Microfoundations of Institutions

Over the last three decades, organizational institutionalism has become one of the leading theories in the fields of management, organization, and information systems. Even though earlier formulations predominantly highlighted how social surroundings influenced the actions of organizations, more recent research has called for elaborating on the micro‐foundations of institutional theory in more depth.

In particular, there have been calls to study how phenomena on the individual, group and organizational level affect the emergence, persistence, and decline of institutions. These multi‐level dynamics are of imminent importance for gaining a better understanding of the multi‐faceted and complex nature of institutional processes. Although recent developments in organizational institutionalism have made promising progress in this regard, this research has developed in somewhat different streams such as institutional entrepreneurship, institutional work as well as more practice‐oriented approaches to the study of logics and complexity.

Against this background, the aim of the Research Network is to systematically take stock of the growing, yet fragmented, scholarship that attends to the micro level in order to critically reflect on whether these developments can provide the basis for development of a general theory of the micro‐foundations of institutions.

We are indebted to the "Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft" (DFG) for providing the generous funding of our network.