A decade of institutional work: context and opportunities for research

Zarpelon, Felipe de Mattos; Bittencourt, Anelise Caon; Faccin, Kadígia; Balestrin, Alsones

doi:10.1590/1984-9260917

Felipe de Mattos Zarpelon

PhD Candidate at the Business Administration Graduation Program at the University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Unisinos) - São Leopoldo (RS), Brasil. E-mail: felipemz@edu.unisinos.br.

http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6587-6239

Anelise Caon Bittencourt

PhD in Business Administration from the University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Unisinos). Professor at the Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing (ESPM) - Porto Alegre (RS), Brasil. E-mail: anecaon@hotmail.com.

http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4808-3434

Kadígia Faccin

PhD in Business Administration from the University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Unisinos), and a PhD in Information and Communication Sciences from the Université de Poitiers (France). Professor at the Business Administration Graduation Program at the University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Unisinos) - São Leopoldo (RS), Brasil. E-mail: kadigiaf@unisinos.br.

http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7038-2938

Alsones Balestrin

PhD in Business Administration from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRS), and a PhD in Information and Communication Sciences from the Université de Poitiers (France). Professor at the Business Administration Graduation Program at the University of do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Unisinos) - São Leopoldo (RS), Brasil. E-mail: abalestrin@unisinos.br.

http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6397-1582

PhD Candidate at the Business Administration Graduation Program at the University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Unisinos) - São Leopoldo (RS), Brasil. E-mail: felipemz@edu.unisinos.br.

PhD in Business Administration from the University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Unisinos). Professor at the Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing (ESPM) - Porto Alegre (RS), Brasil. E-mail: anecaon@hotmail.com.

PhD in Business Administration from the University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Unisinos), and a PhD in Information and Communication Sciences from the Université de Poitiers (France). Professor at the Business Administration Graduation Program at the University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Unisinos) - São Leopoldo (RS), Brasil. E-mail: kadigiaf@unisinos.br.

PhD in Business Administration from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRS), and a PhD in Information and Communication Sciences from the Université de Poitiers (France). Professor at the Business Administration Graduation Program at the University of do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Unisinos) - São Leopoldo (RS), Brasil. E-mail: abalestrin@unisinos.br.

Study focus (up to 2013)	Examples of Papers	Opportunities
Studies tend to use retrospective approaches based on interviews and documentary data to analyze the relationship between the individual's actions and their consequences.	Zietsma and Lawrence (2010ZIETSMA, C.; LAWRENCE, T. B. Institutional work in the transformation of an organizational field: The interplay of boundary work and practice work. Administrative Science Quarterly, v. 55, n. 2, p. 189-221, 2010.).	Conducting research with methodological approaches that might evidence the experiences of the actors in vivo and in situ, besides their successes and errors in daily repetitions.
Actors engaged in institutional work tend to be portrayed as experts with the capacity to manipulate their institutional environment, sometimes underestimating the cognitive and emotional efforts required for the actors to develop reflexivity about their actions.	Empson, Cleaver, and Allen (2013EMPSON, L.; CLEAVER, I.; ALLEN, J. Managing partners and management professionals: Institutional work dyads in professional partnerships. Journal of Management Studies, v. 50, n. 5, p. 808-844, 2013.); Singh and Jayanti (2013SINGH, J.; JAYANTI, R. K. When institutional work backfires: Organizational control of professional work in the pharmaceutical industry. Journal of Management Studies, v. 50, n. 5, p. 900-929, 2013.); Gawer and Phillips (2013GAWER, A.; PHILLIPS, N. Institutional work as logics shift: The case of Intel’s transformation to platform leader. Organization Studies, v. 34, n. 8, p. 1035-1071, 2013.).	There is a risk that this approach underestimates the cognitive and emotional efforts required for the actors to develop reflexivity about their actions. As it is difficult to analyze, it is important to highlight how the reflexivity of the actors develops, either through relational tools or environmental issues.
Institutional work as a way of transforming realities and mitigating social dysfunctions resulting from institutional pressures.	Slager, Gond, and Moon (2012SLAGER, R.; GOND, J-P.; MOON, J. Standardization as institutional work: The regulatory power of a responsible investment standard. Organization Studies, v. 33, n. 5-6, p. 763-790, 2012.).	However, this direction of institutional work as transformative and capable of reducing social inequalities is not thoroughly evidenced in empirical studies.

