Research on micro-institutional change typically characterizes agents as being involved in social conflicts to defend the institutional status quo or to mobilize against it. However, agency inside organizations can be precipitated by the need to resolve practice dilemmas in uncertain and ambiguous institutional contexts. The findings from a comparative case study of two public schools in the United States undergoing state-mandated reform demonstrate that, when agency is born of uncertainty and ambiguity rather than political conflict and struggle, micro-institutional change depends on the dynamics of agents’ peer learning in communities of practice. In some cases, agents’ communities are organized to effectively seed new ideas and generate social pressures needed to encourage the uptake of new ideas. In other cases, the pattern of agents’ interactions in communities results in persistent cognitive and social disorganization so that newly seeded ideas cannot take root or spread. I refer to the particular dynamics by which peer learning in communities of practice results in micro-institutional persistence or change as collaborative institutional agency.
BarleyS. (1990). The alignment of technology and structure through roles and networks. Administrative Science Quarterly35,61–103.
2.
BattilanaJ. (2006). Agency and Institutions: The Enabling Role of Individuals’ Social Position. Organization, 13, 653–676.
3.
BattilanaJ.CasciaroT. (2012). Change Agents, Networks, and Institutions: A Contingency Theory of Organizational Change”. Academy of Management Journal, 55, 381–398.
4.
BattilanaJ.D’AunnoT. (2009). Institutional Work and the Paradox of Embedded Agency. In LawrenceT.SuddabyR.LecaB. (Eds.), Institutional Work: Actors and Agency in Institutional Studies of Organizations (pp. 31–58). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
5.
BrownJ. S.DuguidP. (1991). Organizational Learning and Communities of Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning and Innovation. Organization Science, 2, 40–57.
6.
BurtR. (2004). Structural Holes and Good Ideas. American Journal of Sociology, 110, 349–399.
7.
CarverC.ScheierM. (1998). On the Self-regulation of Behavior. New York: Cambridge University Press.
8.
CoburnC. E. (2001). Collective Sensemaking about Reading: How Teachers Mediate Reading Policy in their Professional Communities. Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23, 145–170.
9.
ColemanJ. (1988). Social Capital and the Creation of Human Capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94, S95-S120.
10.
CookK.ShortellS. M.ConradD. A.MorriseyM. A. (1983). A Theory of Organizational Response to Regulation: The Case of HospitalsAcademy of Management Review, 8, 193–205.
11.
CovaleskiM. A.DirsmithM. W. (1988). An Institutional Perspective on the Rise, Social Transformation and Fall of a University Budget Category. Administrative Science Quarterly, 33, 562–587.
12.
CoxA. (2005). What are Communities of Practice? A Comparative Review of Four Seminal Works. Journal of Information Science31,527–40.
13.
DacinT. M.GoodsteinJ.ScottW. R. (2002). Institutional theory and institutional change: Introduction to the special research forum. Academy of Management Journal, 45, 43–56.
14.
DiMaggioP. (1988). Interest and Agency in Institutional Theory. In ZuckerLynn (Ed.) Institutional Patterns and Organizations (pp, 3-21). Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Company.
15.
DiMaggioP.PowellW. (1983). The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields. American Sociological Review, 48, 147–160.
16.
DoradoS. (2013). Small groups as context for institutional entrepreneurship: An exploration of the emergence of commercial microfinance in Bolivia. Organization Studies, 34, 533–557.
17.
EdelmanL. (1992). Legal Ambiguity and Symbolic Structures: Organizational Mediation of Civil Rights Law. American Journal of Sociology, 97, 1531–1576.
18.
Education Commission of the States. (2002). State Interventions in Low-Performing Schools and School Districts. Denver, CO: Education Commission of the States.
19.
EisenhardtK. (1989). Agency theory: An assessment and review. Academy of Management Review, 14, 57–74.
20.
EmirbayerM.MischeA. (1998). What is Agency. The American Journal of Sociology, 103(4), 962–1023.
21.
FeldmanMartha. 2000. “Organizational Routines as a Continuous Source of Change.” Organization Science11(6):611–29.
22.
FestingerL. (1954). A Theory of Social Comparison Processes. Human Relations, 7, 114–140.
23.
FitzpatrickA. R. (1989). Social Influences in Standard Setting: The Effects of Social Interaction on Group Judgments. Review of Educational Research, 59(3), 315–328.
24.
FligsteinN. (1997). Social Skill and Institutional Theory. American Behavioral Scientist, 40, 397.
25.
FriedkinN. E. (1993). Structural Bases of Interpersonal Influence in Groups: A Longitudinal Case Study. American Sociological Review, 58, 861–872.
26.
FriedlandR.AlfordR.(1991). Bringing Society Back In: Symbols, Practices, and Institutional Contradictions. In PowellW.DimaggioP. (Eds.) The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
27.
GarudR.HardyC.MaguireS. (2007). Institutional Entrepreneurship as Embedded Agency: An Introduction to the Special Issue. Organization Studies27,957–69.
28.
GarudRKarnøeP. (2003). Bricolage versus Breakthrough: Distributed and embedded agency in technology entrepreneurship. Research Policy32,277–300.
29.
GarudRKarnøeP. (2005). Distributed agency and interactive emergence. In FloydSteven W.RossJohanJacobsClausKellermanFranz (Eds.), Innovating strategy process (pp. 88-96). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.
30.
GiddensA. (1979). Central problems in social theory: Action, structure and contradiction in social analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press.
31.
GillilandD. I.ManningK. C. (2002). When do firms conform to regulatory control? The effect of control processes on compliance and opportunism. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 21, 319.
32.
