Institutional Work:Actors and Agency in Institutional Studies of Organizations

Academic interest in institutional studies of organization has a long history, starting with classical works of Max Weber, Philip Selznick, etc., in the late 1940s. In last two decades, there has been an upsurge in work on institutional studies of organization with publication of some commendable work (Powell and DiMaggio, 1991; and Greenwood et al., 2008). The initial focus of scholars in institutional theory was on explanation of organizational similarities (isomorphism) in organizational field. In the late 1990, the focus shifted to explaining institutional change due exogenous elements, followed by institutional entrepreneurship and institutional logic. Institutional entrepreneurship aims at explaining an endogenous change to institutions. It thrusts on importance of agency in actors and attempts to resolve the paradox of embedded agency: how can actors change institutions if their actions, intentions, are constrained by the same institution which they wish to change (Holm, 1995; and Seo and Creed, 2002). Institutional entrepreneurship has emphasized on role of actors in creating new institutions.