EGOS 2014 Call for Short Papers
30th EGOS Colloquium
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
July 3–5, 2014
Sub-theme 60: Rethinking Responses to Institutional Complexity
Convenors:
Panelists: Julie Battilana, Andy Hoffman, Matt Kraatz, Anne-Claire Pache
Organizations face unprecedented levels of environmental turbulence, and boundaries between firms, industries, public and private lives are fading. In consequence, organizations are confronted with multiple prescriptions arising from divergent institutional logics (Kraatz & Block, 2008; Greenwood, Raynard, Kodeih, Micelotta & Lounsbury, 2011). Navigating these institutionally complex waters requires tradeoffs, negotiations (Zietsma & Lawrence, 2010) and the careful balancing of resources, interests and strategic responses in order to secure legitimacy from different sources and ensure organizational performance and survival.This sub-theme, therefore, seeks to advance our understanding of how organizations experience and respond to the challenges of institutional complexity.There are several possible avenues of exploration. One line of thought seeks to understand the "strategies" employed by organizations when faced with a multiplicity of logics (Pache & Santos, 2010; Kraatz & Block, 2008). Another focuses upon how multiple logics are reflected in organizational "structures" and "practices"-seeking to understand different types of "hybrid" organizations (e.g., Battilana & Dorado, 2010) and the extent to which hydrids are consciously designed or arise less deliberately from organizational routines and practices. A third focuses on cognitive aspects of institutional complexity – how decision makers notice, conceptualize and decide to respond to mixed institutional pressures and prescriptions (Thornton, Ocasio & Lounsbury, 2012). Fourth, complexity can be explored at the level of the field to determine, for example, how competing logics interact and how different logics are shaped by collective agencies such as associations and the media (e.g. Hoffman, 2011). Despite significant progress in the study of institutional complexity, significant questions remain for future research. These include, but are not limited to:Organizational Strategies:• How do organizations respond to multiple institutional logics? • Do different degrees and sources of institutional complexity lead to specific organizational responses? Under what conditions do organizations deploy multiple responses simultaneously? • How do complexity response strategies affect economic and social performance, and organizational survival?
Structures and Practices Reflecting Multiple Logics:
• How are multiple logics reflected in the organizational structures and practices of "hybrid" organizations?
• How do leaders of hybrids balance competing logics within the organization?
• What micro-practices do organizational actors use in their attempts to create, sustain or resist the hybridization of organizations?
• How do hybrid organizations emerge and evolve, and how are they sustained? Are they designed, or the less deliberate outcome of practices and routines coping with everyday challenges.
Cognitive Aspects of Complexity:
• How does managers' attention to different institutional demands vary?
• How is institutional complexity experienced and accommodated, resolved, managed and challenged by decision makers in organizations?
Field Level Complexity:• How is complexity maintained at the field level? • Under what conditions does institutional complexity lead to conflict vs. co-existence within the field?• What is the role of collective actors, such as associations and the media, in shaping the form and experience of complexity?We welcome empirical papers using a variety of methods to address these and related topics. We encourage submissions from doctoral students and established scholars interested in exploring new areas within the institutional complexity perspective. The session will end with an exiting panel of experts in the field of institutional complexity. Please visit http://www.egosnet.org/2014_rotterdam/general_theme for guidelines and to submit your short paper proposal. We are looking forward to seeing you in Rotterdam Kind regards, Royston GreenwoodPatrick VermeulenCharlene ZietsmaReferencesBattilana, J., & Dorado, S. (2010). Building sustainable hybrid organizations: The case of commercial microfinance organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 53(6), 1419–1440.Greenwood, R., Raynard, M., Kodeih, F., Micelotta, E. R., & Lounsbury, M. (2011). Institutional complexity and organizational responses. The Academy of Management Annals, 5: 317-371. Hoffman, A. (2011). Talking past each other? Cultural framing of skeptical and convinced logics in the climate change debate. Organization & Environment, 24(1), 3-33.Kraatz, M. S., & Block, E. S. (2008). Organizational implications of institutional pluralism. In R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, K. Sahlin & R. Suddaby (Eds.), Handbook of organizational institutionalism: 243-275. London: Sage. Pache, A., & Santos, F. (2010). When worlds collide: The internal dynamics of organizational responses to conflicting institutional demands. Academy of Management Review, 35: 455-476. Thornton, P., Ocasio, W. & Lounsbury, M. (2012). The institutional logics perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Zietsma, C., & Lawrence, T. B. (2010). Institutional work in the transformation of an organizational field: The interplay of boundary work and practice work. Administrative Science Quarterly, 55: 189-221.