The Institutional Logics Perspective

The Co-Evolution of Institutional Logics and Boundary Spanning in Sustainability Transitions: the Case of Urban Stormwater Management in Melbourne, Australia

“…Individuals instantiate and carry logics through their behaviour and actions (Pache & Santos, 2013); they continue to reproduce and sustain them, because logic compliance is rewarded by social legitimacy, while deviation is sanctioned (Rao et al, 2003). Importantly, logics do not only provide top-down orienteering principles but also bottom-up symbolic (ideation and meaning) and material (structure, practice, physical objects) building blocks with which actors operate (Thornton et al, 2012;Thornton & Ocasio, 1999). This emphasis on both the social dimension and on material artefacts makes this literature well-suited to studying socio-technical phenomena.…”

“…By doing so, actors decouple and recombine logic elements strategically, thereby altering existing practices, supporting new ones, and instigating institutional change. How agency plays out is described in the microfoundations of the IL perspective (Thornton et al, 2012). Three mechanisms underpin this process: first, availability (what knowledge and information do individuals have about a given logic?…”

“…In essence, agency plays out at the micro level through the exchange, negotiation, and application of information that carries the symbolic and material aspects of different institutional logics. Through time, repetition, and socialization processes, information turns into widely shared, higher-order principles and eventually solidifies into the taken-for-granted (Thornton et al, 2012). In the next section we outline each of the three mechanisms and describe how boundary spanners operationalize them through their attributes and ways of working.…”

“…Table 2. Microfoundations of institutional logics from Thornton et al (2012), and how the mechanisms are operationalized by a combination of boundary spanners' attributes and ways of working …”

Big Data and Evidence-Driven Decision-Making: Analyzing the Practices of Large and Mid-Sized U.S. Cities

“…The term "institutions" refers not only to the formal and informal processes and rules of organizations, but also the systems of norms and meanings that influence and constrain behaviors in society [24,27,38]. Therefore, institutional logics constitute the conceptual framework for analyzing the interrelationships among institutions, individuals, and organizations in social systems [41]. These logics provide the frames of reference that guide sensemaking by actors, influence their choice of language and symbols in organizational activities, shape their reasoning in strategic decisions and action plans, and contextualize how power, symbols, rituals, and actions are interpreted.…”