Opportunities highlighted in 2013	Recent Approaches	Example of studies
Conducting studies with methodological approaches that might provide evidence of the experiences of the actors in vivo and in situ in addition to their successes and errors in daily repetitions.	Studies have used ethnographic and processual approaches and highlighted the importance of phenomenology. Advances have been made in the use of social network analysis and netnography.	Fine and Hallett (2014FINE, G. A.; HALLETT, T. Group cultures and the everyday life of organizations: Interaction orders and meso-analysis. Organization Studies, v. 35, n. 12, p. 1773-1792, 2014.); Landau; Drori and Terjesen (2014LANDAU, D.; DRORI, I.; TERJESEN, S. Multiple legitimacy narratives and planned organizational change. Human Relations, v. 67, n. 11, p. 1321-1345, 2014.); Heaphy (2013HEAPHY, E.D. Repairing breaches with rules: Maintaining institutions in the face of everyday disruptions. Organization Science, v. 24, n. 5, p. 1291-1315, 2013.); *Mccann et al* (2013**MCCANN, L. et al. Still blue‐collar after all these years? An ethnography of the professionalization of emergency ambulance work. Journal of Management Studies, v. 50, n. 5, p. 750-776, 2013.).
This approach risks underestimating the cognitive and emotional effort required for the actor to develop reflexivity about their actions. Difficult to analyze, it is important to highlight how the reflexivity of the actors develops, either through relational tools or environmental issues.	To address the lack of understanding about reflexivity, some studies have sought an articulation with other theoretical and methodological perspectives. Power balance, the paradox of embedded agency, institutional experimentation and the existence of shared moral worlds are some of the imminent explanations in the studies.	Deroy and Clegg (2015DEROY, X.; CLEGG, S. Back in the USSR: Introducing recursive contingency into institutional theory. Organization Studies, v. 36, n. 1, p. 73-90, 2015.); Lawrence and Dover (2015LAWRENCE, T. B.; DOVER, G. Place and institutional work: Creating housing for the hard-to-house. Administrative Science Quarterly, v. 60, n. 3, p. 371-410, 2015.); Monteiro and Nicolini (2015MONTEIRO, P.; NICOLINI, D. Recovering materiality in institutional work: Prizes as an assemblage of human and material entities. Journal of Management Inquiry, v. 24, n. 1, p. 61-81, 2015.); *Binz et al* (2016**BINZ, C. et al. The thorny road to technology legitimation-Institutional work for potable water reuse in California. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, v. 103, p. 249-263, 2016.).
The direction of institutional work as transformative and capable of reducing social inequalities is not thoroughly evidenced in empirical studies.	Studies have focused on gender equality issues or changes in the hospital model, as well as on institutional change as an essential element of innovation. However, none of them has been able to indicate managerial tools based on institutional work.	Dolbec and Fischer (2015DOLBEC, P.; FISCHER, E. Refashioning a field? Connected consumers and institutional dynamics in markets. Journal of Consumer Research, v. 41, n. 6, p. 1447-1468, 2015.); Karam and Jamali (2013KARAM, C.M.; JAMALI, D. Gendering CSR in the Arab Middle East: an institutional perspective. Business Ethics Quarterly, v. 23, n. 1, p. 31-68, 2013.); Heaphy (2013HEAPHY, E.D. Repairing breaches with rules: Maintaining institutions in the face of everyday disruptions. Organization Science, v. 24, n. 5, p. 1291-1315, 2013.).

