents desire agency, for example, to construe their self-identity. To acquire this agency, they must choose, trust in, or use institutions that provide it. This rather simple sketch combines a conflict with a reproduction perspective as institutions compete for resources to become attractive to agents and, on the contrary, are reproduced by the choice of agents and by the characteristic acts born of the agency they provide. Thus, conflict and reproduction as well as institutions and agents become integral to the theory.

NOTES 1. I limit my argument to mothers even though I am aware that fathers, friends, and/or other family may have a great deal of influence on the decision. As these influences, however, differ from case to case, I shall keep to the mother as the only constant – because bodily involved – decision-maker. 2. Doctors have two major associations, the Bundesa¨rztekammer and the Kassena¨rztliche Bundesvereinigung representing 400,000 and 147,000 members respectively. In contrast, the Bund deutscher Hebammen represents 15,000 midwives. 3. Not all self-employed midwives assist at births; some only offer pre- and postnatal care and advice. However, as the present study focuses on birth practices, this latter group has been disregarded. 4. Perinatal centers additionally care for high-risk pregnancies and babies born from the 25th week of pregnancy with a weight of more than 500 g. There are about 70 perinatal centers in Germany. 5. This material only plays a secondary role in this chapter. The review covered the years 2004 through 2006 of the following magazines: Eltern, Baby & Co., Brigitte, Frau im Trend, Familie&Co., as well as the very popular TV docusoap ‘‘Schnulleralarm’’ and the book by the model Verona Feldbusch on the birth of her baby. 6. The individual constructions of those persons switching between the logics would surely deserve to be analyzed in more detail, but this was not part of the study at hand. 7. Perinatal care is high-risk medicine with the highest insurance premiums and amount of damages (Lutz & Kolip, 2006). 8. Breech position means that the baby is born with its feet first. Today, 90% of these babies in Germany are delivered by caesarean section, for first-time mothers, the figure is almost 100% (Lutz & Kolip, 2006).

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9. Especially in the decades after World War II, self-employed midwives could not earn a living on their own (Bierig, Huhn, & Jesberg-Boris, 1999). 10. Compare Giddens’s ‘‘expert systems.’’ 11. This is despite exciting developments in the sociology of the body (Schatzki & Natter, 1996; Shilling, 1993/1997). 12. The main empirically well-researched connections between body and identity concern sex/gender and weight problems. 13. Bourdieu (1992) has provided a brilliant analysis of language, legitimacy, and symbolic power, which however by far transcends the rather simple argument in the present chapter. 14. In Germany, for example, it decreased from 5% in the 1950s to 0.2% in the 1990s (Braun, 2006).

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MODELING FOUCAULT: DUALITIES OF POWER IN INSTITUTIONAL FIELDS John W. Mohr and Brooke Neely ABSTRACT The work of Michel Foucault is taken as inspiration for a study of the organizational field of asylums, prisons, orphanages, and other carceral organizations operating in New York City in 1888. Foucault argues that institutional power is organized into dually ordered system of truth and power. Using text data describing the clients and institutional technologies (organizational ‘‘power signatures’’) of 168 organizations, we apply structural equivalence methods to unpack speech activity, showing that as Foucault suggests, there may be dually ordered sub-domains of truth and power that help define the underlying logic of this institutional field.

INTRODUCTION Like other colleagues in this volume, we think that institutional theory has much to learn from ideology theory (and vice versa). In this chapter, we try to bridge these two traditions by mixing together the research methods of the new institutionalists with the research theories of the new leftists, especially

Institutions and Ideology Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 27, 203–255 Copyright r 2009 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X(2009)0000027009

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those on the left who, during the 1960s and 1970s, developed sophisticated conceptualizations of hegemonic forms of culture. In this chapter, we focus on Michel Foucault who we see as a pivotal figure in the history of ideology theory. Foucault rigorously engaged Marxists and structuralists alike, resisting the conventional paths of both programs and producing, in the end, a strikingly original, essentially post-materialist theorization of institutions as constituted through dually ordered systems of truth and power. We find that the issues Foucault takes up resonate surprisingly well with many scholarly conundrums that occupy contemporary institutionalists. Moreover, Foucault’s work is foundational for cultural studies and other contemporary post-modern progressive intellectual traditions. For these, and other reasons as well, we set out in this chapter to learn from Foucault. The chapter has three parts. The first part addresses a suite of questions that would seem to be increasingly relevant for contemporary institutional theory: What is power? How does power operate in institutional fields? And how would the development of more coherent, more elaborately contested theories of power better illuminate if not change the way that we think about institutional fields? New left theorists are of interest here because they were concerned with connecting the cultural with the institutional. Their work, and the work of scholars in this tradition who have come since, is a huge untapped resource that social scientists have yet to fully appreciate or exploit (Friedland & Mohr, 2004). Because institutional theory is itself deeply rooted in a culturalist vision, it is natural to ask how and in what ways would insights from a critical theory of ideology map onto the intellectual framework of the new institutionalism.1 This is all the more intriguing since the modern institutionalist project has managed to connect the methodological apparatus of modern social science to a culturalist research agenda. Thus, bridging the two traditions also provides a way to link the formal methods of modern social science to the conceptual machinery of modern ideology theory. The second part of the chapter looks at the work of Michel Foucault and asks in what ways was Foucault an institutional theorist and how might his theorization of power help contemporary social scientists formulate a more adequate approach to conceptualizing and ultimately measuring the logic of power in institutional fields? We recognize in Foucault’s work on the coupling of truth and power a common thread with many topics of concern to institutionalists including the empirical issue we focus on in this essay, the problem of how to take the measure of an institutional logic. (DiMaggio, 1987; Friedland & Alford, 1991; Mohr & Duquenne, 1997; Breiger, 2000; Thornton & Ocasio, 1999, 2008; Mohr & White, 2008; Friedland, 2009).

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The third part of the chapter makes the bridge – we take Foucault’s concept of truth/power and apply it to the problem of how to identify and measure key features of the institutional logic of a given organizational field. We start with a dataset of texts describing all the custodial organizations in New York City that were concerned with what was then known as ‘‘The Dependent, Defective and Delinquent Classes’’ (Henderson, 1893 [1901]), and then, using Foucault as a guide, we proceed to generate hermeneutic hypotheses about the underlying meaning structures that provide the organizing framework within which the power signatures of these organizations are enacted. We define a power signature as a highly ritualized speech act in which institutional agents seek to locate their organization in a common discourse space. We see this space as a system of shared meanings about the institutional logic of the field, a logic that in this case links micro-technologies of control to forms of subjection. We approach the problem methodologically by drawing on the insights of the American school of mathematical structuralism as embodied in the work of Harrison White and his followers.2 Specifically, in this chapter, we make use of their concept of roles as defined by structural equivalence measures (White, Boorman, & Breiger, 1976; Boorman & White, 1976). We apply methods from this tradition to data on speech activity (power signatures) within an organizational field (in this case, the 1888 edition of The New York City Charity Directories) in order to help us identify patterns of relations that indicate the presence of deep structure, that is coherent systems of cultural understandings within the field. Following Foucault, we interpret these as models of the governmentality system that defines the logic of power relations (or at least one kind of power relation) within this institutional space. We finish with some thoughts about how to extend these ideas to other kinds of institutional projects.

POWER IN INSTITUTIONAL THEORY The civil rights movement, resistance to the Vietnam war, the assassinations, student and urban revolts, the rise of the hippies, second wave feminism, the stonewall riots – the 1960s and 1970s marked a period of heightened violence, civil unrest, and radical social politics. Universities responded by producing a surge of left leaning scholarship. Marxism was revived and revised. Critical theory blossomed with its promise to link the revolutionary potential of the proletariat to the creative spontaneity of the counterculture. Obscure European (and Russian) intellectuals were disinterred, dissected,

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and transformed into an energetic new scholarly project known as cultural (or Western) Marxism.3 Ideology was a central, if not the central, topic that these scholars sought to address.4 A key intellectual problem was to explore why so many proletariat seemed so content; this led ideology theorists to explore how systems of power maintain (or create) legitimacy by means of culture, discourse, and the manipulation (and production) of ideas, desires, subjectivities, and identities. Though it is rarely discussed, the new institutionalism has more than a little ideology theory in its intellectual lineage. It was more as a problem of culture, rather than as a theory of power, however, that these concerns were carried forward. Having been trained (mostly) as graduate students in American sociology departments during the 1970s and 1980s, the early institutionalists were fascinated by culture. Berger and Luckmann (1966) had been taught as gospel, Clifford Geertz and Mary Douglas were celebrities, and debates over critical theories of culture – from Marcuse to Adorno, Gramsci to Lukacs, Levi-Strauss to Michel Foucault – were increasingly present in classrooms and hallways. It is no surprise that many of the young scholars who allied themselves with the new institutional project in its early years had an abiding interest in taking cultural concepts – ideologies, interpretations, discursive formations, and meaning systems – social constructions of one type or another and folding them back into the kind of empirically grounded, methodologically sophisticated programs of investigation that they had learned to perform during their years of graduate education. Bringing culture back in was harder, however, than one might suppose. The concept had been devalued, thanks in part to its close association with the vanquished cosmology of Talcott Parsons. More practically, there were serious problems with levels of analysis. Post-Parsonian sociology had shifted focus downward, to more micro and meso levels of investigation, whereas culture had traditionally been treated as a societylevel construct. This means that when the new institutionalists were casting about for a way to study culture, there was little consensus on how to approach the problem in a meaningful and concrete way.5 The challenge was all the greater because the institutionalists wanted to not just incorporate culture, they wanted to do so in a way that was compatible with the canons of mainstream (which is to say quantitative) social science. And therefore, the problem of culture was a non-trivial topic to tackle, it required the re-conceptualization of institutional space and a re-visiting of core assumptions about how to link qualitative constructs with quantitative measures.6

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This, however, also marks a signature achievement of the new institutionalists – their virtual reinvention of the sociology of knowledge in the guise of a modern quantitative social science.7 Whether described as myths and symbols or as institutional isomorphisms, the primary assumption of the institutionalist project was that collectively shared understandings – about what is going on, what exists, what can be known, what to value, what to fear, how to behave, and how to maneuver strategically across an organizational field – these and other constellations of ideas constitute the real force behind organizational action. Thus, just like Mannheim and Marx, the new institutionalists treat ideas as profoundly consequential, as having material impacts all across (and through) the social fabric. Meyer and Rowan (1977, p. 341) declare, ‘‘It is fundamental to the argument of this paper that institutional rules may have effects on organizational structures and their implementation in actual technical work which are very different from the effects generated by the networks of social behavior and relationships which compose and surround a given organization.’’ Moreover, like so many sociologists of knowledge before them, a primary goal of the new institutionalists was to link ideas back to origins, to understand the social and material conditions that lead to the sharing of understandings. DiMaggio and Powell (1983) do this brilliantly. They offer a dozen working hypotheses, all of them geared toward identifying the social and material conditions that are likely to lead to more broadly (and deeply) shared collective idea systems – the greater the resource dependence, the more centralized the network, the more professionalized the staff, the more engaged with the state, and so on. In other words, the very things that were already being measured by organizational scientists were linked by these hypotheses to expectations about the diffusion states of cultural forms.8 And while it is true that power has not been a major focus of institutionalists, it would be wrong to presume it unimportant. The best work in this tradition has always dealt with power in a foundational way. Even when its presence was only implicit, for most institutionalists, power’s effects were taken for granted. Originally, the emphasis was not put on modeling (or theorizing) power because it had already been studied empirically in a variety of ways and, it was in any case, presumed to be always already present and active.9 The focus was instead on culture and the research conundrums associated with taking the measure of the socially constructed textures of the world that were thought to be implicated in the ongoing success of systems of power. In this respect, the ambitions of

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the early new institutionalists were not so very far from the concerns of the critical theorists they had read in graduate school. In phrases instantly recognizable to scholars of critical theory, DiMaggio and Powell (1983) define their ambitions regarding a theory of power: To the extent that organizational change is unplanned and goes on largely behind the backs of groups that wish to influence it, our attention should be directed to two forms of power. The first, as March and Simon (1958) and Simon (1957) pointed out years ago, is the power to set premises, to define the norms and standards which shape and channel behavior. The second is the point of critical intervention (Domhoff, 1979) at which elites can define appropriate models of organizational structure and policy which then go unquestioned for years to come (see Katz, 1975). Such a view is consonant with some of the best recent work on power (see Lukes, 1974); research on the structuration of organizational fields and on isomorphic processes may help give it more empirical flesh. (p. 157)

Thus, from the beginning, institutional theory was, at least for some, a transformed ideology theory, a handmaiden to the problem of power. That this was rarely made explicit is partly due to the fact that the study of institutional isomorphism and the various culturalist agendas that traveled under this banner were challenging feats of research unto themselves; attention to these problems consumed scholarly energy for years.10 Fortunately, this was time well spent. Advanced quantitative methodologies were deployed; rigorous theorizing and theory testing were linked together with other best practices of social scientific assessments and metaassessments; and a series of practical, well-grounded, and meaningful questions were raised, addressed, and solved by what has now become several generations of institutional scholars (Greenwood, Oliver, Sahlin, & Suddaby, 2008). Scott (2008) chronicles the long, sometimes wayward march of institutional scholarship toward its current state as a complex series of false starts and successful transcendences. Moreover, thanks precisely to the successes of institutional scholars, new frontiers have also opened up in other fields of cultural sociology and in some related disciplines.11 But meanwhile, the problem of power has not gone away. As the institutional school expands and becomes ever more central to key fields of organizational science, as it matures into what Scott (2008) describes as its young adulthood, as it competes in new academic arenas for standing, scope, and voice, its practitioners confront new kinds of questions about how institutions make up society (and vice versa).12 This is where the problem of power comes back around again. For even as work on culture has in some ways succeeded, the new knowledge only reminds us that many broader questions have been left aside. Certainly, power is one such matter; a viable

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theory of institutional science ought to be able to say something useful about the concept of power. But just what this would mean – just what is power? – is precisely what remains to be negotiated within the intellectual field, and it is to this discussion that we hope to contribute. The question of power has been on the table for a long while now. Early on Perrow (1985) chastised the new institutionalists, for leaving power out of their explanations. Perrow complained that groups with interests, strategies, and resources stood behind the institutional effects that were being identified in the research and that institutionalists were mis-characterizing what they were finding. Rather than broad, disembodied institutional processes driving the spread of bureaucratic myths and symbols, Perrow persuasively argued that particular elites, classes and social groups were adeptly manipulating the cultural machinery of organizations to pursue their own instrumental ends. DiMaggio (1988) countered with a classic essay acknowledging that power, interests, and instrumental agency were ubiquitous and consequential for organizational fields, while, at the same time, reiterating that institutional effects were largely pre-cognitive, occurring outside the range of reflexive, agentic behavior.13 DiMaggio argued that the most important task was to understand the interaction between the agentic and the institutional, to see how, where, and when agents’ engagements with power (including now things such as interests, resources, conflicts, strategies, and instrumental actions) have an impact on the creation, transformation, or destruction of institutional forms at the level of the field. At the same time, and dually, DiMaggio emphasized the need to see how institutional structures condition the possibilities and character of agency. He went on to identify several arenas of research where the duality of agency and institution were especially acute – the processes that lead to the creation of new organizational forms was one of these sites. Institutional entrepreneur is the term DiMaggio used to describe ‘‘organized actors with sufficient resources’’ who see ‘‘an opportunity to realize interests that they value highly’’ and who undertake institutionalization projects that lead to the founding and establishment of new organizational forms. Since DiMaggio wrote, a rich and innovative stream of research has addressed institutional entrepreneurship, yielding many striking insights (Hardy & Maguire, 2008; Leca, Battilana, & Boxenbaum, 2008). But, as Lawrence (2008) complains, while useful, this work is limited since it only considers one among a range of types of power that operate in institutional fields. Lawrence (2008, p. 171) argues ‘‘the relationship between power and institutions has three dimensions – institutional control, institutional agency, and institutional resistance y control involves the

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effects of institutions on actors’ beliefs and behavior; institutional agency describes the work of actors to create, transform and disrupt institutions; and, institutional resistance represents the attempts of actors to impose limits on institutional control and institutional agency.’’ We follow Lawrence on this but would characterize the dimensions differently (Fig. 1). We see two dimensions. One concerns levels in social life; here, following DiMaggio, we distinguish between the agentic and the institutional (field) levels.14 The second dimension relates to the distinction that Lawrence has highlighted, a difference between the kinds of power systems that are relevant for those who have institutional power (and who jockey for control of the

Fig. 1.

Power in Institutional Fields: Level of Analysis and Relationship to Control.

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field) as opposed to the kinds of power systems that are relevant for those without (formal) power (but who are instead subject to the forms of control that are generated by the institutional field in the course of its ongoing operations). It is a distinction of institutional agency, a distinction between those who are in a subject position with respect to institutional enactment and those who are in the object position. Thus, the left side of the table describes forms of power that are related to control of the field itself – power about power. The right side refers to those systems of power that are produced through the everyday material actions of organizations in this institutional space, as they impose forms of control and domination on people to perform the work of the institutional field – call this power as control. Our hypothesis, or, at least, the hunch that has driven us to choose the modeling strategy that we employ here, is that there is a structural analogy between the relationship that links the two forms of power – power about the field and the power of the field – and the relationship that links the two levels of social life – the agentic and the institutional. Said differently, the relationship between levels is like the relationship between forms of power, each represents an articulation structure that links separate institutional sub-domains that are complementary and co-constitutive. This means that Fig. 1, which we call an articulation table, should not be mistaken for a conventional table of cross-tabulations between two variables. Instead, think of the four cells in this table as each representing a different (semidiscrete) domain of institutional experience. Each sub-domain has its own specific institutional sub-logic with coherent structural orderings. But, at the same time, as we know, no sub-domain operates in isolation from the others. Rather, the institutional field as a whole consists of a variety of differentiated sub-domains that exist in complicated tangles of complementary interrelationships of mutual dependence upon one another.15 Consider again the relationship between the agentic and the institutional. Both levels of social life sustain an arena of institutional experience that has its own structured coherence, its own institutional sub-logic that maps ideas and actions together into ordered systems of practice. But, at the same time, we also know that these two levels, these two institutional orders, are inextricably intertwined. Agency is meaningless without institution. Even in periods of acute deinstitutionalization, agency is still and always constituted by its originary and consistent embeddedness within the social. Dually, the institutional has no meaning, no existence except and insofar as agency occurs and therein enacts the institution. Fig. 1 then can be seen as a framework for thinking about how separate institutional sub-domains, differentiated here by level of analysis and form of power, nonetheless exist

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in tightly connected systems of mutual dependency, complementarity, and articulation. Return now to DiMaggio’s argument about the relationship of agency and institution. In Fig. 1, the lower left cell (#3) corresponds to DiMaggio’s discussion of institutional entrepreneurship. What matters here are the reflexive actions of strategic agents (e.g., institutional entrepreneurs) who maneuver tactically across a set of situated interaction spaces, using resources, calling upon allies, entering into and resolving conflicts, all in the service of shaping the character of the institutional field in ways that are advantageous and strategic. But, flip this up to the institutional level (cell #1) and we must consider the broader logic of power with reference to collectively shared institutional rules and social organizational structures that serve to organize the ongoing constitution and control of the organizational field itself. Bourdieu ([1979] 1984, 1987, 1993) probably provides the best description of the social organization of power in this type of domain.16 He describes a field as a contested space where groups and factions with distinctive identities, cultural resources, and situated strategies occupy different positions of power and privilege, reflecting their relative access to field-specific resources defined by taken for granted (but strategically produced) shared assumptions about what counts as good, true, useful, or beautiful.17 The distinction between levels also applies to forms of power as control (the right side of Fig. 1). At the institutional level (cell #2), there are broadly constructed systems of control such as those characterizing the labor process (Braverman, 1976) or the surveillance and incarceration of institutionally defined identities of the sort described by Foucault ([1975] 1979). At the agentic level (cell #4), we again find reflexive actions, strategic agents, tactical maneuvers, situated interactions, resources, allies, conflicts, and the like, but here the focus is on the imposition and resistance to control. James Scott (1990) details the experience of agency as resistance of the disempowered against the empowered. Lipsky (1980) tells about the agentic experience of being a street-level bureaucrat charged with enacting control. Notice that we have included in Fig. 1 indications of articulations that link each cell to every other (represented here by small two-headed arrows) as well as more fundamental articulations between levels and types of power (represented here by larger two-headed arrows encircling the frame). Just as one cannot fully consider the logic of agency without also (and dually) considering the constraints of the institutional, so too, to make sense of how power of the field (left side of table) is organized, one must have some sense of power by the field (right side of table) is constituted. And just as

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DiMaggio’s discussion of the relationship between the agentic and the institutional with respect to institutional entrepreneurship (the arrow linking cell #1 and cell #3) addresses the broader logic of power over the institutional field, the linkage between cell #2 and cell #4 defines the broader logic of control within the institutional field. Notice also that there are critical articulations that are multi-dimensional in character. These are the linkages that stretch across both dimensions of differentiation. Khan, Munir, and Willmott (2007) describe the ‘‘dark side of institutional entrepreneurship’’ by showing the articulations that occur between agentic actions that create new organizational forms (cell #3) and the new institutional systems of control that are imposed on laborers who manufacture soccer balls (cell #2). Or, consider the linkages that connect agentic forms of resistance (cell #4) back to the institutional logic of power within the field (cell #1). This is the articulation that defines social movements that promote fundamental changes in the institutional field.18 In the remainder of this chapter, we will direct our focus to cell #2, the institutional level of power as control. This is the terrain most fully explored by Foucault, and it is an area where institutional research has been slow to develop. Our goal is to bring the research methodologies of the new institutional project to bear on the question of how power (conceived as forms of what Foucault refers to as governmentality) operates within an institutional field. We turn next to a short summary of Foucault’s work on this topic.

