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The role of resources in institutional entrepreneurship: Insights for an approach to strategic management that combines agency and institution
... Resources can be used by institutional entrepreneurs to overcome resistance to institutional change or to help diffuse the institutional program [46]. The lack of resources and a link to ineffective institutions can also trigger individual and collective clusters to adopt "bricolage" approaches to institutional entrepreneurship [47]. ...
... Additionally, and strengthening the institutional entrepreneur profile with theoretical support, the findings provide evidence to identify characteristics of formal authority [29,34,46], legitimacy [2,20,31], and leadership [4,46], directed at obtaining consensus [1]. The identification of these characteristics of an institutional entrepreneur is also a contribution of the research. ...
... Additionally, and strengthening the institutional entrepreneur profile with theoretical support, the findings provide evidence to identify characteristics of formal authority [29,34,46], legitimacy [2,20,31], and leadership [4,46], directed at obtaining consensus [1]. The identification of these characteristics of an institutional entrepreneur is also a contribution of the research. ...
This paper seeks to analyze how and why divergent institutional changes occurred in a government agency. While there is evidence of research on the concept of collective action and involvement in the literature on institutional entrepreneurship, the focus has been at the macro and field levels, with scarce attention being given to the topic at the micro and organizational levels. This study addresses this gap in the literature, drawing on the institutional entrepreneurship process model of Battilana, Leca, and Boxenbaum (The Academy of Management Annals), in combination with literature on collective action. The methodology involved a longitudinal case study, in which data were collected through extensive interviews and documentation analysis. Based on findings showing that the divergence change process could not be achieved without the support of organizational collective involvement, a refined version of the Battilana et al. entrepreneurial model is proposed.
Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2023-07-02-017
Full Text: PDF
... In turn, according to the knowledge corridor thesis, entrepreneurs recognize opportunities because of the stocks of knowledge that are available to them based on the knowledge corridors that they can readily access (Shane, 2000). However, institutional theory suggests that the multiplicity of values in an institutional environment creates heterogeneity between institutions, which in turn produces contradictions among institutions that act as antecedents for institutional change (Battilana & Leca, 2009;Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006;Lawrence, Suddaby, & Leca, 2009;Leca & Naccache, 2006). Furthermore, as described below, this line of argumentation suggests that heterogeneous institutional configurations will create knowledge corridors that will correlate with specific-and distinct-types of opportunities to be recognized. ...
... Institutional contradictions motivate actors to evaluate the institutions that they are embedded in, and conceive of innovative ways that the institutions can be changed or new institutions created (Battilana & Leca, 2009;Garud, Hardy, & Maguire, 2007;Hardy & Maguire, 2008;Leca & Naccache, 2006;Lee & Lounsbury, 2015;Seo & Creed, 2002). Institutional contradiction causes individuals to invoke praxis (Seo & Creed, 2002), a form of agency in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 combinations (or omissions) of institutional elements will lead to the best outcomes (Benson, 1977;Friedland & Alford, 1991). ...
Purpose
Despite intense scholarly interest in social entrepreneurship, opportunity recognition remains a poorly understood facet of the phenomenon. Linkages between the micro- and macro-level forces shaping social entrepreneurship are particularly unclear. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of institutional channeling, the process by which institutions socialize and direct individuals into specific knowledge corridors, as a key mechanism influencing the ability of entrepreneurs to identify and create different types of opportunities.
Design/methodology/approach
Through a synthesis of institutional theory and the knowledge corridor thesis, this research offers a theory explaining why some individuals are able to recognize opportunities for social entrepreneurship.
Findings
The authors develop a conceptual model that explains how non-contested institutions channel entrepreneurs into homogeneous knowledge corridors, which support the creation of purely for-profit and non-profit organizations. By contrast, experiences involving institutional plurality activate and enable heterogeneous knowledge corridors, which are associated with the ability to recognize opportunities, like social entrepreneurship, that blend institutions.
