Domination in Organizational Fields: It’s Just Not Cricket

Abstract

This article demonstrates how deep engagement with Bourdieu’s theory of the field enriches scholarly understanding of institutional processes. A historical narrative of institutional formation and change in firstclass County cricket in England as a field of restricted cultural production is presented. The narrative illustrates how focusing attention on the position of agents within the field, the relations of production within the field, and the social context, which includes social class, provides a path for analysis of institutional processes which is dynamic, multi-level and nuanced. Bourdieu’s conception of fields as a struggle for capital between agents strategizing to improve field position illuminates the importance of social class to institutional processes, an effect that has been under reported by the most popular approaches to institutionalization in the extant literature.

Re-theorizing the ‘structure–agency’ relationship: Figurational theory, organizational change and the Gaelic Athletic Association

“…Battilana, 2006;Wright, 2009). Attempts to transcend this have primarily involved the knitting or grounding of wider social theoretical perspectives with institutional theory--structuration theory (Barley and Tolbert, 1997;Scott, 2008); critical realism (Leca and Naccache, 2006) and Bourdieusian theory (Battilana, 2006;Wright, 2009). Yet, despite this, we contend, that these approaches fail to adequately theorize the empirical phenomena to which they relate.…”

“…Bourdieu's (1990) concept of field-a version of which has been subsumed by institutional approaches to organizational studies-has been specifically identified and advocated as a means to overcome the structure-agency dilemma within institutional theory (e.g. Battilana, 2006;Wright, 2009). However, we argue that even here institutional theorists continue to sustain the dualism of structure-agency.…”

Accounting for accounting’s role in the neoliberalization processes of social housing in England: A Bourdieusian perspective

“…French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu, regarded as one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century (Yang, 2014) develops a framework to account for the dynamics of power in society -how power is transferred and social order maintained within and across generations -which integrate a theory of social structures (field), a theory of power relations (forms of capital), and a theory of the individual (habitus) (Dobbin, 2008;Stringfellow et al, 2015). His theories have been applied by studies seeking to adopt processual or practice based perspectives and account for dynamics of social change (Kitchin and Howe, 2014;Wright, 2009;Grenfell and James, 2004).…”

Imitation and Processes of Institutionalization — Insights from Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice

“…Second, the paper adds to discussions about connecting new institutional theory with Bourdieu's theory of practice. While there are some approaches to connect new institutionalism with Bourdieu's concepts of field and capital (see, e.g., Battilana (2006); Lounsbury and Ventresca (2003); Oakes, Townley, and Cooper (1998); Wright (2009)), there are few that introduce the concept of habitus in institutional research. I argue that combining Bourdieu's habitus concept with new institutional theory might foster the theory's development, particularly at the micro-level, because of the unique insights Bourdieu's theory might add to institutional processes.…”