FOUCAULT ON POWER Although Foucault’s project evolved significantly over the course of his career, there is a basic continuity to his thinking about power that spans the corpus of his work.19 On the one hand, he emphasized the material productivity of discourse. He shows that there are distinct ways in which cultural systems are organized and that these discursive (or epistemic) formations have profound impacts on the ways that social life is constituted and on the ways in which individual subjects are treated in the world.20 Foucault’s project during the first phase of his career (roughly the decade of the 1960s) was marked by his repeated engagement with these kinds of cultural processes, an endeavor he referred to as the ‘‘archeology of knowledge.’’ But, in the next phase of his work, beginning most clearly with Discipline and Punish, Foucault turned explicitly to an examination of material practices of control over the physical body, studies that he

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described as constituting an analysis of the micro-physics of power.21 While these represent separate and in many ways distinct approaches to the analysis of power, the two concerns are never far apart, and indeed, we argue that they are complementary institutional sub-systems that are mutually constitutive and dually ordered (Mohr & White, 2008). We think this explains why Foucault writes about both forms of power, in all phases of his work, with different emphases at different moments. This is easily visible in Madness and Civilization (1961), one of Foucault’s earliest books, which begins with a description of the incarceration of lepers inside a massive network of leper houses scattered across medieval Europe. Foucault tells of the culturally charged identity that lepers take on, an identity that made them an object of revulsion and fascination by the populace. Foucault especially wants to understand how the social construction of the leper is intimately bound up with their disposition as incarcerated bodies, contained by a new organizational form, separated from but also widely known and thus an object of contemplation for the population at large. It is precisely this articulation, between the social construction of subject categories and the spreading out of technologies of control over people who are interpellated as occupants of those subject roles that constitutes the duality that we think is the essence of Foucault’s approach to power, a duality that is present throughout his writings.22 In Madness and Civilization, he goes on to track the rise and fall of other incarcerated populations down through the history of early modern Europe, massive confinements of the poor, the mad, and the homeless. In The Birth of the Clinic (1973), he extends the story to map the rise of medical incarcerations and the other forms of control that allowed the profession to know, to name, and to treat various new categories of disorder. Later still, in Discipline and Punish (1979), he studies the categories of the criminal, the tortured, the condemned, the prisoner, the delinquent, and beyond that the whole disciplinary society in which these techniques of knowing, naming, and treating the subject are extended into every corner and crevice of modern existence, even, in his History of Sexuality (1978), into the very essence of the desiring self. The duality then is between the two ways that Foucault conceives of power. On the one hand, he writes of a type of power he calls subjection that ‘‘applies itself to immediate everyday life which categorizes the individual, marks him by his own individuality, attaches him to his own identity, imposes a law of truth on him which he must recognize and which others have to recognize in him. It is a form of power which makes individuals subjects’’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 212). This is a highly cultural form of power

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where the construction of the social as a system of totemic classifications leads to the differential treatment of some categories of humans who are set off against the rest. This is a central theme in Foucault’s work, it starts in his earliest writings and it runs on through to his later work, it is about how cultural forms and their varied contingent qualities matter in shaping the contours of power in modern society, thus his claim to be ‘‘writing the history of the present’’ (Foucault, 1975 [1979], p. 31). Especially in these early works, he highlights how systems of knowledge are ordered and re-ordered and how these orderings make certain forms of social life come into being. He looks for the social implications of particular discursive logics, to the possibilities of things that can be known, to be said, to become. What is truth he asks? In these moments, Foucault is primarily interested in an analysis of power that has to do with what might be called the logic of cultural forms. But then, there is the second side to Foucault. In Discipline and Punish, he begins to emphasize the materiality of practices and the physical experience of the human body as the subject and object of action, thus locating these as central and distinct elements of another kind of institutional power, what he comes to call bio-power. Here, the focus is very much on materiality rather than ideation. Witness the prolonged physical agony of poor Damiens whose series of excruciating tortures serve as the opening imagery of that book. Foucault’s attention to the ways that bodies are broken and slaughtered highlights the horrible immediacy of institutional power. A focus on the body calls our attention to the material over the ideal, to the physical over the abstract, to the logic of practice over the logic of the sign. As Foucault notes, in this modality, a power analysis ought not be ‘‘concerned with the regulated and legitimate forms of power in their central locations y On the contrary, it should be concerned with power at the extremities, in its ultimate destinations, with those points where it becomes capillary, that is, in its more regional and local forms and institutions y (where) it y invests itself in institutions, becomes embodied in techniques, and equips itself with instruments and eventually even violent means of material intervention’’ (Foucault, 1980, p. 96). Here, in this moment, Foucault shifts the focus. He turns from the archeology of knowledge to the genealogy of control, from the logic of meaning systems to the physicality of being systems, from the ideality of discourse to the materiality of practice. Thus he begins to produce genealogies of disciplinary techniques in the second half of Discipline and Punish – from the training of 17th century soldiers, to their 18th century successors, transformed by the ever more precise techniques of control over their bodily .

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hexis, located in time, space, and motion. He traces these back to their origins in 13th-century monasteries where asceticism, discipline, and duty to God were molded into new ways of controlling the body, the mind, and the soul.23 Foucault follows these lines of descent across institutional space and time into schools, hospitals, insane asylums, factories, prisons, and other organizational forms.24 In Foucault, these two sides of power (subjection and micro-technology) are never separate from each other. Indeed, one cannot operate without the other. The peculiarity of the leper was linked through the diseased body to an identity, but that identity was discursive not essential, it was constructed by an institutional system that was partially defined by the way those people called lepers were subjected to a specific set of embodied experiences, they were incarcerated, confined inside primitive and brutal organizational forms. In short, the lepers were defined through discourse, and also by the way that they were the object of a micro-physics of power, which is to say their confinement in Leper’s Houses. Similarly, the subjection of the medical patient is dually constituted by the medical gaze and the rise of the clinic as an organizational form. The physical torture of the body is written into elaborate rules of escalating agonies keyed to classifications of the ‘‘patient’’ and to his crime. In each case, the two forms of power – the ways of knowing and the ways of acting – are mutually constituted and dually ordered. This means that the classificatory logic of one domain is organized by its articulation into the classificatory logic of the other domain (and vice versa) (Breiger, 1974; Mohr & Duquenne, 1997; Mohr & White, 2008). In later writings, Foucault began to organize these ideas into a broader concept of institutional power that he described as a theory of governmentality. By this he means efforts on the part of state and other organizations to shape and form a compliant population by the use of scientific discourses, the definition and regulation of new subject categories, and the proliferation and evolution of new micro-technologies of control. The focus in these writings tends to be on modern societies where the self as project and object is at the heart of many institutional fields. Although the writings on governmentality reflect a new level and format for Foucault’s conceptualization, we see this move as but another step in his long-term project of defining the dualities of institutional power. If it was not a theory of governmentality that Foucault was working on in Madness and Civilization, what was it?25 One important shift that did occur as govermentality became the explicit focus of Foucault’s attention was a return to his interest in the discursive (or epistemic) logic of institutional systems. Now, however, the logic of

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institutions is more concretely anchored in a perspective that views the duality of power as clearly articulated into both material and symbolic systems of logic and thus into an analysis of the rhetoric of authorization for the state (and its allied organizational forms) to act with respect to its subjects. He explains this to be a form of what he calls ‘‘pastoral power,’’ an innovation he attributes to the early Catholic Church. Originally, this is a ‘‘form of power whose ultimate aim is to assure individual salvation in the next world’’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 214). It is a highly individualized system of institutional action that depends on intimate knowledge of the subjects’ thoughts, desires, and most private actions. Beginning in the 18th century, Foucault sees a shifting of pastoral power from the church to the state, and with it, a translation from insurance as salvation in a next life to the state’s assurance of safety and salvation in this world. The state becomes the guarantor of the public welfare and the subjective satisfaction of citizens in this life and in this society. In a sense then, one significant component of Foucault’s turn to governmentality was his delineation of a broader rationale and legitimation for the sort of sweeping interventions in individual lives and subjectivities that Foucault describes as characterizing the rise of disciplinary power.

MODELING FOUCAULT How then to bring Foucault into an institutional research framework? In what follows, we apply Foucault’s perspective to advance a longstanding and still evolving project that seeks to understand how sub-domains within institutional fields intersect to produce coherent institutional logics. Like many data projects in the institutionalist tradition, we take our raw data from an organizational directory (the 1888 edition of The New York City Charity Directory) giving us a little bit of information about a lot of organizations. We focus on the organization as a key unit of analysis. We use formal methods of analysis and pay close attention to how shifts in the ecology of organizational forms reflect significant differences in the institutional field. Finally, we emphasize the cultural and cognitive qualities of institutional processes. In the work reported here, however, we modify these procedures in specific ways. Six differences are particularly important. First, following Foucault, we have focused on just those organizations that are carceral in nature, which is to say we included only those organizations in our dataset that institutionalized people in the utterly concrete and material sense of that word, by sequestering them as inmates

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within the confines of particular architectural spaces.26 In the 1888 New York Charity Directory, this includes a surprisingly large variety of organizational forms – orphanages, lunatic asylums, men’s and women’s prisons, reform colonies, poor houses, industrial schools, homes for fallen girls, and so on – a vibrant ecology of institutional niches and forms, all within this one sub-domain of institutional control.27 In other words, following Foucault’s lead raises questions about institutional ecology, what it is, how it works, and how to study it. Operationally, in this chapter, we challenge standard assumptions about how to conduct an ecological analysis by following the hunch that there is utility in defining a boundary sample around those organizations where the expression of institutional power is particularly acute. Second, again taking inspiration from Foucault, we distinguish between two different modalities of power – as subjection and as micro-physics. We use another articulation table (Fig. 2) to help visualize this relationship. The left side of this figure highlights Foucault’s notion of power as subjection while the right side describes its dually articulated other, power as expressed through the micro-physics of material practices. Thus, the S or Subject Matrix (lower left) concerns the power of subjection as it operates within this institutional field; it includes all the ways in which control agents define identity categories that are used to name and classify the people who are the objects of work in this institutional domain. Foucault tells us that these kinds of classificatory schemas are embedded in systems of knowledge (forms of truth) and that these discursive formations provide principles for attributing (or divining) the ranked and morally coded meanings of these identities.28 Contrast this with the T matrix (lower right), which describes the repertoires of collective action or the array of organizational practices and material technologies that are deployed as a part of the everyday work of this institutional field. The articulation that links and co-constitutes these two sub-domains (S  T) constitutes the institutional logic of the field (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Mohr & Duquenne, 1997; Thornton & Ocasio, 1999). A second distinction of our project, then, is that we use Foucault to refine our understanding of institutional logics, their nature, their properties, their distributions across sub-domains of institutional space, and forms of power. A third emphasis in our work is a concern for how power is articulated between the institutional and the meta-institutional levels (the vertical dimension in Fig. 2). Under the heading ‘‘Power as Subjection,’’ we distinguish (vertically) between two matrices, the Power (P) Matrix and the Subject (S) Matrix. The former concerns the power of subjection that comes from and is controlled by meta-institutional processes that describe

Modeling Foucault: Dualities of Power in Institutional Fields

Fig. 2.

219

PAST Analysis Diagram: Discourse Systems with Power and Level Duality Articulations.

categories of people with broader social classificatory designations. The impetus for separating these two sub-domains came from the experience of working with our data. As we tried to sort out relevant meaning structures in the text strings, we found that two different sub-logics seemed to be in play. Some social classifications were intrinsic to the field of social welfare that we are studying here – categories that defined various distinctions about poverty, disability, delinquency, and the like. But there was another set of discursive classifications that were not contained within that institutional field. These, which we refer to as meta-institutional subject classifications, define categories of people with relevancies that span across different institutional fields. They include key social categories around which broader systems of power are organized – race, class, gender, age, and the like.

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It is apparent that these are relevant discursive classifications for the allocation of power in this organizational field, but at the same time, they represent distinctions that operate at (and are defined by) a higher level of social organization. The distinction between the field and the meta-field also applies to the right side of Fig. 2, to Foucault’s ideas of the micro-physics (e.g., the material practices) of power. At the level of the field, there are the various organizational technologies and organizational forms that make up the custodial institutions we are studying (the Technology or T Matrix). But, other features of these systems are more meta-institutional in nature, corresponding to a domain where allocations of privilege, authority, and social legitimacy are negotiated at the inter- or multiinstitutional level. Who is empowered to act, to wield which material practices of power? We think of this as best reflecting that sub-domain of control which Foucault was working to theorize near the end of his life under his notion of pastoral power. Included here are the ways in which certain forms of control are authorized and legitimated, as a project of the church, the state, or the civil society. We call this the Authority or A Matrix. Attention (specifically) to the meta-level (and more generally to the need to better understand multilevel articulations) is then a third focus of our chapter. A fourth difference stems from our identification with the research practices of a diverse group of cultural sociologists who apply formal methods to the interpretation of texts.29 Practicing in this style means that we tend to lean on the more linguistic qualities of our data, we try harder to treat the text as a text, and, in the present case, to remember that what we have before us is speech activity sampled from a collection of voices in a particular organizational field at a specific moment in time. It follows from this that an analysis that is more sensitive to the textual qualities of the information recorded in the Directory would presumably constitute a more effective use of the available data. In this chapter, we approach this issue by making a series of assumptions about our data. (1) We presume that the author of each text (of each organizational entry) was an informed participant in the institutional field, (2) that they were likely to speak in a fashion that reflected a common understanding of whatever institutional logic was broadly shared, and (3) that their speech activity was highly ritualized. Ritualization is important because ritualized speech is more easily interpreted (Geertz, 1973; Turner, 1974). It tends to be more succinct and formulaic, it is likely to be more loosely coupled from the demands of conforming to objective practice, and because the opportunity to generate a ritual text represents a strategic opportunity, we presume the text entries were likely to have been crafted with some care.30 We think of the resulting

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texts as representing an organization’s ritualized ‘‘power signature.’’ These are the products of organizational agents who seek to locate their organization within an identifiable organizational community, making use of a set of shared speech codes that reflect taken for granted assumptions about the institutional logic of the field. Therefore, a fourth difference in our project is that we believe that formal analysis of data can yield different insights than has frequently been presumed by mainstream social science. Specifically, in this work, our goal is to help interpret the meaning of the semiotic code system embedded in the directory data – to offer a plausible reading of a cultural text. Said a different way, we see our work as an attempt to use formal properties of the textual material to generate helpful hermeneutic interpretations of the speech activity expressed by these organizational power signatures. But this raises the question of what counts as meaning and what defines an act of interpretation? A fifth characteristic of our work is that we borrow heavily from semiotic theory as a way to theorize our data. This means we presume meanings are relationally produced, that structures of meaning are defined by patterns in the relations of similarity and difference among code elements in a speech system that includes some common underlying logic of linguistic understanding (Saussure, 1959). Making this move allows us to equip ourselves with some rudimentary procedures from the interpretative tool kit of the semioticians. Concretely, we begin by treating each institutional sub-domain (the P, A, S, and T matrices) as discrete code systems, where all elements in the set constitute a coherent totality, and we expect that relations of use define relevant patterns of similarity and difference. The resulting structural forms (the ordered relations of the relations – or the network of ties) define an overarching semiotic logic of meaning within this institutional space.31 This then leads to our sixth (and final) methodological specificity; we follow Harrison White (and the tradition that his students and colleagues have developed) for thinking about how to reduce complex relational systems in ways that capture meaningful social logics. A central figure in the history of modern social network analysis, White has also been a leader in the cultural turn that has more recently taken place among social network scholars, providing key theoretical concepts for projecting network methods onto cultural processes, discourse systems, and forms of talk (White, 1992, 2008; Mohr & White, 2008). In the current chapter, we draw upon one key piece of White’s broader theoretical project, his notion of structural equivalence. In a pair of classic publications (White et al., 1976; Boorman & White, 1976), White and his co-authors systematically detailed a theory of

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role structures that could be operationalized in a two-stage methodological process. First, all of the individuals in a social role system are partitioned into sets (role sets) according to their similarities and differences with respect to one another along a series of key relational properties. These role sets are then related one to another according to an analysis of the density of co-membership in these equivalence blocks. This results in a reduced form matrix, often represented as a graph, where each role position is related to each other (see Figs. 4–6).32 Therefore, a sixth distinction is that we use structural equivalence methods to decode semiotic patterns in our data. Once again, as the articulation table reminds us, although we have described these as four discrete sub-domains (the P, A, S, and T matrices), we also recognize that none of them are genuinely discrete. On the contrary, as we suggested earlier, there is an articulation linkage connecting each domain to every other. The construction of institutional-level identity categories (the worthy, the respectable, the addicted, crippled, and orphaned) is dependent on, and in a sense, co-constituted by, the meta-institutional identity categories (categories defined around age, gender, race, and class).33 The same can be said about the linkages that connect the two forms of power. The insane are different than the nervous to the extent that former are consigned to a city asylum while the latter are sent off to a country retreat. Again, these articulation (duality) relations are designated in Fig. 2 by the six small arrows while the more macro-level articulations, between Power as Subjection and Power as Micro-physics or between the institutional and the meta-institutional levels, are designated with four larger arrows.34

Data The text is taken more or less verbatim from the 1888 edition of the New York City Charity Directory and written into a data file for analysis.35 We look for evidence that Foucault’s theorization of power works. To use the data for this purpose, we transform the text into a dataset appropriate for network analysis using the following procedures and conventions. First, we have identified key units of meaning in the text. Specifically, the senior author, after much close study and a long period of familiarization, used judgments to accomplish three qualitative (semantic) tasks: (1) identification – in which institutionally relevant words were culled from the text and marked for analysis; (2) stemming – in which different forms of the same word (singular vs. plural forms, conjugational differences in verb forms, etc.) were reduced to common word stems; (3) synonymification – in

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which words that are used more or less interchangeably were collapsed together into one common linguistic category.36 In this chapter, the first and third of these tasks, identification and synonymification, were facilitated by our reading of Foucault and the attempt to differentiate among units of meaning in the text that reflect the four types of power identified by the PAST Articulation Table (Fig. 2). The results of our coding efforts are presented in Table 1. The table lists the various linguistic terms used in the analyses, arrayed according to their location in the PAST Articulation Table. There are 26 discrete meta-institutional identity categories in the P matrix including males, females, infants/babies, children, and the like. Four of these identity categories are absent in the 1888 dataset (though they occur in later years).37 These absent terms (P7, P11, P14, and P18) are designated with boldface text. There are a total of 117 PAST variables defined in Table 1 although only 107 of these occur in the 1888 Charity dataset used here. Appendix A illustrates the linkage between the raw text and the identified categories. In some cases (e.g., ‘‘Married,’’ ‘‘Unmarried’’), the identity category is triggered by the occurrence of one specific text string. In other cases (e.g., OCCUP), we have made a strategic decision to combine together many specific linguistic markers to create an aggregate conceptual category, in this case, any reference to a person’s occupational identity.38 Our data matrix then consists of 478 rows representing each specific statement about a type of social identity that is incarcerated in one of the 168 custodial organizations included here and 107 columns of binary variables in which the presence of a 1 indicates that the given (row) identity invoked the specified text string (or power practice) that is represented by the relevant column variable. Table 1 also lists the relative frequency of occurrence of each identity category as a percentage of the whole. Thus, 12% of the 478 identity statements included a reference to the maleness of the identity while 4.4% included a reference to the inmate as being infants or babies.

Results We ask how is power (of the sort described by Foucault) organized in an institutional field? Fig. 3 gives us a first look. Start at the top where there is a dark cloud of lines and points. Here, we have taken the original data matrix and graphed it so that every identity statement (i) is represented by a point (hence, there are 478 points) and every PAST variable (j) has a square (there are 107 squares, see Table 1).39 Every time row (i) uses the text concept (j),

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Table 1.

PAST Analysis Variables (1888).

Subjection

%

(P) Meta-institutional identity discourse, N ¼ 22 (26) Power field (Metainstitutional level)

P1 ¼ MALES P2 ¼ FEMALES P3 ¼ INFANTS/BABIES P4 ¼ CHILDREN P5 ¼ BOYS/GIRLS P6 ¼ AGED/OLD P7 ¼ WHITES P8 ¼ BLACKS P9 ¼ ETHNIC P10 ¼ MARRIED P11 ¼ UNMARRIED P12 ¼ WIDOW/WIFE P13 ¼ MOTHER P14 ¼ DEPENDENT P15 ¼ HISTATUS P16 ¼ LOSTATUS P17 ¼ WORKING P18 ¼ UNEMPLOYED P19 ¼ OCCUP P20 ¼ US MILITARY P21 ¼ RELIGIOUS P22 ¼ IMMIGRANT P23 ¼ MEMBER P24 ¼ NOT RESIDENT P25 ¼ RESDT LOCAL P26 ¼ RESDT STAT

%

Total

37 (41)

(A) Authority (Pastoral) discourse, N ¼ 15 12.0 25.4 4.4 28.5 23.5 17.4 0 4.0 10.1 .8 0 3.4 2.3 0 1.9 4.4 .8 0 8.2 3.1 15.3 .2 6.9 .4 6.7 2.3

A1 ¼ CITY Agency A2 ¼ STATE Agency A3 ¼ RELIG Org A4 ¼ NON-PROFIT Org A5 ¼ PUBLIC FUNDS A6 ¼ BAPTIST A7 ¼ CATHOLIC A8 ¼ CHRISTIAN A9 ¼ JEWISH A10 ¼ LUTHERAN A11 ¼ METHODIST A12 ¼ PREBYTERIAN A13 ¼ PROTESTANT A14 ¼ UNDENOMINTL A15 ¼ UNITARIAN

12.4 9.0 42.4 36.3 33.1 2.7 15.7 2.1 4.4 1.7 1.3 .4 10.7 4.0 .2

%

(T) Micro-physics discourse N ¼ 28 (30)

%

S1 ¼ RESPECTABLE S2 ¼ WORTHY/ GOODCHTR S3 ¼ AT RISK S4 ¼ WANT IMPROVE S5 ¼ IMMORAL/ WAYWRD S6 ¼ FALLEN S7 ¼ UNFORTUNATE

2.1 3.6

T1 ¼ LYING_IN T2 ¼ ASYLUM

2.5 55.1

2.1 .8 6.7

T3 ¼ NURSERY T4 ¼ SHORTSTAY T5 ¼ KINDERGARDEN

3.8 10.5 1.5

3.8 0

18.0 16.4

S8 ¼ DRUNK

6.5

S9 ¼ TEMPERATE S10 ¼ MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS

0 9.2

T6 ¼ SCHOOL T7 ¼ INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL T8 ¼ DOMESTIC TRG SCHOOL T9 ¼ OTHER SCHOOL T10 ¼ RELIG_ EDUCATION

(S) Institutional identity discourse, N ¼ 42(46) Institutional field (institutional level)

Micro-Physics

2.7 2.5 3.1

70 (76)

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Table 1. (Continued ) (S) Institutional identity discourse, N ¼ 42(46)

%

(T) Micro-physics discourse N ¼ 28 (30)

%

S11 ¼ ACUTE/CURABLE

2.5

T11 ¼ REHABILITATION T12 ¼ TEMP_ EMPLOYMENT T13 ¼ ASSIST_ EMPLOYMENT T14 ¼ SENDS T15 ¼ CHILD SAVING T16 ¼ PLACEMNT

4.2

.8 .4 .2 0

T17 ¼ SOCIALWORK T18 ¼ RESCUE T19 ¼ RELIGIOUS T20 ¼ RELIG_ORDER T21 ¼ COMMUNITY

.2 7.6 4.0 .2 .2

.2 5.2 1.3 .6 1.5

T22 ¼ FRESHAIR T23 ¼ MISSION T24 ¼ COMMUNITY T25 ¼ ALCHOL/DRUG T26 ¼ HQ

3.8 4.0 .2 6.1 2.3

5.0 5.0 3.6

T27 ¼ DISPENSARY T28 ¼ OTHER HEALTH T29 ¼ GENERAL RELIEF T30 ¼ COTTAGE

1.7 5.2 2.1

S12 ¼ CHRONIC S13 ¼ CONSUMPTIVE

1.7

S14 ¼ CONVALESCENT S15 ¼ MATERNITY S16 ¼ NOT CONTAGIOUS S17 ¼ HEALTHY S18 ¼ FEEBLEMINDED S19 ¼ EPILEPTIC S20 ¼ IDIOTIC S21 ¼ NOT IDIOTIC/ EPILEPTIC S22 ¼ TEACHABLE S23 ¼ INSANE S24 ¼ ADDICT S25 ¼ NERVOUS S26 ¼ MENTALLY SOUND S27 ¼ CRIPPLED S28 ¼ DEAF S29 ¼ BLIND

.2 2.7 .4

S30 ¼ DISABLED S31 ¼ UNRULY S32 ¼ VICIOUS S33 ¼ TRUANT S34 ¼ CONVICT S35 ¼ MINOR CRIMINL S36 ¼ EX-CONVICT S37 ¼ NEED REFORMTION S38 ¼ NOT VICIOUS S39 ¼ ORPHAN S40 ¼ NEGLECTED S41 ¼ PARENT UNABLE S42 ¼ HOMELESS S43 ¼ MISFORTUNATE S44 ¼ DESTITUTE S45 ¼ POOR S46 ¼ NEEDY Total

.4

64 (72)

0

5.7 4.6 2.7 5.7 12.6 8.4 .2 2.7

2.3 2.7 .6 0 0

.2

1.5 22.2 1.9 2.5 13.2 1.7 34.8 4.4 1.5 43 (45)

107 (117)

226

Fig. 3.

