Pathways of Institutional Change: An Integrative Review and Research Agenda

Exogenous Changes in Institutional Environments

The first conceptualization of institutional change arose from the portrayal of institutions as durable sociocultural structures that provide stable sets of meanings, rules, and norms on which organizations depend for their understanding of appropriate behaviors. Thus, institutions are external to—and analytically distinct from—organizations. Starting from these premises, changes in the institutional environment were treated as instances of institutional change and studies sought to understand how exogenous events (or “jolts,” to use Meyer’s 1982 term) at the societal and field level, which fundamentally altered the environment of the organizations being studied, affected organizational fields and the organizations that comprise them (Clemens & Cook, 1999; Meyer, 1982).

A variety of macroenvironmental changes have been examined, such as shifts in political regimes in transitioning economies in the Czech Republic (Clark & Soulsby, 1995) and Hungary (Whitley & Czaban, 1998), and dramatic sociopolitical upheavals (e.g., wars, revolutions) that have been found to affect the strategies and survival of organizations (Allmendinger & Hackman, 1996). Other authors focused on competence-destroying technological changes and their effects (Romanelli & Tushman, 1994), the play of regulatory change (Bacharach, Bamberger, & Sonnenstuhl, 1996), and how crashing competitive pressure and resource scarcity can dramatically alter the fundamental rules of competition in established industries (Thornton & Ocasio, 1999).

Typically, as shown in Figure 1, emphasis is placed upon how macroenvironmental changes provide the impetus for processes of deinstitutionalization, and for transformations in legitimacy-conferring criteria (Davis, Diekmann, & Tinsley, 1994). The common prediction is that these changes profoundly affect existing organizations, but this theorized impact varies considerably. Research combining institutional and population ecology advance arguments that organizations are unable to adapt sufficiently quickly to modified environmental conditions (Ruef & Scott, 1998). From this vantage point, environmental changes trigger selection processes, leading to the disappearance of organizational forms and practices (Ahmadjian & Robinson, 2001) and the emergence of new ones through isomorphic diffusion (Lee & Pennings, 2002).

In contrast to ecological predictions, a second line of studies conceptualizes organizations as capable of adaptation and explores their successful responses to disruptive changes. For instance, studies have demonstrated that organizations can maintain a competitive edge by engaging in a metamorphosis of strategies and structures (Lamberg & Pajunen, 2010). Research on organizational responses has also shed light on the factors that affect the relative responsiveness of organizations to changes in institutional contexts, as well as the organizational characteristics and strategies that increase the likelihood of successful conversion (Allmendinger & Hackman, 1996) or that hinder strategic transitions (Kriauciunas & Kale, 2006).

A third line of research focuses upon shifts in field-level institutional logics (Thornton & Ocasio, 1999). The distinctive feature of this relatively new but highly influential focus on logics is the conceptualization of change as a complex and multifaceted process that is not reducible to selection or organizational adaptation processes (as implied in the above two research streams).

Importantly, defining institutional change as the replacement of one dominant logic by another provides a new vocabulary and conceptual tool by which to theorize how deeply-held values, beliefs, and cultural norms are historically contingent, and how shifts in logics profoundly change organizational fields (Greenwood, Raynard, Kodeih, Micelotta, & Lounsbury, 2011; Ocasio, Thornton, & Lounsbury 2017; Thornton et al., 2012). Moreover, in this line of theorizing, scholars emphasize the coevolution of organizations and institutions, as they mutually shape one another (Haveman & Rao, 1997). By focusing on shifts in logics, empirical research provided a higher-order explanation for a wide array of changes within fields, such as in the composition of governance structures (Reay & Hinings, 2005), the status of professional actors (Lounsbury, 2002), the dominant organizational archetype (Kitchener, 2002), and actors’ attention and commitment to meanings and identities (Meyer & Hammerschmid, 2006). As we discuss later, subsequent developments in the institutional logics perspective have enabled theory construction and empirical research that extends to other forms of institutional change, and has made this theory particularly supple (e.g., Wright & Zammuto, 2013; York, Hargrave, & Pacheco, 2016).

Institutional Entrepreneurship

In the 1990s, the call to bring back interest and agency in institutional analysis, and thus combine the old and new institutionalism (DiMaggio, 1988; Hirsch & Lounsbury, 1997), precipitated an agentic turn. The “paradox of embedded agency” (Holm, 1995), which asks how actors embedded in taken-for-granted institutional arrangements can reflect and act upon them (Garud, Hardy, & Maguire, 2007; Seo & Creed, 2002), was raised and captured attention. As a result, institutional theorizing turned to identification of which organizations are agents of change (and why) and, in particular, to understanding the disruptive strategies of would-be institutional entrepreneurs.

