Toward a cross-level understanding of institutional change: a microfoundational perspective

Abstract

Institutional theory and the Problem of AgencyEarlier institutional theory placed too much stress on associating actor compliance with taken-for-grantedness and institutional rules. DiMaggio (1988, p. 3) described this critique as "metaphysical pathos (…) a rhetorical defocalization of interest and agency". In response, an agentic turn in institutional theory was soon to follow, reversing the initial causal relationship between institutional environment and organizations to the extent that "organizations became treated as the independent variable rather than the dependent variable in processes of institutional change"