Originality/value
The central contribution of this paper is an explanation of why certain individuals, because of their institutional experiences, are more likely than others to recognize for-profit, non-profit and social opportunities. This article highlights that previous efforts at addressing this issue were predominantly centered at the micro level of analysis and focus on individual entrepreneurs and their identities, personality traits and social networks. Although these studies have shed light on important facets of opportunity recognition, they do not sufficiently explain the influence that institutions can have on the micro processes involved in social entrepreneurship opportunity recognition.
Value-based payment aims to shift the focus from traditional volume-driven arrangements to a system that rewards providers for the quality and value of care delivered. Previous research has shown that it is difficult for providers to change their medical and organizational practices to adopt value-based payment, but the role of actors in these reforms has remained underexposed. This paper unravels the motives of non-clinical and clinical professionals to maintain institutionalized payment practices when faced with value-based payment. To illuminate these motives, a case study was conducted in a Dutch hospital alliance that aimed to implement value-based payment to incentivize the transition to novel interventions in a prostate cancer care pathway. Data collection consisted of observations and interviews with actors on multiple levels in the hospital (sales departments, medical specialist enterprises (MSEs) and physicians). On each actor level, motives for maintaining currently prevailing institutional practices were present. Regulative maintenance motives were more common for sales managers whereas cultural-cognitive and normative motives seemed to play an important role for physicians. An overarching motive was that desired transitions to novel interventions proved possible under the currently prevailing institutional logic, dismissing an urgent need for payment reform. Our analysis further revealed that actors engage in diverse institutional maintenance work, and that some actor groups’ institutional work carries more weight than others because of the dependency relationships that exist between hospitals, MSEs and physicians. Physicians depend on MSEs and sales departments, who act as gatekeepers and buffers, to decide whether the value-based payment reform is either adopted or abandoned.
As agents of strategic institutional change, institutional entrepreneurs (IEs) draw resources from their structural environment to alter the structural context in which they are embedded. In this article, we explore which resources IEs mobilize in different structural settings. We distinguish between (positional or free) field resources and personal resources, all of which may be material, cultural, social, symbolic or political in kind. Our review of leading case studies of institutional entrepreneurship shows that centrally positioned IEs draw primarily on organizational positional resources. By contrast, peripherally positioned IEs rely mainly on the skilful mobilization of free resources as well as on the personal resources of individuals. Also the field's degree of institutionalization has an impact on IEs' resources: in emerging fields where field positions and field boundaries are not yet defined, resources must be imported from mature fields. Furthermore, although resource-poor peripheral IEs may set off institution-building processes in emerging fields, they are usually superseded by central organizational actors during later stages of institution-building.
The work of community-based organizations (CBOs), organizations that represent a particular community, can be an impetus for social change and advocacy. By drawing on the institutional entrepreneurship perspective, this study seeks to understand how CBOs attempt to challenge dominant carceral logics (referred to as a punishment-oriented mind-set) in operation across two fields: (1) the public-school system and (2) human service providers that work with sex workers. Utilizing a comparative case study design in the city of Chicago, this study discusses how CBOs leverage their legitimacy and relationships to identify contradictions within the carceral logics in city-wide fields and promote alternative solutions, namely restorative justice in public schools and decriminalization of sex work. CBO strategies and goals differed based on their field position and existing support, so we discuss how CBOs can advance alternate logics and promote change depending on their contexts.
This study extends research on buyer firm roles in improving supplier sustainability practices by considering institutions – norms and rules – in the organisational field in which suppliers and sub-suppliers operate, exerting pressures on these actors to align their respectivepractices. We introducethe resource-based view to arrive at a framework outlining key capabilities for institutional entrepreneurs that seek institutionalisation of corporate sustainability standards (CSS) as a new institution across a multi-tier supply chain. The paper draws on the results of an exploratory research study using six comparative case studies within four industries. While institutional entrepreneurship explains how organisations drive institutional change, the resource-based view outlines criteria for organisational capabilities enabling the focal firm to achieve the targeted institutional change. Our analysis suggests five key capabilities enabling a buying firm to effectively institutionalise their requirements in multi-tier supply chains: (1) inter-firm dialogue, (2) risk management, (3) external stakeholder collaboration, (4) cross-functional integration, and (5) continuous improvement. The key organisational capabilities identified help to extend the theory of institutional entrepreneurship with concepts that facilitate institutional change in multi-tier supply chains with respect to corporate sustainability. This exploratory work opens up avenues of additional research in general and supply chain theory development.
