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Institutional complexity and individual responses : delineating the boundaries of partial autonomy
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Martin, Graham, Currie, Graeme, Weaver, Simon, Finn, Rachael and McDonald, Ruth (2017) Institutional complexity and individual responses : delineating the boundaries of partial autonomy. Organization Studies, 38 (1). pp. 103-127. doi:10.1177/0170840616663241 ISSN 0170-8406.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0170840616663241
Abstract
Research highlights how coexisting institutional logics can sometimes offer opportunities for agency to enterprising actors in organizational fields. But macro- and micro-level studies using this framework diverge in their approach to understanding the consequences of institutional complexity for actor autonomy, and correspondingly in the opportunities they identify for agents to resist, reinterpret or make judicious use of institutional prescriptions. This paper seeks to bridge this gap, through a longitudinal, comparative case study of the trajectories of four ostensibly similar change initiatives in the same complex organizational field. It studies the influence of three dominant institutional logics (professional, market and corporate) in these divergent trajectories, elucidating the role of mediating influences, operating below the level of the field but above that of the actor, that worked to constrain or facilitate agency. The consequence for actors was a divergent realization of the relationship between the three logics, with very different consequences for their ability to advance their interests. Our findings offer an improved understanding of when and how institutional complexity facilitates autonomy, and suggests mediating influences at the level of the organization and the relationship it instantiates between carriers of logics, neglected by macro- and micro-level studies, that merit further attention.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School | ||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Corporate culture, Organizational change, Great Britain. National Health Service | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Organization Studies | ||||||||
Publisher: | Sage Publications Ltd. | ||||||||
ISSN: | 0170-8406 | ||||||||
Official Date: | 1 January 2017 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 38 | ||||||||
Number: | 1 | ||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 103-127 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.1177/0170840616663241 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 5 July 2016 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 13 July 2017 | ||||||||
Funder: | Great Britain. National Health Service (NHS), National Institute for Health Research (Great Britain). Health Services and Delivery Research (NIHR HS&DR), Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) | ||||||||
Grant number: | Project number 09/1001/40 (NIHR HS&DR) |
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