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The central argument of this article is that institutional theory is fundamentally concerned with the creation, distribution, and application of meaning. The field today only recognizes two of these three collective practices: what we term meaning-evangelizing, concern for how actors and institutions distribute and contest meanings; and meaning-applying, how and to what end actors apply existing, established categorical systems and logics to token objects, actors, organizations, and so on. This essay focuses on the third, less studied leg: meaning-making, the construction of the meanings that guide social actors. This essay offers a theoretical path for exploring meaning-making by discussing its actors, actions, and outcomes: the institutional actors who create meanings (such as curators), how they do it (social assembly), and what is made (social mashups, i.e., candidate meanings).

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