Thomas B. Lawrence

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 EFFECTS OF INTERORGANIZATIONAL COLLABORATION: THE EMERGENCE OF PROTO-INSTITUTIONS

We argue that collaboration can act as a source of change in institutional fields through the generation of “proto-institutions”: new practices, rules, and technologies that transcend a particular collaborative relationship and may become new institutions if they diffuse sufficiently. A four-year study of the collaborative activities of a small nongovernmental organization in Palestine suggests that collaborations that are both highly embedded and have highly involved partners are the most likely to generate proto-institutions.

Resources, knowledge and influence: The organizational effects of interorganizational collaboration

Inter-organizational collaboration has been linked to a range of important outcomes for collaborating organizations. The strategy literature emphasizes the way in which collaboration between organizations results in the sharing of critical resources and facilitates knowledge transfer. The learning literature argues that collaboration not only transfers existing knowledge among organizations, but also facilitates the creation of new knowledge and produce synergistic solutions. Finally, research on networks and interorganizational politics suggests that collaboration can help organizations achieve a more central and influential position in relation to other organizations. While these effects have been identified and discussed at some length, little attention has been paid to the relationship between them and the nature of the collaborations that produce them. In this paper, we present the results of a qualitative study that examines the relationship between the effects of interorganizational collaboration and the nature of the collaborations that produce them. Based on our study of the collaborative activities of a small, nongovernmental organization (NGO) in Palestine over a four-year period, we argue that two dimensions of collaboration - embeddedness and involvement - determine the potential of a collaboration to produce one or more of these effects. Copyright 2003 Blackwell Science Asia Pty. Ltd..

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 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.

Inter‐organizational Collaboration and the Dynamics of Institutional Fields

While many aspects of the collaborative process have been discussed in the management literature, the connection between collaboration and the dynamics of institutional fields has remained largely unconsidered. Yet, collaboration is an important arena for inter–organizational interaction and, therefore, a potentially important context for the process of structuration upon which institutional fields depend. In this paper, we argue that institutionalization and collaboration are interdependent; institutional fields provide the rules and resources upon which collaboration is constructed, while collaboration provides a context for the ongoing processes of structuration that sustain the institutional fields of the participants.

From Moby Dick to Free Willy: Macro-Cultural Discourse and Institutional Entrepreneurship in Emerging Institutional Fields

In this paper, we draw on a case study of the development of commercial whale-watching on Canada’s west coast to explore the role of macro-cultural discourse and local actors in the structuration of new institutional fields. We argue that the development of the commercial whale-watching industry in the area was made possible by broad macrocultural changes in the conceptualization of whales in North America. At the same time, however, the characteristics of the geographically distinct institutional fields that emerged depended on local action and the processes of structuration that those actions supported. The constitution of specific new fields required interested actors to engage in the institutional innovation and isomorphism that produced the unique networks of relationships and sets of institutions that constituted those fields.

Territoriality in Organizations

Territorial feelings and behaviors are important, pervasive, and yet largely overlooked aspects of organizational life. Organizational members can and do become territorial over physical spaces, ideas, roles, relationships, and other potential possessions in organizations. We examine how territorial behaviors are used to construct, communicate, maintain, and restore territories in organizations. We then go on to discuss the organizational consequences of these behaviors, including their effects on organizational commitment, conflict, preoccupation, and individual isolation.

Institutional Work: Current Research, New Directions and Overlooked Issues

The study of institutional work has emerged as a dynamic research domain within organization studies. In this essay, we situate the papers published in the Special Issue. We first review the evolution of institutional work as a scholarly conversation within organization studies. We then introduce the papers in the Special Issue, focusing in particular on where they fit into the current scholarly conversation and how they move us in important new directions. Finally, we discuss a set of neglected issues that deserve further attention.

Ain't Misbehavin: Workplace Deviance as Organizational Resistance

Although organizational control and power are often designed to diminish workplace deviance, they also have the capacity to incite it. This is because enactments of power that confront organizational members in their daily work lives can create frustration that is expressed in acts of deviance. In this article, the authors examine why power provokes workplace deviance in organizations and, specifically, how types of power affect the form that workplace deviance takes.

Understanding Cultural Industries

In this article, the authors argue for more theoretical discussion and empirical research into the organizational and managerial dynamics of commercial cultural production. Their concern grows out of their observation that management research is neglecting cultural production as a serious object of investigation despite its economic, social, and political significance. Moreover, even when management researchers have studied cultural production, the distinctive characteristics and dynamics of cultural industries have largely eluded the traditional research approaches adopted. As a result, the unique dynamics of cultural production remain largely uninvestigated.