To read this content please select one of the options below:

Preserving a Settlement despite Ongoing Challenges: The Case of Native Indian Gaming

How Institutions Matter!

ISBN: 978-1-78635-432-7, eISBN: 978-1-78635-431-0

Publication date: 16 December 2016

Abstract

We investigated how an institutional settlement concerning Native Indian gaming (the operation of gambling establishments such as casinos or bingo halls by Native Indian tribes) was preserved over time in spite of three significant challenges. Building on previous literature on settlements and institutional logics, we see settlements as institutional arrangements that manage power dynamics and competing institutional logics. Based on our analyses of the settlement and three challenges in the Native gaming field, we suggest that even seemingly volatile institutional settlements can be maintained when powerful actors balance each other’s ability to modify the settlement and different actors invoke alternative institutional logic(s). We also find that these processes can be facilitated by the embeddedness and formality of the settlement. We contribute to the settlement literature by showing how settlements can be maintained when actors draw on equally strong sources of power and different logics to counter the actions of other actors. Furthermore, we shed light on “how institutions matter” by demonstrating how institutional settlements can facilitate field stability.

Keywords

Citation

Lu, C. and Reay, T. (2016), "Preserving a Settlement despite Ongoing Challenges: The Case of Native Indian Gaming ", How Institutions Matter! (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 48B), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-35. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X201600048B001

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017 Emerald Group Publishing Limited