For the most part, in addressing the first of these questions (who are the institutional entrepreneurs), the institutional entrepreneurship literature focused on the structural position of actors, such as whether they are at the periphery (Leblebici, Salancik, Copay, & King, 1991) or core (Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006) of an institutional field (see Battilana et al., 2009, for a review). Prompted by Seo and Creed (2002), others have focused upon how a structural position at the interstice of different institutional logics can enable reflexivity. Attention has also been given to differences in the structures of the field in order to explore the proposition that some fields are more amenable to change. A common distinction drawn is between “emerging” and “mature” fields (Maguire, Hardy, & Lawrence, 2004), but alternative conceptualizations of field differences are emerging, such as Mair and Marti’s (2009) discussion of “institutional voids”—spaces that are institutionally less developed—and how they may provide opportunities for institutional entrepreneurship (see review by Zietsma, Groenewegen, Logue, & Hinings, 2016).

How changes are introduced has attracted much attention (for reviews, see Hardy and Maguire, 2008; Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006) and the increasing focus on the purposeful “institutional work” of actors provides a vocabulary to categorize tactics and strategies (e.g., practice work, boundary work, identity work). Interestingly, depending on to which theoretical streams they subscribe, scholars differ in their theorization of whether institutional change and its underlying processes are or are not infused with conflict and contestation. Some scholars have focused on changes achieved by nondisruptive means, such as presenting innovations as nonthreatening to the institutional order. Along these lines, various forms of cultural entrepreneurship (Lounsbury & Glynn, 2001) have been explored, including the use of bricolage (Rao, Monin, & Durand, 2005), robust design (Hargadon & Douglas, 2001), frames (Werner & Cornelissen, 2014), and theorization (Greenwood, Hinings, & Suddaby, 2002). These cultural entrepreneurial processes have enhanced our understanding of how new organizations gain legitimacy, persuade field-level audiences to offer their endorsement, and/or encourage other organizations to adopt the changes, yet without open conflict.

Other scholars have examined deliberately disruptive change strategies. Typically, these are initiated by social movements or social movement-like organizations (de Bakker, den Hond, King, & Weber, 2013; Hensmans, 2003). Change agents are “challengers” who contest existing institutions and seek to displace the powerful apparatus that supports social reproduction. They directly confront those who benefit from the status quo, that is, “incumbents.” As a result, institutional environments are portrayed as “battlefields” (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012). Informed by social movement research (Schneiberg & Lounsbury, 2008), these studies portray change agents as more likely to be outsiders or to reside at the periphery of the field (Maguire & Hardy, 2009). The analytical focus has been upon the use of adversarial frames and framing contests (Guérard, Bode, & Gustafsson, 2013) and highly contentious tactics, such as protests and boycotts, that are meant to stimulate responses by hitting incumbents where it matters (Zietsma & Lawrence, 2010).

Studies of which organizations will act as institutional entrepreneurs, and how they seek to do so, have greatly extended our understanding of institutional change. But several assumptions (often a consequence of the case study method) have resulted in “blind spots.” One blind spot is that change is consistently portrayed as the successful and intended outcome of the efforts of institutional entrepreneurs. Changes are depicted as those that the entrepreneurs set out to achieve, to the point where “institutional entrepreneurship,” “institutional work,” and “institutional change” are often treated as synonyms. We argue that this linguistic slip has distracted attention from the possibility that change agents may not succeed in their intended endeavor.

Even less is known about innovations that are introduced, yet fail to achieve institutional change because they never become institutionalized. In effect, “the activities involved in … institutionalizing change have been studied the least in the literature on institutional entrepreneurship” (Battilana et al., 2009: 86, emphasis added; see also Kahl, Liegel, & Yates, 2012; McGaughey, 2013). Examinations of proto-institutions are equally rare (Granqvist & Gustafsson, 2013; Zietsma & McKnight, 2009), and the initial interest in managerial fads and fashions, which could shed light on this issue, has seemingly disappeared (Perkmann & Spicer, 2008). There is, too, a relative dearth of studies that illuminate how and why institutional entrepreneurship may lead to institutional change, yet have unintended consequences (Khan, Munir, & Willmott, 2007).

