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The digitalisation of healthcare services has proven to be difficult, with numerous negative effects. We argue that the reason for the problem is not poor project management, but a clash of different institutional logics. The aim of this article is to explore, define and theorise the concept of digitalism, as a term for a new institutional logic in contrast to other, more known logics in organisations, such as managerialism and professionalism, to better understand processes of digitalisation.

We illustrate our arguments with a case study of a process of organizational development before and after the implementation of centralised large-scale IT systems at a large Norwegian hospital. Data was extracted from documents and observations from January 2015 to January 2016 during an organizational audit. In addition, a follow-up study was conducted in 2019 and 2024 by interviewing eight key personnel who were involved in the implementation process.

The implementation of a new digital health record in a Norwegian hospital is a process of social restructuring that involves new actors, logics and control systems. The process of digitalisation shows us how digitalism create tensions, diverges and merges with other institutional logics.

Understanding digitalism as a sensitising concept offers insights into how large-scale technology and organizations are tied together and can help to reduce organizational dysfunctionalities and improve the implementation of IT systems.

This study contributes to a new understanding of digitalisation processes and links an ongoing theoretical debate on the digitalisation of organizations with empirical findings.

This research paper generates new insights into the challenges of implementation in women’s enterprise policy. It argues that organisations involved in policy implementation need to be understood as operating in a context of institutional pluralism and answers: How do organisations involved in the implementation of women’s enterprise policy manage the challenges of institutional pluralism?

Addressing the need for women’s enterprise policy to learn from the past, the research adopts a historical approach to the study of policy implementation through examination of the UK’s Phoenix Development Fund (1999–2008). It analyses a wide range of secondary sources to examine 34 projects funded and supported by the Phoenix Development Fund that targeted women entrepreneurs.

Potentially conflicting institutional logics associated with central government, mainstream business support and local communities were managed through four key processes: dominance; integration; constellation and bridging. The management of institutional pluralism was effective in delivering support to communities but not in providing an effective platform for learning in government or establishing sustainable, long-term mechanisms.

The paper develops an empirical contribution to practice through identification of processes to manage the challenges of institutional pluralism and lessons for community-engaged policy implementation. A theoretical contribution to academic debates is provided by the conceptualisation of these challenges in terms of institutional pluralism and the novel concept of institutional bridging. The study also demonstrates the value of historical methods for women’s enterprise policy to learn the lessons of the past.

Despite the ongoing scholarly interest in greenwashing, it is not well known the impact of multiple institutional pressures on greenwashing in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Following the institutional logics perspective, this study investigates how three distinct logics – commercial, public, and social welfare – drive greenwashing and whether organizational capability for blending diverse CSR expectations reverses this link.

The current study conceptualized and tested an original model on how three institutional logics influence greenwashing in CSR, with the mediation effect of hybridization capability as a response to logic plurality. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was performed on a survey data, which was collected from 150 middle managers in Turkey.

The results show that while commercial logic has no direct or indirect impact on greenwashing, public and social welfare logics drive greenwashing in CSR. However, these effects are reversed when the CSR hybridization capability increases.

This study contributes to the understanding of what predicts CSR greenwashing by integrating a comprehensive theoretical framework involving multiple institutional logics, conflicting stakeholder demands, and organizational hybridity.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that theoretically and empirically analyzed how the exposure of multiple external pressures affects the CSR greenwashing and how it can be reversed by CSR hybridization capability. This capability mitigates the threats and challenges of multiple logics and turns them into an opportunity to gain legitimacy in the eyes of stakeholders by preventing greenwashing.

Managing megaprojects is challenging due to their inherent complexity and uncertainty. Collaborative project delivery models have been introduced as an alternative to traditional project management in public infrastructure megaprojects and are often realized through collaborative contracts. These project organizations act as institutional arenas for logic interaction as actors with differing institutional backgrounds interact within the project. This paper aims to study the delivery phase of three megaprojects through an institutional lens, investigating the institutional interaction and alignment of logics therein.

