Champaign EERO VAARA Aalto School of Business and EMLYON Business School We conceptualize the roots of cognitive, linguistic, and communicative theories of institutions and outline the promise and potential of a stronger communication focus for institutional theory. In particular, we outline a theoretical approach that puts communication at the heart of theories of institutions, institutional maintenance, and change, and we label this approach communicative institutionalism. We then provide a brief introduction to the set of articles contained in the Special Topic Forum on Communication, Cognition, and Institutions and describe the innovative theorizing of these articles in the direction of communicative theories of institutions. Finally, we sketch a research agenda and further steps and possibilities for theory and research integrating communication and institutions.

For many years, reviewers have argued that organizational communication research is overly concentrated on microphenomena to the neglect of macrophenomena, but macrophenomena have generally remained unspecified. An institutional theory of organizational communication is proposed to fill that gap. Drawing on institutional theory in organizational sociology and on concerns in organizational communication, we define institutions as constellations (i.e., relatively fixed arrangements) of formalized rational beliefs manifested in individuals' organizing behaviors. Key concepts for the analysis of institutions include membership, rational myths, isomorphism, and decision hierarchies. Based on our definition and armed with these concepts, the paper formally specifies propositions of an institutional theory of organizational communication. Applying the propositions to a published case of organizational identification demonstrates how an institutional perspective offers additional explanatory power, especially concerning professional roles.

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Institutional messages provide a conceptual and empirical link between the predominantly macro world of institutions and the micro world of organizational communication. The concept of the institutional message is used colloquially but has not been developed theoretically.The conception that emerges from a review of the scholarly and primitive uses is that institutional messages are collations of thoughts that take on lives independent of senders and recipients. They may have the force of rules, spread intentionally or unintentionally via multiple channels to narrow or wider audiences. This essay considers the institutionality of messages in terms of their endurance, reach, encumbency, and intentionality. Institutional messages carry institutional logics—patterns of beliefs and rules. They are collations of thoughts that are intentional, enduring, have a wide reach, and encumber organizational participants to engage in certain behaviors or to take performative responses. It is argued that individuals and organizations develop institutional logics as they make sense of institutional messages. Implications and suggestions for research are included.