Organizational Institutionalism

Abstract Even though it originated in the late 1970s, organizational institutionalism has been and continues to be the most influential perspective in organization theories (OTs) all over the world. Since the past 25 years, there have been many significant turns in the very nature of the institutional project. Whereas in the past, the institutional project sought to understand the normative conformity of organizational structures, organizational institutionalism now seeks to explain the variety of organizational responses to institutional pressures. New substreams of institutional research—enriched by notions of change, interests and agency—have emerged such as institutional change, institutional logics, institutional entrepreneurship, and institutional work. The chapter explores these substreams of organizational institutionalism and ends by discussing the greatness and miseries of this perspective.