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We draw on an in-depth investigation into the phenomenon of community radio in India to identify the emergence of an institutional logic in a field. We delineate five stages of emergence, starting with problematization of dominant logics and ending with formation of an institutionally complex field. Further, we highlight how such a process results in organizational forms that reflect ongoing struggles among dominant logics and the emerging logic. We contribute to neoinstitutional studies on the emergence of social objects and also draw the attention of emergence theorists to the contested manner in which emergence takes place in the social world.

Field emergence poses an intriguing problem for institutional theorists. New issue fields often arise at the intersection of different sectors, amidst extant structures of meanings and actors. Such nascent fields are fragmented and lack clear guides for action; making it unclear how they ever coalesce. The authors propose that provisional social structures provide actors with macrosocial presuppositions that shape ongoing field-configuration; bootstrapping the field. The authors explore this empirically in the context of social impact investing in the UK, 2000–2013, a period in which this field moved from clear fragmentation to relative alignment. The authors combine different computational text analysis methods, and data from an extensive field-level study, to uncover meaningful patterns of interaction and structuration. Our results show that across various periods, different types of actors were linked together in discourse through “actor–meaning couplets.” These emergent couplings of actors and meanings provided actors with social cues, or macrofoundations, which guided their local activities. The authors thus theorize a recursive, co-constitutive process: as punctuated moments of interaction generate provisional structures of actor–meaning couplets, which then cue actors as they navigate and constitute the emerging field. Our model re-energizes the core tenets of new structuralism and contributes to current debates about institutional emergence and change.

This paper evaluates the influence of the institutional context on the dynamics of institutional change and the possibilities for human agency in this process.

A comparison of the emergence of the temporary work agency industry in five countries is used to illustrate the influence of three elements of the institutional context: high/low pressure field emergence, societal confidence, and power and discretion of the emerging industry.

The analysis reveals how these three elements affect the dynamics of new field development. It shows the interaction between institutionalising and de‐institutionalising pressures and the dialectical nature of the process when comparing the developments over time between different national (institutional) contexts.

Propositions for further research are formulated. Combining the effects of the three situational variables three models of industry institutionalization are established: autonomous development, constrained development and societalisation.

The findings illustrate the situated condition of human and organizational agency in processes of institutional entrepreneurship. Our analysis also shows how early externally constraining effects slow down early institutionalisation of a new organizational field, but at the same time trigger processes of institutional structuration that strengthen the institutionalising role of the industry in the long run.

The comparative analysis helps to see how the dynamics of institutional renewal are affected by institutional context and highlights the situated nature of effective human agency.

We examine the concept of ‘organisational fields’, a notion employed frequently, but at times with inconsistency, to describe supra-industrial conglomerations of organisations with a mutual interest. We find this concept analytically useful in today’s world of rapid technological change and of organisations searching for business across industry boundaries. With our study of smart-city development in Japan, we provide an alternative theory to the predominant socio-cognitive explanations of how organisational fields emerge. Based on our empirical case, the drivers for the early development of an organisational field are concrete organisational actions to assemble the tangible objects of the new field.

The purpose of this paper is to discourse the essence and utility of (re)emergence theory as the starting point of understanding and interpreting organizational routines dynamics as well as to propose a conceptual framework reflecting both epistemological and methodological value as the keystone of analysing the rationale of organizational routines and the process of their emergence.

The paper is based on extensive literature studies.

Referring to the research problem concerning the reconciliation organizational routines and the emergence phenomenon, the findings complement the insights of the dominant theoretical perspectives in organizational routine theory, providing a more comprehensive understanding of organizational dynamics by directly addressing the heretofore intractable phenomenon of emergence. In addition, it is going to be a well-justified epistemological base to operationalize routines – not only per se, but also with regard to the mechanisms enacted.

Routines change over time and the current studies results are not sufficient to understand these changes yet. Interpreting organizational routines from the emergence theory perspective reveals their soft, indeterministic, and unpredictable nature and ought to render the scholars dealing with that phenomenon interpretatively and methodologically cautious. Emergence is a priori embedded in organizational routines’ context. The considerations included in the paper are salient regarding ontological and epistemological issues as they emphasize specific thought and research directions in the field of organization study eventually. Emergence ideas may play a part in discussions of spontaneous order, particularly by implementing it to routines construct. A major issue is the role of these ideas and processes within organizational evolution.

An important but neglected area of investigation in digital entrepreneurship is the combined role of both core and peripheral members of an emerging technological field in shaping the symbolic and social boundaries of the field. This is a serious gap as both categories of members play a distinct role in expanding the pool of resources of the field. I address this gap by exploring how membership category is related to funding decisions in the emerging field of artificial intelligence (AI).

The first quantitative study involved a sample of 1,315 AI-based startups which were founded in the period of 2011–2018 in the United States. In the second qualitative study, the author interviewed 32 members of the field (core members, peripheral members and investors) to define the boundaries of their respective role in shaping the social boundaries of the AI field.

The author finds that core members in the newly founded field of AI were more successful at attracting funding from investors than peripheral members and that size of the founding team, number of lead investors, number of patents and CEO approval were positively related to funding. In the second qualitative study, the author interviewed 30 members of the field (core members, peripheral members and investors) to define their respective role in shaping the social boundaries of the AI field.

