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What Do We Talk about When We Talk about Microfoundations? Conceptualizations of Actor and Multi-Level Accounts of the Micro in Institutional Processes

ISBN: 978-1-78769-128-5, eISBN: 978-1-78769-127-8

Publication date: 25 November 2019

Abstract

The growing interest in the microfoundations of institutions is a significant, yet surprising development given that the theoretical tradition’s original insight was to account for macro, institutional influences on lower-level units. The call for microfoundations has gone on without really clarifying what institutionalists mean by microfoundations. Some reflections on the usefulness or purpose of establishing the microfoundations of institutional theory are in order. The authors advocate for treating the micro as part of pluralistic and multi-level accounts of institutional processes. Central is the conceptualization of actors as more or less institutionalized identities and roles.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank John Meyer for his comments on an earlier draft of the paper. Hokyu Hwang would like to acknowledge that work on this chapter was partially supported by funds from the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2018S1A5A2A03030694).

Citation

Hwang, H. and Colyvas, J. (2019), "What Do We Talk about When We Talk about Microfoundations? Conceptualizations of Actor and Multi-Level Accounts of the Micro in Institutional Processes", Haack, P., Sieweke, J. and Wessel, L. (Ed.) Microfoundations of Institutions (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 65B), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 337-352. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X2019000065B026

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited