Institutional Complexity and Organizational Change: An Open Polity Perspective

Abstract

Changing environments often expose organizations to institutional logics that are at odds with other logics that were imprinted into the organizations in the past, giving rise to conflict. We specifically propose that prior institutional environments imprint organizational coalitions and governance systems-the organization's polity-and that these polity imprints explain variance in organizational change processes in response to new logics. We argue that such polity imprints shape how different organizational groups construe their conflicting interests in relation to new logics, how they mobilize for and against changes emanating from these logics, and how the outcomes of group conflict become stabilized. To develop this argument, we identify four ideal types of organizational polities, based on differences in the centralization of authority and the unity of organizational elites. Each ideal type gives rise to a characteristic pattern of how organizations process the advent of new logics. Our analysis demonstrates the utility of conceptualizing organizations as open polities-political entities that interact with their external environment-and the importance of taking historically imprinted political features of organizations into account in studies of organizational responses to institutional complexity.

Institutional Logics in the Global Higher Education Landscape: Differences in Organizational Characteristics by Sector and Founding Era

“…The findings suggest that imprinting during the formative phase endures and leaves a footprint across subsequent eras. While organizational imprinting is a well-established concept (Oertel 2018;Stinchcombe 1965;Waeger and Weber 2019), linking it to institutional logics, i.e., the ideational blueprints of organizations, turns out to be a fruitful extension.…”

“…The key tenet is that past events and decisions remain important for current and future decision-making and that formal structure reflects the environmental pressures of the initial phase. More recently, organizational scholars have also extended the imprinting concept to institutional logics, combining the crucial role of inceptive phases with the importance of ideational and cognitive forces motivating organizational behavior (Waeger and Weber 2019). Here, logics have been found to have strong legacies.…”

“…Rather, they suggest that organizational differences in higher education also stem from specific norms or 'institutional logics' dominant in sector-specific or field-specific environments (DiMaggio and Powell 1983;Ramirez and Christensen 2013). According to this perspective, institutional logics, once imprinted in the formative phase, will continue to influence actors' behavior, resulting in persistent differences in norms and practices within organizations, even as environmental pressures change (Oertel 2018;Raynard, Lounsbury and Greenwood 2013;Stinchcombe 1965;Waeger and Weber 2019).…”

Legitimacy, stratification, and internationalization in global higher education: the case of the International Association of Universities

“…This resonates with the concept of imprinted institutional logics, an idea that has proven useful in explaining similarities in organizational structure and behavior within and across fields and periods (Thornton et al 2012). Combining the imprinting concept with institutional logics, we emphasize the crucial role of inceptive phases together with the importance of ideational and cognitive forces that motivate organizational behavior (Waeger and Weber 2019). In this perspective, logics have strong legacies.…”

Introduction: changing philosophies

“…Unfortunately, the consensus stopped at an agreement that managing organizational change is more important than ever before; an axiom that has only escalated in repetition with the passing years. How to make change happen successfully, however, depends on a myriad of other assumptions and variables, like an organization's readiness for change (Weiner, Clary, Klaman, Turner and Alishahi-Tabriz, 2020), the political, institutional and technological context (Waeger and Weber, 2019), human responses and commitments to change (Raeder and Bokova, 2019) and resilience in the face of upheaval (Brown and Abuatiq, 2020).…”