a / Institutional Entrepreneurship Cynthia Hardy and Steve Maguire INTRODUCTION In this chapter, we review the emerging and rapidly growing body of organizational research on institutional entrepreneurship. This term refers to the ‘activities of actors who have an interest in particular institu- ional arrangements and who leverage resources lo create new institutions or to transform existing ones’ (Maguire, Hardy & Lawrence, 2004: 657); while institutional entrepreneurs are those actors to whom the responsibility for new or changed institutions is attributed. These concepts are most closely associated with DiMaggio’s (1988: 14) work in which he argued that ‘new institutions arise when organized actors with sufficient resources (institutional entrepreneurs) see in them an opportunity to realize interests that they value highly’. Institutional entrepre- neurs can also work to maintain or to disrupt and tear down institutions, although there is {ar less research in these areas as compared to studies of institution building and institutional change (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006), ‘The recent growth in the literature on insti- tutional entrepreneurship responds to calls {or institutional theorists to bridge the ‘old’ and ‘new’ institutionalisms by reintroducing ‘considerations of agency, power and interests into analyses of institutional fields (e-g.. Powell & DiMaggio, 1991; Greenwood & Hinings, 1996; Hirsch & Lounsbury, 1997). Some work suggests that individual institutional entrepreneurs play highly inilu- ential if not determining, roles in episodes of ‘creating and transforming institutional amrangements. Other waters, however, are ‘more cautious of attuibuting too much agency for causality to specific actors and have, instead, emphasized the collective, incremental and multi-level elements of institutional entrepreneurship as a process, including its unintended consequences. Our purpose in this chapter is, then, to explore different perspectives on the nature, role and ‘impact of institutional entrepreneurs, as well as processes of institutional entrepreneurship, ‘Underpinning much of the recent interest in institutional entrepreneusship (c... Dorado, 2005; Battilana, 2006; Leca & Naccache, 2006; Garud, Hardy & Maguite, 2007) is the paradox of embedded agency (Powell & DiMaggio, 1991; Friedland & Alford, 1991; Sewell. 1992; Holm, 1995; Seo & Creed, 2002), which raises interesting ‘questions for institutional theorists The theoretical ouzze as fllons: if actors are embeded in an institutional eld. how are theyINSTITUTIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP 199 able to envision new practices ard then subse. {quently get others to. adopt them? Dominant actrsin a given field may have the power to force ange but atten lack the motivation, while peripheral players may have the incentive to este ard champion new practices, but often lack the change institutions (Garud, Harey & 2007: 961), First, it is not clear how actors are able to envision and champion new practices if they are embedded in an institutional field and subject lo its regulative, normative and cog- nitive pressures. As Maguire (2007: 674) points out, ‘actors who are truly embedded” are not supposed to imagine, desire or realize alternative ways of doing things “because insttutionalized arrangements and practices structure cognitions, define interests and, in the limit, produce actors’ identities’. So, although central, dominant actors may be able (© champion institutional change, they appear unlikely to come up with novel ideas or to pursue change because they are deeply embedded in ~ and advantaged by — existing institutional arrangements. Resource-rich central players are often unable ‘to see beyond prevailing ‘recipes”’; are committed to existing technologies; are ‘exposed to nor- mative processes’; and have interests “aligned with current practices’ (Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006: 29; also see DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Tushman & Anderson, 1986; Porac & Thomas, 1990). Second, it is also unclear how institutional entrepreneurs get other embedded field members to take up and institutionalize new practices. Those actors that are most likely to imagine and sire change are often located at the periph- ery ~ by being less embedded in and less privileged by existing institutional arrange- ments, they have more to gain from change and more ideas for what it might look like (eg. Leblebici, Salancik, Copay & King, 1991), However, they are also likely to lack the power and resources necessary to realize it (Maguire, 2007). Moreover, even central actors in mature fields have to work to ensure that a wide range of other field members abandon existing practices in favour of the new ones that they are championing In this chapter, we explore how research hhas sought to answer these and related ques- tions. We start by considering which types of actor take on the role of institutional ente preneur, reviewing work exploring the attrib- utes of individual actors as well as the place they occupy in the field. The second section describes the field conditions that help to ini- tiate institutional entrepreneurship — how particular aspects of an institutional field provide a context in which ideas for change ‘can emerge and take hold. In the third section we consider the role of interpretive struggles and, specifically, how contests over meaning ate