stages of institutionalist experience
Brayden wrote a very perceptive post about institutional theory’s displacement of resource dependency theory. That post inspired me to think about the history of institutional theory as it is practiced in soc, o.b., and management:
- Paleo or “old” institutionalism: I think this was hatched by various folks like Sumner, Selznick, Merton, and others. Idea was simple. Communities have social practices or mores that shape social change. Selznick famously worked on the co-optation side of the story.
- Proto institutionalism: Somewhere between Parsons, definitely in the old or “paleo” camp, and the DiMaggio/Powell/Meyer/Rowan spectrum, were people shifting from local social processes to global forces. Stinchcombe definitely fits, as does the work that grapples with org structrures and resource flows, even when it is not overtly focused on environments.
- The New Institutionalism: The institutionalism we all know and love. Probably the big dispute was over the sources of structure – rational response to task completion or legitimacy signal? This move completed the switch from local community to polity/field/sector as the source of legitimacy. Rather quickly, this became the “go to” theory for a generation of sociologists who needed to justify their own studies of the social sources of org behavior.
- Disputed Institutionalism: Starting in the late 1990s, perhaps with Davis and Thompson’s work on shareholder revolts or Clemens’ book on lobbying, people started linking conflict with institutions. This blew up with the work of Soule, Schneiberg, and Bartley. I’d also put myself in this camp because I view institutions and new org forms as long term consequences of political mobilization. The focus is still on non-local environments, but conflict revolves around cultural scripts, which is then filtered through statute and custom.
- The New Micro-institutionalism: For a while, I thought that institutionalism was played out. Once you admit people could argue with institutions, there wasn’t much left to say. But then I read the stuff on institutional work by Suddaby & Lawrence. A simple point, we need a better account of the things that are done to create/defend/destroy institutions. My most very recent work employs these ideas.
So what’s next for institutional theory? Every time you think we’re done, some pushes it in a new direction.
“So what’s next for institutional theory?” Many have mentioned this – I think it’s time for Selznick 2.0 (or 2.1. or wherever we are now), related to your point #5. Selznick is rich with insights (beyond what is listed in your point #1) – his metatheory is nicely articulated in his short 1996 ASQ article. Furthermore, Selznickian institutionalism also overlaps with other forms of institutionalism, for example in econ (some nice links, also, to anthropology), which is another exciting area that might yield further insights.
And dare I say: bring back the actors (I know, I know – again?!).
teppo
August 12, 2011 at 12:58 am
very, very, very stimulating. i love how the posts discuss “institutions/organizations” as such (not sure if i’m using that idiom in the correct way), though it makes me feel a bit insecure in my own self-identification as a “historical institutionalist” in sociology/political economy since i only seem to be interested in orgs & institutions in relation to socioeconomic development and business organization. i realize how vague (and often sloppy as well) my usages of ‘organization’ and ‘institution’ can be…
Andrew
August 12, 2011 at 8:00 am
I think the next direction in institutional theory has already been laid out by Fligstein and McAdam’s 2011 Sociological Theory article, which is pretty much based on a series of working papers available on Fligstein’s website. An argument that he and McAdam have been fleshing out since 1995.
1995: http://sociology.berkeley.edu/profiles/fligstein/pdf/DOGPAP.03.pdf
1998: http://sociology.berkeley.edu/profiles/fligstein/pdf/fieldspower.pdf
2008: http://sociology.berkeley.edu/profiles/fligstein/pdf/Theory%20and%20Methods%20for%20the%20Study%20of%20SAFs.pdf
The theory has been updated and stated most clearly in the 2011 Sociological theory article:
Available here: http://www.asanet.org/images/journals/docs/pdf/st/Mar11STFeature.pdf.
I agree completely with Fligstein and McAdam that structure, power, conflict, and agency (teppo’s point about actors and who they are being important) have been underutilized by various institutionalist theories (something that “disputed institutionalist” scholars in fabio’s point 4 also noted).
