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This paper is based on a presentation at a conference in 2019, which called on participants to explore the merits of more practice-theoretical conceptualizations of institutions and institutional logics. The main body of the paper is a lightly edited version of the presentation, which explores three interwoven topics: First, why an avowedly practice-theoretic institutionalism might be analytically fertile; second, what horizons might be generated for institutional logicians by an intensified embrace of practice theory; and third, what these analytic potentialities might entail for the “peopling” of institutional theory. The tone and purpose of the paper are exploratory; though provisional conclusions are elaborated in an analytic epilogue. Purposefully provocative claims include that institutional logics may possess some form of intentionality, or a distinctive orientation toward the world, and that such orientations may differentially encourage jurisdictional expansion.

Volumes 70 and 71 of Research in the Sociology of Organizations combine to comprise cutting edge theory and empirical scholarship at the interface of practice and institution in organization studies. As we highlight, this interface has spurred particularly generative conversations with many open questions, and much to explore. We provide a review of scholarly developments in practice theory and organizational institutionalism that have given rise to this interest in building a bridge between scholarly communities. As signaled by recent efforts to construct a practice-driven institutionalism, we highlight how connecting practice theory with the institutional logics perspective provides a particularly attractive focal point for scholarship at this interface due to a variety of shared ontological and epistemological commitments, including the constitution of actors and their behavior. Collectively, the papers assembled unlock exciting opportunities to connect distinct, but related scholarly communities on practice and institution, seeding scholarship that can advance our understanding of organizational and societal dynamics.

Volumes 70 and 71 of Research in the Sociology of Organizations combine to comprise cutting edge theory and empirical scholarship at the interface of practice and institution in organization studies. As we highlight, this interface has spurred particularly generative conversations with many open questions, and much to explore. We provide a review of scholarly developments in practice theory and organizational institutionalism that have given rise to this interest in building a bridge between scholarly communities. As signaled by recent efforts to construct a practice-driven institutionalism, we highlight how connecting practice theory with the institutional logics perspective provides a particularly attractive focal point for scholarship at this interface due to a variety of shared ontological and epistemological commitments, including the constitution of actors and their behavior. Collectively, the papers assembled unlock exciting opportunities to connect distinct, but related scholarly communities on practice and institution, seeding scholarship that can advance our understanding of organizational and societal dynamics.

Drawing on close readings of Schatzki and Friedland, this paper explores the nexus of practice, logics, and values, and especially the implications of practice-driven institutionalism for the concept of values and vice versa. In essence, the article searches for values in practice-driven institutionalism and articulates how they might be found, deploying practice theory, institutional logics, and values work as guides. The article’s core argument is that both practice theory and institutional logics ascribe an important conceptual role to values, but neither has developed a theory of values that is wholly compatible with the onto-epistemological commitments of practice-driven institutionalism. The article introduces burgeoning scholarship on values work and argues that this approach offers a bridge between practice theory and institutional theory and, by extension, provides conceptual resources and an important research lacuna for those interested in practice-driven institutionalism.

The purpose of this paper is to further the understanding of how the transfer and adoption of headquarters (HQ)-mandated work practices are shaped by ongoing struggles among the multiple actors of a subsidiary. This paper suggests an alternative perspective for theorizing and researching the management practices and structures that emerge in the face of HQ demands for divergent practice change in subsidiaries, namely, a theory of practice approach.

The paper reports the findings of an ethnographic field study in a UK subsidiary of a multinational corporation based in Denmark.

The study provides a relevant contribution by demonstrating how the degree of adoption of alternative, HQ-mandated work systems undergoes dramatic changes over time due to socially dynamic negotiations and struggles between interest groups in a subsidiary.

A practice theoretical approach unveils the underlying social micro-dynamics that shape the degree to which employees in subsidiaries “internalize”, actively sustain or disrupt divergent practices representing a given contextual rationale.

The practice perspective provides a way for understanding how the practices and rationales that emerge locally in response to HQ-demands are under ongoing (re)reconstruction. It responds to calls for research on why and how contextual rationales, institutional or cultural features, actively are made salient, polarized or convergent, in conflictual practice transfer processes due to local contingencies.

