Organizational responses to institutional complexity stemming from emerging logics: The role of individuals

Journal article

In this article, we address two important gaps in the study of organizational responses to institutional complexity. First, we examine how organizations respond to institutional complexity associated with newly emerging logics that lack well-defined sets of practices; although previous research has examined logics new to a field, those logics have tended to be well-established in other domains. Based on the responses of 10 Canadian public schools to the emerging logic of Aboriginal distinctiveness, we identify four organizational responses (reinterpretation, advocacy, isolation, and integration) that we argue are distinctive of emerging logics. Second, we explore how individuals in organizations shape organizational responses to institutional complexity. We show how individuals’ sensemaking and institutional biographies combine to affect the kinds of action in which organizations engage (discursive or practical) and the scope of that action (expansive across the organization or confined to a subset of actors).

Authors: Bertels, S; Lawrence, T

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Journal: Strategic Organization
• Volume: 14
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 336-372
• Publication date: 2016-04-12
• Acceptance date: 2016-03-08
• DOI: 10.1177/1476127016641726
• ISSN: 1741-315X
• Keywords: organizational change; qualitative methods; strategy as practice; institutional theory; research methods; institutional change; topics and perspectives