JOHN W. MOHR AND BROOKE NEELY

PAST Articulation Table with Graphs of Matrix Data (NYCCD 1888).

(wherever i, j ¼ 1), that link is represented by a line in the graph. The graph shows the overall organization of power (as control) in this institutional space (e.g., the field/meta-field articulation). The complexity of this graph makes it uninterpretable. But if we divide the data into sub-matrices

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according to the logic of the PAST Articulation Table (from Fig. 2), then the graphs become more meaningful. The graph in the upper left (P) quadrant is the same type that we just described, it includes a point for each identity statement and a square for each discourse category, but here only those (j’s) that are defined as elements of the Power (P) sub-matrix (see Table 1) are included. Looking at the graph of P, we see that some categories are more heavily represented (Children, Females, Boys/Girls, etc.), but the distribution becomes most interesting when you read it as a map of how, in 1888, various meta-institutional social identity categories were sorted into different locations within the custodial system. Compare this to the graph of the upper right (A) quadrant where the same set of (478) power signatures are mapped onto the (j’s) in the Authority (A) sub-matrix showing how, in 1888, various identities were sorted into different meta-institutional regions within the pastoral system of care. There are a smaller number of categories and a lower level of overlap than the P graph, illustrating the more clumpy distribution of identities under the logic of authority. The smaller number of categories matters in this, but also important are well-bounded hierarchically ordered administrative systems and institutionalized rules proscribing the mixing of authority mandates such as that crossing the church and the state. Below the meta-institutional level, the S and the T matrices describe how subjection and micro-physics of power operate at the level of the institutional field. The S matrix is anchored by destitution, but a wide explosion of moral distinctions erupts concentrically outward from that center. The generalized technology of the asylum dominates the T quadrant (lower right), but there are many subsidiary technologies scattered across the field, marking the various forms in which sub-organizational innovations were being established, tried out, and differentiated by distinctive technical and material practices.

Block Model Results While it is interesting to see the logic of power displayed in this fashion, there is more that can be learned from these data. Our hypothesis is that the institutional logic of the field (in this case, the duality of subjection and micro-physics) is captured by and expressed through these speech acts (the power signatures). If we are right, then there ought to be a way to recover traces of that logic, ways to interpret the meaning system or to read the text, to come to understand it in a manner that is closer to how it was

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understood by those who wrote it. These are of course precisely the sorts of methodological claims that are made (theorized and debated) by ethnographers, phenomenologists, and hermeneuticists of various stripes. Our claim is similar but different; we argue that formal (mathematical) methods can be usefully brought to bear on these kinds of interpretive tasks, that they can effectively assist our reading. In a sense, we are claiming that logics have structure and that formal methods find structure, which is to say in a formal sense, they take relational data and reduce it to a more succinct and elementary mapping that is homomorphic, providing structure preserving reductions of the more complex down to the more simple.40 We use structural equivalence techniques in this chapter to create models of discourse structures within the subjection side of control (the P and S matrices). The choice of these methods reflects the longstanding recognition of the importance of this class of measures as a basic innovation in network modeling. Pointing to the first published essay on structural equivalence by Francoise Lorrain and Harrison White (1971), Berkowitz (1982) argues that the structural equivalence ‘‘method was able to realize, for the first time, all of the power implicit in the social network concept. First it operated simultaneously, on both nodes and relations. This enabled researchers to explore the part played by a given node (e.g., an individual) both in terms of its position within a network, and as a point of confluence for a set of role relations among nodes. Second, it enabled researchers to deal with a given network at all levels of abstraction, i.e., as a set of simple binary relations, as a concrete manifestation of a set of abstract roles, and as part of a mathematically defined entity (category)’’ (p. 11). We follow Mohr (1994) in the application of these methods to textual data, a procedure described as a Discourse Role Analysis (DRA). Simply put, we analyze the patterns recorded in power signatures for clues on how to generate structure preserving simplifications of the data that will help us interpret the texts. In the tradition of White, Boorman, and Breiger, we apply the CONCOR procedure to partition the data.41 CONCOR clusters the original matrix into common role locations (or blocks). In simplest terms, two network nodes (in our case, two linguistic terms) are identified as structurally equivalent to the extent that they share a common pattern of ties to all the other nodes (terms) in the network (discursive text). Thus, two nodes are identified as being structurally equivalent to each other to the extent that they share a similar profile of relations of similarity and difference (as defined by use) to all the other nodes in the system. A block model identifies the relational pattern that links the blocks (role positions) to one another on the basis of the density of co-membership of identity

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terms shared between roles.42 The end result should be a graph that captures the complexity of the original matrix in a reduced form thereby preserving core structural properties of the speech behavior (parole) that map onto key distinctions of the semiotic system (langue). In Fig. 4, we present a DRA diagram (a structural equivalence analysis) of the P sub-matrix. Our claim is that this is a useful simplification of a much more complex data matrix, and that seeing the data in the fashion

Fig. 4.

Discourse Role Structure of Power Matrix (NYCCD 1888).

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represented here enables us to better understand what was understood by those who authored the texts. There are several interesting things to notice about this figure. First, the partitioning (from CONCOR) has clustered the Power identities into common role locations (the 22 identity categories have been collapsed into 11 discourse roles).43 Therefore, for example, the category of being female, a wife, widowed, and aged are structurally equivalent to one another, which is to say, they occupy the same discourse role position with respect to the deeper system of institutional meanings operating in this segment of the field. In other words, institutionally speaking, they mean the same thing. Infants, Immigrants, and various references to people of lowly status (the masses, the poor, the working class, those of small salaries or low wages, etc. – see Table 1 and Appendix A) are also structurally equivalent with respect to this code system. So too are the identities of being married, being a local resident or being an African American (blacks). Second, the block model links these role positions together into an ordered graph and this also helps us find simpler (meaning) patterns within the complexity of the original data. Looking again at Fig. 4, what leaps out to us are how the arrangement of roles corresponds to the various logics of entitlement corresponding to different spheres of social life. We have labeled the graph accordingly with what appear to be five types of legitimacy – state, economic, familial, community, and a residual category of questionable legitimacy. These map onto five spheres of institutional life – the political, the public, the private, the community, and the liminal. Of these, the political sphere is the more isolated, being largely defined by state residency and military service. The others make up four complementary sub-domains of one large (relatively dense) discursive structure that has, at its four corner positions, the defining role for each of the other four forms of legitimacy – working/occupation anchors the public sphere, Female/Wife/Widow/Aged defines the private sphere, Married/Locals/Blacks reflects community, while Infant/LoStatus/Immigrant anchors liminality. But there are puzzles here. Why, for example, are African Americans, certainly a more marginalized group, defined by community rather than liminality? Looking back to the data, the answer is that whenever African American’s are named in the Directory, it is in the privileged sense of being entitled to care by virtue of their membership in African American community organizations such as St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, (the first black Episcopal congregation in New York, established in 1818), which provides custodial care in St. Philip’s Parish House for ‘‘Aged African women of the parish’’ as well as ‘‘other African women who may be

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deserving.’’ Therefore, regardless of the complex social identity that defined African Americans in 1888, the identity category that operates in this space, at this moment, in this more restricted fashion, describes a particular discourse role in the institutionally specific sub-logic of this segment of the field. Another puzzle, why are infants defined as liminal rather being linked to the private sphere? Again, looking to the data, what stands out is the frequency with which infants are named again and again in the context of illegitimate births, a discourse role that stands in a very liminal relationship to entitlement. All of this then gives us clues for thinking about the broader system of meanings that are in play. We think it is interesting that this main square, defined by these four vertices, reflects something like the broad logic of 19th-century entitlement rights. More intriguingly, embedded within this structure, there looks to be another sub-logic as well. We have used bold lines to highlight a second square, turned on its corner, with four vertices – Male, Children, Boy/Girl, and HiStatus/Member. At the risk of seeing more than may be there, it is interesting to contemplate whether this second substructure reflects something like a vestigial logic of kinship, co-existing here as a shadow in the heart of the system of 19th-century relief entitlements. The social category of the Mother is at the center of this sub-logic, surrounded in a tight formation by Males, Children, and Boys/Girls. Off to the right is the structurally equivalent discourse role of Member and HiStatus Persons. This at first presents as a puzzle, but the answer, as Le´vi-Strauss ([1969] 1949) would easily recognize, is that the logic of kinship is about the exchange of mates with other families in the clan, the community, or the caste; thus, membership matters. Ideally, this is a strategic exchange that elevates the family, which links it in bonds of kinship and mutual obligation to higher status others. Therefore, the structural equivalence of membership and High Status Others in this role position may stand-in for a generalized category of social obligations incurred through the exchange of women and other kin. Remembering that this is the Power matrix, the place where broader logics of social domination emanate, it is thus quite intriguing to contemplate how these two systems of power are juxtaposed here together, each seemingly wrapped around the other. The same procedures apply to the DRA diagram for the S matrix (Fig. 5). Again, there is a collapse of the many (42) identity categories into a smaller subset of 14 discourse role positions, linked together in an ordered graph. We have proposed an interpretation that highlights the intensely hierarchical logic of morality that seems to be in play. At the bottom of the graph are three role positions that we have described as constituting a social strata of

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Fig. 5.

Discourse Role Structure of Subject Matrix (NYCCD 1888).

unredeemables (Drunk/Addict, Convict/Minor criminals, and the Unruly). Above that are three discourse roles that are also morally suspect, but of a somewhat more marginal or transitional character (the At risk/Fallen, the Homeless, and the Immoral/Vicious/Truant/Needs Reform). Finally, at the top of the graph is a broader region of entitlement (the Worthy), which is itself split into what appears to be two major logics of worthiness, that which is grounded in impoverishment of one sort or another (on the left) and another (on the right) that is anchored in the neediness of poor health and various forms of bodily incapacity. We have also added a separate box at the lower right of the figure that we have labeled the Dangerous Classes in recognition of the discursive distinction that had been frequently applied to

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these social categories in the decades after the Civil War (Brace, [1872] 1973). In this respect, the discourse role of drunks, drug addicts, and of those who are at risk or have fallen may reflect something about a more modern approach to character and its reformation, reflecting a somewhat more progressive interpretations of poverty that is beginning to emerge starting around this period of time.44 The main point, however, is that this subdomain appears to be organized around structured systems of moral evaluation, judgments of worthiness, as had been true for this field of organizational action ever since its inception. Here, the question is who will be put away, even against their will, and where then will they be put? Finally, in Fig. 6, we provide a DRA diagram for a matrix containing both P and S variables combined. Throughout this chapter, we have emphasized that a key feature of institutional fields is the mutual

Fig. 6.

Discourse Role Structure of Power/Subject Matrices (NYCCD 1888).

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complementarity (and inter-penetration) of the different orders, expressed through articulation structures that link sub-domains together into productive forms of action. Since we do not have the space or time in this paper to explore these connections in a systematic fashion, we offer Fig. 6 as a simple test of the idea that these sub-domains are mutually constitutive and dually ordered (in a sense we are looking at the interaction effect between two domains of discourse, one concerned primarily with logics of entitlement and the other mostly focused on the logic of immorality). Once again, the many (64) different subjection identities have been partitioned into a smaller subset of 24 discourse roles. At the bottom of the figure we have labeled one sub-graph the ‘‘disprivileged.’’ What categories of people are included here? Along the bottom are a number of incorrigible discourse roles: the drunks, the convicts, and the criminals. On the bottom right are people described as vicious, truant, and in need of reform. These two categories of incarcerated identities pivot across a third despised identity category designated here as the immoral. Just above these are the homeless, various kinds of incarcerated boys and girls and those deemed to be at risk. Above that are illegitimate infants and other unruly identities. Up to the center and right of this sub-graph are the local residents and those who are poor, of low status and ethnic. As an articulation analysis with the T matrix would reveal most of the people held inside the organizations that invoked these power signatures were institutionalized (incarcerated) against their will, usually under a cloud of moral accusations reflecting many levels of worrisome social evils.45 Here, the pastoral responsibility of the state (primarily) is deployed to preserve the peace and protect the social good (as can be seen in an articulation analysis with the A matrix). To summarize, people included in the dis-privileged domain may be defined by two dimensions of differentiation, one suggests a gradation from greater to lesser categories of evilness. A second dimension splits this sub-graph horizontally by distinguishing between those evils caused by immorality from those that stem more directly from the experience of poverty itself. Above this, stretching up in classic chiasmic fashion, we see two different logics of entitlement.46 A feminized version (reflecting the moral entitlements of the private sphere) to the left and a masculinized version (anchored in the moral logics of the public sphere) to the right. In each case, we have suggested an interpretation of the discursive sub-logic. In the masculinized sphere, we see a distinction reflecting dimensions of achievement, distinguishing between those who are presumed good from those who have earned their entitlements by virtue of having toiled in the labor force or

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who having given of themselves as citizen soldiers. A cross-cutting dimension distinguishes between worthiness in the local context as opposed to that which is specified under the auspices of the state. In the feminized sphere, the logic of entitlement is considerably more complex but also, perhaps, reducible in similar ways. We see again a dimension reflecting the character of achievement, distinguishing between those who are entitled by virtue of their respectability, their status of having been married, aged, widowed, or members of some community organization as opposed to those who begin from some (ascribed) presumption of worthiness, including here, orphans, the deaf, the blind, the crippled, and like. Cross-cutting this is another dimension of worthiness defined, on the one hand, by moral purity and on the other by one’s status in the social order. This may be too simple of an interpretation of what is certainly a more complex logic of (feminized) entitlement, but we nonetheless offer these here as plausible suggestions, informed interpretations of the text, hermeneutic hypotheses, of the kinds of underlying principles that organize power as subjection within this institutional field, at this moment of time.

DISCUSSION We began with a question, how does power work in an institutional field? Our general approach to the problem was like that of many institutional scholars before us – we created a dataset from an organizational directory, tracked individual organizations, paid attention to the distribution of organizational forms, and worried about how cultural forces affect organizational behavior. In the current chapter, however, we tweaked the design. We started with Foucault and (as best as we were able) we tried to think like him. We asked the question, what would Foucault model? What would he measure? How would he measure? How would he use the tools at hand to find trace evidence of the types of power he studied and wrote about throughout his career? To advance on this question, we tried a series of maneuvers, mimicking Foucault as best we could. Like him, we selected out carceral organizations for special attention; we distinguished between different modalities of power (cultural logics of subjection vs. the material practices as embodied in microtechnologies); we highlighted the interpretive (cultural and semiotic) character of institutional systems; and we paid attention to the structural logics and articulations (formal dualities) that link institutional sub-domains together. We adapted concepts and methods from the work of Harrison

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White and his colleagues and created a series of graphs, summarizing information found in the text based on the pattern recognition strategies of a block model analysis. Our primary contention, and maybe this is really what it all comes down to, is that the graphs are useful devices for generating effective readings of the texts. We have tried to make this case by offering compelling readings. But we know too that what we have provided is only a rough approximation to the full complexities of power and, also, to the full range of interpretative possibilities derivable by formal methods. The original premise of the chapter was that we had something to learn from Foucault, that if we used him as a guide we would develop new insights into the problem of theorizing (and modeling) power and ideology in institutional fields. With this in mind we want to return to the question of why Foucault? Why should institutional theory look to Foucault as an exemplar? We think there are three primary reasons. First, Foucault is so fundamentally institutional in his thinking that his project lends itself naturally to being modeled with institutionalist methodologies. Consider his empirical work – studies of the origins of hospitals, medical clinics, insane asylums, penitentiaries, and other organizational forms. In each case, he was concerned with the empirical trajectories of power that were enacted around these organizations. He looked at how and where practices and ideas were generated, he traced the diffusion of these phenomena across historical time and space, and he showed how they came together again in new and innovative organizational forms. He was a master at identifying the broader conceptual (epistemic) frames that provide the common foundations for thought and action in an institutional field and he continually privileged the institutional over the individual.47 Therefore, one good reason to study Foucault is that his ideas are immanently applicable to the kinds of problems that institutionalists like to think about. Second, Foucault is a natural bridge between qualitative and quantitative programs of social analysis. There are several reasons for this but one factor that we have drawn attention to here is the common theoretical commitment to structuralism as a style of work, a linkage that makes Michel Foucault and Harrison White intellectual allies. This chapter went at this connection directly, using structural equivalence methodologies to identify patterns in speech behavior that could be used to map deeper logics of semiotic meaning. Like many others in this tradition, we see no contradiction between the interpretative analysis of texts and the mathematical analysis of data, between the ways that organizations are built up out of shared discursive logics and our own goal as researchers to formally trace these

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logics so as to advance an explanatory social science of organizations. A key feature of our approach is the presumption that meanings are central to all that happens in human organizations and that meanings are themselves organized as relational systems. We have tried to show how an appreciation of this fact opens up new kinds of analytic dilemmas, produces new questions about the character of institutional logics, and raises new issues about power in institutional fields. Finally, Foucault occupies a pivotal role in the history of ideology theory. Embedded within the European tradition of social thought, he wrote in dialog with the concerns and framings of the various strands of ‘‘Western Marxism.’’ In this context, Foucault can be seen as having a distinctive profile. He rejected historical materialism as a possibility while embracing a vigorously cultural approach to the social analysis of power. Arriving on the scene at a time that paralleled Clifford Geertz’s career, Foucault also mirrors Geertz in terms of his intellectual influence in some intellectual worlds. For cultural studies scholars, in particular, Foucault has been important because of the deftness with which he took on a series of longstanding concerns about how cultural systems are productive of social orders. Foucault focused on the material productivity of culture (rather than, e.g., on the supposedly real ‘‘objective’’ underlying social relations of material systems), on the study of systems of truth and knowledge production (rather on class relations and ownership effects), he emphasized a structuralist (or relational totality) approach, he highlighted institutional effects (rather than individual centered theories of causality), he was critical of those who wield power and supportive of those who are the objects of its intent, and he treated politics as a necessary precondition and consequence of analysis. It was Foucault after all, who, perhaps more than any other post-war European intellectual, took up the problem of power by analyzing the delicate balancing, the dual articulation, of agentic experience and institutional process. Pushing off against the existentialist concerns of Sartre on the one hand and the structural determinisms of Althusser on the other, Foucault thoroughly deconstructed traditional historiographic studies of individuals, elites, and events, leaving in their place archeologies of knowledge, geneologies of micro-technologies, accounts of epistemic breaks, and regimes of truth, presenting one of the most thoroughly and allconsuming institutionalist visions of social power that we have available to us. But, and at the same time, Foucault (1980, p. 99) also rejected any overly deterministic accounts, arguing instead for ‘‘an ascending analysis of power, starting, that is, from its infinitesimal mechanisms, which each have their

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own history, their own trajectory, their own techniques and tactics, and then see how these mechanisms of power have been – and continue to be – invested, colonized, utilized, involuted, transformed, displaced, extended, etc. by ever more general mechanisms and by forms of global domination.’’ In short, what Foucault provides is a profoundly de-centered vision of power, agency, and institutions as multiply implicated elements of a broad and comprehensive system of domination. In closing, we want to say something about the generalizability of the approach that we have taken here. As promised, our analyses focused on cell 2 (see Fig. 1), but we also looked at the meta-institutional level (the P and A matrices in Fig. 2). This becomes less confusing if we fold the two articulation tables together, as we have done in Fig. 7. Here the first table (marked here as cells 1–4) is still present and located at the center of the diagram. But the second set of articulations took place at a different level, and they are represented here (in the upper right) as the union of cell 2 and cell Y. Notice that there are nested dualities here. On the left is control of the field, on the right control by the field. When you move in closer, however, you see that each sub-domain is itself divided yet again. Therefore, cell Y contains the P and A matrices, and cell 2 is divided into S and T. Moreover, there is a certain mirroring occurring. When you consider the larger left and right divide, it looks to be organized by a logic of agency with respect to power. Therefore, those cells on the left concern the struggles of those who are empowered, actors in these domains are subjects of power, because they are agentic in this space, they impose their will (or struggle to do so) on the field and on its distribution of power, privilege, and pleasure. In contrast, cells on the right side of the diagram concern the institutionally disempowered, these agents are the objects of power; they are defined by the field, rather than the reverse. Focus on one level and again there is a split between subject and object, but now the meaning shifts. Subject here implies power as subjection, the social construction of cultural identities (the P and the S matrices). Against this we have the objective dimension, meaning now objective in the sense of power as a micro-physics, as bodily actions, as institutionalized practices, material effects, and micro-technologies of organizational behaviors (the A and T matrices). What this suggests is that the social world is actually made up of a series of cascading articulation tables. This concept is theorized more fully in Mohr and White (2008, p. 485) who describe institutions as ‘‘linkage mechanisms that bridge across three kinds of social divides – they link micro systems of social interaction to meso (and macro) levels of organization, they connect the

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Extended Articulation Table for Analysis of Power in Institutional Fields.

symbolic with the material, and the agentic with the structural.’’ We have applied all of these ideas here, distinguishing between the institutional and the meta-institutional levels, the dualities of the symbolic and the material (loosely mapped onto forms of power as subjection and as micro-technology

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of practice) and the dualities of the agentic and the institutional. Add to this the further distinction between forms of power expressed as control of the field in contrast to forms of control by the field and it becomes apparent that what we are really describing is a generalized theory about social institutions and a strategy for analyzing them. Recall again as we suggested earlier, institutional fields can be thought of as patchworks of differentiated subdomains (and sub-logics) that exist in complicated tangles of complementary interrelationships of mutual dependence and independence with respect to one another. Methods for identifying structural equivalences and structural dualities are useful in modeling these kinds of institutional structures and, as we have tried to suggest here, also for modeling systems of power and the effects of ideology in institutional fields. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, like Foucault, we have tried in this analysis to open up a window into a very real system of power that played out with ugly consequences for people living in New York City some 120 years ago. The organizational field of custodial institutions (then as now) is a place where people are treated in more and less privileged ways, with forms of control that are more and less brutalizing, with claims for respectability that are more and less narrowly defined. It is a space where, as Foucault would say, truth and power come together and have very real and material consequences for people’s lives. Our analyses have helped us to peer into this system of power and they have allowed us to know something about the ways in which systems of discourse are mapped onto forms of organizational action to produce institutional logics (and sub-logics). In this respect we see our contribution as providing another model for rethinking analytic problems of culture, power and formal analysis.

