Institutions Under a Microscope: Experimental Methods in Institutional Theory

A Micro-institutional Inquiry into Resistance to Environmental Pressures

“…What is more, experiments can significantly enhance our understanding of underlying mechanisms that are often difficult to detect and isolate in contextually rich non-experimental field studies. It is not surprising, therefore, that experiments are increasingly becoming the go-to method for micro-institutional inquiry (see also Bitektine et al, 2018).…”

“…In considering this issue, it is important to bear in mind that experiments generalize to naturally occurring situations not directly but only through theory (Kanazawa, 1999;Lucas, 2003b;Martin & Sell, 1979;Stolte, Fine, & Cook, 2001;Zelditch, 1980). Therefore, an adequate experimental setting needs to ensure that the theoretical principles can be tested so that the results inform the underlying theory, which bridges the experimental study and the real world (Bitektine et al, 2018). Although institutional theory is often thought of as an innately macro-level approach, researchers have argued that, through sociological miniaturism (Stolte et al, 2001), predictions of institutionalism can also be applied to and tested at the level of smaller laboratory organizations (Zucker, 1991).…”

“…Bringing quantitative micro work to institutional theory, experiments represent a neglected but much-needed tool for uncovering micro-level processes and explaining how individuals experience, make sense of, and react to institutions. Experiments thus allow for building new causal theory by addressing key questions at the heart of institutional theory that would be difficult to study with other methods (Bitektine, Lucas, & Schilke, 2018;Haack, McKinley, Schilke, & Zucker, 2016). The procedures and findings reported in the current research should encourage future scholars to employ experimental methods when studying institutional phenomena, thus helping to expand the "resource space" of potential contributions available to the institutional research community (Bitektine, 2009;Bitektine & Miller, 2015).…”

Call for Papers-Special Issue on Experiments in Organizational Theory

“…• Recent surveys of published research found no systematic differences between the behavior of managers and students (Fréchette 2015(Fréchette , 2016, and we are aware that online labor markets offer a unique opportunity for experiments (Reypens and Levine 2017). However, we still expect authors to explain why these populations are appropriate for their study (Bitektine et al 2018).…”

“…In recent years, this call has been amplified. Among institutional theorists, for example, experiments are becoming the go-to method for microinstitutional inquiry (see Bitektine et al 2018 for a recent review). Expanding the seminal study of Zucker (1977) on institutionalization and cultural persistence, recent studies showed the rapid spread of false beliefs and counterfactual behavior in markets, even in seemingly ideal conditions .…”