Reality breakdowns generate reflexivity and awareness of the constructed nature of social reality. These pivotal moments can motivate institutional inhabitants to either modify their social worlds or reaffirm the status quo. Thus, reality breakdowns are the initial points at which actors can conceive of new possibilities for institutional arrangements and initiate change processes to realize them. Studying reality breakdowns enables scholars to understand not just how institutional change occurs, but also why it does or does not do so. In this paper, we investigate how institutional inhabitants responded to a reality breakdown that occurred during our ethnography of collegial governance in a large North American university that was undergoing a strategic change initiative. Our findings suggest that there is a consequential process following reality breakdowns whereby institutional inhabitants construct the severity of these events. In our context, institutional inhabitants first attempted to restore order to their social world by reaffirming the status quo; when their efforts failed, they began to formulate alternative possibilities. Simultaneously, they engaged in a distributed sensemaking process whereby they diminished and reoriented necessary changes, ultimately inhibiting the formulation of these new possibilities. Our findings confirm reality breakdowns and institutional awareness as potential drivers of institutional change and complicate our understanding of antecedent microprocesses that may forestall the initiation of change efforts.

This study aims to investigate how and why a new management accounting control (MAC) regime emerged in a previously government-owned energy company with a Soviet past in the context of changing politico-economic dynamics in Ukraine.

Drawing upon data from a case study of a large Ukrainian energy company with a Soviet past that has undergone major transformations in recent years, the authors analyze MAC regime changes in the company from an institutional logics perspective. All primary and secondary data used in this study were collected from 2012 to 2016. Retrospective interviews and extensive use of written materials, including corporate documents and other publicly available data, helped them reconstruct those events, which the authors could not observe personally.

The authors observed that MAC regime changes in the company mirror; overall changes in the political and economic environment and Ukraine’s willingness to become closer to the West. The company seems to follow liberal Western market logics and eliminate those of Soviet heritage. The MAC regime changes seemed to contribute to the company’s survival during challenges caused by the political and economic crises that began in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea and other Ukrainian territories in the East of the country, demonstrating the usefulness of the new MAC regime and overall business logic.

This study adds to the literature on management accounting and control change in emerging economies and extractive industries by highlighting the role of changing institutional logics in shaping a MAC regime. The authors explain why, in some contexts (i.e. Ukraine), organizational actors accept and favor liberal Western market logic.

A particularly significant facet of this study concerns its extension of the role of MAC and the way it is perceived in a new international context in times of significant transformation. The results suggest that MAC regime change may be favorably received if it is based on local values and aspirations.

This paper develops the practice-driven institutionalist perspective by introducing the concept of “restless practices.” Drawing on the practice theory of Theodore Schatzki, the authors distinguish practices by their “teloi”: some practices are devoted to replication, others are restlessly aimed at change. These restless practices are themselves composed of constitutive practices orientated toward “collecting,” “selecting” and “directing.” The authors illustrate restless practices and their constitutive practices by drawing on examples from consulting and standard-setting, both repeatedly generators of purposive, field-level change. The authors conclude that practice-driven institutionalism can accommodate change originating both from local improvisatory activities on the ground and from the designs of restless practices oriented toward fields at large.

Digital technologies have fundamentally changed organizations, industries, and even the society. Although institutional theory provides rich array of perspectives to both the content and dynamics of such changes, research at the intersection of institutional scholarship and digitalization has remained scarce. In this essay, I draw on the institutional logics perspective to elaborate digitalization as involving a new set of interconnected managerial beliefs and norms, organizational practices, and diverse material and social structures that together complement and challenge the established logics in organizations and institutional fields. I draw attention to two central organizing principles in the logic of digitalization: the pursuit of digital omniscience – the efforts to represent and conceive the world through digital data – and digital omnipotence – the efforts to bring activities inside and outside organizations under the control of information systems. I conclude the essay by elaborating how the institutional logics perspective can help understand organization-level efforts to leverage digitalization by incumbent corporations and new digital-native companies.