Rhetorical Institutionalism: Language, Agency, and Structure in Institutional Theory since Alvesson 1993

Green, Sandy Edward; Li, Yuan

doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.2011.01022.x

Cited by 131 publications

(158 citation statements)

References 139 publications

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“…It provides an analytical perspective and a method of inquiry (Bitzer, 1981) that allows us to study the strategic and instrumental dimensions of discursive practices (Brown et al, 2012;Erkama & Vaara, 2010;Green Jr & Li, 2011) through which actors manage meanings and exercise power. We define rhetoric as a type of discourse, and rhetorical practices as discursive practices that are strategic in the sense that they are employed to create understandings, endorsing particular views and perspectives while silencing others (Bitzer, 1981;Conrad & Malphurs, 2008;Gill & Whedbee, 1997).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotions in Institutional Work: A Discursive Perspective

Moisander

Hirsto

Fahy

2016

Organization Studies

113

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This paper focuses on the dynamics and interplay of meaning, emotions, and power in institutional work. Based on an empirical study, we explore and elaborate on the rhetorical strategies of emotion work that institutional actors employ to mobilize emotions for discursive institutional work. In an empirical context where a powerful institutional actor is tasked with creating support and acceptance for a new political and economic institution, we identify three rhetorical strategies of emotion work: eclipsing, diverting and evoking emotions. These strategies are employed to arouse, regulate, and organize emotions that underpin legitimacy judgments and drive resistance among field constituents. We find that actors exercise influence and engage in overt forms of emotion work by evoking shame and pride to sanction and reward particular expedient ways of thinking and feeling about the new institutional arrangements. More importantly, however, the study shows that they also engage in strategies of discursive institutional work that seek to exert power-force and influence-in more subtle ways by eclipsing and diverting the collective fears, anxieties, and moral indignation that drive resistance and breed negative legitimacy evaluations. Overall, the study suggests that emotions play an important role in institutional work associated with creating institutions, not only via "pathos appeals" but also as tools of discursive, cultural-cognitive meaning work and in the exercise of power in the field.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotions in Institutional Work: A Discursive Perspective

Moisander

Hirsto

Fahy

2016

Organization Studies

113

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“…Boundary work is mobilized in this dynamic through the adoption of rhetorical strategies aimed at enabling professionals to use their access to various capitals to influence the social order, shape the speed and direction of field-level change and legitimate the acceptance of particular change programs (see also Suddaby and Greenwood 2005, Etzion and Ferraro 2010, Edward Green and Li 2011. Such work can assist in mobilizing collective action among key audiences and in challenging taken-for-granted assumptions (Battilana et al 2009, Hardy andMaguire 2008).…”

Section: Managing the Reproduction Of Professional Capitalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Re-theorizing the configuration of organizational fields: the IIRC and the pursuit of ‘Enlightened’ corporate reporting

Humphrey

O’Dwyer

Unerman

2016

Accounting and Business Research

132

160

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This paper studies the emergence of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) and its attempts to institutionalize integrated reporting as a practice that is critical to the relevance and value of corporate reporting. Informed by Suddaby and Viale's [(2011). Professionals and field-level change: institutional work and the professional project. Current Sociology, 59, 423-442] theorization of how professionals reconfigure organizational fields, the paper delineates the strategies and mechanisms through which the IIRC has sought to enroll the support of a wide range of stakeholder groups for the idea of integrated reporting in order to deliver a fundamental reconfiguration of the corporate reporting field. The paper's analysis reinforces the significance to any such field reconfiguration of the reciprocal and mutual arrangements between influential professionals and other powerful actors but does so in a way that (a) refines Suddaby and Viale's theorization of processes of field-level change and (b) pinpoints the fundamental policy challenges facing the IIRC. Gieryn's [(1983). Boundary work and the demarcation of science from non-science: strains and interests in professional ideologies of scientists. American Sociological Review, 48 (6), 781-795] notion of boundary work is operationalized to capture some of the complexity and dynamism of the change process that is not sufficiently represented by Suddaby and Viale's more sequentialist theorization. From a policy perspective, the paper demonstrates just how much the IIRC's prospects for success in reconfiguring the corporate reporting field depend on its ability to reconfigure the mainstream investment field. Ultimately, this serves to question whether the IIRC's conceptualization of 'enlightened' corporate reporting is sufficiently powerful and persuasive to stimulate 'enlightened' investment behavior focused on the medium and long term -and, more generally stresses the theoretical significance of considering connections across related organizational fields in institutional analyses of field reconfiguration efforts.

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“…This suggests collusion in the reproduction of the institutional order, conformance to third order controls (Lukes, 2005) and constraint of their personal agency (Green & Li, 2011).…”

Section: I'm Not Knowledgeable On Drugs and Hopefully They Are (M53)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Elective surgical patients' narratives of hospitalization: The co-construction of safety

Doherty

Saunders

2013

Social Science & Medicine

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Rhetorical Institutionalism: Language, Agency, and Structure in Institutional Theory since Alvesson 1993

Cited by 131 publications

References 139 publications

Emotions in Institutional Work: A Discursive Perspective

Emotions in Institutional Work: A Discursive Perspective

Re-theorizing the configuration of organizational fields: the IIRC and the pursuit of ‘Enlightened’ corporate reporting

Elective surgical patients' narratives of hospitalization: The co-construction of safety

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