A multiple case study was employed to reach deep insight into the phenomenon. Sixty-one interviews were conducted over 3 cases with representatives from all levels of the project hierarchy. Respondents were selected through snowball sampling. In two cases, observations of the shared project office were conducted. Data analysis built on first-order codes and second-order themes, collected into a theoretical framework.

The empirical evidence demonstrates the dynamics shaping institutional logics and gives evidence for changing logics in projects with a well-applied collaborative contract. However, there is a risk of resistance and a return to traditional logics since institutional change is slow and an unsuitably applied collaborative contract can lead to adherence to the conventional way of work.

Current research has focused on the regulatory framework and procurement phase of such models, but little attention has been given to the delivery phase and the interaction of conflicting logics. This paper can serve as an exemplar of the different logics found within public infrastructure projects and their interaction and alignment. Contributions include a heightened emphasis on the start of the project as a meeting point for differing institutional logics and the role change necessary when using a collaborative contract.

This paper aims to investigate how the technical logics of a World Bank-led performance management reform interacted with the social, political and historical logics within a developing country (DC) regulatory organisation. The institutional environment both within and outside the organisation was considered to understand the performance management reform experience.

An interview-based, longitudinal, qualitative case study approach was used to locate accounting in its technical, social and political space. A large regulatory organisation in Bangladesh was investigated as a case study to reveal how traditional organisational practices and public sector norms mediated a performance management reform. Informed by the institutional logics (IL) and economies of worth perspectives, interviews were used to locate IL at macro-level and associated organisational actors’ strategic responses that ultimately shaped the implementation of a performance management system (PMS).

This paper reveals how accounting, as a social and political practice, influences accountability reform within a regulatory organisation. It provides an account of both the processes and resultant practices of an accounting reform initiative. While a consultative and transparent performance management process was intended to enhance accountability, it challenged the traditional organisational authority structure and culture. The new PMS retained, modified and adjusted a number of its characteristics over time. These adjustments reflected an amalgamation of the influence of institutional pressures from powerful constituents and the ability of the local agents (managers) in negotiating and mediating the institutionalisation of a new PMS.

The findings of this paper carry major implications for policy makers, particularly with respect to the design of future reform programs on PMS.

This paper offers a theoretical mapping of IL and its organisation-level interpretations and practices. Thus, the authors locate power and influence at field and firm levels. The findings of this study reflect historical, political and cultural backgrounds of the case study organisation and how these contextual forces were active in shaping the meaning of reform logics. Though the institutional environment and agents were unique to the case study organisation, this research offers a “process generalisation” that reveals how a best practice PMS was translated and transformed by the traditional organisational practices in a DC regulatory context.

This paper explores how conflicting institutional logics shape the behaviors of macro- and micro-level actors in their use of a calculative practice. Thereby, this paper explains how quantification can undermine the intended purpose of a governance system based on a single number.

The study draws upon the literature on calculative practices and institutional logics to present the case of how a single number—specifically the conversion factor for Atlantic Cod, established by macro-level actors for the purposes of governance within the Norwegian fishing industry—is interpreted and used by micro-level actors in the industry. The study is based on documents, field observations and interviews with fishers, landing facilities, and control authorities.

The use of the conversion factor, while intended to protect fish stock and govern industry actions, does not always align with the institutional logics of micro-level actors. Especially during the winter season, these actors may seek to serve their interests, leading to potential system gaming. The reliance on a single number that overlooks seasonal nuances can motivate unintended behaviors, undermining the governance system’s intentions.

Integrating the literature on calculative practices with an institutional logics perspective, this study offers novel insights into the challenges of using quantification for the governance of complex industries. In particular, the paper reveals that when the logics of macro- and micro-level actors conflict in a single-number governance system, unintended outcomes arise due to a domination of the macro-level logics.