associated with processes of institucional entrepreneurship. In the fourth section, we discuss intervention strategies — patterned action by institutional entrepreneurs as they seek to change a field, Finally, we provide some insights on how this body of literature hhas developed and the ditection it might take in the future by distinguishing between two different narratives of institutional entrepre- neurship, We find that the majority of the lit- erature has developed around actor-centsic accounts that focus on particular institucional entrepreneurs, and how and why they are able to transform fields. However, a different narrative can also be identified — one that is process-centric and emphasizes the struggle that accompanies processes of institutional ‘entrepreneurship, tis this narrative that, we feel, offers more promising avenues for future research in as much as it helps to ‘ensure that the efforts of institutional theo- tists to incorporate agency in order to move beyond an over-emphasis on the constraining effects of institutions - do not swing too far in the opposite direction, INSTITUTIONAL ENTREPRENEURS ‘Who can become an institutional entrepre- eur? Who are the actors who ‘break away fom scripted patterns of behaviour’ (Dorado, 2005: 388) and strive ‘to develop strategies and shape institutions’ (Lecca & Naccache,200 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF ORGANIZATIONAL INSTITUTIONALISM, 2006: 627). At a basic level, researchers have ‘examined different types of actors that initiate institutional change and act a¢ institutional entrepreneurs, including: individuals (Fligstein, 2001; Kraatz & Moore, 2002; Lawrence & Phillips 2004; Maguire et al. 2004; Dew, 2006); organizations (e.g. Dejean et al, 2004; Demil & Bensedrine, 2005; Garud et al., 2002; Hensman, 2003, Leblebici et al, 1991), especially in the professions (Edelman & Suchman, 1997; Greenwood et al., 2002; 2005; 2006, Lounsbury, 2002); networks (Dorado, 2005); associations (Demil & Bensédrine, 2005); and social movements (Lounsbury et al, 2003; Rao 1998; 2002; Rao et al., 2000) Researchers have, however, explored more complex questions than whether individuals, ‘organizations or collectives can act as institue ional entrepreneurs; accordingly, we examine work that has linked institutional entrepreneurship to properties associated with particular types of actors, as well as to specific positions in a given field. Properties ‘One approach to understanding who initiates institutional change focuses explicitly on the properties ~ special characteristics, qualities and abilities ~ which distinguish institutional entrepreneurs from others in the field, and allow them to envision and promote alterna- tive arrangements. This work sees the institu- tional entrepreneur as an ‘analytically distinguished social type who has the capa- bility to take a reflective position towards institutionalized practices and can envision altemative modes of getting things done (Beckert, 1999: 786, emphasis in original) ‘At the level of the individual, the notion ‘of an institutional entrepreneur thus opens up avenues of research informed by cog- nitive psychology and ‘the development Of systematic tools for predicting how indi- Vidual cognition is wanslated into actions in the institutional environment’ George, Chattopadhyay, Sitkin & Barden, 2006: 348), Other work has examined the characteris- ties of institutional entrepreneurs using a dif- ferent theoretical perspective — critical realism (Mutch, Delbridge & Ventresca, 2006; Leca & Naccache, 2006). For example, ‘Match (2007) uses Atcher's (2003) work to study Sir Andrew Barclay Walker, who pio- neered the practice of directly managed Public houses in England. Mutch (2007) suggests that Walker was able to act as an institutional entrepreneur because of his reflexivity. Specifically, he was an “autonomous reflexive’ reflected in relative isolation from the con- cems of others, as a result of which he was more likely to experience conflict with the structures that surrounded him and, there- fore, to seek opportunities for change. Leca & Naccache (2006) use critical realism to explore the activities of an organization, rather than an individual ~ ARESE, the first company to act as a social rating agency in ance. These authors show how, despite being embedded, reflexivity allowed this organization to contribute tothe institutional ization of Socially Responsible Investment in that country. ‘Work in the eritical realist tradition, while focusing on the institutional entrepreneur, also places considerable emphasis on the institutional context, reminding us that actors are products of the institutional fields in which they operate, Although it has been argued that many institutional studies tend to tweat the actor, whether individual or organi- ational, as unproblematic (see the chapter by Ezzemal & Willmott in this volume), itis Important to remember that actors, interests, goals and strategies are institutionally, cul- tually and historically shaped (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Clemens & Cook, 1999, ‘Meyer, 2006). Which actors have ‘the right 0 hhave interests, what interests are regarded as reasonable of appropriate, and what means can be used to pursue them are all products of socially constructed rules’, meaning that ‘who has the right to take self-determined and self interested actions — is expected to vary over time and place’ (Scott, 1995: 140), an actor who