Emerging Institutions: Pyramids or Anthills?

Barbara Czarniawska ()
Additional contact information
Barbara Czarniawska: Gothenburg Research Institute, Postal: School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, Box 600, SE 40530 Göteborg, Sweden

No 2006:7, GRI-rapport from University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg Research Institute GRI

Abstract: In the present text, an institution is understood to be an (observable) pattern of collective action, justified by a corresponding social norm. By this definition, an institution emerges slowly, although it may be helped or hindered by various specific acts. From this perspective, an institutional entrepreneur is an oxymoron, at least in principle. In practice, however, there are and always have been people trying to create institutions. This paper describes the emergence of London School of Economics and Political Science as an institution and analyzes its founders and its supporters during crises as institutional entrepreneurs. A tentative theory of the phenomenon of institutional entrepreneurship inspired by an actor-network theory is then tested on two other cases described in brief.

Keywords: higher education; institutions; entrepreneurs; actor-network theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2006-08-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-ent, nep-hrm, nep-pke and nep-soc
Note: First version presented at the Workshop on Institutional Entrepreneurship at the University of Melbourne, 15-18th December 2004.
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://gup.ub.gu.se/gup/record/index.xsql?pubid=38621 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhb:gungri:2006_007

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in GRI-rapport from University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg Research Institute GRI Gothenburg Research Institute, Box 600, SE 405 30 Göteborg, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lise-Lotte Walter ().