In some ways, I think institutionalists have moved us too far toward constructionist and cultural explanations for the existence and persistence of institutions, and as Fligstein and McAdam point out, too often institutional fields are treated as settled and consensual. The institutional logic explanation neglects the more structural, political, and power-based explanations for stability and change within institutional fields. When I read some institutionalist research, I tend to find myself asking who has the power to institute the institutions? When consensus is reached, whose consensus is it? And how much do all actors within the field agree?
I think Fligstein and McAdam are trying to bring social structure, power, and resources back in as a variables by synthesizing social movement and institutionalist theories. Unlike some others recently on this blog, I don’t think resource dependence theory has been appropriately adopted by or included in institutionalist theories, and I think McAdam and Fligstein’s theory of strategic action fields helps to bring such arguments back into the fold, where who has power and control over resources become important again.
Scott Dolan
August 12, 2011 at 2:50 pm
Andrew, I think we’ll be revisiting the McAdam/Fligstein a bit more around here. I wonder if it’s more synthetic rather than idea generating. Either way, I think it’s promising.
fabiorojas
August 12, 2011 at 5:53 pm
@ Fabio. You’re probably right that it is more idea generating than synthesizing,. A similar argument against institutional theory is made by Powell an interview in the Economic Sociology newsletter here: http://www2.asanet.org/sectionecon/AccountsJuly2011.pdf. Writing with Padgett, I am guessing this is more of a network approach.
I think Fligstein and McAdam are trying for a more comprehensive approach. For me, it works.
Scott Dolan
August 12, 2011 at 6:59 pm
The discursive turn in institutional theory originating largely from Canada and getting a lot of traction in Europe is curiously absent here. It may be interepreted as a rediscovery of Foucault, now without the bothersome Academic Cult of Foucault attached?
Henri
August 20, 2011 at 10:16 pm
Disclaimer: I am still on the first page in your article… (However, I have the opportunity to comment now, rather than later…)
The paper discusses some differences in how an individual, or an interest group, can shape an institution. Different schools of thought – within sociology and organizational theory I assume – have different perspectives on this.
However, in my student days, we challenged this issue from a somehow different angle: Strong institutions limits the ability of one individual or an interest group, while weak institutions are limited by the same. Further, strong institutions are typically found in societies categorized as ‘open access orders’ in the latest works of Douglass North, while weak institutions are typically found in societies categorized as ‘limited access orders’ in this framework. I read North only after I finished my studies, however, it corresponds very well with the essence I got out of them.
So, why does this matter? As you state in the paper:
//Once powerful actors articulate their interests, they employ their resources to reshape organizations. Power, in these accounts, is exogenous. In contrast, other scholars view organizations as saddled with constraints (e.g., Barnett & Carroll, 1995; DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Hannan & Freeman, 1989; Lounsbury & entresca, 2003; Scott, 2000; Stinchcombe, 1965).//
So, perhaps, the scholars were looking into different societies, and, hence, concluded differently? The Norwegian State, as an institution, is strong. It is very limited what kind of change elected politicians can make. To a large extent, the state apparatus ‘is saddled with constraints’. On the other hand, say in a country like Libya, the Libyan State is weak, and a change in head of state can, potentially, lead to a radical change in the operations of the state apparatus.
The same can be said about political parties. If we look at the now famous Norwegian Labour party, Norway’s largest political party, their policies have certainly evolved tremendously in the past 30 years, however, the focus of their policies have not changed much. While leaders come and go, the party stays the same. While the environment changes, and the political solutions are evolving with it, the souls and focus of the party’s policies stays the same.
That can not be said about parties in a country like Libya. The whole idea of a political party as an institutions in alien in Libya. There are powerful individuals, there are coalitions of powerful interest groups, but there are no parties as such.
While a leader of the Norwegian Labour party would find himself working with strong institutional constraints, there is no such thing in any Libyan movement. The only constraints are non-institutionalized and informal power.
This is perhaps what the rest of your paper is about, I will follow up my comment if I have the opportunity to do so in the next couple of days :)
Tord Steiro
August 22, 2011 at 8:48 am
Thanks for the commentary, Tord. I look forward to the rest and will respond.
fabiorojas
August 22, 2011 at 6:52 pm