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We argue that our understanding of how institutions matter has been undermined by a piecemeal approach to temporality in institutional analyses. This paper addresses this shortcoming in the literature. We bring temporality to the fore by conceptualizing practices, which constitute institutions, as understood, situated, and coordinated in time by temporal structures. We elaborate an integrated framework of temporal structures that consist of three types: temporal patterns, temporal conceptions, and temporal orientations – and outline how each type contributes to the reproduction of practices. We discuss the implications of this framework for sustainability initiatives and conclude by suggesting future avenues of research on the temporal foundations of institutions.

Purpose: Prior work has convincingly argued that social inequalities arise from the basic human tendency to place others into social categories with different cultural meanings and to allocate resources unequally across those categories. However, few studies have sought to identify the micro-level mechanisms that sustain and justify this categorical inequality. In this research, I show how affect control theory (ACT) can be used to generate novel predictions about the interaction processes that perpetuate stratification.

Methodology/Approach: I present a series of analyses based in ACT that examine (1) whether categorical inequality is reflected in cultural sentiments for social groups, (2) whether patterns of normative behavior and social treatment vary based on category membership, and (3) whether interactions produce different emotions based on category membership.

Findings: Analysis 1 identifies four distinct patterns of cultural meanings that differentiate the groups studied. Analyses 2 and 3 show how these differences in cultural meanings produce categorical inequality through interpersonal behavior and emotional experiences in normative social encounters. Unequal cultural meanings for social groups correspond with their positionality in the social order and support patterns of situated behavior and emotions that keep groups with different levels of status and power separate and unequal.

Originality/Value: This research shows how social norms constrain and enable actions and emotions by members of different social categories, how they depend on the combinations of actors who appear together in a given social encounter, and how they contribute to the reproduction of inequality in ways not well accounted for by earlier work.

The evaluation of competing hypotheses is an essential aspect of the audit process. The method of evaluation and re-evaluation may have implications for both efficiency and effectiveness. This paper presents the results of a field experiment using a case study set in the context of a fraud investigation in which practicing auditors were required to engage in multiple hypothesis probability estimation and revision regarding the perpetrator of the fraud. The experiment examined the effect of two different methods of facilitating multiple hypothesis probability estimation and revision consistent with the completeness and complementarity norms of probability theory as it applies to the independence versus dependence of competing hypotheses and with the prescriptions of Bayes' Theorem. The first method was to have participants use linear probability elicitation scales and receive prior tutoring in probability theory emphasizing the axioms of completeness and complementarity. The second method was to provide a graphical decision aid, without prior tutoring, to aid the participants in expressing their responses. A third condition in which participants used linear probability elicitation scales but received no tutoring in probability theory, provided a benchmark against which to assess the effects of the two treatments.

Participants receiving prior tutoring in probability theory and using linear probability elicitation scales complied in their estimations and revisions with the probability axioms of completeness and complementarity. However, they engaged in frequent violations of the normative probability model and of Bayes' Theorem. They did not distribute changes in the probability of the target hypothesis to the nontarget hypotheses, and they engaged in “eliminations and resuscitations” whereby they eliminated a suspect by assigning a zero probability to that suspect at an intermediate iteration and resuscitated that suspect by reassigning him or her a positive probability at a later iteration. The participants using the graphical decision aids, by construction, did not violate the probability axioms of completeness and complementarity. However, with no imposed constraints, the patterns of their revisions were different. When they revised the probability of the target hypothesis, they revised the probabilities of the nontarget hypotheses. They did not engage in eliminations and resuscitations. These patterns are more consistent with the norms of probability theory and with Bayes' Theorem. Possible explanations of this phenomenon are proposed and discussed, including implications for audit practice and future research.