Neo-institutional theories and their constructs have so far only received limited attention in supply chain management literature. As recent supply chain disruptions and their ripple effects affect actors on a broader institutional level, supply chains are confronted with multiple new and emerging, often conflicting, institutional demands. This study aims to unpack the notion of institutional complexity behind supply chain disruptions and present a novel institutional framework to lower supply chain susceptibility and increase supply chain resilience.

The authors identify the patterns of complexity that shape the supply chain susceptibility, namely, distance, diversity and ambiguity, and present three institutional responses to susceptibility to increase supply chain resilience, namely, institutional entrepreneurship, institutional alignment and institutional layering.

This paper analyses the current situational relevance to better understand the various and patterned ways how logics influence both supply chain susceptibility and the supply chain resilience. The authors derive six propositions on how complexity can be reduced for supply chain susceptibility and can be increased for supply chain resilience.

By expanding and extending research on institutional complexity to supply chains, the authors broaden how researchers in supply chain management view supply chain susceptibility, thereby providing managers with theory to think differently about supply chains and its resilience.

The adoption of social procurement, the emerging practice of using a firm's spending power to generate social value, requires buying firms to navigate conflicts of institutional logics. Adopting an institutional work perspective, this study aims to investigate how buying firms change their existing procurement institutions to adopt and advance social procurement.

The authors conducted an in-depth case study of a social procurement initiative in the UK. This case study comprised of 16 buying firms that were actively participating in the social procurement initiative at the time of data collection (2020–2021). The data were largely captured through a set of 41 semi-structured interviews.

Four types of institutional work were observed: reducing institutional conflicts, crossing institutional boundaries, legitimising institutional change and spreading the new institutional logic. These different types of institutional work appeared in a sequential way.

This study contributes to various strands of literature investigating the role of procurement in generating value and benefits within societies, adopting an institutional lens to investigate the buying firms' purposeful actions to change procurement institutions. Secondly, this study complements the existing literature investigating the conflicts of institutional logics by illustrating the ways firms address such institutional conflicts when adopting and advancing social procurement. Finally, this work contributes to the recently emerging research on institutional work that examines the creation and establishment of new institutions by considering the existing procurement institutions in the examination of institutional work.

This study aims to explore how operational resilience can be achieved within supply ecosystems in the delicate yet harsh natural environments of the Arctic.

An in-depth, multiple qualitative case study of offshore supply operations in Arctic oil and gas field projects is conducted. Data from semi-structured interviews, personal observations and archival materials are analysed through institutional work and logics approaches.

The findings suggest that achieving social-ecological resilience depends on the interaction between social and natural (irreversible) systems, which are shaped and influenced by various institutional dynamics. Different resilience solutions were detected.

This study develops a comprehensive understanding of how social-ecological resilience emerges in supply ecosystems through institutional dynamics. The study’s empirical basis is limited to offshore oil and gas projects in the Arctic. However, due to anticipated future growth of Arctic economic activities, other types of supply ecosystems may benefit from the study’s results.

This research contributes with empirical knowledge about how social-ecological resilience is created through institutional interaction within supply ecosystems to prevent disruptions of both social and ecological ecosystems under the harsh natural conditions of the Arctic.

Traditional purchasing best practices primarily follow a commercial logic and may not necessarily be applicable for social enterprises (SEs) supplier selection. This study examines how SEs focused on poverty alleviation select suppliers amidst competing institutional logics to achieve both social impact and economic performance.

A grounded theory methodology is applied to guide semi-structured interviews with 18 fair trade verified SEs. Constant comparison methods aided in determining the point of data saturation was reached.

The results of this study indicate that SEs select marginalized suppliers based on implicit criteria that is initially based on social-welfare logic and then through a blend of commercial and social-welfare logic based on company structure.

This study is the first to reveal that SEs addressing social issues do not follow the traditional criteria for supplier selection but have their own unique selection criteria when selecting suppliers.