Steve Maguire

Institutional Entrepreneurship in Emerging Fields: HIV/AIDS Treatment Advocacy in Canada

In a qualitative study of the emerging field of HIV/AIDS treatment advocacy in Canada, we found that institutional entrepreneurship involved three sets of critical activities: (1) the occupation of “subject positions” that have wide legitimacy and bridge diverse stakeholders, (2) the theorization of new practices through discursive and political means, and (3) the institutionalization of these new practices by connecting them to stakeholders’ routines and values.

Institutional Entrepreneurship as Embedded Agency: An Introduction to the Special Issue

We are delighted to introduce this special issue of Organization Studies ,t he purpose of which is to develop a deeper understanding of the concept of institutional entrepreneurship and to offer new avenues for future research. This concept has been attracting considerable attention in recent years, as was reflected in the record number of papers that were submitted ‐ the largest number that this journal has received for any of its special issues to date. As a result, the selection process has been stringent and we are very pleased to present the eight articles in this special issue, all of which survived the demanding review process. Each of these articles contributes important insights to our understanding of institutional entrepreneurship and, collectively, they provide an important benchmark for subsequent research on this phenomenon. In different ways, they explore how actors shape emerging institutions and transform existing ones despite the complexities and path dependences that are involved. In doing so, they shed considerable light on how institutional entrepreneurship processes shape ‐ or fail to shape ‐ the world in which we live and work The term institutional entrepreneurship refers to the ‘activities of actors who have an interest in particular institutional arrangements and who leverage resources to create new institutions or to transform existing ones’ (Maguire, Hardy and Lawrence, 2004: 657). The term is most closely associated with DiMaggio (1988: 14), who argued that ‘new institutions arise when organized actors with sufficient resources see in them an opportunity to realize interests that they value highly’. These actors ‐ institutional entrepreneurs ‐ ‘create a whole new system of meaning that ties the functioning of disparate sets of institutions together’ (Garud, Jain and Kumaraswamy, 2002). Institutional entrepreneurship is therefore a concept that reintroduces agency, interests and power into institutional analyses of organizations. It thus offers promise to researchers seeking to bridge what have come to be called the ‘old’ and ‘new’ institutionalisms in organizational analysis (Powell and DiMaggio, 1991; Greenwood and Hinings, 1996). We preface these papers with some of our own observations on institutional entrepreneurship stemming from its paradoxical nature. Research on institutions has tended to emphasize how organizational processes are shaped by institutional forces that reinforce continuity and reward conformity. In contrast, the literature on entrepreneurship tends to emphasize how organizational processes

The Emergence of New Global Institutions: A Discursive Perspective

We examine how a new discourse shapes the emergence of new global regulatory institutions and, specifically, the roles played by actors and the texts they author during the institution-building process, by investigating a case study of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and its relationship to the new environmental regulatory discourse of ‘precaution’. We show that new discourses do not neatly supplant legacy discourses but, instead, are made to overlap and interact with them through the authorial agency of actors, as a result of which the meanings of both are changed. It is out of this discursive struggle that new institutions emerge.

When `Silence = Death', Keep Talking: Trust, Control and the Discursive Construction of Identity in the Canadian HIV/AIDS Treatment Domain

When we trust someone, it is because we believe there is something about his or her behaviour that makes it predictable. From a control perspective, it means that their behaviour is subject to some type of control mechanism. Building on this connection, we argue that trust and control are closely related and, in fact, that different forms of trust are associated with different types of control. We present a model explaining the control mechanisms associated with three different forms of trust commonly proposed in the literature. Based on a three-year study of the Canadian HIV/AIDS treatment domain, we then explore in more detail the dynamics of identification-based trust and normative control. Our findings reveal the discursive foundations of generating identification-based trust

The Co-Evolution of Technology and Discourse: A Study of Substitution Processes for the Insecticide DDT

Product substitution is an important discontinuity in technology evolution. Conventional accounts draw on rational, linear models of change and emphasize that the process is driven by the appearance and adoption of new artifacts. This article adopts a constructivist approach to address the question of whether the social reconstruction of incumbent artifacts can trigger their substitution, even in the absence of new alternatives. Drawing on a case study of the insecticide DDT and employing a discourse analytical perspective, four artifact-constituting discourses which have been employed to construct and reconstruct DDT are identified, and their implications for product substitution discussed.

Identity and collaborative strategy in the Canadian HIV/AIDS treatment domain

We explore the links between identity and strategy making by drawing upon a case study of a collaborative strategy implemented by community organizations and pharmaceutical companies involved in Canadian HIV/AIDS treatment. In implementing collaborative strategy, our analysis shows that champions engage in identity work that simultaneously involves: identification with their respective constituencies and, specifically, with categories associated with high legitimacy; counter-identification from their respective constituencies by constructing themselves as different from its core members; and dis-identification away from their constituency towards their collaborative partners. We also examine the interactions between champions and other actors involved in the strategic change process to show the limits and tensions involved in such identity work. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for research and practice.

On the Nature of Institutional Entrepreneurs: Insights From the Life of Rachel Carson:

Institutional entrepreneurship is important for creating and transforming institutions, yet little is known about the individuals who conceive, initiate, and champion institutional projects. Extant research emphasizes factors contributing to institutional entrepreneurs’ success at championing change rather than their conception and initiation of change. A large stream of entrepreneurship research, however, focuses squarely on entrepreneurs as individuals and the psychological forces driving them. In this theory-building article, we adopt a psychodynamic approach to explore institutional entrepreneurs as individuals. Drawing upon an in-depth biographical case study of one of the most celebrated institutional entrepreneurs of the 20th century, Rachel Carson, our findings illustrate that the projects of institutional entrepreneurs can be understood as expressions of vision and passion rooted deeply in life issues and of three aspects of character forged in formative experience: independence and comfort with marginality, desire to perform, and a sense of agency and duty.

The Pedagogy Excellence Project: a professor–student team approach to authentic inquiry

Claims are often made for the value of integrating teaching and research, yet how this may be done effectively is not always evident. The Pedagogy Excellence Project (PEP) was an innovative and authentic inquiry into teaching conducted by a student–professor team within a six-credit two-semester course. MBA students were principal players in an inquiry which exemplified teaching as scholarly and community property. Acting as consultants to a Faculty of Management, they generated questions, collected and analyzed data, summarized results and made recommendations which are still influencing the faculty today.