Institutional rationality and practice variation: New directions in the institutional analysis of practice
Section snippets
Institutional theory and rationality
While neoinstitutionalism established itself as a theoretical approach emphasizing the importance of broader meaning systems, the power of this perspective has been hindered by formative studies that emphasized how institutional processes were antithetical to more rationalistic accounts. In the study of diffusion, which became the beachhead empirical avenue for the development of institutional analysis, researchers of various stripes detailed how institutional pressures were distinct from
Institutional sources of practice variation
While the early statement by Meyer and Rowan (1977) signaled the study of both homogeneity and heterogeneity, research on the institutional sources of practice variation has only begun to be developed. This is mainly because isomorphic homogeneity was emphasized in subsequent writings such as in the seminal article by DiMaggio and Powell (1983) that focused scholarly attention on the convergence of practices and organizational symbolic structures across organizational fields. Even though the
Implications for the study of accounting practice
Given the popular understanding of institutional theory as a theory of isomorphism, researchers interested in the dynamics and flow of activity patterns have tended to eschew institutional approaches in favor of more grounded forms of intraorganizational research – much of which is drawing on emergent theories of practice (e.g., Chia and Holt, 2006, Gherardi and Nicolini, 2000, Jarzabkowski, 2005, Lave and Wenger, 1991, Nicolini et al., 2003, Orlikowski, 2000, Schatzki et al., 2001, Tsoukas,
Acknowledgements
This paper builds on and extends remarks and arguments made as part of a 2006 Keynote Address at the Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Accounting Conference held in Cardiff, UK.
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