This study is one of the first to build on the growing literature in emerging organizational fields to bring empirical evidence that investors adapt their funding strategy to membership categories (core and peripheral members) of a new technological field in their resource allocation decisions. Furthermore, I find that core and peripheral members claim distinct roles in their participation and contribution to the field in terms of technological developments, and that although core members attract more resources than peripheral members, both actors play a significant role in expanding the field’s social boundaries.

Core AI entrepreneurs who wish to attract funding may consider operating in fewer categories in order to be perceived as core members of the field, and thus focus their activities and limited resources to build internal AI capabilities. Entrepreneurs may invest early in filing a patent to signal their in-house AI capabilities to investors.

The social boundaries of an emerging technological field are shaped by a multitude of actors and not only the core members of the field. The author should pay attention to the role of each category of actors and build on their contributions to expand a promising field.

This paper is among the first to build on the growing literature in emerging organizational fields to study the resource acquisition strategies of entrepreneurs in a newly establishing technological field.

The purpose of this paper is to examine institutional influences on the customer service (CS) and complaints handling (CH) practices of the Australian Internet industry.

The study adopted a qualitative research methodology using semi-structured interview as a research method. The study was informed by constructivist/interpretive research paradigm approaches to knowledge. Eleven senior executives from key Internet industry stakeholder organizations were interviewed.

Using the neo-institutional theory lens, this study found that the institutional forces (regulatory, customer and competition pressures) played a pivotal role in bringing all Internet industry stakeholders together to address CS/CH shortcomings in the old Telecommunications Consumer Protection (TCP) Code 2007. This led to significant changes to the CS/CH practices detailed in the revised TCP Code 2012. The study findings revealed that frequent and fateful collaborations between central institutional actors have led to the emergence of organizational fields. The actors identified in the emerging organizational fields actively influence the CS/CH practices and the subsequent implementation of the practices in vLISPs.

The study focused on the functional aspects of service quality (SQ). Technical aspects of SQ is equally important, and future research needs to consider both aspects of SQ when assessing overall performance of vLISPs.

The study findings encourage vLISP managers to continue collaboration with external stakeholders and develop customer-friendly practices that deliver desirable CS/CH outcomes.

The study findings revealed that when all vLISP industry stakeholders collaborate with each other on a focal issue, there is noticeable progress towards development of CS practices that will contribute to a better CS experience.

An evidence-based approach was used towards understanding and explaining how and why institutional actors of technology-based service organizations act together. A significant contribution arising from this study is the identification and discussion of emerging organizational fields comprising the central actors in the Internet industry. These emerging organizational fields have the potential to develop into mature organizational fields and inform future CS/CH practices and consumer protection policies in the Australian Internet industry.

The purpose of this paper is to advance supply chain management by describing the current state of behavioral supply chain management (BSCM) research and paving the way for future contributions by developing a meta-theory for this important field.

The results are generated by applying the systematic literature review methodology and an iterative theory-building approach involving a panel of academics.

This review provides a comprehensive overview of the BSCM research landscape. Additionally, a meta-theory of BSCM is presented that encompasses all central elements of the research field and introduces the concept of emergence to the field of BSCM. Furthermore, five promising future research opportunities are formulated.

The critical discussions and the formulated research opportunities will help scholars in positioning their research to enhance its contribution.

Results from this research indicate that supply chain decisions benefit from explicit consideration for cognitive and social phenomena.

This review is the first to provide a comprehensive overview of the field of BSCM research and facilitates BSCM in advancing further.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the studies that have had the greatest impact on entrepreneurial orientation (EO) research and to analyze the changes that have taken place in the intellectual structure of this key topic in the entrepreneurship field.

This paper adopts the methods of citation analysis, co-citation analysis, social network analysis and factor analysis to analyze 2,005 studies on the theme of EO in the 12 years from 2008 to 2019.

The research identified the representative literature and journals in the field of EO, presented the development process and knowledge cluster by stages in the form of intuitive network mapping and summarized the main research fields and the evolutionary trend of EO during the period 2008–2019.

This study provides a more comprehensive and objective knowledge structure evolution context for EO researchers, which is conducive to the mature development of the entrepreneurship-oriented field.

It is helpful for enterprise managers to have a deeper understanding of the connotations of EO and to make more scientific entrepreneurial decisions, so as to improve their ability in enterprise innovation and entrepreneurship.

This study visualizes the evolution process of EO knowledge structure, fills the gaps of recent knowledge structure analysis literature in this field and provides theoretical support for the findings of other studies.

This chapter provides an historical perspective on the evolution of educational marketing both as a professional field within the management and leadership of educational organisations and as a research field for academics and practitioners. It weaves together three important strands of analysis:•The evolution of the political, economic and social ideologies which have created the context in which marketisation of education has occurred.•The development of approaches to educational marketing in schools, colleges and universities.•The development of the research arena focused on marketisation and marketing in educational institutions.

The analysis considers the challenges that market-based concepts have brought to the existing hegemonies within both education and academic research, and also the politics and sociology of academic research. This provides a perspective on the challenges of developing a ‘new’ research field as a valid and significant area of study. The chapter concludes that educational marketing has evolved very significantly over the last 30 years, but has a done so in a context of substantial intellectual and sociological challenge. Resistance to its development has at times reflected resistance to the underlying concepts of marketisation rather than a concern that its approaches and findings are not important.