Despite years of concern and various attempts to address the issue, arts audiences remain persistently white, educated, middle class and middle-aged. The homogenous profile of arts attenders undermines the public value of subsidised arts organisations, arguably calling into question the creative vibrancy of the sector and threatening its sustainability. Diversifying audiences have traditionally been the role of audience development programs. However, a recent shift has brought attention to the influence of organisational practice: as Lindelof observes, ‘it is not the audience, but the institutions that are in need of development’. The lack of audience diversity may be evidence of implicit cultural policy within arts organisations which restricts practices that would result in changes to the profile of audiences.
However, a recent shift has brought attention to the influence of organisational practice whereby the lack of audience diversity may be evidence of implicit cultural policy within arts organisations which restricts practices that would result in changes to the profile of audiences. Drawing on two case studies, it identifies a spectrum of approaches to the organisational changes required to diversify audiences. Our organisational study identifies the current strengths and weaknesses of arts organisations in relation to audience diversification processes, highlighting opportunities for future cultural policy at both a government and institutional level.
Employing the lens of institutional entrepreneurship to help understand the logic of organizational change management, we conduct an analysis of the impact of Appreciative Inquiry® in a multi-unit division of a large, university-based health system. Our results indicate that, although there may have been some marginal impact in temporarily reducing an observed decline in employee commitment indicators, the program failed to sustain positive impacts over the longer term. Implications for the study of organizational change as the action of institutional entrepreneurs are briefly discussed.
With arguments for and against an agency embedded in the same institutional field being in a position to trigger large-scale institutional change endogenously still continuing, discussions on personality variables (related to the institutional entrepreneur or change agent or Community Champion, as this chapter argues to be more apt to use in a social context) have been relegated to the background. What sparks such entrepreneurial activity? Why does only one out of so many actors volunteer to lead such change? Based on literature from the disciplines of institutional change, volunteerism and transformative leadership and based inductively on four cases of successful transformational institutional change by change agents or Community Champions in Odisha, this chapter proposes a framework of nine attributes for voluntary action by these Community Champions. Unlike the variables identified in the literature on institutional change and volunteerism, these attributes are more relevant for a social context. Of particular interest is the attribute level of selflessness, which is strongly linked to altruism.
Now organizations are always vulnerable to the liabilities of newness, but such pressures are especially severe when an industry is in its formative years. We focus on one set of constraints facing entrepreneurs in emerging industries-their relative lack of cognitive and sociopolitical legitimacy. We examine the strategies that founders can pursue, suggesting how their successful pursuit of legitimacy may evolve from innovative ventures to broader contexts, collectively reshaping industry and institutional environments.
The intuitive background for measures of structural centrality in social networks is reviewed and existing measures are evaluated in terms of their consistency with intuitions and their interpretability.
Many formal organizational structures arise as reflections of rationalized institutional rules. The elaboration of such rules in modern states and societies accounts in part for the expansion and increased complexity of formal organizational structures. Institutional rules function as myths which organizations incorporate, gaining legitimacy, resources, stability, and enhanced survival prospects. Organizations whose structures become isomorphic with the myths of the institutional environment-in contrast with those primarily structured by the demands of technical production and exchange-decrease internal coordination and control in order to maintain legitimacy. Structures are decoupled from each other and from ongoing activities. In place of coordination, inspection, and evaluation, a logic of confidence and good faith is employed.