NOTES 1. And indeed, as we will argue, the two traditions share important cross-linkages. 2. White (2008) is the best place to start. But the work dates back to the beginning of White’s career (in the late 1950s) and has been carried forward by many students and colleagues ever since. Breiger (2005) has a useful account. Mohr and White (2008) give a short review of some of these contributions. 3. Although the work suffered at times from a bit too much abstract intellectualism, the field was nonetheless one of the most extraordinarily brilliant and intellectually creative regions of scholarly life in the academy during these years. Certainly, the field was broad and heterogeneous. Of course, there was less of a sense of revival of Marxism in an intellectual arena such as France where existential Marxism had maintained a thriving presence before the 1960s. In contrast, in the

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United States, the increase in interest in neo-Marxist scholarship was significant. For a review see Howard and Klare (1972) or Jay (1973). 4. It is no accident that this tradition evolved into what has now come to be known, in some circles, as cultural studies. 5. Peterson’s (1976) work on the culture industry was an early and important influence. He pushed to bring cultural processes into the main focus of empirically oriented work on organizations. Other significant precursors included Roland Warren’s (1967) work on the institutionalized thought structure characterizing organizational fields. For a review of this period of change in American cultural sociology, see Friedland and Mohr (2004). 6. Mohr (forthcoming) provides an account of how this work was accomplished by the new institutional project. As an aside, there has always been a tight connection between the American Sociological Association’s culture section and the organizational sociologists linked to the new institutionalism. In many ways, the two projects have advanced in tandem. 7. Swidler and Arditi (1994) place the emergence of the new institutional tradition within a broader intellectual system of development. Meyer (2008) provides a more recent and thoughtful assessment. Still, nowhere else in the social sciences (with the possible exception of marketing theory or cognitive anthropology) has there been a more thorough push to develop quantitative approaches to cultural objects. 8. It is no coincidence that so many of the early exemplars of the new institutional project concerned geographic diffusion processes. Note, however, spread across a population only captures one dimension of social diffusion. The character of the impact, how much it is embraced and how perfectly copied, how transformed in use are all matters of content. Thus, a proper measure of a diffusion logic requires both breadth and depth. Early work by new institutionalists focused on breadth, but fairly quickly, depth came to be just as important. The duality of breadth and depth in diffusion processes is still under-theorized and under-explored. 9. There was a long tradition in political science and political sociology of studying power in communities using mainstream empirical methodologies. By the late 1960s, other, more critical projects also began to proliferate. Steven Lukes (1974) captured the state of the field brilliantly in his small book on power. Lukes’ advice, like so many left scholars of the time, was to pursue an expanded theory of ideology using a more sophisticated theory of culture. Other empirical approaches to power were also being explored across the social sciences: field theory (Cartwright, 1959), exchange theory (Cook & Emerson, 1978), resource dependency theory (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978), social influence theory (Friedkin & Cook, 1990), and the like. But none of these projects took culture seriously. 10. Certainly, other factors also played a role. Not focusing on power is also a particular kind of political action, allowing institutional theory to find resources, redoubts, adherents, and supporters who might otherwise be unlikely to embrace a more critical research agenda. 11. DiMaggio and Powell (1991) describe a number of cross-overs with other styles of institutional analysis in the social sciences. Friedland and Mohr (2004) describe the relationship between the new institutionalists and developments in the American sociology of culture. Pinch (2008) provides an interesting example of

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bridging efforts that link contemporary work in the social construction of science with the ideas and methodologies of the new institutionalists. 12. This was not always true. When it was founded 30 years ago, the new institutionalism was proud to be a middle-range theory. It did not need to explain society. It had to make sense of institutional systems, and it came to do this very well, by providing a framework for linking empirical work on organizational forms to a conception of their environment as a cultural field (a kind of Kuhnian paradigm space for organizational practices). In this respect, the new institutionalism, like any institutional form, was imprinted by the conditions of its origins. 13. It is useful to know that at the time, Perrow, DiMaggio, and Powell were close faculty colleagues in the Yale sociology department. Some version of this debate was played out more or less regularly in Perrow’s faculty seminar (COSI). 14. There are actually a great many possible articulation points that operate between different levels and domains of social life. We return to this idea at the end of the chapter. 15. In other words, institutions have internal differentiations but it may well be that conventional programs of statistical analysis are poorly suited to the task of modeling this kind of space. Here the sub-domains are viewed as internally coherent relational sub-systems rather than as variables capturing the contours of a Lazarsfeldian ‘‘property space.’’ This argument is worked out in much greater detail in Mohr and White (2008). In that work, two analytic principles are discussed, structural equivalence and structural duality. The latter, following on a stream of work developed by Breiger and colleagues (Breiger, 1974; Breiger & Pattison, 1986), is the basis for an important stream of work on the formal analysis of articulation structures in institutional systems (DiMaggio, 1987; Mohr & Duquenne, 1997; Mische & Pattison, 2000; Breiger, 2000; Martin, 2006). 16. Bourdieu also discusses (upwards) the articulation between the institutional and the meta-institutional level (which he terms, the field of power) and (downwards) the articulation between the institutional and the agentic, dealt with by Bourdieu in terms of his theory of the habitus. A fuller discussion of these matters is however beyond the scope of this chapter. 17. For Bourdieu, power in a field is always coupled to the social construction of and the control over localized (institution-specific) meaningfully constituted realities (Bourdieu, [1979] 1984, 1987; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). 18. Larana, Johnston, and Gusfield (1994), Melucci (1980), Minkoff (1993), Rao, Morril, and Zald (2000), Schneiberg (2002), Lounsbury, Ventresca, and Hirsch (2003). 19. For a contrasting perspective, see Gutting (1994) who argues that there is a consistent discontinuity to Foucault’s work, noting, for example, that Foucault rarely references his own earlier publications. 20. Dreyfus and Rabinow (1982, pp. 197–202) have a very useful discussion of the parallels between Foucault’s studies of epistemes and Kuhn’s concept of a scientific paradigm. 21. Dreyfus and Rabinow (1982) link this change to Foucault’s experience of the Paris uprising of May 1968, and they see the first evidence of Foucault’s analytic shift in his inaugural lecture at the Colle´ge de France (1972). Arguably, there is also a third phase of Foucault’s work that corresponds to his work on the History of

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Sexuality (1978) where Foucault emphasizes forms of power that correspond more closely to the construction of the self as a form of contested subjectivity, but this latter project is beyond the scope of this chapter. 22. The reference to Althusser’s (1971) concept of interpellation is deliberate. As someone trying to rework a version of structural functionalism as passed through the European Marxist tradition, part of Althusser’s appeal was that he was developing a set of meta-constructs for grounding critical theory in a modern epistemology of truth. Althusser’s problem was that these constructs were hollow. They had no content, no culture, and no agency. It is useful to recall that during the 1960s and 1970s, Foucault (like the rest of the French intellectual world) was in an ongoing philosophical dialog with a series of significant French structuralists – Althusser but also Barthes, Lacan, Levi-Strauss, and others. 23. It is worth emphasizing that part of what made Discipline and Punish so significant was the fact that in this text Foucault deliberately shifts his attention across an institutional articulation point and begins to study a different sub-system, a new modality of power. This then contributes to a much more expansive theorization of the problem. 24. This is of course very much in the spirit of the focus on lines of descent among organizational forms, the project that Stinchcombe (1965), the ecologists (Hannan & Freeman, 1989; Carroll & Hannan, 2000), and some within the new institutional tradition have developed. Ventresca and Mohr (2002) give a more analytical account of the style of these ‘‘new archival’’ methodologies. Notice that in contrast to this work, where time runs forward, in Foucault, temporality runs backwards. This is largely stylistic, of course, but not insignificant. 25. Foucault (1977, p. 115) says himself, ‘‘When I think back now, I ask myself what else was I talking about in [The History of Madness] or The Birth of the Clinic, but power?’’. But then again, as Gutting (1994, p. 4) demonstrates, ‘‘By 1982 he is saying: ‘‘it is not power, but the subject which is the general theme of my research.’’ 26. Foucault himself was drawn to the study of the origins and shifting ecology of organizational forms concerned with incarceration of one form or another throughout his career. From leper’s houses to houses of prostitution, from insane asylums to the modern penitentiary, Foucault saw these types of organizational forms as a key nexus for the operation of institutional power at a given time and place. Note the focus on incarceration is surely overly restrictive. We know from other work (ours and others) that this institutional field was undergoing a variety of significant transformations during this period of time and that the shift from carceral forms of control to other forms of surveillance and subjection technologies was an important part of these changes (Lerman, 1982; Rothman, 1980). Beyond the specificity of this field, there is an important sense in which, even in Foucault’s own work, there is a shift from the study of power as manifest in the disciplinary constraints of the institution down (ultimately) to the study of power as it is manifest in the most intimate practices of the self. 27. The focus on the duality between niches and forms is the kind of problem that has been addressed for years by various styles of organizational ecology (Hannan & Freeman, 1989; Carroll & Hannan, 2000). Table 1 (cell 4) contains the full list of organizational forms included in our sample. 28. Of course, the construction of meaning is also dually related to the objects of knowledge, so categories think discourse into existence just as much as the reverse.

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29. Carley (1986), Abell (1987), Cerulo (1988), Franzosi (1989), Dowd (1992), Bearman (1993), Ruef (1997), Mohr (1998), Martin (2000), Harcourt (2002), Breiger and Mohr (2004). 30. There was an expectation that the Charity Directories were actively employed by practitioners in the field to help manage the flow of referrals (and resources) through the organizational space, and therefore, there was also a pressure for organizations to define themselves in ways that were reasonable with respect to their actual (or, at least, their preferred) locations in the field. Moreover, to the extent that our goal is to decipher the systems of institutional discourse that were at play in the field then the ritualized speech activity becomes in a sense, even more important for us, precisely because this was a form of talk that was explicitly crafted so as to fit into the conversational conventions that participants perceived to be relevant. In this sense, we are dealing here with the domain of organizational myths and symbols (Meyer & Rowan, 1977) more than with a wholly accurate accounting of organizational practice. Note, by the way, directory descriptions were not always kept up-to-date. In a manner that would be immediately familiar to institutional scholars, organizational descriptions for the Charity Directory, once written, sometimes remained unchanged for years. 31. Here, it is also worth pointing out that, unlike most modeling strategies used by institutionalists (and ecologists), in this chapter, we do not seek to explain temporal variations. In part, this reflects the fact that this formulation is new and we have not yet had time to explore temporal dynamics. But it is also true that focusing on 1 year at a time forces us to confront features of the institutional system that might not otherwise draw our attention. Remember, part of what Saussure showed was that a proper diachronic analysis could not be conducted until the researcher understands the synchronic character of the system under investigation. Saussure stood at a particular conjuncture in the history of linguistics. Before him, fluctuations in time and space, problems of diffusion, and selection had so preoccupied the intellectual field that other matters, problems of synchronicity, and the coherence defining the logic of codes were neither considered nor envisioned. We are arguing that something similar may be in effect among contemporary institutional theorists who perhaps too quickly rush to explain organizational changes to the exclusion of other core institutional phenomena. 32. Of course, there were a series of other relevant papers in this stream as well (Lorrain & White, 1971; Arabie, Boorman, & Levitt, 1978; etc.). Also, the concept has been challenged and reinterpreted in various ways. Winship and Mandel (1983), Faust and Romney (1985), Faust and Wasserman (1992), and others have proposed alternative measures and concepts. In this paper we don’t pursue these matters. Instead we borrow the arguments and even the methods from these classic papers. So, we use CONCOR and a density matrix (implemented in UCINet, version 6.207). Theorizing the application of structural equivalence methods to analyze the semiotic qualities of texts (discourse role analysis) is spelled out in more detail in Mohr, (1994). 33. And, of course, dually speaking, the field of power is partially constituted by logics of power that are played out in various institutional fields. 34. More than this, the data matrix contains coherent statements that are already embedded within the totality of these simultaneously dual effects. Our analysis follows a strategy of simplification, we ask if there are order effects that operate in relatively autonomous fashion in each of the four sub-matrices.

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35. This is only partly true. Technologies were coded in a more traditional sense into a set of 212 possible classifications. These, however, were very precise. There was a category for ‘‘sings to,’’ a category for ‘‘gives flowers to,’’ a category for sanitariums, preventoriums, and so on. The text that was used for the identity categories was recorded verbatim (although a very few abbreviations were used). The parsing of text into presence/absence binary variables occurred after the fact through the use of SAS content analysis programs (Mohr, 1994; Mohr & Duquenne, 1997 describe this process more fully). 36. What is at stake here are conventions worked out over many years by various strands of content analysis. Initially, scholars sought to manage the task through brute computing force, counting the occurrence (and co-occurrences) of particular words. While this strategy has some utility, we know that frequency of use is at best a weak marker of semantic function. While there are an increasing number of sophisticated computational solutions tothis problem, many of which seem quite promising, in our chapter, we have relied upon a more traditional qualitative (expert judgment–based) coding procedure. 37. The larger project (of which this is a piece) is a study of the field for 20 years from the late 1880s up to the entry of the United States into the First World War (1888–1917). 38. Obviously, this last step reflects a particular approach to the data that is calculated to yield useful insights about larger sorts of social categories, but other combinations are certainly possible, and indeed, in our research, we regularly disaggregate and re-combine elements in various ways in an effort to strategically carve into the semantic field according to particular needs and interests. 39. At this resolution and dimensionality, not every dot can be seen. 40. More generally, our contention is that scientific practices of data measurement, analysis, and modeling can play much the same role in the hermeneutic sciences that they play in the physical and natural sciences. This means they can serve as tools to supplement our observational and analytic capacities, and as such, they can allow us to see and think about the world in ways that would not otherwise be humanly (e.g., materially) possible. 41. We have chosen CONCOR not because we believe that it is the only or even necessarily the best partitioning strategy but rather because CONCOR was the original approach used for achieving a data reduction that captures structural equivalence (White et al., 1976; Boorman & White, 1976), and, as such, there is a long tradition of empirical analysis as well as a rich and useful body of theory explaining the logic of structural equivalence and its relationship to a CONCOR analysis. 42. After CONCOR partitioned the identities into blocks, we went back to the original affiliation matrix, which gives (pairwise) counts of the number of rows (identity statements) that invoke both of the two identity categories together in the same power signature. We dichotomized this matrix and used the resulting square binary matrix as an input into the block procedure in UCINet, which produced a density matrix indicating the percentage of overlap that each block has with every other block. The average density of overlap between blocks was .351. We then dichotomized the density matrix, marking a 1 for each pair blocks of average or greater density and a 0 for all other pairs. The resulting binary matrix was used to draw the graphs represented in Figures 4–6.

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43. In CONCOR (as in most partitioning procedures), the choice for the number of levels to accept is not straightforward (CONCOR splits every group into two new groups, on every iteration). It is an analytic choice based on judgments reflecting various qualities. 44. Note that this was a time of great change for the organizational field. Large institutional transformations were underway as older more traditional organizational forms such as the City Workhouse on Blackwell’s Island and the Idiot Asylum on Randall’s Island were losing legitimacy and being re-tasked at the same time that a variety of newer, more scientific, and more rationalized organizational forms such as detention facilities for juvenile delinquents and Preventoriums for tubercular children were being invented, legitimized, and replicated across the institutional field. It was a period during which traditional volunteer workers (often elite women who came as the ‘‘friendly visitors’’ to the poor) were replaced by modern professionally trained social workers who came carrying clipboards filled with complex scientific taxonomies. 45. Two discourse roles are exceptions – (1) local residents and (2) the poor, low status, and ethnic identity categories. Both of these are tightly coupled to the more privileged sub-logics, suggesting that they occupy a more complex (multipallyarticulated) role identity. 46. Bourdieu ([1979] 1984) finds this (Y shaped) structure in his analyses of inequality in France. The same interpretation would apply here as well, vertically there is a distinction between those with a kind of worth or capital and those who lack it. Horizontally, there is a distinction between the forms of capital among those who are privileged. 47. Beyond this there is the simple fact that Foucault was an important intellectual figure on the social theoretical scene at about the time that the new institutionalists were developing their project and their sense of how to proceed. Many young (and old) institutionalists were reading and discussing Foucault even before they were thinking about myths, symbols, and institutional isomorphism. Thus, as we suggested at the start, there is the other matter that Foucault is already present in a genealogical sense at the very core of the modern neo-institutionalist project.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank Roger Friedland, Ron Breiger, Debra Guckenheimer, Danielle Hidalgo, Craig Rawlings, Josep Rodriguez, and two anonymous reviewers for useful comments on the chapter. We thank especially Renate Meyer and Marc Ventresca for their astute editing, insightful suggestions, and unflagging support.

REFERENCES Abell, P. (1987). The syntax of social life: The theory and method of comparative narratives. Oxford: Clarendon.

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APPENDIX A Table A1.

Identity Discourse Search Terms: Meta-Institutional Level (P – Power Matrix).

Variable Name P1 P2 P3 P4

MALES FEMALES INFANTS/ BABIES CHILDREN

P5

BOYS/GIRLS

P6

AGED/OLD

P7 P8 P9

WHITES BLACKS/ INDIAN ETHNIC

P10 P11 P12 P13

MARRIED UNMARRIED WIDOW/WIFE MOTHER

P14 DEPENDENT

Search Strings Gentlemen; Males; Men Females; Gentlewomen; Women Babes; Baby; Babies; Infant; Infants; Newborn; NewlyBorn; Nursing children Adolescents; Brought before (Coming before, Committed by, Discharged from, Remanded from) the Children’s Court; Child; Children; Inmates of Children’s Hospital; Juveniles; Little; Littlest; Minors; Strays; Waifs; Youths Boy; Boys; Lad, Lads; Newsboys; Girl; Girls; Working Girls; Adolescent; Adolescents; Youth; Youths; Old enough to learn; School age; Older school children; Juvenile; Juveniles Aged; Decrepit; Elderly; Failing mental powers; Feeble; Infirm; Invalid; Old; Pensioners; Retired; Semi-Invalid; Superannuated; Worn-out Caucasians; Whites Africans; Afro-American; Coloreds; Indians; Negroes; People of Color Alastians; Arabic; Arabic-Speaking; Arabs; Armenians; Austrians; Belgians; Bohemian; Canadians; Chinamen; Chinese; Cuban; Czech; Danish; DanishAmerican; Spaniards; Spanish; Spanish-Speaking; Spanish-American; Swedes; Swedish; Swiss; Syrians; Welsh Married Unmarried Wife; Wives; Widow; Widows, Widowed About to (be confined) become mothers; After (before) the birth of their babies; During confinement; From the maternity hospitals; In (childbed) labor; Lying-in; Maternity; Mothers; Obstetrical; Pregnant; Puerperium; With (a baby, children) their infants Dependent; Dependents

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Table A1. Variable Name P17 HISTATUS

(Continued ) Search Strings

Accustomed to the comforts of life; Not of the ordinary lodger class; Higher social and moral level; From the middle classes; of the better class; Not of the ordinary class; a higher social level; of the better class; businessmen; businesswomen; middle class, socially acceptable, Higher class; Gentlemen; Gentlewomen; Gentle manner; Educated; Learned, Literary; Property-owning; Rich, Refined; Refinement P18 LOSTATUS From the lowest classes; of Lower class; Degraded classes; Lowest classes; Laboring classes; Laboring class; Neglected classes; Working class; Working classes; Masses; Poor; Outdoor Poor; Poorest; Do not earn more than; Income does not exceed; Salaries do not exceed; Wages do not exceed; Earning not more than; Earning low wages; Earning small wages; Limited income; Limited means; Small salaries; Moderate Salaries; Small salaries; Low wages; Small salaried P20 WORKING Are at work; Are employed; Are obliged to work; Are the breadwinners; At work away from home; At work; Dependent on (their own resources, their earnings) their own exertions for a livelihood; Earning (a livelihood, low wages, not more); Employed; Employees; Employers; Engaged in trained employments; Factory workers; Go out to work; In the employ of; Industrious; Obliged to earn their own living; Of necessity the breadwinners; Self-support; Self-supporting; Unskilled; Wage earners; Wage earning; Who obtain a livelihood; Who work; Work at service; Workers; Working away; Working-out mothers; Working; Workingmen; Workingwomen P21 UNEMPLOYED Awaiting permanent employment; Declining employment; Desiring (seeking) employment; Looking for (employment) suitable situations; Not lawfully employed; Unemployed; Unable to obtain employment; Without employment

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Table A1.

