Towards a Practice-Driven Institutionalism

Michael Smets · Angela Aristidou · Richard Whittington

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Management and Organizational Studies Economic Theory and Institutions Information Systems Theories and Implementation

Abstract

Recent years have seen an increasing mutual engagement between institutional and strategy-as-practice scholars who realize that they can learn from each other to address critical blind spots in their respective theories (Smets, Greenwood, & Lounsbury, 2015a; Suddaby, Seidl, & Lê, 2013; Vaara & Whittington, 2012). In this chapter, we argue that this nascent dialogue is bringing about a Practice-Driven Institutionalism (PDI) that more truthfully reflects the intellectual heritage of institutional theory and, in doing so, sheds a more comprehensive light on modern-day issues of organizing and work (Barley & Kunda, 2001; Feldman & Orlikowski, 2011). Institutional theorists are thereby following the “practice turn” which has characterized much of organization theory in the last twenty years (Barrett, Oborn, Orlikowski, & Yates, 2012; Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2011; Schatzki, Knorr-Cetina, & Savigny, 2001; Whittington, 2006). Especially, they build on strong process- and practice-driven ontologies which the literatures on routines (e.g., Feldman, 2016; Feldman & Pentland, 2003; Parmigiani & Howard-Grenville, 2011), technology-as-practice (and as institution) (e.g., Orlikowski, 1996, 2000; Orlikowski & Barley, 2001) and strategy-as-practice (for reviews, see: Smets et al., 2015a; Suddaby et al., 2013) have carried into the organizational literature. In following this turn, institutionalists seek to enhance their understanding of how institutions play out on the “coalface” of everyday life (Barley, this volume). Specifically, PDI advances their theorizing of institutional logics (e.g., Ocasio, Thornton & Lounsbury, this volume; Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012), the complexities that occur when incompatible logics clash (e.g., Greenwood et al., 2011; Kraatz & Block, this volume), and the institutional work required to create, change, or maintain institutions under those conditions (e.g., Lawrence, this volume; Lawrence, Leca, & Zilber, 2013; Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006). In this sense, PDI cuts across and informs the dominant conversations of current institutionalist theorizing.

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