In the expansive realm of social sciences, institutionalism serves as a foundational theoretical framework, meticulously examining how institutions exert influence and shape societal structures. This study, rooted in the premise that functionalist differentiation theory, facilitates the identification, analysis, and redefinition of issues within social structures, delves into the intricate interplay between social structure and institutional logics. Employing a meta-cognitive and analytical descriptive and reflective methodology, grounded in an extensive review of conceptual, theoretical, and empirical literature, the research elucidates that social structures and institutional logics play crucial roles in institutions, despite not seamlessly aligning or integrating. The study underscores that these relationships, while pivotal, often give rise to contrasting institutions, perpetuating institutional dysfunctions, and paradoxes within societies.
TopIntroduction
The emergence of new institutional fields such as institutional change is relevant in development of institutional theory (Lawrence & Phillips, 2004). Individuals as well as organizations are somewhat reflexive and creative in understanding the pressures for institutional change to construct the relationship between the professional and managerial logic (Bévort & Suddaby, 2016). Institutional theory for praxis and institutional change has some institutional contradictions (Seo & Creed, 2002). A debate within this research field is how to conceptualize institutions and institutional change (Coccia, 2018).
Research on institutional theory used institutional work as the theory of institutional change exploring action in institutions. Institutional research on institutions is dependent on the formation and core on enthusiastic identification to analyze institutional change enable to grasp the extent of captured people by institutional arrangements (Friedland, 2013). The development of an institutional integrative research framework emphasizes the multilevel nature and external institutional change in evolutive human resource management. The use of mixed methods and qualitative analysis to study institutional changes in institutional work show the ambivalence (Wallenburg et al. 2016). The dependent variable determines the institutional change.
Research on strong and long-lasting institutions with rigid structure and enforcement are like institutionalization of work such as bureaucracies (Goodstein & Velamuri, 2009; Xiao & Klarin, 2019). Institutionalization is potentially contradictory process that produce actors and institutional strategies aimed to subvert the system (DiMaggio 1988, 1991). Institutionalization processes create their own opponents and losers among the stakeholders with new grievances pushing them to contest or accept the relationship of dominance by the winners and periphery of losers claiming for new forms and ideas, persisting on resources, transposing logics and forming partnerships and coalitions with other partners (Clemens, 1997; Leblebici et al., 1991; Morrill, 2005).
Academic and research institutions moving consistently towards appraisal systems in sustainability provide a holistic assessment including academic and scientific programs based on institutionalization of sustainability research communities and networks, experiential learning in sustainability projects and collaboration with external stakeholders (Brousseau, Dedeurwaerdere & Siebenhüner, 2012). A direction for research on institutional change is to connect emotional competence to institutional complexity and pluralism (Greenwood et al., 2011; Smets & Jarzabkowski, 2013; Kraatz & Block, 2008).
The chapter concentrates firstly on the institutional change theoretical framework leading to the institutionalization in the second part. Finally, it offers concluding remarks.