253

(Continued )

Variable Name

Search Strings

P22 OCCUP

Accountants; Actors; Artistic workers; Artists; Bookkeepers; Bootblacks; Builders; Clerical (Civic) workers; Clerks; Dentists; Domestic helpers; Domestics; Dressmakers; Engineers; Evangelists; Factory workers; Firemen; Fishermen; Governesses; House servants; In household service; Laborers; Laundresses; Letter carriers; Living at service; Maids; Mechanics; Midwives; Ministers; Missionaries; Musicians; Newsboys; Nurses; Occupations; Of Clergymen; Of the Life-Saving Service; Of the (circus, dramatic, theatrical, variety) various professions; Office cleaners; Operators; Pharmacists; Philanthropic workers; Physicians; Pilots; Policemen; Professionals; Professors; Rescue workers; Salesmen; Saleswomen; Seamstresses; Servants; Silversmiths; Singers; Social workers; Stage dancers; Stenographers; Teachers; Telegraphers; Trades workers; Tradesmen; Trainmen Army; At Army posts; At Naval stations; Campaigns with hostile Indians; Corps; Ex-sailors; Ex-soldiers; Have served the United States; Honorably discharged; Line of duty; Marines; Navy; Officers; Parents of ex-soldiers (ex-sailors); Patriots now fighting for the independence; Served in the Army; Served in the Navy; Served during any war; Soldiers; Sailors; Veterans; Veteran soldiers; Veteran sailors Baptists; Catholics; Christians; Co-Religionists; Creed; Episcopalians; Jewish; Hebrew; Lutherans; Methodists; Mormons; Of (Christian Societies, Sister Churches) the Reformed Church; Presbyterians; Protestants; Reformed Dutch; Universalists Aliens; Emigrants; Foreigners; Foreign born; Immigrants; Immigration; New comers; Resided in this country less than 1 year Communicants; Connected with the Parish; Dependent on (next of kin of) member; From (in) the Parish; Masons; Members; Odd-Fellows; Of a (City Church) Parish Church; Parishioners; Rebekahs

P23 US MILITARY

P34 RELIGIOUS

P35 IMMIGRANT

P36 MEMBER

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Table A1. Variable Name

(Continued ) Search Strings

P37 NOT RESIDENT From counties adjacent to NY City; From out of NY City; Have no established residency; Not a resident of NY (city, county) state; Not affiliated with any NY City lodge; Who have no home in the city; Who have no settlement P38 RESDT LOCAL Below Grand Street; Borough; Community; District; From the (East Side, judicial district, lower part of NY City, neighboring tenement houses) West Side; In nearby homes; In the (locality, The Five Points, Specified area, Specified neighborhood, Specified ward) vicinity; Living (near) within the district; Neighborhoods; Neighboring; Of greater NY; Of the (city, district, Little Italy, specified wards, vicinity) West side; Residents of (the Boroughs, Bronx County, Brooklyn, Manhattan, NY, Queens); Staten Island; That section of the city; Up-town; Upper NY City; Vicinities P39 RESDT STAT From the (NY State) West; In the (Pacific) South; Of NY State; Related to NY state resident; Resided for 1 year previous year in the state; Resided in the state of NY; Resident of the (region of the country) NY state

Table B1 P  S Frequency Counts

APPENDIX B

WORK, CONTROL AND COMPUTATION: RETHINKING THE LEGACY OF NEO-INSTITUTIONALISM Jannis Kallinikos and Hans Hasselbladh ABSTRACT This chapter claims technology to be a principal mode of regulation in formal organizations alongside social structure and culture. Such a claim breaks with the conventional neo-institutional outlook that considers technology outside the object of institutional analysis of organizations. The distinctive regulative logic of computational technology is manifested in the increasing entanglement of domain-specific practices and their underlying cognitive and normative order with the decontextualized principles and methods that have traditionally been deployed in the management and control of work operations. Such entanglement and the effects it generates reflect the reshuffling of the regulative reach of technology, social structure and culture under the pressures exercised by the dynamics of current technological change and the impressive involvement of computational systems and artefacts in human affairs.

Institutions and Ideology Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 27, 257–282 Copyright r 2009 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X(2009)0000027010

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INTRODUCTION This chapter deals with the implications of the deepening involvement of computational information in work and the forms through which work is exercised and controlled. While significantly instrumentalized, work in modernity has always been embedded in strong normative and cognitive or cultural backgrounds that conferred it wider significance and meaning. Even though professions best exemplify the case (Freidson, 2001), these relationships apply to an impressive range of jobs and occupations in modern times. We refer to this complex assemblage of cognitive techniques, values, norms and orientations as regimes of work. The distinctive and domain-specific nature of the varying regimes of work has over the course of modernity been challenged by the development and organizational involvement of an armoury of managerial methods that we refer to as regimes of control, ranging from financial and accounting techniques to structural designs and management models (Fligstein, 1990, 2001). Regimes of control have been substantially more abstract and context-free than the work-specific practices underlying the regimes of work. The longstanding relationship and mutual implication of work and control regimes are currently reconfigured. Computational information reshapes both the nature of domain-specific tasks it regulates and the forms through which calculative techniques and modes of control and coordination are exercised. Technology has often been seen at a remove from social processes through which the institutional nature of work arrangements is negotiated and put into place. We would like to suspend this assumption and explore how the deepening involvement of computational information reframes the historical balance between work and control regimes. In doing so, we place technology alongside social structure and culture as the primary regulative modes in formal organizations. Social structure (e.g. formal role systems, routines, hierarchy) and culture (i.e. rationalized action schemes deriving from the prevailing cultural models of thinking and doing) have been the main objects of neo-institutional studies. Therefore, in considering technology a key modality for organizing social relations, we break with a longstanding tradition. We hope to be able to demonstrate the usefulness of such a venture in the rest of this chapter. In the next section we briefly position ourselves vis-a`-vis the varying neoinstitutional currents within organization studies. We raise several issues, a key one being the considerable neglect of an analytics of technology and the ways it is implicated in organizational and institutional processes. We then move on to show how technology represents alongside social structure and

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culture a principal mode of regulation in organizations. These ideas are further substantiated and specified by reference to work regimes and control regimes. Regimes of work pertain to the sphere of the workplace, even though they rely on shared and often formalized knowledge, practices and norms transcending the individual workplace. Regimes of control are systematic attempts to act upon regimes of work, to shape, classify and direct the criteria of relevance in work regimes. This is followed by a detailed description of the technological paradigm of computation and the ways it reshapes the nature of work tasks and the methods by which these are exercised. In the final section of the chapter, we bring together the conceptual threads we have developed, considering how computation impinges upon work and control regimes and delineating how our claims differ from neo-institutionalist ways of understanding work and organizations.

TECHNOLOGY AND THE NEO-INSTITUTIONAL LEGACY Early contributions to the neo-institutional research in organization studies considered technology as an autochthonous phenomenon not amenable to institutional analysis (Meyer & Rowan, 1977/1991; Meyer & Scott, 1983). Technology was seen as central component of the organizational ‘core’, which social and institutional factors impinged on, modified or disturbed. Thus understood, technology was construed as virtually outside the processes and structures that were affected by institutional forces. That position was most clearly stated in the model developed by Meyer and Scott (1983), in which technology was conceptualized as the second major force affecting organizations, apart from institutional forces. The institutional environment, ‘an evolving set of rationalized patterns, models and cultural schemes’ (Meyer & Rowan, 1977/1991), was pictured as the site of rationalization. Organizational structures and modes of conduct were conceptualized as under constant pressures to put up a legitimizing display of structural and normative conformance. In this respect, the rationalizing process was seen as being at odds with technology. Despite a number of seminal contributions in which work processes, structures and, crucially, control mechanisms were shown to be closely linked to technological processes (cf. Perrow, 1967), neo-institutional analysis remained alien to the idea that technological artefacts may embody values, normative orientations and promote distinctive modes of conduct.

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The early contributions were followed by DiMaggio and Powell’s (1983/ 1991) immensely influential formulation of a neo-institutional framework that has ever since inspired numerous empirical studies. Their contribution was to conceptualize institutional processes in ways that overcame many analytic problems underlying the somewhat sketchy description of the institutionalized environment portrayed by Meyer and Rowan. They defined a new level of analysis – organizational fields – and three mechanisms creating structural isomorphism (coercive, normative and mimetic). From then on, and still up to this day, a considerable amount of research within neo-institutionalism in organization studies has been occupied with the empirical investigation of one or another aspect of structural isomorphism. This approach had the undeniable premium to fit the dominant North American methodology in social science – large-scale studies of populations (organizations in this case) in which the emergence and diffusion of similar organizational forms or structural devices of formal organizing were analyzed by statistical methods. The central conclusions in these studies relate to the importance of interorganizational relationships of stratification, that is, relationships where some organizations are leaders and other followers, the role of certain actors, especially the state and professions, as agents of change and carriers of structural devices of organizing. The processes studied were understood as being predominantly of social or cultural character. They seldom touched upon technology or anything materialized beyond the written word (rules, formal positions). The black box of legitimacy, often deployed in a tautological way (broad diffusion was often equalled to ‘legitimacy at work’), played a central explanatory role, as the major prerequisite for organizational survival and success. As we have noted earlier (Hasselbladh & Kallinikos, 2000), there is a striking resemblance between the neo-institutional studies of structural isomorphism and diffusion research in general. A theoretically subtler and methodologically more variegated brand of neo-institutional studies, mostly inspired by Friedland and Alford (1991), has challenged the primacy of studies of structural isomorphism among sets of organizations. Contrary to the previous emphasis on institutionalization as a unidirectional and one-dimensional process, a broad range of studies have set out to define and study institutional logics (Thornton, 2004). Friedland and Alford mentioned the capitalist market, the bureaucratic state, the family (as institution), democracy and organized religion as the central institutions of modern societies and as sources of distinctive institutional logics. Thornton and Ocasio (1999, p. 804) define institutional logics as ‘the socially constructed, historical patterns of material practices,

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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’. Common to this direction in neoinstitutionalism is the emphasis on analyzing institutions as partially independent from each other but also, and perhaps increasingly, crossing each other’s domains and layered upon one another to produce ambiguity, social conflict and new social practices. While this has been a crucial reinvigoration of neo-institutionalism, very similar ideas can be found across contemporary social sciences. The view of modern society as constituted by different, sometimes conflicting logics has become an increasingly common point of departure (cf. Castoriadis, 1987; Giddens, 1990; Fairclough, 1992; Luhmann, 1982, 1995). In this brand of neo-institutionalism, technology is seen as embedded in particular institutional logics, for instance, subsumed under a prevailing institutional logic of an industry (Thornton, 2004). In that sense, institutional logics do not break with the neo-institutional legacy. The wholesale concept of the institutional environment is broken down to empirically identifiable institutional logics, related to distinct material and symbolic practices, while institutional fields are rather seen as a particular level of analysis, suited to investigate the unfolding and intermingling of institutional logics (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008). Conceptualized in this way, institutionalization processes become more open-ended phenomena and possible to analyze with considerably larger variation of research methodologies than in the previous semi-diffusionist studies of structural isomorphism. The turn towards institutional logics might be seen as neoinstitutionalism distancing itself from the yoke of contingency theory and functionalism underlying many studies of structural isomorphism, thus moving closer to contemporary social theories. The more nuanced and empirically variegated research programme on institutional logics has however backtracked with respect to some of the defining characteristics of neo-institutional research. In some studies inspired by the notion of institutional logics, agency seems to have assumed a self-evident natural quality being regarded as inherent in individual and collective actors, although susceptible to the influence of various situational factors (cf. Scott, Ruef, Mendel, & Caronna, 2000). It is worth in this respect reminding of Friedland and Alford’s (1991, p. 260) poignant warning: ‘Without understanding the historical and institutional specificity of the primary objects of analysis, social scientists run the risk of elaborating the rationality of the institutions they study, and as a result become actors in their reproduction’.1

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Neither the semi-diffusionist studies of structural isomorphism nor the more recent analysis of institutional logics recognize technology as a distinctive regulative mode. Until recently, neo-institutional studies regarded technology either as a ‘dependent variable’, affected by external institutional forces, or as a domain of practice not susceptible to analysis by means of neo-institutional concepts. The more recent shift to institutional logics affords a place for technology as an element of the particular ensemble of values, practices, norms and so on that make up an institutional logic. The approach of institutional logics has several strengths in guiding the analysis of organizational fields. It represents a multifaceted way to map broad similarities across organizations. But it is also capable of identifying and accounting for significant differences between them. For instance, the notion of institutional logics could serve to analyze the effects of technological change in an organizational field but seems less suited to disentangle why these effects occur in competencies, identities or norms or to penetrate into aspects of technological change, beyond everyday understandings as reported by the involved actors. The course taken in this chapter represents an attempt to address certain issues related to the institutional effects of modern information technology, rather than a voice from within earlier or later brands of neoinstitutionalism. The line of analysis we develop seeks to rediscover the route once opened by Lewis Mumford (1934) in his classic Technics and Civilization in which he traces the take off of industrialism and modernity to a variety of cultural predispositions and techniques, ranging from the discovery of central perspective and timekeeping to the diffusion of literacy and numeracy. Our contention to explore, or rather delineate the conditions for exploring institutional effects of computational technology, might be seen as a follow-up to the critique we have earlier voiced against the still dominant tendency within neo-institutionalism to prioritize the less tangible aspects of the social order (Hasselbladh & Kallinikos, 2000).

REGULATIVE MODES IN FORMAL ORGANIZATIONS The distinctive ways by which technology is involved in the making of organizational relations emerges against the juxtaposition of technological regulation with the ordering of social relations achieved through social structure and culture. These last have been the key objects of neo-

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institutional studies, that have focused in investigating formal role systems (i.e. bureaucracy/hierarchy) and rationalized action schemes predominantly deriving from the prevailing cultural models of thinking and doing. Little wonder, there is a close and historically substantiated relationship between technology, social structure and culture, whereby the one implicates or is driven by the others (Mumford, 1934, 1952; Winner, 1986). Also, the development and deployment of technologies necessitate access to rules and operational regimes and a host of other regulations. However, these should be distinguished from the very task and procedures embodied on (and thus regulated by) the technological system itself. Technological regulation works through a combination of strategies and principles deploying material objectification, functional simplification, closure and automation.2 Computation is a contemporary and crucial empirical manifestation of these principles, as we will show in more detail later in this chapter. Material objectification takes predominantly the form of elaborate technical codification (such as software code and relations between data tokens) that presupposes the extensive procedural simplification of the tasks and operations, which technology is called to bear upon. Software technology is fairly complex in technical terms but relies on the significant streamlining and simplification (occasionally referred to as reengineering) of the tasks and operations that constitute its target domain. In this respect, functional or procedural simplification must be understood as an instance of a selection, accomplished out of much a broader set of possibilities. Functional simplification constitutes indeed the core of technological mode of regulation (Luhmann, 1993, Ch. 5). It represents the key instrument and the rationale for decoupling the object of technological regulation from immediate human intervention (closure and black boxing) and the social relations that develop around work tasks, reduce the possible sequences of cause and effects (or ends and means) and automate their execution (Kallinikos, 2006). In what ways does technological regulation differ from regulation accomplished by means of social structure and culture? To begin with, all forms of social structure also presuppose ordering through a variety of strategies that bear strong resemblance to functional simplification and closure. Social structures represent a reduction of complexity through definition and specification of duties, standardization of their execution and stratification of their monitoring and evaluation. Routines and standard operating procedures are in many respects defining characteristics of organizations (March & Simon, 1958/1993; Nelson & Winter, 1982; Scott, 2001). However, these similarities notwithstanding, formal role systems and

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its accompanying job descriptions and rule stipulations can never be sealed off from their surrounding institutional and social complexity, at least not in the same way as technological systems. Nor can their execution be entrusted, other than in a trivial fashion, to material and technical means, as is the case with automation. Automation, it should be pointed out, is crucial to technological regulation. By black boxing and automating work processes, functional simplification is achieved. In this respect, bureaucracy and information technology could be seen as functional alternatives, as Beniger’s (1986) study of the economic origins of information technology suggests. Comprehensive material objectification and automation are thus essential to technology. The steps by which technological operations unfold in selffiring, chained sequences distinguish technological regulation from the management of complexity by means of formal role systems. But self-firing or automation is but a consequence of the distinctive forms through which technological objectification works. Formal roles systems are generally mapped onto the task segmentation and standardization upon which they bear (Mintzberg, 1979; Sinha & Van de Ven, 2005), but the two systems remain separate. By contrast, technological objectification is both exclusive and expansive. It tends to translate or replace altogether formal role systems with technological sequences. This may and often does imply the regulation of technology through higher order technologies, in a cascade or even hierarchy of technological systems (Luhmann, 1993). The distinction of technology from norms, rules, conventions and other culturally embedded action scripts may seem easier to make and more straightforward than that between social structure and technology. In a sense, technology and culture seem to be at a remove from one another. Cultural schemes, norms and rules may well rely on simplification, standardization and often substantial ritualization of behaviour, but these means of regulating social relations differ substantially from functional simplification, closure and automation. Perhaps, a key difference between the cultural and technological modes of regulation pivots around the emphasis put upon material objectification as a key strategy of control and coordination. No matter which values and predispositions particular technologies may express and which rules they make necessary, they cannot exist as technologies unless the functions they embody get externalized, materialized and carried out by elaborate and interrelated systems of devices and materially supported processes, including lines of code, as in software technology. Culture, on the contrary, makes extensive use of material artefacts but predominantly as means of expressing cultural predispositions rather than as means of instrumenting cause-effect or procedural sequences. By

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contrast, technology has an unmistakable outcome orientation (Castoriadis, 1987). It may be used in symbolic ways (gaining legitimacy, signalling modernity) but only by virtue of its pronounced instrumental orientation and the connotations tied to such an orientation. In this respect, the major difference between technology and culture as regulative modes lies in the varying and, to some degree, reverse emphasis given to the objectification versus subjectification processes (Table 1). Culture constructs subjects in an immediate way. Technology may accomplish such a task only indirectly by means of constructing an object universe that turns upon subjects, aspiring to direct and channel their behaviour by engraving the paths along which subjects enact their agency (Kallinikos, 2004b). These relationships are schematically summarized in Table 1. The differences between these three primary modes of regulation identified here are of course subtle and shifting. Most crucially, they often presuppose one another and each one may provide support for the others, as historical examples of regimes of work and control testify. For instance, skill profiles and patterns of use associated with particular technologies are to some degree modes of interiorizing (through learning) established patterns of action (culture). Technology is also strongly linked to a significant set of criteria (expertise) for designing formal role systems, which are key governance mechanisms for social structure. We conclude that an important aspect of what constitutes work and formal organizations in modernity has not explicitly been made to an object of inquiry and analysis in the neo-institutional research. The sparse interest in the institutional effects of technology becomes evidently a strong limitation against the background of the boundary-spanning nature of modern technology and its multivalent involvement in formal organizations. To study particular social settings, however, we need to find conceptual Table 1.

Strategies Modalities

Agency forms

Principal Modes of Regulation in Organizations. Technology

Social Structure

Functional simplification, closure Technological instrumentation, automation Skill profiles

Stratification, functional simplification Routines, standard operating procedures

World framing

Formal role systems

Models of action, modes of conduct

Objectification

versus Subjectification

Culture

Norms, perceptions, expectations

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paths that allow us to dissect how these three primary modes of regulation are configured under the influence of historical forces and subjected to different forms of social authority. In the following section, we turn to the aforementioned distinction between regimes of work and regimes of control, which we see as representing different forms (institutions) of ordering social relations in organizations. We foresee that current technological developments bring considerable changes to the relative independence, which these two spheres have maintained from one another in the course of modernity. To be able to account for such a comprehensive change, it is necessary first to spell out the distinctive nature of work and control regimes and identify the forces that account for both their relative independence and current interpenetration.

REGIMES OF WORK VERSUS REGIMES OF CONTROL Industrialism and modernity have been closely associated with the institutionalization of work to a distinct social domain, substantially separate from family, public and community life. In a long historical process, that acquired particular momentum in the first half of the 20th century, work has increasingly been made to an object of systematic and rationalized evaluation, redesign and effectivization (Tilly & Tilly, 1998). After nearly two centuries of profound transformation of work, one can safely conclude that there are no ‘natural’ forms of work to be found anymore nor any skills or competencies acquired by means of haphazard and contingent involvement with the exigencies of life. The overwhelming majority of occupations, positions and skill profiles in modern societies are the historical outcomes of a long process of occupational, industrial and administrative rationalization. Shaped by these developments, work in its various forms has come to be embedded in a more or less explicit instrumental and normative regime, that is, a constellation of knowledge, skill profiles, norms and expectations, professional roles, social relations and artefacts that together make work and its outcomes standardized and fairly recognizable across contexts (Dean, 1999, pp. 21, 211). What is thinkable, valued and recognized as legitimate professional practice is both circumscribed by and realized through a complex, heterogeneous assemblage of material conditions (sometimes manifested in pervasive organizationally embedded technologies

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like that of the steel mill or the assembly line) but also through a variety of social and institutional mechanisms. Professional identities (e.g. plumbers, military officers, medical or legal experts, computer engineers), forms of knowledge and competencies (educating small children, mending a car, constructing a building) are derivatives of intentionally designed structures and task processes in work life. In modern work life, people become what they are and do what they do as a result of being technically trained, socialized and continuously behaviourally adjusted to particular regimes of work. Goals, action schemes and particular orientations are solidified in work by a broad spectrum of means in a way that is simultaneously very pervasive and difficult to reduce to manifest expressions of intentionality (Perrow, 1986; Kallinikos, 2006). The assemblage of technologies, administrative routines and standard operating procedures, which defines each instrumental domain, is often entangled with a complex normative and behavioural background from which it is hardly separable. In that sense, regimes of work acquire the qualities that Foucault (1980, p. 95) attributed to power relations as ‘intentional and non-subjective’. While Foucault’s analysis primarily concerns political regimes, it is equally applicable to analyzing working life. A vast range of practices that might have been originally motivated by a calculative quest are crystallized and layered upon each other in ways that make it difficult to attribute to straightforward instrumental concerns (Rose, 1999). A regime of work does not simply express the ideas and goals of a collective at a certain point in time, less so of a particular individual (Gordon, 1991; Kallinikos, 2006, p. 80). It is intentional in the sense of manifesting a distinctive logic of persistent orientation towards certain modes of action associated with the pursuit of particular objectives. The horizontal (cross-site, cross-organizational, cross-national) extension of work regimes is a central feature of modern societies. Regimes of work are not tied to single organizations or sites; they rather pertain to a societal domain – such as education, justice, medical practice, banking, forest industry or professional football (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Luhmann, 1982; Thornton, 2004). Many of the technological solutions, forms of knowledge, skill profiles and administrative methods that make up what we refer to as regimes of work are used, mimicked and cross-fertilized across organizational boundaries. In fact, many of these features are part of a general, nowadays almost global repertoire of organizing (Meyer, Boli, & Thomas, 1987; Guille´n, 1994). Local workplaces are sometimes labelled as ‘organizations’ (schools, hospitals, etc.) but are, at least in a historical sense,