GlaserB. G.StraussA. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory; strategies for qualitative research. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company.
33.
GoldenB. R. (1992). The Past Is the Past–Or Is It? The Use of Retrospective Accounts as Indicators of past StrategyAcademy of Management Journal, 35, 848–860.
34.
HallettT. (2010). The Myth Incarnate: Recoupling Processes, Turmoil, and Inhabited Institutions in an Urban Elementary School. American Sociological Review, 75, 52–74.
35.
HallettT.VentrescaM. J. (2006). Inhabited Institutions: Social Interactions and Organizational Forms in Gouldner’s “Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy”. Theory and Society, 35, 213–236.
36.
HarrisA.ChapmanC. (2004). Improving Schools in Difficult Contexts: Toward a Differentiated Approach. British Journal of Educational Studies, 52, 417–431.
37.
HattieJ.TimperleyH. (2007). The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77, 81–112.
38.
HeadlandT. N.PikeK.HarrisM. (1990). Emics and Etics: The Insider/Outsider Debate. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
39.
KelloggK. (2009). Operating Room: Relational Spaces and Microinstitutional Change in Surgery. American Journal of Sociology, 115, 657–711.
40.
KrippendorfK. (2004). Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
LawrenceT.SuddabyR.LecaB. (2009). Institutional Work: Actors and Agency in Institutional Studies of Organization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
43.
LawrenceT. B.HardyC.PhillipsN. (2002). Institutional Effects of Interorganizational Collaboration: The Emergence of Proto-Institutions. The Academy of Management Journal, 45, 281–290.
44.
LawrenceT. B.SuddabyR. (2006). Institutions and Institutional Work. In CleggS.HardyC. (Eds.), Sage Handbook of Organization Studies (pp. Institutions and Institutional Work). London: Sage Publications.
45.
LouisK.FebeyK.SchroederR. (2005). State-mandated accountability in high schools: Teachers’ interpretations of a new era. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 27, 177–204.
46.
LouisK. S.MarksH. M.KruseS. (1996). Teachers’ Professional Community in Restructuring Schools. American Educational Research Journal, 33, 757–798.
47.
MaitlisS. (2005). The Social Process of Organizational Sensemaking. Academy of Management Journal, 48, 21–49.
48.
McLaughlin, MilbreyW.TalbertJ. E. (2001). Professional Communities’ and the Work of High School Teaching. Chicago: The University of Chicago.
49.
McPhersonM.Smith-LovinL.CookJ. (2001). Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks. Annual Review of Sociology, 27, 415–444.
50.
MeyerJ.RowanB. (1977). Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremonies. American Journal of Sociology, 83, 340–362.
51.
MilesM. B.HubermanA. M.SaldañaJ. (2013). Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods SourcebookThousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
52.
OliverP. E.MarwellG. (2001). Whatever Happened to Critical Mass Theory? A Retrospective and Assessment. Sociological Theory, 19, 292–311.
53.
Orr, JulianE. (1990). Sharing knowledge, celebrating identity: War stories and community memory in a service culture. In MiddletonD. S.Richard EdwardsD. (Eds.), Collective remembering: Memory in society. Beverley Hills, CA: SAGE Publications.
54.
PayneC. M. (2008). So Much Reform, So Little Change: The Persistence of Failure in Urban Schools. Boston, MA: Harvard Education Press,.
55.
RavitchD. (2000). Left Back: A Century of Failed School ReformsNew York: Simon & Schuster.
56.
RowanB.MiskelC. G. (1999). Institutional Theory and the Study of Educational Organizations. In MurphyJ.Seashore LouisK.AssociationA. E. R. (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Educational Administration (pp. 359–383). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
57.
ScottW. Richard. 1994. “Institutions and organizations: toward a theoretical synthesis.” Pp. 55–80 in Institutional Environments and Organizations, edited by MeyerJohn W.ScottW. Richard. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
58.
SelznickP.(1957). Leadership in administration. London: Harper & Row.
59.
SherifM. (1966). The Psychology of Social Norms. New York: Harper and Row.
60.
SmetsM.MorrisT.GreenwoodR. (2012). From Practice to Field: A Multilevel Model of Practice-Driven Institutional Change. Academy of Management Journal, 55, 877–904.
61.
SpillaneJ. P.ReiserB. J.ReimerT. (2002). Policy Implementation and Cognition: Reframing and Refocusing Implementation Research. Review of Educational Research, 72, 387–431.
62.
SandholtzKurt W.2012. “Making Standards Stick: A Theory of Coupled vs. Decoupled Compliance.” Organization Studies33,655–79
63.
WeickK.SutcliffeK. M.ObstfeldD. (2005). Organizing and the process of sensemaking. Organization Science, 16, 409–421.
64.
WeissR. (1994). Learning From Strangers: The Art and Method of Qualitative Interview StudiesNew York: The Free Press.
65.
WengerE. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
66.
WijenF.AnsariS. (2007). Overcoming Inaction through Collective Institutional Entrepreneurship: Insights from Regime Theory. Organization Studies, 28,1079–1100.
67.
YinRobert K. (2008). Case study research: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
68.
ZietsmaC.LawrenceT. (2010). Institutional work in the transformation of an organizational field: The interplay of boundary work and practice work. Administrative Science Quarterly, 55, 189–221.
69.
ZilberT. B. (2002). Institutionalization as an Interplay Between Actions, Meanings and Actors: The Case of a Rape Crisis Center in Israel. Academy of Management Journal, 45(1), 234–254.
70.
ZuckerL. (1977). The Role of Institutionalization in Cultural Persistence. American Sociological Review, 42, 726–743.
