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In order to advance the micro-foundations of institutional theory, we explore how individuals within organizations experience and respond to competing institutional logics. Starting with the premises that these responses are driven by the individuals’ degree of adherence to each competing logic (whether novice, familiar, or identified), and that individuals may resort to five types of responses (ignorance, compliance, resistance, combination or, compartmentalization), we develop a comprehensive model that predicts which response organizational members are likely to activate as they face two competing logics. Our model contributes to an emergent political theory of institutional change by predicting what role organizational members are likely to play in the organizational battles for logics dominance or in organizational attempts at crafting hybrid configurations.

In order to advance the micro-foundations of institutional theory, we explore how individuals within organizations experience and respond to competing institutional logics. Starting with the premises that these responses are driven by the individuals’ degree of adherence to each competing logic (whether novice, familiar, or identified), and that individuals may resort to five types of responses (ignorance, compliance, resistance, combination or, compartmentalization), we develop a comprehensive model that predicts which response organizational members are likely to activate as they face two competing logics. Our model contributes to an emergent political theory of institutional change by predicting what role organizational members are likely to play in the organizational battles for logics dominance or in organizational attempts at crafting hybrid configurations.

This book chapter takes an institutional perspective on competing logics in global markets concerned with sustainability values and how market actors in the form of buyers and sellers attempt to solve these conflicting situations. We do this by identifying competing institutional logics in global market contexts aiming for sustainability values, together with techniques for navigating these competing institutional logics in the organizational field studied. As an empirical illustration, we use a case study of buyers and sellers in two different markets where sustainability has come into focus for their market relationships. This viewpoint allows us to better understand how global market actors deal with the competing institutional logics in their market context. We make three contributions with this research: firstly, we identify the institutional logics in global markets towards sustainability; secondly, we demonstrate how global market actors prioritize among the competing logics and their market relationships and thirdly, we outline what this means for the relationship between buyers and sellers in global markets towards sustainability.

This chapter focuses on the circumstances under which active clients in universities construct external management consultants as actors. Much research focuses on how consultants legitimize decisions and trends in business organizations, but we know little about how consultants become legitimized as actors in other organizational fields. In the academic field, clients are embedded in a variety of organizational settings embedded in different institutional logics, which determine their sense making. By analyzing how consultants are legitimized, the authors contribute to a better understanding of the organizational preconditions that support the construction of an external expert as an actor. By focusing on IT and strategy consulting in academia, further, the authors discuss the role of competing institutional logics in legitimization processes and the importance of intra-organizational communities.

This article explores how social actors negotiate the competing logics they face as a result of their work in organizations subject to institutional complexity. In particular, I theoretically focus on the unique characteristics associated with societal institutional logics, such as religion, family, and the state. Empirically, I analyze religious mutual funds (Catholic, Muslim, and Protestant) in the United States that dwell at the intersection of the competing logics of religion and finance. Through interviews with 31 people who work at religious mutual funds (or fund producers) and content analysis of religious mutual fund material, I focus on the symbolic boundary work that religious fund producers engage in. I find examples of boundary blurring and boundary building and suggest institutional complexity that involves at least one societal logic is especially likely to foster both modes of boundary work. This, I propose, leads to an increased likelihood of enduring institutional complexity.

This chapter examines the transition in the US banking industry from a community to a national logic, developing a general model to explain how and when shifts in institutional logics occur. Based on qualitative historical evidence and discrete-time event history analysis predicting the introduction of legislation favoring the national logic, this chapter proposes that dramatic exogenous events such as the Great Depression or more gradual processes such as modernization favored the industry's transition to the national logic, but that such exogenous events had a greater influence in areas where strategic actors could capitalize on them. The qualitative evidence presented here suggests that struggles involving organizational identity and “legitimacy politics” played an important role in the shift in logics. Our theorizing focuses on how, when the environment changes in an incremental fashion, actors are primed with new possibilities, which may shift their collective identities, but when environmental changes are discontinuous, they provide actors strategic opportunities to alter the balance of logics in the environment.