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local branches of a national system (often similar to other national systems) defined by a common work regime. Work regimes emerge and get enmeshed in daily work, becoming over time, trans-local schemes for constituting and organizing work in particular domains. At this point, we would like to introduce a distinction between regimes of work and regimes of control.3 The instrumentalization of work that results from the emergence and institutionalization of regimes of work is firmly rooted into the distinctive nature of work within which it occurs. Regimes of work are tied to the differentiation of modern societies into functional blocks and the further divisions that usually occur within these blocks, for example, primary, secondary or higher education, primary or specialized health care and production of industrial goods of various kinds (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Luhmann, 1982, 1995; Thornton, 2004). The processes that have given rise to the instrumentalization of work in different contexts of modern societies have certainly been trans-organizational and marked by shifts and turns. But they have always retained strong elements of specificity, derived from the particular character of tasks addressed within each one of them. Alongside the instrumentalization of work that results from the institutionalization of work regimes, we find one of the major topics in research on organizations that we associate with control regimes. Since the late 19th and early 20th century, work has increasingly become an object of distant framing, evaluation and control. Beginning as mundane efforts to record and monitor businesses or other commercial operations to make them calculable (Hopwood, 1987; Miller & O’Leary, 1987), these efforts soon developed into a new form of hierarchically mediated power relations. The historical development of the major structural patterns, methods and procedures of hierarchical control in formal organizations such as the ‘M-form’, decentralized budgeting, tayloristic work processes and particular office forms have been a major area of research in previous scholarship in business history (Chandler, 1977), industrial sociology (Bendix, 1956) and, in later days, the new institutionalism in organizations studies (cf. Baron, Dobbin, & Jennings, 1985; Fligstein, 1990; Mezias, 1995). These different structural solutions were not free-floating ‘tools’, evaluated according to their user value. Control techniques, for instance, management control by means of applying the return on investment (ROI) measure, are linked to ideals of organizing that carry a far higher degree of generality, abstraction and decontextualization. Thus emptied of its context or sector-associated particularities, work is constituted as an object amenable to intervention (Hasselbladh & Kallinikos, 2000). The most profound empirical analysis in

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that regard is to be found in Fligstein’s (1990) work on the historical evolution of ideals of control in American industry. Regimes of control could be seen as formal templates for structuring and monitoring the collective contributions of people in organizations, irrespectively of the nature and particular character of that contribution. Regimes of control are designed to bear on work regimes irrespectively of the specific nature of work within the various regimes of work. In this respect, regimes of control are closely tied to the diffusion of formal organizations in modern times. They are to a much higher degree than work regimes linked to goals and priorities of particular social groups, such as owners, principals and managers, though they are far from simple tools in the hands of these groups (Deetz, 1992). Recast in this terminology, research on organizations has been preoccupied with analyzing the extent to which regimes of control actually intervene upon and reshape regimes of work, often entertaining anachronistic and romantic views of work as something real, authentic and good. Industrial sociology has explored the impact of various structuring, formalizing and calculating measures on regimes of work that are traditionally associated with low-skill tayloristic or quasitayloristic work (cf. Braverman, 1974; Zuboff, 1988; Orlikowski, Walsham, Jones, & DeGross, 1996). Across a considerable number of industries and sectors, regimes of work and regimes of control have in many ways had a rather contingent relation. Regimes of control also transcend individual organizations, both in terms of the structural components they are made of and in terms of the organizing ideals they are predicated on. Not infrequently, regimes of control have failed to penetrate in any substantive fashion the prevailing regimes of work. Weick’s (1976) notion of ‘loosely coupled systems’ is indicative of this phenomenon, as is Meyer and Rowan’s (1977/1991) notion of the Janusfaced character of formal organizations. Even though regimes of work and regimes of control have co-evolved and often been interlinked in a variety of ways, they have also retained considerable independence from one another in many work settings and domains. Thus, regimes of work, we suggest, should be distinguished from regimes of control in the various forms the latter have assumed in formal organizations in modernity. In some respects, the contradistinction between regimes of work and regimes of control coincides with the historical tension between a logic of action associated with particular occupations or professions and the abstract and decontextualized logic of action brought about by the diffusion of formal organizations and their ascent to a key institution for organizing human effort in modernity (Luhmann, 1994). The neo-

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institutional school has so far paid little attention to work as a regime independent from control. Most of the times, work has been assumed to be ‘sealed off’ from the influence exercised by institutional forces that often take the form of control regimes, diffusing across industries, societal sectors and nations (Fligstein, 1990).

THE TECHNOLOGICAL PARADIGM OF COMPUTATION The relationship between work and control regimes described above is currently reconfigured by the deepening involvement of computational information across work domains and organizations. In this section, we describe some key features of computation as technological paradigm and its implications for the forms through which work is exercised and controlled. To begin with, software packages are elaborate systems of data tokens whose permutations (combinations) are governed by logical operations of the more general and context-free nature (Hayles, 2005; Kallinikos, 2004a; Zuboff, 1988). In this respect, software packages are key vehicles of rationalization that re-enhance the orientation and mode of regulation intrinsic to regimes of control. However, particular software-based applications embody specific functionalities, dictated by the nature of tasks whose execution or monitoring they are brought to assist. Electronic patient records, for instance, must combine the computational logic of automation with the specific character of patient records as these have been shaped by medical practice. Traditionally, computational technologies have been considered as means to further administrative rationalization, reengineering, streamlining or optimization of work processes (Castells, 1996; Yates & Van Maannen, 2001; Lilley, Lightfoot, & Amaral, 2004). The common understanding has been that the computational mediation of work tasks, modules and organizational operations by and large continues the tradition of industrial techniques, and the ways these have been implicated in the making of work and organizational practices. Structural changes in organizations like shorter spans of control and flatter hierarchies, disaggregating of operations and outsourcing have been understood as the outcome of the thorough remaking of the infrastructural base of organizations brought about by computational technologies (Castells, 1996, 2000, 2001).

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Computational technologies have also been associated with the intensification of computer-mediated interaction across settings and organizational boundaries. Distributed work and networking have thus been attributed to the linking modalities of the new technologies of information and communication (DeSanctis & Monge, 1999; Fulk & DeSanctis, 1995). Granted that interaction and communication patterns are the ‘raw material’ of organizing (Knorr-Cetina & Bruegger, 2002; Weick, 1979), it is not surprising that distributed work and networking have been portrayed as an important agent of a change, away from hierarchical control and as a comprehensive platform upon which new forms of exercising work develop (Barley & Kunda, 2004). Since the diffusion of open source models of organizing, computational technologies have also been understood as an essential tool for supporting collaborative methods of work and new forms of sociality often referred to as social networks (Benkler, 2006).4 Their importance notwithstanding, none of these ways of understanding the organizational implications of computation is well suited to deal with the novel ways by which computation parses and reassembles reality and, through this, reconstitutes work processes and the building blocks of organizing. Studies on the work and organizational implications of information technologies have been confined to the documentation of their effects but seldom have they analyzed how these effects are associated with the distinctive constitution of computational technology. Rather than being simply a tool in the service of the broad objectives of reengineering and effectivization, computation represents a technological paradigm that introduces a set of historically innovative modes of perceiving and acting upon reality (Borgmann, 1999; Kallinikos, 2006). Let us explain. The interaction of humans with computational artefacts often assumes the forms of acting upon recognizable perceptual and cultural unities that reach humans at the level of the machine interface, that is, the computer screen. These may be administrative tasks or pieces of such tasks, standard operating procedures, services, email addresses, photos and images, depictions or descriptions of objects, personal information, object information and the likes. However, these objects are not natural or given but rather constructed and assembled by computational technology. A procedure enacted through human rule following and interpretation is never identical to the same procedure transposed electronically and assembled by computational means (Dreyfus, 2001; Lanzara & Patriota, 2001). The culturally and perceptually recognized character of computational objects conceals the elaborate mechanics by which the computational technology reassembles reality from scratch. What reach the interface with

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humans are not simply versions of reality that are mediated en bloc, units of an already perceived world transferred to the virtual realm. The computational rendition of reality is accomplished by means of a relentless decomposition of perceptual and cultural unities and their reconstitution through elaborate panoply of automated procedures by means of which digital tokens or figures are assembled to meaningful (culturally and perceptually recognized) unities. What is on the screen engages constantly a series of underlying computer applications and systems through which it is sustained and manipulated. Computational objects are vertically stratified. The assembly of reality from scratch thus distinguishes computation from other modes and techniques for representing and constructing reality. This is the outcome of the fact that computation is (1) a cognitive technology of binary parsing that is marked by (2) a comprehensive degree of automation of cognitive operations unfathomable in the pre-computational age. Cognitive operations are often grounded on the decomposition of a particular phenomenon and the definition of the pieces or steps that are brought together to constitute that phenomenon. Abstract decomposition and procedural (stepwise) reasoning are therefore essential to many cognitive operations. Computation is, however, not simply a cognitive technology but a technology of elaborate binary parsing that, since Leibniz, is understood as a language for representing and constructing reality. This may seem mystic or long-stretched to non-initiates but makes up an essential quality of computation. Most culturally and perceptual recognized units can be traced back to a number (usually very large) of binary alternations. The comprehensive automation of computation provides the means for descending from the level of the interface down through higher level languages and machine language to elementary binary parsing. It is this way artificial (computational) objects are constructed and manipulated. In this respect, computation marks a distinctive step on the human forms of involvement with the world that has far-reaching implications for the established regimes of work and control with which we are concerned here. Computation carries the dream of reductionism intrinsic to managerial technologies and techniques straight into the daily procedures of work. The more profound implications of the analytic-reductionist constitution of computation emerge clearer against the background of the inherited forms of involvement with the world. Despite the broad range of technologies, methods and abstractions we earlier associated with the diffusion of work and control regimes, human involvement with the world has been accessed and mediated by perception and context-embedded forms of interaction (Cassirer, 1955). Indeed, the history of work could be

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understood as the longstanding effort to master the recalcitrant materiality or tangibility of the world. Its heavy cultural embeddedness notwithstanding, work has always been immersed into the materiality of life. Modern work regimes are undeniably instrumental in their orientation, even when they are concerned with accomplishing distinctive outcomes that are difficult to formalize, for example, curing illnesses, teaching children and designing a car. Such an instrumental orientation has nevertheless implied a tangible world involvement of one or another kind. Most work tasks and operations in the modern age have been exercised in environments in which face-to-face communication, immediate perception and bodily involvement have been central components (Arendt, 1958; Zuboff, 1988). The elaborate segmentation of the world brought about by the deepening division of labour in the recent history of industrial capitalism undoubtedly signified important changes that increasingly moved human involvement away from immediate confrontation with the world. An expanding array of operations has in this process been delegated to technology and automated machine systems, with humans increasingly assuming the role of distant and often mediated monitoring (Sotto, 1991). And yet, for all its abstractions and heavy technological reliance, industrial capitalism seldom moved as drastically away from the physical constitution of reality (Flusser, 1999, 2000, 2003) as computation is currently doing. One of the key forms through which computation impinges upon the reality of work is thus associated with the fact that computational procedures break with the primacy of perception (Kallinikos, 1995), as a key mechanism of relating to the world (things and social relations). The logical and deeply analytic/reductionist character of computational technologies drives perception away from natural or man-made objects and embedded interaction. The work objects computation constructs (computerized tasks, services, processes) are only superficially controlled by the user. A significant part of the job is accomplished by a whole range of automated (black boxed) operations activated by the user’s interaction with the interface. In this respect, computational objects or artefacts are constructed and sustained by recourse to automated cognitive operations (computations) that elude the human embeddedness in the world. To a certain degree, computation can be seen as simply a further step in the development of the methods of information processing cast in traditional media. A recollection, in particular, of the diffusion of numeracy in modernity suggests that numbers and numerical systems have been critically involved in the establishment of a reality different from that of immediate experience. Despite their apparent comprehensibility and semantic simplicity, numbers

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and numerical relationships are abstract cognitive entities that describe highly selective aspects of the world, standardizing and homogenizing it (Cline-Cohen, 1982; Rose, 1991). Therefore, the use of numerical systems in organizations has produced a reality brought forth by the constitutive power of numeracy and its particular applications, that is, a reality of frequencies, ratios, indexes and other abstract relationships far removed from the referential world. However, the connection between different information items or sources in traditional media and environments was the product of skilful human accomplishment (Dreyfus, 2001). The perception and culture-based recognition of the elements of reality were brought forth by routine or creative human intervention. The logic behind for instance calculating profit in terms of ROI has been accomplished by agents, enacting ideas about control, relevance and behaviour. Computational automation reframes the relationship between the expert and the object of expertise, as it seeks to reconstruct those aspects of human expertise that are automated. Such a reconstruction is by necessity accomplished by a long analytical journey through which expert skills and their object are dissolved and recaptured by computational artefacts. In this sense, computation and technological information continue a longstanding tradition of cognitive analyzability and calculability and endow it with a momentum that had been impossible without the comprehensive automation enabled by computation (Yates, 1989). The implications of these developments for the ways humans perceive and act upon the world are farreaching. If we are right, then a substantial part of the perceptual inputs and cognitive tools of human agents are and will increasingly come to be provided by the technology of computation and the variety of systems and artefacts it sustains. Whether as computer-constructed visual images and units or in the forms of discrete symbol tokens (alphabetic or numerical systems or other marks and digits), these perceptual inputs will to a large extent be derived from a microscopic reality about which humans do not and cannot have knowledge by experience and acquaintance.

TECHNOLOGICAL REGULATION AND INSTITUTIONS The constitutive qualities of computation suggest that its deepening involvement in work life is bound to change the content or object of work and the forms through which work is exercised and controlled. The degree to which domain- or site-specific characteristics of work are reconstituted

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through computation remains an empirical (contingent) question. But there are a few key features that we expect to encounter across a wide array of contexts. The compact, vertical constitution of computation and its growing organizational involvement suggest that a significant number of tasks, services and operations are and would increasingly be invoked, controlled and manipulated by elaborate systems of automated information-based procedures beyond the discretion of the user. This comprehensive black boxing and consequent automation of tasks and operations at an inclusive level (e.g. field, sector, nation) leads to a drastic reduction of the accessibility of the premises by which the object of work is constituted. Traditionally, the content and methods of work have to a certain degree been negotiated in situ or across occupational domains, within the social and material matrix of techniques, knowledge forms and meanings provided by work regimes. The developments we describe establish a new field of forces in which the processes that shape a work regime and the dynamics of technological change crisscross one another at several levels. The ongoing and comprehensive digitization of libraries offers a revealing example of how computation reframes the objectives of libraries, the work object of librarianship and the processes through which library services are assembled. Preservation and lending of books and documents give way to the imperatives of accessibility and findability, in an electronically connected world marked by the spectacular growth of electronic documents and the emergence of powerful search engines such as Google. The digital document (whether a book, photograph, article, etc.) is a different object than the traditional hard copy. It is much more malleable, and located, ordered and accessed by an elaborate repertory of automated procedures that pivot around what is referred to as metadata (concise descriptions of digital objects). The production of digital metadata is a highly delicate and complex sociotechnical task in which technical knowledge of computational objects and their behaviour is essential. A substantial number of other occupations or professions (journalists, accountants, physicians or lawyers, filmmakers and photographers to name but a few) have similarly been impacted by the trends we describe here. Work regimes have to some extent always been accessible to individual and collective reflection and negotiation. Despite a variety of constrains imposed by hierarchical control and other contingencies, reflection over the conditions underlying work regimes represented a key input in defining (through professional discourse, accumulation of experiential facts or other means) the object of work and the forms by which it should be acted upon,

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mastered and assessed. Computational shaping of the object of work by necessity reduces the local or domain-specific character of reflection and negotiation and transforms them to issues of engineering and technological development. Professional, locally embedded or domain-specific work features become objects of what is referred to as requirements engineering. Computation does not simply automate a particular object of work as trivializing accounts of it often assume. Most crucially, as the example of librarianship suggests, it impinges upon and reconfigures institutional arrangements previously negotiated within the bounds of particular work regimes. Accordingly, changes in work regimes increasingly derive from the dynamics of technological change that often transcend the jurisdictions of powerful groups (principal, managers, professional associations) operating within the instrumental culture and confines of particular work regimes. Against this backdrop, it is reasonable to conjecture that the rules of evaluation and the criteria of relevance in work will be increasingly formalized through technological means, as computation penetrates work and organizations. This leads to a rearrangement of existing forms of relations between work regimes and control regimes in formal organizations. If work regimes are shaped by the reductionist, analytic logic of computation, then the previously often uneasy and contingent attempts to accomplish coherence and intelligibility between the world of work and the priorities of a regime of control will increasingly be accommodated by computationally based control regimes. Linking a computerized work regime to a computerized control regime may lead to radically less transparent forms of control. This is the inevitable consequence of what we referred to above as the vertical constitution of computational technologies that makes it nearly impossible to retrace or reconstruct how a particular way of action is made mandatory or prohibited by stipulations in the software used in the work process (Grimmelmann, 2005; Lessig, 1999/2006). We suggest that empirical research should devote much more attention to the entanglement of work, control and computation that most neoinstitutional accounts of work and organizational processes have so far left aside. As already indicated, neo-institutionalism has failed to observe that technology is a key institutional carrier, to use the terminology of Scott (2001), through which work procedures, skill profiles and rationalized action schemes are implanted in organizations and across organizational fields. By contrast, we attribute technology a salient role in the making of work and organizational life. Reflecting over the course of modernity and the key role technology has played in the constitution of modern organizations, we would like to claim that technology in general and the paradigm of

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computation in particular represent a distinctive regulative mode. As such technology contrasts with social structure and culture along the lines presented earlier in this chapter and schematically summarized in Table 1. The developments associated with the computerization of work raise serious questions regarding the future of work and control regimes. Since early industrialism, norms and practices in work have been challenged by an increasingly complex assemblage of stratified structures, systems of control and methods of designing the work process. Despite its complexity, such an assemblage has to some extent been within the reach of individual and collective cognition, possible to reflect upon and engage. Computerization transforms work in subtler ways, far more difficult to grasp, let alone negotiate. Work procedures, criteria of performance and functionality embedded in software literally constitute the object of work, making very difficult to question the processes and outcome of work. The normative content of work is not any longer supported or mediated by technology, but it increasingly appears integrated, or even hidden, in technology. How are, for instance, the technicalities of metadata, to refer to our previous example of libraries, related to the preservation and diffusion of knowledge as a key normative orientation of librarianship? Functionality and outcome orientation have always been mixed up with norms in work settings, especially in professional work. But recent developments suggest we may come to witness an unforeseen interpenetration of technological processes with normative content, substantially weakening the assessment and normative evaluation of work. These are some of the reasons as to why institutional analysis cannot continue bypassing the involvement of technology in social life and how technology, social structure and culture as generic modes of regulation interact to shape the regimes of work and control. The interpenetration of technological, structural and cultural modes of regulation provides no excuse for failing to differentiate between them and expose the distinctive logic they exhibit.

POSTSCRIPT Technology represents one of three major modes of regulating formal organizations in late modern society. In this respect, it constitutes a key carrier through which established patterns of action and control are implanted in organizations and other instrumental settings of contemporary society. Our emphasis on technology in general and computation in particular

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intends to fill a historical gap in the genre of studies of organizations that draw on what we broadly conceive as institutional analysis. Work and control regimes are currently subject to significant transformations as computational technology expands its regulative aspirations, entering every walk of life. Technological dynamics that develop beyond the confines of particular regimes of work are shaping the object (what) and the processes (how) by means of which work regimes have developed as mainly horizontally negotiated forms of social relations. They also influence the constitution of control packages and raise their transferability across contexts and fields, thus further facilitating the penetration of work regimes by an abstract and decontextualized logic of control. The distinctive mode of technological regulation suggests that the structuring of work regimes and the organizational contexts they populate is to a much larger extent than before accomplished through the elaborate material objectification and encased instrumentation of work tasks and operations brought about by computation. Against this background, we find it no longer viable to solely focus on social structures and cultural norms as the primary modes of regulating formal organizations. To neglect the variety of forms through which technology becomes a vital mode of regulation in society at large and in organizations amounts to bypassing a key vehicle through which formal organizations are constituted as institutional entities. Technology, and more specifically computation, represents a twofold challenge to the students of institutional relations in organizations. Firstly, computation makes up a mode of regulation, which is partly not analyzable by the conceptual means provided by neo-institutionalism. Secondly, computation substantially rearranges the historically relatively independent relationship between regimes of work and regimes of control in working life and produces new and interesting imbrications. The claims we put forth in this chapter by no means deny the negotiability of technological systems and their local interpretation and reshaping. None of the three modes of regulation we mention (technology, social structure and culture) imposes unproblematically, linearly and unambiguously the patterns they carry on particular agents or local contexts. But according to our analysis, the present development of technology will have far-reaching implications, as it implies considerable changes of the forms through which agency is constituted and operates as well as of work as a societal domain semi-independent from vertical control. It may well be that a new realm of choice and freedom may open as a result of these trends (Benkler, 2006). But it is crucial to understand the historical trade-offs between what is lost

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and gained. Our analysis hopefully contributes in sketching a picture of the issues involved in both their ambiguity and complexity. Technology cannot be wished away.

NOTES 1. See Jepperson (2002) for a more comprehensive explication of another brand of neo-institutionalism, no longer residing in organization studies. The research program in sociology created mainly by John W. Meyer regards individualism and its social, cultural and political manifestations as institutional effects to be analyzed. 2. See Kallinikos (2004a, 2004b, 2006) for a more detailed explanation. 3. Studies of the work process, the social life of the shop floor, deskilling and so on used to have a prominent standing in academic research on formal organizations. It has become increasingly common to equalize organization research with often narrow and de-contextualized studies of singular control practices and to gloss over the work process as an object of study (see Barley & Kunda, 2001, for a more detailed critique). 4. Wikipedia, Facebook and Myspace are typical examples.

