LIT 3 - Durant/Thornton: categorizing institutional logics, institutionalizing categor Flashcards
What are institutional logics described as being?
Institutional logics are described as patterns of symbolic and material elements used and manipulated by individuals and organisations.
How are categories defined in the context of markets and organisations?
Categories are defined as interfaces of cognitive agreement about a considered object. More precisely, they are the symbolic and material attributes of products, firms, and industries that are both shared among actors and that distinguish these entities from others.
What is the significance of categories serving as ‘social agreements about the meanings of labels’?
Without categories serving as the ‘social agreements about the meanings of labels applied to them’, neither institutional consensus nor social, economic, and symbolic exchanges are likely to be achieved.
What are some of the stated benefits of integrating the institutional logics and categories research streams?
Integration can lead to better specified mechanisms, processes, and contexts important to improving accuracy and development of these research streams. It can also address mutual oversights creating needless shortcomings in both literatures.
What are category systems described as being?
Category systems, which are the assemblage of categories coordinated in a setting, are a result of multiple actors participating in their institutionalisation.
What is the role of audiences in the formation of categories?
Category formation lies in an audience’s capacity to agree that a new category is contrasting and is distinguishable from existing categories. Once established, actors use the category as a referent for membership and evaluation.
What is the ‘categorical imperative’ and what does it imply?
The ‘categorical imperative’ suggests that firms that fit within identifiable categories are privileged and those that do not are penalised (illegitimacy discount).
According to the ecological perspective, how do audiences react to a new producer or product in relation to existing categories?
Audiences automatically recognise the characteristics and boundaries of the new category, positively sanctioning it if it coincides with the prototype and negatively sanctioning it if it does not.
What is meant by category spanning and how is it often viewed by audiences?
Category spanning refers to a producer or product belonging to multiple categories. It is often negatively sanctioned by audiences due to cognitive, identity, and competence ambiguity.
How do some researchers view categorisation as a socio-cognitive process?
This view contends that organisations often ignore information outside of their category and self-select membership based on their social ties, forming confirmatory information loops that reinforce the existing category system.
What is a ‘theory of value’ in the context of category research?
A theory of value is defined as ‘how audiences identify issues and solutions, ascribe value, and rank solution providers’.
How can institutional logics be seen as strategic resources for organisations?
Institutional logics can be resources that organisations use to leverage strategic choices. For example, firms might add a new logic to their strategic repertoire to gain an advantage.
What are some of the compatible assumptions shared by the institutional logics and categories perspectives at the actor level?
Both perspectives share assumptions about bounded rationality, the structure and focus of attention, and the importance of semantic content. They also assume that actors and decision-makers are situated.
How might the institutional logics framework contribute to understanding audience variance in category research?
The institutional logics framework may explain differences in theories of value within an audience and similarities in theories of value across audiences. Institutional logics can provide a set of frames that specify the criteria that guide how and why audience members express theories of value.
How might categories theory contribute to the study of institutional logics?
Categories theory provides concepts (e.g., prototypes, goal-based categories, ambiguity) and mechanisms (e.g., central tendency, conceptual combination) that can contribute to explaining the presence, reinforcement, and waning of institutional logics’ constitutive elements.
Durant / Thornton: In the context of institutional theory, how are institutional logics defined?
Institutional logics are the socially constructed historical patterns of cultural symbols and material practices, assumptions, values, and beliefs by which individuals produce and re-produce their material subsistence, organise time and space, and provide meaning to their daily activity.
Durant / Thornton: According to the sources, what are some of the ways in which institutional logics influence organisations?
Institutional logics have influences on actors at different levels, including organisations, with respect to areas such as:
* Executive succession
* Corporate governance
* Corporate networks
* Practice adoption
* Organisational deviance
* Organisational foundings
* Corporate social responsibility
* Firm innovation
* Interorganisational learning
* Organisational decision-making
* Strategic choice
Durant / Thornton: What is the significance of the institutional environment for organisations?
The institutional environment (the broader social context with its norms, values, and rules) shapes organisations’ structures and practices. Organisations often adopt structures and practices that are seen as legitimate within their institutional environment, even if these practices are not always efficient.
Durant / Thornton: According to Friedland and Alford (1991), what fundamental point did their critique bring to institutional and organisation theory regarding society?
Friedland and Alford countered that society is an interinstitutional system, where different institutional orders like the family, religion, market, and the state coexist. Each of these orders differentially influences individuals’ and organisations’ rationality and actions.
Durant / Thornton: How did Friedland and Alford’s perspective address issues of agency, rationality, and power in organisation and management studies?
They melded Marxian conflict theory with Weberian value spheres to provide solutions to long-standing problems of agency, bounded rationality, self-interest, power, and resources. This helped to move beyond purely structural views of institutions.
Durant / Thornton: What key insight did the shift from organisational fields to institutional logics offer regarding actors’ behaviour and institutional change?
This shift highlighted that differences in organising principles across institutional orders can lead actors to notice contradictions, creating opportunities to manipulate institutional logics for purposeful gain, with implications for institutional change. Actors at any level have some capacity to adjust their reference to the dominant institutional logic.
Durant / Thornton: What is the role of cultural knowledge corridors in the context of institutional orders?
Each institutional order functions as a cultural knowledge corridor that distinctly shapes attention and the interpretation of meaning for individuals and organisations operating within it.
Durant/Thornton: what are the Interinstitutional system ideal types