The research aim of this chapter is to understand how different institutional logics affect the day-to-day activities of healthcare providers and whether the cohabitation of professional logics with business-like logics increases medical providers’ effectiveness and gives chance to constrain healthcare costs. This research is based on longitudinal case study about the restructuring of the Canadian healthcare system in Alberta in 1992–2008, described in two papers (Reay & Hinings, 2005, 2009). We identify the situation after encroachment of a new, business-like logic into a healthcare system as more complex than described in the extant literature. We challenge the findings of the case study authors that there are two cohabitating logics in healthcare: the business-like logic supported by the government and the logic of medical professionalism. From our research it appears that there are two other logics: a managerial logic derived from business-like logic, and a hybrid professional logic that is a modification of the logic of medical professionalism. Across the healthcare field in general, business-like logic has been competing with the logic of medical professionalism, but on the medical providers’ level these logics become uncoupled. Within a medical provider, on the external, symbolic layer, physicians follow their professional logic and managers show conformity with governmental principles. But on the backstage layer, where the day-to-day work is actually performed, these two logics are subject to modification, creating a space for compromise and cooperation, leading to a growth of the number of unnecessary medical services preventing cost containments in healthcare.

The goal of this chapter is to review the potential of institutional logics theory for the study of higher education. After providing a concise introduction to institutional logics, the chapter reviews the small number of studies in higher education that have adopted this approach. It is concluded that most uses of New Institutionalism in the field are still based on its original formulation in the late 1980s, which emphasized the importance of compliance and isomorphism; it is suggested that logics theory could provide a more nuanced and flexible framework, which takes into account the role of (embedded) human agency and the multi-level nature of societal dynamics. The last section of the chapter therefore provides a few directions for future research grounded in logics theory. We distinguish in this respect between the investigation of the field-level coexistence and the interaction between managerial and professional logics; studies of how higher education institutions manage conflicting institutional pressures, for example, through selective compliance; and analyses of the emergence of hybrid practices in academic work and higher education management.

In this chapter, I develop an analysis of the institutional logics which have shaped the organizational field of public sector mental health and which provide a framework for understanding the complexities facing policy makers, providers, researchers, and community mental health advocates.

I first assess the current state of public sector mental health care. I then describe institutional theory, which focuses our attention on the wider social values and priorities (i.e., institutional logics) which shape mental health care. In the current post-deinstitutionalization era, there are three competing institutional logics: recovery and community integration, cost containment and commodification, and increased social control over those with severe mental disorders. Each of these logics, and the conflict between them, is explicated and analyzed. I then develop a theoretical framework for understanding how conflicting institutional logics are resolved. In the concluding section of this chapter, I offer some guidance to both researchers and advocates seeking meaningful system level reform.

Researchers studying mental health policy need to understand how competing institutional logics work to shape the political climate, economic priorities, and types of services available.

Advocacy is critical for meaningful reform, and a fourth institutional logic – that of social justice – needs to be developed by which to evaluate policy reforms and service offerings.

The literature on equality, diversity, and inclusion in organizational and societal contexts has grown in leaps and bounds over the last two decades or so. Our understanding of these phenomena in a global context is, however, limited, as attention has mostly been paid to the United States and other Western countries. This chapter aims to address this gap by exploring workplace diversity in Nigeria, an under-researched context, characterized by high diversity and low inclusion. Our goal is to understand the factors that shape diversity management operating in such a challenging context and to analyze the problems and prospects of building a highly diverse and inclusive environment.

Using a case study approach, the chapter analyzes four dimensions of equality and diversity (ethnic, religious, age, and HIV/AIDS) across four organizations.

This exploratory study highlights the challenges of building a diverse and inclusive workplace in a weak institutional environment. We identify competing logics of managing diversity in Nigeria: institutionalizing ethnic representation vs building a meritocracy (ethnic), maintaining religious neutrality vs promoting religious freedom (religion), keeping the elder tradition vs harnessing the power of youth (age), and managing safety and reputation vs providing employment security (HIV/AIDS).

This study sheds light on the importance of underlying thoughts on the effectiveness of diversity policies and argues that managers and organizations need to know how to balance competing logics and manage paradox effectively. It accentuates the importance of the national institutional environment in shaping diversity practices and provides insights for practitioners and policymakers.