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INSTITUTIONAL ENTREPRENEURS PERFORMING IN MEANING ARENAS: TRANSGRESSING INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS IN TWO ORGANIZATIONAL FIELDS Ann Westenholz ABSTRACT How are institutional logics transgressed in the organizational fields of open source software and of commercial proprietary software, respectively, by developing a new practice of commercial open source software? I argue that by combining a Critique of Ideology Critique and a Critique of New Institutional Organizational Theory, we become better equipped for understanding institutional change in organizations applying concepts such as institutional entrepreneurs, discursive devices, and meaning arenas. The analysis show that many institutional entrepreneurs apply discursive devices to convince actors in the two organizational fields of the legitimacy of the new practice. This happens in many different meaning arenas such as in the market, in the public discourse, and in concrete open source projects. I advance the assumption that a relation established between institutional entrepreneurs of different legitimacy in the two original fields renders possible their institutional work. Institutions and Ideology Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 27, 283–311 Copyright r 2009 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X(2009)0000027011

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INTRODUCTION A new practice of commercial open source software emerged by the mid1990s when actors transgressed the institutional logics of two contradictory organizational fields that had so far constituted software development: the field of open source software and the field of commercial proprietary software. The research question in this chapter is that How did this transgression of the institutional logics of two organizational fields take place and lead to the creation of a new practice for software development? One might ask why I argue for two and not only one organizational field characterizing the period of software development up to the mid-1990s. The answer to this question is important for the research question and requires that I clarify my stance on the concept of organizational fields. First, I consider an organizational field as a sociological concept, building on constructivist ontology, defined by relations and institutional logics. A field is not formed around and defined by a common technology or common industry. This would imply realist ontology assuming the privileged position of the technology or industry in determining social behavior. If we delimit the field in terms of the technology at hand, we could probably argue that software development has taken place within one single software field in which one type of actor was involved in developing open source software while another type of actor worked with proprietary software. However, it does not make sense to talk about one field of software, as actors developing and using open source software until the mid-1990s interacted with one another more often and more trustingly than with actors within proprietary software and vice versa. Second, within constructivist ontology, one might argue that an organizational field is often formed around not only one but several institutional logics that are frequently at war with one another (Hoffman, 1999). In this vein, the software development that took place up to mid-1990s should be characterized as one field encompassing two institutional logics: the open source logic and the commercial proprietary software logic. This argument would only make sense if the actors were interacting with one another, and, as I just mentioned, this is not the case. I shall return to this point later in greater detail. Therefore, I find Scott’s (1994, pp. 207–208) definition of organizational fields useful for the analysis in this chapter. He defines an organizational field as a ‘‘community of organizations that subscribe to a common meaning system in which participants interact with one another more often and more faithfully than with actors external to the field.’’ Empirically defining two organizational fields this way makes sense. One field is populated by actors that interact

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with one another more often than with actors external to the field and who view the world from the perspective of an institutional logic that we could term open source logic. The other field is populated by actors who interact with one another more often than with actors external to the field and who see the world from a proprietary institutional logic. I define an institutional logic in the vein of Friedland and Alford (1991, p. 248) as material practices and symbolic constructions that constitute the principle of organizing. The concept of institutional logic is thus not the same as that of organizational field but rather constitutes the organizing principle of the field. The theoretical traditions of both the Critique of Ideology Critique and Critique of New Institutional Organizational Theory have addressed changes in institutional logics. According to the former tradition, we have access to the world (e.g., our social relations and material production/ distribution) through meaning systems that constitute our identities. This does not imply that we can think anything we want to about the world, but different interpretations (e.g., stories and narratives) of the world are possible, and that is the embryo of change (Gergen, 1994; Gergen & Davis, 1985; Hall, 1980; Mumby, 2004; O’Connor, 2000). The latter tradition focuses on socially constructed institutional entrepreneurs who create, change, or demolish organizational institutions embedded in organizational fields. These fields may constitute battlefields for actors attempting to institutionalize – or normalize – new institutions (e.g., Borum & Westenholz, 1995; Christensen & Westenholz, 1997; Fligstein, 1997; Friedland & Alford, 1991; Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006; Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006; Maguire, 2007; Maguire, Hardy, & Lawrence, 2004; Meyer, Boli, & Thomas, 1987; Munir & Phillips, 2005; Phillips, Lawrence, & Hardy, 2004; Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005; Westenholz, 2004, 2006, 2008). The two theoretical traditions have different focuses but are supplemental to one another. In this chapter, I argue that by combining the two traditions it becomes possible, in a more meaningful way, to understand the transgression of the two organizational fields into a new practice. I shall demonstrate that the emergence of the new practice can be understood as a piece of institutional work (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006) performed in meaning arenas (Westenholz, 2006). A meaning arena is not formed around a common technology or product, a common industry, or a common meaning system, but around an idea that brings together constituents with disparate institutional logics. I argue that in the meaning arenas, socially embedded institutional entrepreneurs discursively shape a new way of engaging with the institutional logics of constituents embedded in the two established organizational fields.

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The concept of ‘‘meaning arena’’ has certain aspects in common with Hoffman’s (1999, p. 352) definition of organizational fields: ‘‘A field is not formed around common technologies or common industries, but around issues that bring together field constituents with disparate purposes. Not all constituents may realize an impact on the resulting debate, but they are often armed with opposing perspectives rather than common rhetoric. The process may more resemble institutional war (White, 1992) than isomorphic dialogue.’’ I prefer to use the term ‘‘meaning arenas’’ and not ‘‘organizational fields’’ in the Hoffmanian sense for three reasons. First, I do not wish to use the concept of ‘‘organizational fields’’ in two different ways in the same chapter. Since Scott’s definition can describe the development in software up to the mid-1990s, I have opted for this definition. Second, Hoffman’s definition leaves the impression of existing field constituents fighting institutional wars, whereas the concept of ‘‘meaning arena’’ rather implies that constituents are constructed in meaning arenas and that meaning is not only negotiated in fights, but just as often in integrative processes (March, 1994). Third, I want to stress that the participants in the meaning arena not only have opposing perspectives but they might also be embedded in opposing organizational fields. The latter is rather important for understanding change of institutional logic in different organizational fields. In the next section, I shall expand on the theoretical argument before proceeding to elaborate on my analyses of the empirical data. The chapter ends with a conclusion and discussion in which I relate the results of the analyses to the research question and existing literature.

THEORETICAL ARGUMENT Critique of Ideology Critique within Organization Studies The Critique of Ideology Critique stems from a critique of Marx’s analysis of labor processes. Here, he focuses on the exploitation and oppression of labor by way of direct coercion or more subtly by creating ideologies that justify the existing structures and distribution of resources that serve the interests of the ruling class of owners at the expense of labor interests. These oppressive ideologies thus help to explain why labor processes do not change as you would expect taking into consideration that the system does not cater to the interests of the working class. This analysis of Marx is called Ideology Critique.

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Ideology Critique has been subject to different types of critique. The first critique claims that it is not possible to distinguish analytically between the objective/real/essential world and ideologies that distort the images of this world. Ideology Critique is criticized for building on what has been described as a realist perspective. As an alternative, its critics have developed a social constructivist perspective in which access to the world always takes place through meaning structures (e.g., Foucault, 1972/1969; Gergen, 1994; Gergen & Davis, 1985; Laclau & Mouffe, 1985). Abolishing the distinction between the objective reality and the ideologies does not turn Marxism upside down arguing that meaning structures determine the material structures. It rather juxtaposes the levels, and the argument is that the existing groups in society are not the result of material structures, but are historical, constructed through political discursive processes in which humans deal with their material practices. The second critique is that of Ideology Critique as an issue of change: How can we understand resistance to ideologies and thereby also understand organizational change? One answer is given by pointing out that everyday life consists of dichotomies and struggles over relatively conditioned meaning structures. The Critique of Ideology Critique points toward the fruitfulness of analyzing the dialectics of multiple interpretations as existing in all discursive situations and institutional forces, which try to define meaning in a certain way. Mumby (2004) points toward recent analyses that have not operated with resistance and dominance as simple analytical opposites, but rather as interrelated issues: organizational discourses such as stories, narratives, and rituals may be expressions both of moments of dominance and those of resistance. From this later development of the traditions, we can thus draw on the development of ‘‘a much greater sensibility to social actors as knowledgeable agents who have insight into the discursive and political conditions that shape the way in which they engage with the world’’ (Mumby, 2004, p. 242; see also Hall, 1980). The implications of the Critique of Ideology Critique radically affect our current understanding of the three central concepts within Ideology Critique: ideologies, suppressed interests, and power. Ideologies are no longer understood as hiding the real relations in society and in organizations, but are equated with meaning systems. It is through meaning systems that human beings are allocated subject positions, and it is also meaning systems that limit the actions of human beings. Nor can we today use the term suppressed interests as there is no objective essence against which we can measure suppression. Instead, ‘‘interests’’ are understood as historically socially constructed phenomena that may help us understand how new discourses

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develop based on, among other things, ‘‘interests.’’ Analytically, the concept of ‘‘identity’’ replaces the concept of interest – identity understood as something that is socially constructed and constructing. Power does not disappear, but its nature changes. Ideology Critique understands power as a negative phenomenon implying that certain groups or individuals possess ideological power over others, impairing the objective safeguarding of interests of the latter without them noticing. The Critique of Ideology Critique understands power both as a productive and as a limiting force. Power makes it possible to live in the world while simultaneously restraining the possibilities in the world. Power and knowledge are an inextricable part and parcel of the categories and interrelations established through discourses on the material and the social world. Power consists of order, but order is subject to change since meaning systems are contingent and subject to possible negotiations about the sensibility of alternative meaning systems. A concrete implementation of these reflections appears from analyses of stories in organizations that are understood as ‘‘performances within complex discursive articulations that both enable and constrain possibilities for human communicative practice’’ (O’Connor, 2000). Summing up the Critique of Ideology Critique:  The self consists of meaning (ideological) systems constituted socially, historically, and contextually.  We have access to the world through meaning systems that constitute our identities. This does not imply that we can think anything that we want to about the world, but rather that different interpretations of the world are possible. This is the embryo of change.  Our interpretations of the world affect both social relations and material production/distribution. However, we only have access to social and material effects through processes of interpretation.

Critique of New Institutional Organizational Theory If we carry out a search for early contributions to New Institutional Organizational Theory, Durkheim with his studies of ‘‘social phenomena as things’’ is one of the founders of the theory. Another source is the work of Max Weber on legitimated authority rationally established by enactment, agreement, or imposition (DeJordy & Jones, 2007, p. 682). If we move closer to our time, the work of Berger and Luckmann (1967) had a significant impact on the more recent development of the theory. They argue that

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constitutive rules define the nature of social reality including the actors’ legitimization to act. The taken-for-granted rules emerge in a process defined as the succession of externalization, objectification, and internalization. This foundation constitutes the point of departure for understanding institutions at different levels such as societal, organizational, and individual level. In the 1970s and the 1980s, this idea developed into what later became known as New Institutional Organizational Theory. Its core is that formal organizations are embedded in the social and political environments reflecting their myths about what organizations (should) look like (see, among others, DiMaggio & Powell, 1983, 1991; Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Scott, 1995). New Institutional Organizational Theory has been criticized for being predominantly over-socializing, normative, and cognitively deterministic, leaving little room for non-functionalistic organizational change. The critique has been formulated as a question of bringing the actor into the theory as an institutional change agent. Already in 1988, DiMaggio (1988, p. 14) pushed the theory toward the actors’ perspective by arguing for the importance of a rational actor in a constructed world. Another approach has been to develop a constructionist view in which actors themselves are historically constructed and variable, with different notions of self, of identity, and of connection to the group over time. These actors may be individuals or collectives, such as organizations, movements, or coalitions. They are referred to as institutional entrepreneurs as they actively contribute to a process through which new institutions are established, changed, and/or removed (e.g., Borum & Westenholz, 1995; Christensen & Westenholz, 1997; Fligstein, 1997; Friedland & Alford, 1991; Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006; Maguire, 2007; Maguire et al., 2004; Meyer et al., 1987; Munir & Phillips, 2005; Phillips et al., 2004; Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005; Westenholz, 2004). The concept of institutional entrepreneurs raises the paradoxical question of how it is possible to be simultaneously embedded in institutional logics, organizational fields, and change. The paradox emerges if embeddedness implies that you cannot imagine other ways than the taken-for-granted ones. Maguire (2007) mentions that there are different ways of relating to this apparent paradox. In organizational fields, not only peripheral but also key actors may see institutions as inappropriate and strive for change. Such ideas may be imported from other organizational fields by newcomers or by actors operating in several fields (Christensen & Westenholz, 1997; Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006). But ideas may also come from within the organizational field, which may operate with several institutional logics (e.g., Hoffman, 1999). This may create dilemmas, uncertainty, and open up

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for dilemmas being processed by institutional entrepreneurs. Likewise, events may change the balance of power in an organizational field, causing the dominant logic to lose importance to the advantage of a different logic. Exogenous crises may also affect organizational fields and contribute to the actors’ desire for change. Three key concepts of New Institutional Organizational Theory are isomorphism, organizational fields, and socially constructed realities (including interests), and the critique has affected them all. The critique relaxes the assumption of isomorphism and the environment is no longer considered as determining the organizational form through coercive, normative, and mimetic mechanisms. This is not to say that isomorphism never occurs, but it is an empirical question whether actors create and recreate institutions through imitations or change the institutions. The concept organizational field is still an interesting concept, but rather than seeing fields as static phenomena, the critique has a dynamic view on organizational fields; namely, that they must be explained and analyzed as battle fields for change by institutional entrepreneurs. The concept of power thus becomes much more present and the normalization of certain sorts of practices is inseparable from the effects of power that institutionalization creates. The assumption of reality as socially constructed is not denied, but the focus is now just as well on the social construction of reality. Actors are not seen as cultural dopes but have the potential to create new meaning systems – not as rational actors, but as sense-making beings. Summing up the Critique of New Institutional Organizational Theory:  Institutional entrepreneurs are socially constructed and constructing individuals or collective units that create, change, or break down organizational institutions.  Organizational institutions are embedded in organizational fields that may constitute battlefields for actors who are attempting to institutionalize – that is, normalize – new institutions. Power lies in this process of normalization and is interpretable from the effects following in the wake of institutionalization.

Combining Insights from the Two Traditions In the sections above, I have outlined certain historical trajectories within the two traditions: The Critique of Ideology Critique and the Critique of New Institutional Organizational Theory. In both cases, the critique focuses on

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how organizational change can be understood. The Critique of New Institutional Organizational Theory offers the insight that organizational changes must be interpreted as institutional work performed by institutional entrepreneurs who create, change, or break down organizational institutions. The institutional work takes place against the background of organizational field(s) within which the taken-for-granted assumptions of other actors about the world are challenged. How this takes place is a relatively new research issue. The Critique of Ideology Critique can contribute to this by pointing to the importance of understanding changes as political processes through which new coalitions are created as discursive strategies develop to give legitimacy and meaning to new ends and means and their interrelationship. In this chapter, I attempt to position myself in the area between the critiques of the two traditions by focusing on institutional entrepreneurs as institutionally embedded agents who discursively shape the way in which they engage with the world. As such, I am following in the footsteps of researchers such as Phillips et al. (2004), Maguire et al. (2004), Munir and Phillips (2005), and Suddaby and Greenwood (2005). My contribution will be to focus on the discursive strategies shaped by institutional entrepreneurs who are socially embedded in two contradictory, organizational fields. How and where do they transgress the institutional logics of these two organizational fields and shape a new practice? I argue that they do this in different meaning arenas in which not only institutional wars but also integrative processes take place. In the final section, I shall relate my findings to the researchers in whose footsteps I am following (see above) to render visible the ways in which my study can contribute to their studies.

ANALYSIS Empirical Data The analysis builds on different types of data collected between 2005 and 2007, that is, 15 open structured interviews with managers and developers in Danish IT companies and with representatives of public interest organizations and public customers in Denmark. Most of them have worked with open source software, while others have been reluctant to do so. All interviews were transcribed. Participant observations have been used in connection with a number of public hearings about open source software. Supporters, skeptics, and opponents participated in these hearings. Impressions from these meetings were written down during the meetings or immediately afterward.

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I have collected documentary materials from the Internet and literature on associations and companies working with the issue. At the end of 2006, I conducted a survey containing predominantly closed response categories. The survey was sent through e-mail to 59 contact persons in companies that were members or supportive members of the Association for Open Source Suppliers in Denmark. Thirty-five persons (54%) responded, making the response rate satisfactory. Only people affiliated with commercial open source software participated in the survey, as I wanted to focus on what these people had said and done. In analyzing the data, I sought arguments for and narratives about commercial open source software and attempted to identify the audiences of these narratives. The analyses of qualitative data were sent to the people involved, and they confirmed my interpretations. In the conclusion of this chapter, I will briefly comment on how I used the data in the chapter and how the data influenced the analysis.

Outline of the Historical Global Development of Software In this section, I identify two dominant organizational fields within software development from the 1950s to the mid-1990s: an organizational field of open source software and an organizational field of commercial proprietary software. The organizational field around open source software emerged in the 1950s. Until the end of the 1960s, employees in private companies (e.g., AT&T) and university researchers participated together in, among other things, the development of a UNIX system. At that time, this system was considered to be a technical device and not a commodity. Technologically, this stage was characterized by the fact that everyone was able to see the source codes, though they were not immediately able to use the software, which was huge and complex. By the early 1970s, a new way of thinking about software emerged (software tools) making it possible for a much larger group of people to use and co-develop software. In early 1980s, the private companies that used to participate in the development process stopped working with the developers and users in the open communities and tried to transform open source software, designed by developers in the open source communities, into proprietary software. As a response, the Free Software Foundation was established around a license regulation. The implication was that not only should source codes be open, accessible, and applicable to everyone, but also the software should remain so and should not be combined with proprietary software. This manifests itself in the development of the General Public

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License (GPL – a so-called copyleft license) and a new software system called GNU’s Not Unix (GNU). Other programmers, however, advocated open and usable source codes to everyone, but were more pragmatic toward whether or not to combine open source software with proprietary software. The developers holding this attitude often used a version of a BSD license (Berkley Software Development). The latter group often worked as programmers in companies where they used but did not develop open software. However, in their spare time, they developed open software both for fun and as a prelude to what they were doing during working hours. In early 1990s, the Free Software Foundation deflated somehow, and the groups around the BSD license branched out into three software products. Seen from the perspective of the year 1990, the influence of the open source field on future software development was dubious, but in the early 1990s, the Linux system was developed under a GPL. This created technological momentum in the field leading to the establishment of a wide range of user groups that could easily communicate with one another facilitated by the introduction of the Internet. The second organizational field is made up of companies developing commercial proprietary software. This field emerged later than the open software field, that is, in the mid-1970s when companies developing closed software were established. AT&T, which participated in the development of software in the open field during the early stage, immigrated to the proprietary field in the early 1980s. Microsoft became the predominant actor in this field, holding 90% of the software market including a wide range of customers in private organizations, in public institutions, and among individuals. Table 1 summarizes the characteristics of the institutional logics in the two organizational fields. In the field of open source software, which was the first one to emerge, software is seen as a technical device. Developers are primarily volunteers or university employees that are not driven by the ambition of making money on software, and the potential users of the software are either developers themselves or end users. Key actors in the field are developers and end users who relate to one another through communities exemplified by Internet-based user groups. Formally, two primary types of licenses, BPL and BSD, regulate the exchange of knowledge. The latter is positive toward combining open and proprietary software whereas the former refuses. The innovation model can be characterized as open. In the field of commercial proprietary software that subsequently emerged, software is seen as a commodity developed by employees and sold to customers. Key actors are companies, their employees, and customers that buy the software from the software companies. The actors relate to one another through the market. Intellectual property rights tied to

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Institutional Logics in Two Organizational Software Fields.

Dimensions in Institutional Logics

The Organizational Field of Open Source Software

The Organizational Field of Commercial Proprietary Software

Software viewed as

Technical device

Commodity

Developers

Volunteers and professional university employees

Company employees (professionals)

Users

Developers and end-users

Customers

Key actors in the Developers and end-users organizational field

Companies, employees, and customers

Interaction form

Community

Market

Regulative license

GPL and BSD (copyleft)

Intellectual property rights (copyright)

Innovation model

Open exchange of knowledge with user groups

Closed exchange of knowledge within the company

the individual company are connected to the software, and the innovation model is closed around the company. The symbolic meaning ascribed to software differs significantly from the identities involved in developing and using software. There are also opposite understandings of the regulative systems used to develop the software deriving from the way of interacting and of generating knowledge. Two different institutional logics are involved. Actors operating within the one logic interact more often with one another than with actors representing the other logic, that is, up to the mid-1990s, software development took place within two organizational fields. This does not imply that we cannot identify some kind of interaction among actors from the two fields. First, certain developers in the area near BSD work as programmers at companies where they use but do not develop open software, and as such, they identify themselves as end-users when they work within the proprietary field and as developers when working within the open source field. Second, in certain periods, actors in the two fields fought over the right to the software as proprietary/open source software, respectively (e.g., beginning of the 1980s). Such interactions among actors from the two fields are not, however, as intense as in-field interaction. Therefore, the two organizational fields emerged in the period. In the mid-1990s, a new development gradually emerged as commercial companies in collaboration with voluntary developers/users began to use open software. In 1998, this development became formalized in the definition of Open Source Software, that is, software for which everyone has access to

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the source text and is free to distribute either as it is or in combination with software from other sources – free or at a price. This is a radical institutional transgression of activities that has so far taken place in the organizational field of commercial proprietary software. Certain actors within this field, headed by Microsoft, fight its development, while others such as Netscape and IBM actively participate in the development process. Some actors in the organizational field of open software also find the development unacceptable and are outright opposed to combining open software and proprietary software. This applies to programmers within free software while other programmers, such as those associated with the environment around BSD licenses, are less radical, having never been opposed to combining open and closed software. By the end of the 1990s, we witnessed the establishment of many meaning arenas in which actors from both the commercial proprietary and the open source fields participate. Certain of the participants in these meaning arenas can be characterized as institutional entrepreneurs while others defend the established ideological/material practices. In the following, I shall take a closer look at this development in a Danish context. I will describe the involvement of companies in open source software and then how new meaning arenas emerge in which institutional entrepreneurs work toward normalizing the use of open source as a business concept. In the analysis, I focus on those institutional entrepreneurs who have attempted transgressing the customary institutional logics. This implies that I pay less attention to the role of other actors in the meaning arenas. Commercialization of Open Source Software in Denmark1 The analysis in this section is primarily based on the survey from 2006 in which 35 company representatives took part from companies that are members or supportive members of the Association for Open Source Suppliers in Denmark. Fig. 1 shows that a few of the 35 company representatives took part in commercializing open source software right from the beginning by establishing new IT companies based on open source or by introducing open source as a business concept in existing IT companies during the years 1990–1997. This development continued at increasing rate until 2002, at which time the establishment of new open source companies seems to have begun declining while introduction of open source in existing IT companies continued at the same rate. Participation in the public debate begins a little later and appears to have peaked in 2003/2004. One could be led to believe that companies become involved in open source software for purely commercial reasons. Taking a closer look, however,

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No. of pers. 20 Established new open source company Introduced open source in existing company 15

Argued publicly for open source as business concept

10

5

1990−97

Fig. 1.

