Moving from an Exception to a Rule: Analyzing Mechanisms in Emergence-Based Institutionalization

Abstract

W e analyze the conditions under which a practice moves from rare and unacceptable to preponderant and legitimate through bottom-up, relational processes. To better understand the mechanisms and contingencies of such "emergencebased institutionalization," we combine computational agent-based modeling with insights from a setting where a seemingly deviant local practice became institutionalized: the case of the emergence of proprietary disclosure in the academic life sciences. Our approach results in both theoretical and methodological contributions. From a theoretical perspective, we develop propositions related to microlevel processes that lead to the institutionalization of new rules or those that leave existing arrangements unchanged. Our analysis suggests that traditional social explanations, such as organizational reproduction and copying successful peers, are less likely to drive emergence-based institutionalization than cognitive factors that direct individuals to anticipate and preempt the actions of others. From a methodological perspective, we provide an example of how case analysis and computational modeling can be combined to study the varying and contingent roles that normative, social, and cognitive factors play in persistence and change in institutionalization.

Strategic Management in Hospitals: Tensions between the Managerial and Institutional Lens

“…There is a special focus on organizations' inner representation of institutional pressures (Pache & Santos, 2010), local practices (Colyvas & Maroulis, 2015;Smets et al, 2012), and interests (Dunn & Jones, 2010), seeking to understand how organizations respond to institutional logics. Conjointly, these aspects suggest that political and symbolic aspects are essential, at least as important as instrumental aspects, in explaining the relationship between organization and environment.…”

The accidental implementation of an institutional ritual

“…For if we do not know much about the processes of decoupling in the presence of institutional pressures (Marquis et al, 2016: 483), we know even less about the processes of coupling in the absence of such pressures. Relevant models should inevitably direct attention to the micro-processes of the institutional life and the subtler phenomenological processes underlying overt organizational activities (Colyvas & Maroulis, 2015;Colyvas & Powell, 2008;Suddaby, Elsbach, Greenwood, Meyer & Zilber, 2010).…”

“…However, the realization that policy-practice gaps can remain unoccupied harbors the promise of identifying strategies toward their more effective detection and utilization. To do so, however, we should depart from prevalent structural-deterministic models of institutional thought (Cardinale, 2017;DiMaggio, 1988;Gavetti, Levinthal & Ocasio, 2007) that tend to overshadow the micro-foundations of institutional life (Colyvas & Maroulis, 2015;Colyvas & Powell, 2008;Suddaby, 2 010). Rather, we ought to develop better phenomenological understanding of how organizational agents themselves make sense of (the phenomena that we name) institutional pressures and organizational rituals.…”

Causal mechanisms in organization and innovation studies

“…organizations, industries or fields (Colyvas & Maroulis, 2015;Macy & Willer, 2002). Recent models have been used by organization researchers to examine how organizational cultures change as a result of selection and retention of employees (Harrison & Carroll, 2006), how institutional rules and procedures emerge through social interaction (Colyvas & Maroulis, 2015), the consequences that follow if managerial behavior is simultaneously influenced by professional identities and cultural prescriptions in the workplace (Schneider, 2002), how social influence affects goal settings within and between organizations (March, 1991), and how organizations adopt managerial fads (Strang & Macy, 2001), to mention just a few examples.…”