Power, Institutions, and Organizations

1. Power, Institutions, and Organizations Sage Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism Ch. 6 Kelly Davis

2. Basic Definitions • Power: a property of relationships such that the beliefs or behaviors of an actor are affected by the another actor or system • Power is a relational phenomenon • Why? How? • Systemic Power: routine practices that advantage particular groups without those groups necessarily establishing or maintaining those practices • Episodic Power: discrete, strategic acts of mobilizations initiated by self-interested actors

3. Institutional Connections to Power • Institutions exist to the extent that they are powerful • Social control-capacity of a society to regulate itself according to the desired principles and values • Institutions are patterns of social practice which use sanctions to reinforce these patterns • Relationship between power and institutions has following dimensions: • Institutional control • Institutional agency • Institutional resistance • Together these make up institutional politics

4. Institutional Control • The effects of institutions on actors’ beliefs and behavior • How do institutions organize, encourage, or discourage thought and action within organizational fields? • Involves systemic power • Discipline-ongoing engagement with target of power • Individual level • Provides identity and motivation • Domination-power is derived through the use of physical and social technologies within the institution • Population level • Structuring of power relations according to social order or by the numbers

5. Resisting Institutional Control • Resistance imposes limits on power • Discipline • Requires “inward” looking-enclosure • Continuous surveillance • Domination • Ability to resist is reduced, but resistance will be more severe • Focus on population leaves people feeling like they have no experienced meaning, common goals, etc. • Harmful behavior is directed at the whole

6. Institutional Agency • The work of actors to create, transform, or disrupt institutions, study of political processes and practices which inherently involve power • Institutional entrepreneurship & social movements • What about social change? • Involves episodic power • Focuses on influence • Ability to persuade others to do things they would not otherwise do • Use of force

7. Resisting Institutional Agency • More room for resistance and more potential for creativity in resistance forms • Stems from indirect nature of institutional agency to work through third parties • Third-party presence necessitates more sophisticated surveillance • Room for avoidance • Social movements

8. Future Research Directions • Make power explicit in institutional research • Greater consideration of settings • Broaden conception of power to include domination and force • Incorporate resistance • The maintenance work of the institution • The side effects of institutions

9. Big OT Questions • Why do organizations exist? • Why are firms the same/different? • What causes changes in organizations? • Why do some firms survive and others don’t? • What are the emerging issues?