In addition to these blind spots, one of the biggest complaints about the institutional entrepreneurship literature has been its unfortunate emphasis on “muscular” or “heroic” actors who somehow have remarkable capacity to transform institutions (Garud et al., 2007). To many, studies in this genre provided overly simplified narratives of change, with little appreciation for the complex (and typically collective) nature of institutional change. Despite efforts to elaborate a richer approach to institutional entrepreneurship that might address these shortcomings (Battilana et al., 2009), the field has largely moved on, and there is no theory unique to the label of institutional entrepreneurship.

Changes in Micropractices

In the wake of waning attention to institutional entrepreneurship, many have sought to more explicitly develop a richer approach to action by focusing on the microfoundations of institutions (Barley, 2008), the distributed—partaking—nature of agency (Dorado, 2005; Gehman, Treviño, & Garud, 2013), and a bottom-up perspective (Gray et al., 2015). One particularly important contribution in this direction is the recent effort to bridge practice-based and institutionalist approaches (Compagni, Mele, & Ravasi, 2015). Unlike exogenous shock and institutional entrepreneurship, a practice approach eschews the assumption that change is precipitated by dramatic environmental shifts or by the purposeful efforts of powerful actors. Instead, it may be inadvertently triggered by the “mundane activities of practitioners struggling to accomplish their work” (Smets et al., 2012: 877).

A sometimes forgotten requirement for micro-level studies is to explicitly show how local improvisations in practices concatenate to effect field-level dynamics and ultimately become institutionalized. Understanding how improvisations might change arrangements within an organization is theoretically interesting; yet an adequate understanding of institutional change requires that attention be given to how a larger and diverse set of actors may help propagate or dampen that initial impetus for change in meaning and practices (Vaccaro & Palazzo, 2015).

There have been a couple of notable efforts in this nascent research direction, which recent studies are building on. Lounsbury and Crumley (2007), for example, showed how the performativity of mutual funds led to problematic variations in mutual fund practices that were accommodated only through field-level restructurings in beliefs that would legitimate and accommodate new practices. Smets et al. (2012) showed how gradually and unobtrusively new practices introduced within an organization “moved up” to the level of the field and stimulated a shift in institutional logics. There was no exogenous shock, no heroic entrepreneur, little noise or contestation—yet change occurred and became institutionalized. As this study highlights, practice improvisations typically fly under the radar before gaining acceptance. Their low profile means that improvisations are less likely to raise resistance within the field (see also, Leung, Zietsma, & Peredo, 2013; Sauder, 2008; Vaccaro & Palazzo, 2015).

It is important to note that these and similar practice-oriented studies have dovetailed with two important trends: first, the growing interest in exploring opportunities for integration between institutional analysis and other micro-level perspectives (e.g., practice, identity, sensemaking, decision-making, framing); and second, the institutional logics perspective, which has explicitly focused attention on how cultural rules and macro systems of meaning affect practice and organizational dynamics at the meso and micro level of analysis (Thornton et al., 2012: chapters 4 and 6). There has been, in other words, an opening up of new opportunities to combine theoretical lenses in order to theorize multilevel change processes. Nonetheless, as noted by Gray et al. (2015: 136), “the institutional logics perspective is less comprehensive about how bottom-up interactional processes may also challenge extant logics or lead to the emergence of new ones.” Approaches such as the one proposed by Gray et al. (2015) (i.e., interactional framing) provide promising avenues to further elaborate the institutional logics perspective and the study of institutional change.

Towards an Integrative Framework

In our review, we have purposefully taken a chronological approach in order to show how sequential research streams have built on—or distanced themselves from—each other. Doing so highlights that one of the challenges in the change literature is that, as attention moved to different triggers of institutional change (from exogenous changes in institutional environments, to institutional entrepreneurship, to improvisations in microprocesses and micropractices), insights generated by previous efforts have been often left behind. To some extent, consistently building on previous studies is difficult because shifts in research focus entailed concomitant changes in ontological commitment. Nonetheless, this tendency has inhibited the nuancing and elaboration of theory across the literature, and we worry about throwing the baby out with the bathwater as we develop new ways to approach the study of institutional change.

