Institutional Entrepreneurship and the Field of Power:The Emergence of the Global Hotel Industry

Institutional entrepreneurship as a field of academic enquiry is focused on the roles played by individual agents and agents acting in concert in promoting institutional change. From Bourdieu (1993; 1996), we infer that contests for institutional change are played out in the field of power, the integrative social domain that brings together powerful actors from different walks of life – business, politics, government agencies, media and the law – to affect changes in laws, regulations and conventions (Maclean and Harvey, 2019; Maclean, Harvey and Press, 2006). Institutional entrepreneurs pursue institutional change directly by legal or quasi-legal means by persuading others to act according to their interests through social influence or lobbying; often forming issue-based coalitions in pursuit of specific institutional goals (Wijen and Ansari, 2006). Hence we define institutional entrepreneurship as the skilful actions taken by an individual actor or coalition of actors to affect changes in the informal or formal rules governing a field for personal or collective advantage.There is little agreement on the processes commonly at work in institutional entrepreneurship and the ways in which these play out in different contexts. However, without some measure of agreement on the specific mechanisms whereby institutional entrepreneurs effect change in different arenas, it is difficult to generalize about strategy and tactics, let alone the outcomes of attempts to disrupt the status quo. The actual work of institutional entrepreneurship in its fine-grained detail is often glossed over. What is missing is research on collective endeavours, on emergent processes involving a range of actors in building momentum for institutional change (Aldrich, 2011; Maguire, Hardy and Lawrence, 2004; Lawrence and Phillips, 2004). It is in this aspect that Bourdieu’s construct of the field of power adds value to the theory of institutional entrepreneurship. Here the emphasis is on interactions between elite actors with different types and amounts of capital who combine their efforts to press for institutional change (Harvey and Maclean, 2008). In what follows, we build on Bourdieu’s ideas to identify three processes of institutional entrepreneurship – field formation, coalition building and rhetorical agency – at work in early phase globalization, when home-country firms seek to extend their operational reach into multiple host countries.<br/

Institutional Biography and the Institutionalization of a New Organizational Template:Building the Global Branded Hotel Chain

This article expands understanding of how institutional biography may inform institutional change by examining Conrad Hilton’s role in building the global branded hotel chain (1946-1969). We show how an individual’s institutional biography can play a pivotal role in their development as an institutional entrepreneur and the institutionalization of a new organizational template. Biography, informed by the institutions individuals experience in their life trajectories, shapes the process by which an individual becomes an institutional entrepreneur; influencing the institutionalization of a new template by enabling entrepreneurs to acquire a more central position within their field. Hilton’s self-narrative became closely coupled with the ‘grand narrative’ of post-war U.S. capitalism. The Hilton case vividly illustrates how institutional tensions, embracing national interests, corporate interests, and individual self-interest, can become distilled into the identity, choices, and ambitions – the personal biographical narrative – of individuals who play a formative role in the institutions they build, change, or disrupt

At the Intersection of Theory and History:A Research Agenda for Historical Organization Studies

In the preface to The Order of Things, Foucault (1970: xv) recites Jorge Luis Borges’ fictional taxonomy of animals to capture the fragmentation and confusing arbitrariness of any culturally determined system of knowledge. Much the same confusion might arise by using the total knowledge of organization theory to construct a taxonomy of organizations, dividing them thus: “(a) those belonging to the gods, (b) dead, (c) profitable (d) open systems, (e) machines, (f) positive, (g) processes, (h) cows, (i) emotional, (j) performing, (k), imagined, (l), mindsets, (m) enacted, embodied, embrained, (m) et cetera, (n) broken, (o) inimitable, (p) isomorphic, (q) occupying niches, (r) contingencies against dread, (s) structural adjustments, (t) broken hammers, (u) spider plants, (v) brains, (w) cages, (x) animals, (y) psychic structures, (z) classified elsewhere.”Fanciful? Not really. We have no doubt that each one of these terms might fruitfully be used to develop a whole panoply of theories about what organizations are. In fact, in every case we can think of literatures that do precisely that. Indeed, they do precisely that and much more besides; the imaginaries of theory know no bounds. If we want to signify what is an organization there are far too many ways of answering the question to satisfy a sober and disciplined mind. Such minds are too industriously proclaiming the verity of their schemas and casting scorn on those of others, thus showing the sobriety and discipline of the minds in question. <br/

Historical Organization Studies:Advancing New Directions for Organizational Research

Historical organization studies is ‘organizational research that draws extensively on historical sources, methods and knowledge to promote historically informed theoretical narratives attentive to both disciplines’ (Maclean, Harvey and Clegg, 2016: 609). Put simply, it seeks to blend history and organization studies. The present status of historical organization studies is that of an emergent academic movement rather than an established community of practice. For more than two decades, organization theorists have pointed to the need for more and better research that recognizes the importance of the past in shaping the present and influencing the future (Kieser, 1994; Zald, 1993). Some have identified a distinct ‘historic turn’ in organization studies, an epistemological shift led by scholars who perceive the field to have been constrained by its orientation towards contemporary cross-sectional studies covering limited periods of time (Clark and Rowlinson, 2004; Mills, Suddaby, Foster and Durepos, 2016). By historicizing organizational research, it is argued, the contexts and forces bearing upon organizations might be more fully recognized and analyses of organizational dynamics might be improved.How, precisely, might organizational research be historicized? How might a traditionally empirically oriented discipline such as history be incorporated into atheoretically oriented discipline such as organization studies? How might the power of history be harnessed to advance the explanatory potential of organization theory? What might history tangibly contribute to our knowledge of management and organizations (Clegg, 2006; Clegg and Courpasson, 2007)? We are now embarking on a new stage in the establishment of historical organization studies as a distinctive epistemological and methodological approach that develops a historical research strategy within the broad field of organization studies. This book makes a timely intervention that advances the discussion while extending and deepening what has already been achieved. Hence, it offers a mixture of conceptual and theoretically informed empirical papers that help to define the field and to orient it further in future. In this way, the book serves both as a landmark in the development of the field and as an important milestone in building an emergent and strengthening community of scholars. It thereby contributes to the reimagining of historical organizational studies while advancing new directions for organizational research. This chapter takes stock by evaluating the current state of play, explores recent scholarly exemplars on theorized history, while looking at the possibilities offered for future research

Historical Organization Studies:Advancing New Directions for Organizational Research

We are now entering a new phase in the establishment of historical organization studies as a distinctive methodological paradigm within the broad field of organization studies. This book serves both as a landmark in the development of the field and as a key reference tool for researchers and students. For two decades, organization theorists have emphasized the need for more and better research recognizing the importance of the past in shaping the present and future. By historicizing organizational research, the contexts and forces bearing upon organizations will be more fully recognized and analyses of organizational dynamics improved. But how, precisely, might a traditionally empirically-oriented discipline like history be incorporated into a theoretically-oriented discipline like organization studies? This book evaluates the current state of play, moves it on and identifies the possibilities the new emergent field offers in the future. In addition to providing important reference to the subject for researchers, the book can be used to introduce management and organizational history to a student audience at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The book is a valuable source for wider reading, providing rich reference material in tutorials across organizational studies, or as recommended or required reading on courses with a connection to business or management history