Institutional Work: Refocusing Institutional Studies of Organization

In this paper, we discuss an alternative focus for institutional studies of organization - the study of institutional work. Research on institutional work examines the practices of individual and collective actors aimed at creating, maintaining, and disrupting institutions. Our focus in this paper i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of management inquiry Vol. 20; no. 1; pp. 52 - 58
Main Authors Lawrence, Thomas, Suddaby, Roy, Leca, Bernard
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.03.2011
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Correlation analysis
Organization theory
Studies
institutions
organizations
institutional work
agency
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Summary:In this paper, we discuss an alternative focus for institutional studies of organization - the study of institutional work. Research on institutional work examines the practices of individual and collective actors aimed at creating, maintaining, and disrupting institutions. Our focus in this paper is on the distinctiveness of institutional work as a field of study and the potential it provides for the examination of new questions. We argue that research on institutional work can contribute to bringing the individual back into institutional theory, help to re-examine the relationship between agency and institutions, and provide a bridge between critical and institutional views of organization.
ISSN:1056-4926
1552-6542
DOI:10.1177/1056492610387222