1998−2000

2001−02 2003−04 2005−06

Temporal Development of Involvement in Open Source Commercialization.

their reasons reflect a mixture of pragmatic and moral reflections tied to the development of both the company and the open source communities. The pragmatic arguments are that by participating in the communities, the company gains access to valuable information and the employees are more easily able to carry out their tasks. Simultaneously, the continued development of the communities is dependent on the companies’ involvement in the communities. But many respondents also find that the company is morally committed to involvement in the open source software communities. By and large, all company representatives stated that companies to a high or to some degree have a long-time interest in being involved in open source communities, and the majority of these companies want to contribute to the market for software developing using open source. ‘‘Institutional Entrepreneurs’’ and the Development of Commercial Open Source Companies in Denmark In the previous section, it appeared that the commercialization of open source is a fairly recent phenomenon in Denmark. In this section, we shall

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explore how and where different actors in Denmark have enabled this development as institutional entrepreneurs by combining two basically opposing institutional logics. My argument is that institutional entrepreneurs have played a role in many different meaning arenas in the Danish society. Other actors besides the institutional entrepreneurs participating in the meaning arenas have included open source software developers/users, open source software communities and associations, commercial software companies, employed software developers, private and public customers of software, IT trade associations, IT unions, politicians, political parties, the parliament, municipalities and the National Association of Municipalities, public councils, civil servants, researchers at universities, the media, employers’ associations, professional software associations, and financial organizations. In the following, I shall offer three examples of where and how institutional entrepreneurs have changed the practice within software development. First, I will focus on the role of companies that are members of the Association of Open Source Suppliers in Denmark, second, on the role of the association itself, and finally, on an individual software developer as a case study. Companies that are Members of the Association of Open Source Suppliers in Denmark2 The 35 company representatives participating in the survey were asked about their attitudes toward the commercialization of open source among a wide range of groups, associations, persons, organizations, and so on, at the time when they first became interested in the phenomenon and at the time when the survey was conducted (late autumn, 2006). The responses show that many ‘‘don’t know/have not responded’’ when it comes to when they became interested in introducing open source as a business concept. One interpretation is that the ‘‘horizon of attention’’ of the company representatives was strongly limited at that time. (The horizon of attention reflects the social field within which the representatives have described the attitudes of different actors toward the commercialization of open source software.) However, the persons and groups within the horizon of attention at that time were first and foremost colleagues in one’s own company and potential customers followed by IT developers in open source communities, potential competitors, and the media. During the time period investigated in the survey, the horizon of attention has slightly expanded, but the changes are marginal. Unsurprisingly, earlier, primarily, developers within open source communities and colleagues in one’s own company were found to have positive

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opinions of open source as a business concept. On the contrary, the majority of IT companies in Denmark, potential customers, and the media were skeptical, and a large IT company supplying most of the software to municipalities and counties was perceived as having a negative attitude toward open source software. To date, the overall development reflects that a large majority of company representatives have a positive attitude toward developers in open source communities and colleagues. Also, more reputable individuals and organizations now support open source, such as potential customers, certain political parties, university researchers, and the media. Nevertheless, approximately half of the company representatives still think that the majority of IT companies in Denmark is skeptical and believe that around a third of Danish financial institutions, industries, officials, and ministers are skeptical as well. However, an overall negative attitude no longer prevails to any appreciable extent. The company representatives thus depict a political picture of key actors participating in the game of normalizing the commercialization of open source software. The phenomenon has not yet reached the status of ‘‘taken for granted,’’ but attitudes are changing from outright negative and skeptical toward positive. Yet, many key actors and powerful actors are still skeptical. The question is if company representatives played a role as institutional entrepreneurs by contributing to a more positive attitude in general toward open source as a business concept? Our findings show that 60% have participated in the public debate arguing for using open source as a business concept. In addition, almost all of them have tried to convince others of the sensibility of using the concept. In particular, they have tried to convince customers, other IT companies, and friends, but many of them have also tried to influence their colleagues, politicians, IT trade associations, the media, and others still. These findings strongly resemble those from an international study of the open source product TYPO3 that was also conducted in the autumn of 2007 (Westenholz, 2007b). What are the arguments used to convince others? First, it appears from Table 2 that in relation to customers, pragmatic arguments carry weight in that a large majority argues for reliability, adaptability, quality, safety against viruses, access to support, and the price of using open source software as being equal to or even better than proprietary software. This corresponds to the above findings, which reflect that the company representatives in particular have tried to convince customers of the sensibility of open source. Second, a large majority has also argued that commercial open source software is not the same as free software. This argument was advanced to make it clear that there is a difference between open source software developed

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Table 2. Have You Actually Used the Arguments Below (in This or Similar Formulations) to Convince Others of the Sensibility of Using Open Source Software as a Business Concept? (If Relevant, Tick More Than One Box) (N ¼ 35). No. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

Arguments

%

The operational reliability of open source software equals that of proprietary software – (and is often better) Customer’s possibility for adapting and further developing open source software to meet own demands equals that of proprietary software – (and is often better) The quality of open source software is quite on par with that of proprietary software – and often better It is erroneous to think that commercial open source software is free Buying open source software is highly relevant for the public sector in Denmark Open source software offers the same (or better) protection against viruses as proprietary software Today, getting access to open source software support is as easy as for proprietary software – (and sometimes easier) Competitively open source software is abreast with proprietary software – (and sometimes better) Economically, it is (often) cheaper to buy open source software than proprietary software I mention IBM or other known software companies as examples of companies using open source Open source is an open innovation model rooted in the network society as opposed to the industrial innovation model that is/was closed It is erroneous to think that open source software is developed by unreliable partners Certain software companies’ attempts to impede the diffusion of open source software are part of their power struggle to maintain market shares rather than being rooted in technical, rational arguments Buying open source software is highly relevant for private companies It is important that commercial open source companies comply with the formal and informal rules of the game in open source communities Open source is a business recipe, which is in particular beneficial to Danish small and medium-sized IT companies IT firms Certain software companies erroneously attempt to spread the myth that open source developers are communists The open source business model is not necessarily equally relevant for all trades (such as medicine, biotechnology), but it is relevant in the field of IT It is OK to patent software but it should be done in a way that enables others to communicate with it I am using other arguments I have not tried to convince others with arguments

77

Note: Closed questions were used.

77 77 77 74 69 69 63 63 63 60 60 54

51 51 29 23 17 11 20 9

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by voluntary communities and that in which commercial companies are involved in developing and servicing. This difference is used to cognitively remove commercial open source software from the voluntary sector, which many stakeholders in the market find to be untrustworthy financial partners. A third type of argument has been advanced to single out specific customer segments to which open source software might be highly relevant. This especially applies to the public sector, but also to the private sector. A fourth argument points to well-known IT companies as users of open source, such as IBM, thus trying to make open source recognizable and relevant for actors operating in a market and to remove the image of open source as alien and non-commercial. A fifth argument advocates that the closed industrial innovation model of the past differs from that of the open network–based innovation model of the future and says that open source is part of the latter. Approximately 50% of the company representatives argue that the campaign against open source software is not rooted in technical and rational arguments, but rather is part of the strategy of certain IT companies to keep their market shares. The final argument that I wish to mention (and which approximately 50% of the company representatives advocate) is the significance of commercial open source companies’ compliance with the formal and informal rules of the game in open source communities. As such, they direct their attention not only toward the market but also toward open source communities. The Association of Open Source Suppliers in Denmark In recent years, the commercialization of open source software has been widely discussed in public debates in Denmark. The debates have included not only the commercialization of open source software but also related issues such as the patenting of software and open standards in software. A wide range of actors has participated in the debates. These include among others individual software developers; IT unions; open source communities; IT trade associations; companies such as Microsoft, IBM, Novell, Sun, Oracle, KMD (a large Danish IT company owned by the National Association of Municipalities); public councils; university researchers; lawyers; municipalities; the Association of Danish Municipalities; politicians and ministries/ministers of IT; and the media. The analysis in this section focuses on a relatively new player in the meaning arena ‘‘The Association of Open Source Suppliers in Denmark,’’ which 11 open source suppliers established in late 2003. Today, the association has 30 members and a similar number of support members. Naturally, the analysis cannot supplant an analysis of the political processes

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in Denmark related to the issue, but it can elucidate certain discursive strategies pursued by an institutional entrepreneur participating in the political debate in Denmark. Nor can the analysis be considered a total analysis of the discursive strategies of the association, but can instead only represent a selection of these.3 On its homepage, the association says that it wants a genuine market-based choice among different types of software development and licenses, that is, open source software is preferred on the basis of quality, price, applicability, and appropriateness. It is not the objective of the association to pursue a policy that aims in general at promoting the use of open source software in Denmark. Associations like SSLUG see to that in an excellent way. Nor is the objective of the association to advocate against other forms of development and licenses, such as proprietary software or against companies that adhere to these types of software. The association will work for a genuine choice of IT architecture – within the public as well as the private sector.

The association thus stresses that it wishes to address and rise above the two institutional logics in the two organizational fields without taking sides. It is neither an ‘‘open source’’ association opposed to proprietary software, nor is it a ‘‘proprietary’’ association considering open source as inapplicable and inappropriate software. It is an association that attempts to transgress conventional understandings within two organizational fields, as outlined in the historical section. The association has attempted this by drawing on different discursive and rhetorical tools, some of which are briefly described below. First of all, a story is told about the future being different from the past. According to this story, innovation in the industrial society took place in closed systems internally in the companies or universities while innovation processes in the present and future knowledge society are open and transgressing company boundaries by including the users in the processes. Open source is linked directly to these novel innovation processes and thus belongs to the future. The story involves transgressing known identities, such as ‘‘IT producer’’ and ‘‘IT user,’’ providing arguments for the sensibility of establishing interaction between the two worlds in the future and, in so doing, transgressing the traditional understandings a company and a community. This does not imply that the association is opposed to proprietary software, but that it is in favor of free choice between proprietary and open source software. This story furthermore hinges on the industrial structure of Denmark as consisting of many small and medium-sized companies that see open source as a compatible strategy for growth and innovation. The story addresses people in both organizational fields and

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attempts to pull them out of their traditional way of seeing things as either a community world or a commercial world, both subscribing to the old industrial innovation model. The story puts into words an understanding of the richness of synergy between the two worlds and subscribes to a new innovation process in the knowledge society. Another story claims that open software and free software are not the same. Back in the 1990s, the software developed by hacker communities was referred to as ‘‘free software’’ and associated with both being gratis and open. Since 1998, much has been done to divorce conceptionally the blending of the concepts ‘‘free’’ and ‘‘open,’’ and it has not been easy as the president of the association tells: the challenge is huge because of the predicate ‘‘free’’ being associated with open source y Eric Raymond, the inventor of open source, advocates that because of the many associations tied to the word free, e.g., free beer – the free-gratis-and-for-nothing principle – we have to abandon it altogether. I am strongly in favor of the ‘‘open source’’ rhetoric and far from the ‘‘free’’ rhetoric. Otherwise, I would not be able to run my business on open source. And that is what I am doing.

The story about open software not being the same as free/gratis software addresses both voluntary communities and commercial companies. In relation to the former, the story tries to make hackers realize the sensibility of collaborating in open systems without insisting that patents are bad and a gratis principle necessarily the only good thing. From this emerges a new categorization of ‘‘the ideologicals’’ contrary to ‘‘us’’ in the association. In relation to the commercial field, the separation of open from free should make it clear that money can be earned in open innovation systems. Yet another story places open source software in a development process and tells why it is not more widespread. The association has, among other things, singled out the public sector as a relevant customer and conducted a survey demonstrating that 44% of all public websites contain errors and that 15% are inaccessible if you are not using Microsoft products. The president of the association commented publicly on the results, saying, This runs contrary to public IT policy as presented by the minister and his ministry. The Ministry of Science offers advice and direction. It would be nice if the ministry could be more specific. The survey clearly shows what happens when working without open standards.

A few municipalities were previously forerunners, but they have since withdrawn. The president of the association comments on this development that ‘‘Hanstholm municipality saved half a million annually while using open software. However in connection with the structure reform4 the

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municipality was merged with two larger municipalities that had not changed to open source.’’ He calls for more ambitious and responsible IT managers in the municipalities who dare to break the circle and to not merely imitate ‘‘big brother.’’ He also argues that thinking in grooves and commitment to one single supplier in the Danish market impedes competition; as he puts it, ‘‘Contemporary IT culture is characterized by indolence toward suppliers.’’ The one supplier, which the National Association of Municipalities owns, works with closed systems, and the consequence of the closed interfaces is that the supplier’s systems can only communicate with a limited number of supplier-owned programs. Therefore as IT customers the municipalities are in an unfortunate situation, a double-lock situation – in part in relation to the supplier and in part in relation to the few systems with which the supplier’s systems communicate. If the supplier incorporates open interfaces in all systems, competition will be revitalized. It will offer the public sector greater possibilities for negotiating better prices when purchasing IT. Therefore, a demand for open standards will create a win-win situation for both the municipalities and the IT industry.

This story points not only to a problem in the public sector caused by the dominant position of Microsoft’s closed products but also to several more factors explaining why the municipalities have not changed to open source to a much greater extent. The IT ministry/minister talks without acting; municipal IT managers are not sufficiently bold; simultaneously traditional thinking impedes the sector. Underlying this is a dominant Danish supplier of closed IT systems to the Danish municipalities. The National Association of Municipalities owns this supplier, meaning that the association simultaneously caters to the IT interests of the municipalities and for the continued existence of the supplier. Increasing demands from municipalities and intervention by the minister are seen as measures challenging this situation. Apart from these stories, we can also identify a non-story about patents – about that which is not mentioned. Patents are increasingly subject to discussions in the public sphere in Denmark, but as members of the associations are diverse, ranging from IBM, the largest patentee in the world, to IT companies opposed to patents, the president has defined patents as a non-issue. Opening up this issue for discussion in the association will, in his opinion, break it up or too much time will be spent on something that does not lead anywhere: This association is like a football club – a political party. Sometimes we agree – we hopefully do so most of the time, but at other times we do not. Then you have to eat the disagreement and say that more unites than separate us. If you want a 100% consensus, this is not the association.

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The Software Developer I met with several software developers who use open source software in their work as employees of a private company. I describe these developers as institutional entrepreneurs as they, in their concrete projects, connect the commercial world with open source communities. In certain cases, the management of the firm has been familiar with this procedure, while in other cases, management has been ignorant of how the programmers succeed in finding solutions. In none of the cases, however, has the firm initiated this synergy between the two fields. It is solely the work of the programmers. It is not possible at this point in time to say how widespread the tendency is, nor is it possible to say when it came about. The following interview with a software developer in one of the largest IT companies in the world illustrates the situation: Software developer: Naturally it is essential that it is an open source project which enables me in my position in the development unit (in the company) to pose questions to a forum of colleagues in competing firms. It is okay that we discuss matters there, but I would not be in a position to ask the same people directly. I would not know that they existed. Being able to interact with people of similar skills and who occupy very specialized positions in other firms gives me a platform. If there is a project that we find highly interesting, then we can easily collaborate, no matter which firm is working on the project. It is taken for granted that the firm supports our collaboration within these frameworks. I am becoming increasingly aware of the importance of being allowed to ‘‘play’’ with competent colleagues in other, similar firms. Interviewer: How does it function here?

The software developer draws Fig. 2 on a whiteboard. Software developer: We have two firms. I am working in the one firm and the other firm has a person with skills similar to mine. Ordinarily we would not contact a person directly in the other firm to resolve problems with one of our specialized projects. Interviewer: Even not if you know the person informally? Software developer: The typical approach is: ‘‘well, you will have to resolve it in your own company.’’ Let’s say that it is a program that we cannot get to work, the answer would typically be: ‘‘Can’t you manage yourself?’’ Of course, if I am familiar with the guy in the other firm, he might say: ‘‘well, since we are friends – this is what you do, Tom.’’ But if I install a new exciting program then I don’t know if there is anyone in the other firm that might be able to help me. And if this new program involves new technology, I will often need help. Our field is developing rapidly, and you typically don’t know where to find the knowledge that you need, because new research projects start up and close down all the time in all kinds of companies. You often don’t know whom to turn to.

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Software Firm B

Software Firm A

Private person

Open Source Internet Project • E-mail lists • Chat fora

Fig. 2.

Employed Software Developer (Firm A) Draws His Network.

On the other hand, if I have an open source project on the Internet, I will typically find a homepage with a project that I download to our network. I will analyze it and may find that something does not work very well. In addition, most of the programs that I download describe how to communicate with people interested in program XYZ, for example. There are typically e-mail lists that you can join and there will also be chat fora. In the last couple of years it has become very popular to chat or ISE. Very popular indeed y It means that, in principle, I have a place to voice my problems when I have selected program XYZ. I know where to forward my questions regarding the program. What typically happens is that there will be someone in another firm with a specialty similarly to mine. Human nature often makes us respond positively if we are asked for help – especially if it does not require too much effort. So if you ask a question that is technically challenging you will, in most cases, get an answer. Our meeting point is often these posts through which I start to combine my questions and answers establishing a relationship to a person in another firm. I just did not know how to do it – I learned it from some central posting lists and chat fora which enabled me to get in contact with people working with similar narrow focus areas.

One of the insights deducible from the above description is that, through his concrete project practice, the software developer has created a story about a new identity. He is no longer either a member of a community or employed by a company, but has established himself or herself as an anonymous network programmer, who breaks down the traditional boundaries between companies and between companies and communities. A skillful employed software developer is not only a person of high technical knowledge, nor is she/he only a person with a large personal network. An employed developer is both, but more importantly, she/he is able to operate

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anonymously in networks that develop technical knowledge without revealing the company’s business secrets. In addition, the developer can operate in the network in such a way that she/he increases the technical knowledge of the company without parasitizing open source communities. The situation is not considered win-lose, but rather win-win.

CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION In this section, I shall relate the result of the analysis to the research question raised in the introduction, discussing certain assumed implications and relating the results to existing literature on institutional change. The research question was as follows: How did the transgression of the institutional logics of two organizational fields within software take place leading to a new practice of commercial open source software? Below, I list six possible dimensions of the answer and discuss some likely implications. 1. By combining commercial and open source software in their daily practice, a small number of actors (firms and software developers) in the two organizational fields began transgressing the institutional logics prevailing in the two fields. I assume that these actions have influenced other participants from the two organizational fields to interact with each other on meaning arenas. 2. Many different meaning arenas were created. First, many small meaning arenas were established within the market for software relating in particular to relations among open source firms and customers. Second, many different societal meaning arenas have been established, discussing the pros and cons of commercializing open source with participation of individual software developers, IT unions, open source communities, IT trade associations, companies such as Microsoft, IBM, Novell, Sun, Oracle, KMD (a large Danish IT company owned by the National Association of Municipalities), public councils, university researchers, lawyers, municipalities, the Association of Danish Municipalities, politicians, ministries/ministers of IT, and the media. Third, meaning arenas have been established around concrete open source projects with participation of company software developers, open source communities, and, in many cases, members of upper management of companies. One assumption could be that the development of commercial open source software has depended on the establishment of many different

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3.

4.

5.

6.

307

meaning arenas linked to concrete practice on the market, in project development, and in political debates throughout society. New identities were created, such as ‘‘open source companies/suppliers,’’ ‘‘The Association of Open Source Suppliers in Denmark,’’ and ‘‘anonymous network programmers in companies.’’ I assume that the creation of these new identities within software development has rendered visible to other actors in the two organizational fields that something new was in the air. They had to adopt a position toward this, which may be the reason why they interacted in the same meaning arena. These new identities emerged as institutional entrepreneurs arguing, in the meaning arenas, for change. I believe that the development would not have continued without the discursive performance of institutional entrepreneurs in many meaning arenas. Some of the institutional actors are very small companies that have essentially not had much legitimacy in business life, and it is perhaps their very marginal economic status that has facilitated their legitimacy in open source communities. At the same time, other actors, such as IBM, have a great deal of legitimacy in business life, but in the beginning, they only carried little legitimacy in open source communities. One assumption could be that relations among different actors of different legitimacy in the two original organizational fields have constituted the point of departure for the successful maneuvers of institutional entrepreneurs. The institutional entrepreneurs have used discursive methods for deconstructing known concepts and stories within the two organizational fields, and they have developed new concepts and stories that could not fit into either of the institutional logics of the two fields. By way of example, the two institutional logics closely combine the phenomena of proprietary rights/commercial companies on the one hand and gratis/free software on the other. In this context, the institutional entrepreneurs have demonstrated great institutional efforts in disconnecting these phenomena by ending the notion, that proprietary rights are the only way of doing business, and making a distinction between gratis/free software and open software. They did not stop with this deconstruction but also created new stories about the future knowledge society and the positive role of commercial open source software in this future. At the same time, they told stories about the negative power used by dominant players on the market to obstruct faster development toward commercialization of open source. I assume that without this conceptual deconstruction of both institutional logics and the construction of stories about the future,

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it would not have been possible to develop the new practices involving commercial open source software. How are some of these results and assumptions relating to existing literature on institutional change? Some of the literature on institutional entrepreneurs (Maguire et al., 2004; Munir & Phillips, 2005; Phillips et al., 2004; Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005) emphasizes the discursive and rhetorical strategies toward change that institutional entrepreneurs have applied. My analysis supports this perception, but I would argue that it is the combination of doing new practices and talking about them that makes the institutional entrepreneurs effective as performers. The literature on institutional entrepreneurs also tends to ascribe a kind of hero status to them. This has, among other things, happened by focusing on one or a few actors – be they individuals or organizations (companies, associations, etc.) that have acted as institutional entrepreneurs and hence contributed to institutional changes (see Greenwood, Suddaby, & Hinings, 2002; Maguire et al., 2004; Munir & Phillips, 2005; Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005, among others). The analysis of the Danish institutional entrepreneurs reveals a different and more complex portrait of many different and scattered institutional entrepreneurs who, based on their differing and scattered everyday work, have contributed to the transgression of traditional understandings of how commercial companies connect to open source software communities and vice versa. We might call these actors heroes of everyday life: not only a few but many heroes are performing simultaneously. Furthermore, the literature on institutional entrepreneurs has tended to claim that compared to different societal stakeholders, these actors possess great legitimacy which they can use to influence societal institutions. The argument is that diverse stakeholders ascribe considerable legitimacy to individual institutional entrepreneurs (see Hoffman, 1999; Phillips et al., 2004, among others). Part of my analysis supports this argument. However, I would also like to argue the importance of reflecting on the combination of different institutional entrepreneurs to whom different levels of legitimacy are ascribed, which in turn constitute the basis for successful maneuvers. Some of the institutional entrepreneurs are very small companies that have had little legitimacy in their business life, and it is their very marginal economic status that might have facilitated legitimacy in open source communities. At the same time, other actors such as IBM that support open

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source software may have great legitimacy as a business but had little legitimacy in open source communities to begin with. My assumption is that it is the joint effort of these institutional entrepreneurs at different levels of legitimacy in the two original organizational fields that have constituted the point of departure for the successful performance of commercial open source software. In future studies, it will be interesting to uncover in detail the political processes involved by including data about several types of actors in the meaning arenas. It would be interesting to follow more closely than I have been able to the processes that take place between actors. Finally, it would be interesting to explore whether one new organizational software field including one or several ideological/material practice(s) has been established or whether software development ramifies into several organizational fields. Currently, any scenario seems probable.

NOTES 1. For a more detailed version of the commercialization of open source in Denmark, see Westenholz (2007a). The detailed version can be translated into English on request. 2. Data in this section derive from the electronic survey and were also used in the previous section. 3. Data derive from the website of the association http://www.osl.dk/nyhed/ presseuddrag/, from interviews with some of the association’s members, and from participation in public hearings during which members aired their opinion. 4. One of the most comprehensive reforms of the public sector was implemented in 2007 when 283 municipalities were merged into 98 municipalities.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank Roy Suddaby, the editors of the book, and two anonymous reviewers for very constructive comments on earlier drafts. The article has also been discussed at EGOS 2006, the 2006 IOA/CBS Winter Games, and among the members of the research group on Institutional Entrepreneurs in my department at CBS. I appreciate all the valuable comments the participants contributed.

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