Approach	Description	Main studies
Scope	A set of papers that depict suggestions for change in the traditional scope of institutional work analysis, either by including hierarchical social levels or by checking for unintended and adverse effects of using tools (i.e., discourse, materials, and locations).	Bertels; Hoffman and Dejordy (2014BERTELS, S.; HOFFMAN, A. J.; DEJORDY, R. The varied work of challenger movements: Identifying challenger roles in the US environmental movement. Organization Studies, v. 35, n. 8, p. 1171-1210, 2014.); Paroutis and Heracleous (2013PAROUTIS, S.; HERACLEOUS, L. Discourse revisited: Dimensions and employment of first‐order strategy discourse during institutional adoption. Strategic Management Journal, v. 34, n. 8, p. 935-956, 2013.); Monteiro and Nicolini (2015MONTEIRO, P.; NICOLINI, D. Recovering materiality in institutional work: Prizes as an assemblage of human and material entities. Journal of Management Inquiry, v. 24, n. 1, p. 61-81, 2015.).
Theoretical development	A set of papers that suggest testing new constructs, such as recursive contingency, institutional experimentation, and context work.	Deroy and Clegg (2015DEROY, X.; CLEGG, S. Back in the USSR: Introducing recursive contingency into institutional theory. Organization Studies, v. 36, n. 1, p. 73-90, 2015.); Malsch and Gendron (2013MALSCH, B.; GENDRON, Y. Re‐theorizing change: Institutional experimentation and the struggle for domination in the field of public accounting. Journal of Management Studies, v. 50, n. 5, p. 870-899, 2013.); Gond and Boxenbaum (2013GOND, J-P.; BOXENBAUM, E. The glocalization of responsible investment: Contextualization work in France and Quebec. Journal of Business Ethics, p. 707-721, 2013.).
Methodological exploration	A set of papers that suggest new epistemological (i.e., actor-network theory) or methodological approaches (i.e., processual method; netnography) applied to studies in institutional work.	Fine and Hallett (2014FINE, G. A.; HALLETT, T. Group cultures and the everyday life of organizations: Interaction orders and meso-analysis. Organization Studies, v. 35, n. 12, p. 1773-1792, 2014.); Kozinets (2010KOZINETS, R. V. Netnography: Doing ethnographic research online. London: Sage publications, 2010.); Lawrence and Dover (2015LAWRENCE, T. B.; DOVER, G. Place and institutional work: Creating housing for the hard-to-house. Administrative Science Quarterly, v. 60, n. 3, p. 371-410, 2015.).
Adjacent themes	A set of papers that suggest deepening the relationship between institutional work and adjacent themes, such as innovation and institutional entrepreneurship.	Koskela-Huotari et al (2016)KOSKELA-HUOTARI, K. et al. Innovation in service ecosystems - Breaking, making, and maintaining institutionalized rules of resource integration. Journal of Business Research, v. 69, n. 8, p. 2964-2971, 2016.; Mccann et al (2013MCCANN, L. et al. Still blue‐collar after all these years? An ethnography of the professionalization of emergency ambulance work. Journal of Management Studies, v. 50, n. 5, p. 750-776, 2013.).

Focus up to 2013	Focus from 2013 to 2016	New Opportunities
Studies tend to use retrospective approaches based on interviews and documentary data to analyze the relationship between the individual's actions and their consequences.	Focus is on conducting case studies, but with perspectives of change with the implementation of methodological approaches that evidence the experience of the actors, such as ethnography and netnography.	Implementation of new methodological approaches based on processes that highlight behavior both at the level of the individual and the group. Adoption of epistemological approaches that consider the interaction between human and material agents, such as actor-network theory.
Actors engaged in institutional work tend to be portrayed as experts with the capacity to manipulate their institutional environment, sometimes underestimating the cognitive and emotional efforts required for the actor to develop reflexivity about their actions.	Studies tend to focus on institutional work in the development of reflexivity of actors throughout the development process of new institutions.	Analysis of the efforts made by the actors as a result of their position in the community. Implementation of new constructs that bring the development of the individual's reflexivity to the center of discussions: recursive contingency and institutional experimentation.
Institutional work as a way of transforming realities and mitigating social dysfunctions resulting from institutional pressures.	Recurrent focus on the development of analytical and descriptive studies, with little evidence of implications for practice.	The lack of prescriptive studies that might inform practitioners about the possibilities of social transformation by institutional work remains.

[TFN1] Source: Authors.

Brasil

Brasil

A decade of institutional work: context and opportunities for research

Uma década de trabalho institucional: contexto e oportunidades de pesquisa

Abstract