Organizational and Institutional Entrepreneuring: Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

In our Introduction to this Special Issue on Organizational and Institutional Entrepreneuring, we draw attention to the importance of recognizing how processes and practices of entrepreneuring take place in the context of an already organized world. We particularly draw attention to how such entrepreneuring processes, as imaginative-poetic extensions beyond the present, can occur in a variety of societal, institutional and organizational contexts. Overall we focus on entrepreneuring as the process of creating organization. As a result, we believe that important insights arise by drawing attention to ways of ‘starting’ and ‘actualizing’, rather than conceptualizing entrepreneurship as something that was already ‘started’ in the past. This Special Issue thus helps to provide much-needed scholarship that expands our knowledge base and provides a foundation for future research. We conclude our Introduction with a summary of the articles making up this Special Issue, noting the ways that each article helps to advance our knowledge base about the processes of entrepreneuring.

Towards an Object-Oriented Organization Theory: The Role of Entrepreneurial Objects in Organizational Emergence

“…In this article, we develop the stance that organizations are emergent autonomy-seeking objects . We show that this approach is consistent with the notion that organizations emerge in environments that are already organized (Hjorth et al, 2015; Hjorth & Reay, 2022). In this mode of thinking emergence is an instance of something coming to exist that is not merely the sum of its parts (Morton, 2011, 2018).…”

“…Strong process theorists hold the view that an ontology of objects automatically reproduces a deterministic view of the socially qualified universe, and that therefore objects must be metaphysically eliminated in order to theorize “becoming” (Cloutier & Langley, 2020; Nayak & Chia, 2011). Hence, when dealing with new organizations, process theory replaces objects with flow, accentuated through a division between the potential and the actual (Hjorth & Reay, 2022; Linstead & Thanem, 2007). As a result of this, not only the more obvious examples of objects, from computer screens and kittens to wookies and ray guns, but also real organizations may seem unlikely candidates for organization theorists’ interest (Frankel, 2021).…”

“…Beguiled by process-based philosophies, work at the intersection of organization theory and entrepreneurship focuses on organizations as emergent phenomena (Chiles, Bluedorn & Gupta, 2007; Gartner, 1993; Hjorth, Holt & Steyaert, 2015). Ensuing research that draws from a strong process-oriented ontology (Cloutier & Langley, 2020) has explored “organization-creation in an already organized world” (Hjorth & Reay, 2022, p. 171), elaborated upon in an impressive range of historical, cultural, spatial, and institutional contexts (Gehman, Sharma & Beveridge, 2022; Lounsbury, Gehman & Glynn, 2019; Wadhwani, Kirsch, Welter & Jones, 2020; Welter & Baker, 2021). Although empirical studies on how organizations come to exist are now a staple of organizational studies (Cucchi, Lubberink, Dentoni, & Gartner, 2022; Williams & Shepherd, 2021), surprisingly little theoretical discussion has ensued around the metaphysical grounds of process ontology’s rejection of organizations as objects (du Gay, 2020; du Gay & Vikkelsø, 2018; Frankel, 2021; King, Felin & Whetten, 2010).…”

“…By studying process, attention has been deflected from entrepreneurship’s traditional emphasis on individual human beings, turning instead to the more collective and “already organized” premises of organizational emergence (Hjorth et al, 2015). Yet, despite advances in understandings of how the possibilities for creating new organizations emerge (Hjorth & Reay, 2022), it is fair to ask whether process ontology—the philosophical stance on which scholarly inquiry currently rests (Hjorth, 2014; Steyaert, 2007)—rightfully enjoys a monopoly over emergence as the explanatory modus for organizations. To deliver a competing, if also largely complementary and certainly respectful, view we argue that strong process ontology (Cloutier & Langley, 2020) tends to deal with organizations in a way that relegates them to an epiphenomenal status.…”

Integrating Digital Innovation Mechanisms in Digital Infrastructures: The Case of Digital Remote Care

“…59 Nonetheless, we conjecture that the professional community's interests and actions have brought legitimacy and anchoring to the DRC practice. 60 Nevertheless, the use of lightweight IT is challenging due to the funding structure for the hospitals and the dependence on the shared ICT operational organisation. The first issue constrains the managers' ability to make large investments, and the second issue has led to lengthy processes and rejections related to integration.…”