Take, for example, the discernible differences in the way that agency has been conceptualized. From its inception, research on institutional change has aimed at providing a corrective to the notion of agency as habitual, repetitive, taken-for-granted enactment of scripts and rule systems that perpetuate constraining social structures (Colomy, 1998). For the past few decades, however, a key point of debate has been whether, how, and to what extent actors can enact change in a world dominated by institutions (the “paradox of embedded agency”). Today, scholars no longer dominantly subscribe to the position that change bursts into otherwise self-perpetuating institutional arrangements to dramatically alter them. Nevertheless, also the notion that actors may destroy and re-create institutions through purposeful and effortful actions is being reevaluated as scholars consider institutional changes that occur in structurally heterogeneous and complex institutional environments. More recently, the theorizing of substantial field-level change driven by micro-acts of agency has shifted the focus from purposeful and effortful (“projective”) forms of agency to more “pragmatic” ones (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998). This line of research has opened up fruitful areas of research, but still little is known about how micro-level, day-to-day changes scale up and the trajectories through which “improvisations” may aggregate, concatenate, accumulate, and/or escalate (Gray et al., 2015). Critically, the implications of such differences for our understanding of the way change processes unfold have not been systematically theorized. This is particularly evident in the limited effort devoted to understanding varied patterns of causality that underpin change processes (Durand & Vaara, 2009). Institutional scholars have relied primarily on implicit assumptions about a linear relationship between causes and effects that have, thus far, offered selective theoretical and analytical leverage.

Notably missing is also theoretical attention to the ways in which different triggers and forms of agency interplay with temporal variables such as pacing, sequencing, and duration to shape the trajectory and outcome of institutional change processes (Ancona, Goodman, Lawrence, & Tushman, 2001; Lawrence, Winn, & Jennings, 2001). Finally, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of how institutional pluralism, as a structural condition of fields, and institutional complexity, as the subjective experience of logic contradictions by organizations, may support or hinder different kinds of institutional change (Greenwood et al., 2011; Kraatz & Block, 2008; Thornton et al., 2012). In the next section, we address some of these limitations by offering a novel framework that integrates prior research, while also providing guidance for the development of new knowledge.

Quadrant 1: How Multiple Logics Affect Institutional Displacement

Thus far, displacement research has received considerable attention and, as Figure 2 shows, has emphasized (a) how revolutionary changes in institutional environments trickle down to transform fields, organizations, and practices and (b) how institutional entrepreneurs mobilize within and outside organizations to push change forward and diffuse the new arrangement. The assumption is that organizations operate in monistic environments, where the institutional logics prescribing and proscribing behaviors are shared and understood. But what has not been empirically examined is how the same processes might unfold in pluralistic environments, that is, those characterized by multiple institutional logics. For example, organizations are consistently affected by changes that are perceived as exogenous because they are outside their control (e.g., economic, financial, or humanitarian crises, regulations from transnational bodies), but these macro-changes may impact fields and organizations in different ways. Specifically, institutional pluralism at the field level and institutional complexity at the organizational level may moderate the effects of macro-changes.

Future theorizing would benefit from research into the following questions: (a1) “How does the multiplicity of logics at the level of the field affect organizational responses to revolutionary changes?” and (a2) “How do organizations, depending on the extent to which they experience institutional complexity, respond to revolutionary changes?” In addressing these questions, scholarship could incorporate the insight that multiple field-level logics ‘filter’ broader institutional demands for change (Greenwood, Díaz, Li, & Lorente, 2010; Lee & Lounsbury, 2015). Similarly, the idea that organizations differ in the extent to which they experience institutional complexity and apprehend institutional contradictions (Greenwood et al., 2011; Voronov & Yorks, 2015) could be fruitfully used to unpack the multiple ways by which organizations interpret and negotiate transformational change across and within organizations, as opposed to relying solely on isomorphic arguments.

The moderating effect of institutional pluralism at the level of the field could also be used to better contextualize the conditions under which disruptive change agents are able to stimulate divergent change that diffuses and transforms the field. As we noted earlier, the idea of institutional pluralism and contradictions between logics has typically been considered as an important enabling condition for institutional entrepreneurship (Seo & Creed, 2002). However, whereas the effects of the plurality of logics and their potential incompatibilities are accounted for in the initiation of change, they are forgotten in the later phases of institutional entrepreneurship, when diffusion and institutionalization of the change occurs. Again, as noted earlier, this last step has been glossed over (Battilana et al., 2009) but, in our view, is essential if we are to avoid using pluralism as an ad hoc explanation for reflexivity—that is, as a transient state convenient to explain how change can be conceived in conditions of institutional embeddedness, but that is bracketed away when trying to explain how new arrangements become institutionalized. If disruptive change agents benefit from becoming aware of the contradictions between multiple logics, we encourage scholars to examine how the same multiplicity affects their ability to mobilize, recruit allies, and finally institutionalize transformative changes.

