Institutional theory has evolved from focusing on organizational conformity towards emphasizing strategic action for institutional change. In either perspective, the focus is laid on how actors seek to gain legitimacy and become more central in their field. Marginal actors have mainly been examined to the extent that they can move from the field margins towards achieving increased influence over the field. Only little attention has been paid to actors who nurture a distinctiveness from dominant field arrangements but are not necessarily willing to challenge the latter.
Institutional theory contends that radical distinctiveness is generally avoided in favor of “legitimate” (Navis & Glynn, 2011) or “optimal distinctiveness” (Zhao, Fisher, Lounsbury, & Miller, 2017), i.e. a balance between conformity and distinctiveness in which organizations frame their activities in a way that is “as different as legitimately possible” (Deephouse, 1999, p. 148). In this context, the presence of organizational actors guided by radically distinctive ideologies, without trying to alter the dominant institutional arrangements to their own image, is surprising. Even more surprising is the persistence of these radically distinctive organizations over time.
Previous work has documented cases of resistance to dominant institutional demands (Marquis & Lounsbury, 2007; Oliver, 1991). While this work has focused on how alternative practices are strategically leveraged to resist dominant institutional patterns, there has been significantly little work on how radical organizational ideologies emerge within an extant organization, and even less on how they are maintained over time despite environmental pressures towards conformity. In this paper we therefore explore the following research question: How can radically distinctive ideologies within organizations be introduced and sustained over time?
To answer this research question, we focus on the extreme case of a long lasting, self-managed cooperative in Venezuela: Cecosesola. Although this cooperative was created long before, in 1983 workers decided to develop a radically distinctive organizational ideology, which has been maintained since then and diffused throughout the organization, guiding workers’ actions and mindsets, and serving as the basis for distinctive organizing norms, rules and practices.
Drawing on an in-depth ethnographic study of this organization, we first suggest that a radically distinctive ideology may emerge in a moment of organizational crisis and requires both continuous entrenched criticism of traditional organizational forms and surrounding institutional arrangements, and continuous framing, which enables everyday work’s consistency with ideological prescriptions. Second, we suggest that maintaining organizing systems at the margins of dominant institutional arrangements over long time periods requires institutional work that is significantly different from their diffusion to challenge the extant institutional landscape. We name as institutional distinctiveness the process through which distinctive organizing patterns are nurtured at the margin of, and deliberately shielded from, the influence of dominant institutions. We propose that the creation and maintenance over time of a radically distinctive organizational ideology can be the foundation for institutional distinctiveness. Our analysis indicates that organizations nurturing institutional distinctiveness must shield the distinctiveness from external pressures towards the adoption of more common organizing patterns, and simultaneously prevent its internal erosion by continuously reinforcing it.
The findings bring three main theoretical contributions. With regard to institutional theory, we enrich the understanding of practices that are neither driven by isomorphic pressures nor motivated by institutional change objectives. In particular, we highlight the micro-level organizational practices to introduce institutional distinctiveness and maintain it over time. With regard to theory on ideology, we unveil the circumstances under which a radically distinctive ideology may be created and then sustained over time within the boundaries of the organization. Finally, within the conversation on workers’ participation we emphasize a more comprehensive understanding of the participatory system by showing that forces towards erosion or degeneration may come both from within the organization and because of its interaction with the broader institutional context. By bringing back the study of workers’ participation to the field, we also show that such system may be sustained by the creation and maintenance over time of a strong organizational ideology.
References
Deephouse, D. L. (1999). To be different, or to be the same? It’s a question (and theory) of strategic balance. Strategic Management Journal, 20(1), 147–166.
Marquis, C., & Lounsbury, M. (2007). Vive la résistance: Competing logics and the consolidation of U.S. community banking. Academy of Management Journal, 50(4), 799–820.
Navis, C., & Glynn, M. A. (2011). Legitimate distinctiveness and the entrepreneurial identity: Influence on investor judgments of new venture plausibility. Organization Studies, 36(3), 479–499.
Oliver, C. (1991). Strategic responses to institutional processes. Academy of Management Review, 16(1), 145–179.
Zhao, E. Y., Fisher, G., Lounsbury, M., & Miller, D. (2017). Optimal distinctiveness: Broadening the interface between institutional theory and strategic management. Strategic Management Journal, 38(1), 93–113.
3. Governance, employment and human resource management
EMES2017_Soetens_Huybrechts.pdf 