Incomplete Institutional Change and the Persistence of Racial Inequality: The Contestation of Institutional Misalignment in South Africa

Ansellia Adams and John Luiz

Journal of Management Studies, 2022, vol. 59, issue 4, 857-885

Abstract: This study explores the role that organizations and institutions play in reproducing inequality even after significant political transitions intended to undermine the sources of such inequality. Our analysis reveals how incomplete institutional transitions may give rise to contradictory institutional logics and how this can contribute to high levels of contestation as actors and organizations vie to maintain, disrupt, and create new institutions. We analyse the dynamics of a conflict set within a broader institutional contestation in post‐apartheid South Africa by examining the farmworkers strike and unrest of 2012. We expose a complex interlocking system of exploitation and oppression at micro, meso, and macro institutional levels and highlight misalignments between de facto and de jure institutional environments. Our study shows how actors and organizations can exhibit and constrain agency legitimating the unequal access to resources and opportunities and why this can result in the persistence of inequality.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12793

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:bla:jomstd:v:59:y:2022:i:4:p:857-885

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... s.asp?ref=00022-2380

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Management Studies is currently edited by Timothy Clark, Steven W. Floyd and Mike Wright

More articles in Journal of Management Studies from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().