To this end, it would be fruitful to explore the overarching question of: (b1) “How does field pluralism influence the actions of change agents and, in particular, the institutionalization of transformative changes?” We may find, for instance, that pluralism facilitates the institutionalization of divergent change because pluralistic fields offer the opportunity to more easily embed the change in some “pockets” and create “ambassadors” that can amplify the message and stimulate the broader diffusion of the change; or, alternatively, because it enables institutional entrepreneurs to leverage their “ability to build bridges between various institutional orders and constituencies” (Pache & Santos, 2013: 28). In contrast, however, the availability of multiple logics may hinder, and even block, the institutionalization of transformative changes. Plural contexts may slow the development of shared understanding, thus preventing the widespread diffusion needed for institutionalization to occur. It follows that our understanding of how disruptive agents change institutions, or fail to do so, could be much improved by the investigation of these alternative scenarios.

Quadrant 2: How Multiple Logics Affect Institutional Alignment

The second prominent pathway of change revealed by our typology is institutional alignment, which has developed primarily through investigations of (c) how institutional entrepreneurs embed changes into existing institutions and (d) how macro-environmental evolutions can entail gradual and piecemeal institutional transitions. Leveraging a wide array of cultural entrepreneurship strategies, change agents persuade other constituencies and legitimize innovations. Evolutionary adaptation unfolds through mechanisms that link adaptations at the macro and micro levels of analysis, may engage actors located in different social positions, but change occurs in a way that maintains the integrity of existing institutional arrangements. In consequence, the resulting change is developmental.

Similar to displacement, studies of alignment do not typically consider institutional pluralism or consider it as a transitory condition that provides opportunities for change agents to perceive and strategically exploit inconsistencies, but does not permanently affect the trajectory and outcome of change processes. However, the increasing recognition that changes in “constellations of logics” are strongly linked to institutional change (Goodrick & Reay, 2011) and that organizations may have to respond to contradictory prescriptions from different legitimizing audiences, calls for a reexamination of the pathway of alignment in pluralistic environments (Ocasio, Mauskapf, & Steele, 2016).

As a starting point, we suggest that institutional pluralism may be a structural condition in some contexts, and it is therefore important to examine how such a condition constrains or enables the activities of change agents. A guiding research question might be: (c1) “How does pluralism facilitate or hinder the embedding of innovation?” More specifically, the strategies that change agents use in noncomplex contexts may no longer be effective in fields whose multiple institutional logics are promoted by important conferrers of legitimacy. In these conditions, it is useful to ask: (c2) “How do change agents craft legitimation strategies and articulate frames for change that resonate with culturally heterogeneous audiences?” (Ocasio, Loewenstein, & Nigam, 2015). To us, conceptualizing institutional entrepreneurs as actors operating in pluralistic environments is a way to more explicitly consider the embeddedness and situatedness of agency—and would do so in a more compelling way. Further, it would offer a theoretical anchor to account for the neglected possibility that entrepreneurial endeavors, even nondisruptive ones, may fail to become institutionalized and might possibly generate unintended effects because of the moderating effect of the context.

The shift in focus towards pluralism has a further advantage. It will significantly expand our currently limited understanding of developmental changes driven by evolutionary processes that do not entail institutional entrepreneurship. By drawing on the notion of coexisting logics, studies have begun to show that the relationship between logics can be disturbed in various ways and that purposeful institutional work is not a necessary condition. For example, the actions of individuals experiencing institutional complexity may lead to behaviors that might eventually enable a logic’s assimilation even though such institutional effects were not wittingly promoted (Swan, Bresnen, Robertson, Newell, & Dopson, 2010). Similarly, actors located in different social positions can act according to their own interests and, by doing so, uniquely contribute to a progressively shifting of focus from one logic to another as they maintain alignment with societal changes (Wright & Zammuto, 2013).

This literature is still in its infancy, and it has much potential. Moving away from the imagery of a single dominant logic and of purposeful agentic behavior opens up a much more powerful set of analytical tools by which to address questions such as: (d1) “How does the balance among logics evolve in pluralistic fields?” (d2) “How do different actors experiencing complexity negotiate different logics and, in doing so, contribute to the maintenance of balance between the pressures of logics within the field?”

