The Institutional Logics Perspective

Patricia Thornton is Adjunct Professor affiliated with the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Duke University Fuqua School of Business and affiliated faculty to the Program on Organizations, Business, and the Economy, Department of Sociology, Stanford University. Her research focuses on institutional and organizational change, innovation and entrepreneurship, and institutional logics and strategic management. Her book, Markets from Culture: Institutional Logics and Organizational Decisions, (Stanford University Press) was published in 2004. She received her Ph.D. in 1993 in Sociology from Stanford University.William Ocasio is the John L. and Helen Kellogg Distinguished Professor of Management and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management, and Professor of Sociology, by Courtesy, Northwestern University. In addition to institutional logics, his research focuses on attention, vocabularies, and strategy processes in organizations and institutional fields. Currently he is Senior Editor at Organization Science. He received his Ph.D. in 1992 in Organizational Behavior from Stanford University.Michael Lounsbury is a Professor, Thornton A. Graham Chair, and Associate Dean of Research at the University of Alberta School of Business. He is also a Principal Investigator at the National Institute of Nanotechnology. His research focuses on institutional emergence and change, entrepreneurship, and the cultural dynamics of organizations and practice. He serves on a number of editorial boards and is the Series Editor of Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Associate Editor of Academy of Management Annals, as well as Co-Editor of Organization Studies. He received his Ph.D. in 1999 from Northwestern University in Sociology and Organizational Behavior.

In The Institutional Logics Perspective, Thornton, Ocasio, and Lounsbury have crafted a foundational treatise that will be a touchstone for future inquiry on logics. As an explanation for how actors, actions, and context come together in organizational and institutional settings, the institutional logics perspective has found a broad and diverse audience; this book will only widen its appeal. The authors break fresh theoretical ground and offer a solid conceptual footing for the study of logics; as such, the book has much to recommend it.

• 1. Introduction to the Institutional Logics Perspective ; 2. Precursors to the Institutional Logics Perspective ; 3. Defining the Inter-institutional System ; 4. The Emergence, Stability and Change of the Inter-institutional System ; 5. Micro-Foundations of Institutional Logics ; 6. The Dynamics of Organizational Practices and Identities ; 7. The Emergence and Evolution of Field-Level Logics ; 8. Implications for Future Research