Quadrant 3: How Multiple Logics Affect Institutional Accommodation

Institutional accommodation is revolutionary in pace and developmental in scope. Research of this pathway naturally builds on the conceptualization of fields as fragmented social spaces where competing interests and power relations are contested and negotiated (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012). In line with this conflict-based perspective, change is portrayed as involving (e) revolutionary dynamics set in place by disruptive change agents who seek to profoundly reconfigure the redistribution of material and symbolic resources (i.e., power, authority, legitimacy, and status) within a field. However, as a result of accommodating incumbents and challengers, the resulting change is developmental, and revisions of dominant institutional arrangements are relatively incremental.

As noted earlier, the accommodation pathway is relatively understudied. Very few studies have given equal prominence to both the “challengers” and the “incumbents” and, thus, have failed to consider that institutional change could be driven by relational dynamics, rather than the actions of reflexive change agents (Gray et al., 2015; van Wijk et al., 2013; Zietsma & Lawrence, 2010). The accommodation pathway, however, provides an ideal setting to give the abstract idea of competition between logics a firmer and more nuanced empirical footing. We suggest two research questions to develop this line of research: The first is (e1) “How is the competition/coexistence between logics constructed and negotiated on the ground?” That is we need to really understand how actors in conflict do not just instantiate but construct logic incompatibilities by articulating and defending claims and instantiating these conflicts in patterned behaviors (Jarzabkowski, Smets, Bednarek, Burke, & Spee, 2013).

Our second suggested research inquiry arises from appreciation that accommodation typically does not radically change institutional arrangements and it will usually imply a “settlement” between opposite positions. There is, however, little theoretical and empirical research on how and why such settlements are reached (Helms, Oliver, & Webb, 2012; Rao & Kenney, 2008), but these studies suggest that pluralism is an important moderating factor. Yet many questions remain unanswered about the different forms that accommodation might take in pluralistic environments, where interactions might be fraught with additional uncertainty because of the differential complexity experiences of the negotiating parties. We offer two specific questions to guide future research in this direction: (e2) “How do opposing parties engage in accommodation processes in pluralistic environments?” and (e3) “How does institutional complexity experienced by organizations shape these interactions?” In raising these questions, we are encouraging scholars to dig into the motivations that may or may not bring opposing parties together, examine the way in which logics are prioritized during these interactions, and theorize the multilevel processes and mechanisms that enable or prevent settlements being achieved.

Quadrant 4: How Multiple Logics Affect Institutional Accretion

Institutional accretion has only begun to receive attention as accretion theorizes institutional change as (f) an evolutionary bottom-up process, driven by the accumulation of uncoordinated actions (Dorado, 2005; Leblebici et al., 1991), the embedding of seemingly inconsequential micro-level changes in practices (Ansari & Phillips, 2011; Smets et al., 2012), or the amplification of micro-level interactions (Gray et al., 2015) to spearhead field-level transformations. The theorization of this change pathway is still novel and offers many exciting opportunities to examine how institutional change may be triggered by micro-level events and pragmatic responses to institutional complexity.

Future studies can contribute by identifying novel multilevel processes, mechanisms, and dynamics through which accretion occurs. To do so, scholars can implement the suggestion to combine macro- and micro-strands of theorizing such as practice theory and ambidexterity (Jarzabkowski et al., 2013), institutional logics and institutional work (Zilber, 2013), identity work and institutional change (Creed, DeJordy, & Lok, 2010), and emotions and institutional work (Voronov & Vince, 2012). Importantly, while there is great value in integrating diverse theoretical perspectives in the attempt to enrich our theorizing of cross-level mechanisms of accretion, we encourage scholars to continue devoting efforts to the theorization of the contextual conditions in which accretion may be more likely to occur. Accretion processes have been shown to be contingent on the type of practice and/or micro-level change that initiate the process (Ansari & Phillips, 2011), the social position of organizations (Smets et al., 2012), and the characteristics of the field in which accretion occurs (Sauder, 2008). Once again, investigations tend to privilege enabling conditions, but research can develop more refined theory by examining both the enabling and the hindering dynamics of accretion by asking: (f1) “Under what conditions do micro-level acts of improvisations stimulate broader field-level transformations, and under what conditions can they not do so?”

A second interesting direction for development would be to further unpack the cross-level processes that link the perceived incompatibility between field-level logics (institutional complexity), the potentially different responses enacted by organizations (organizational change), and the potentially variegated effects of organizational changes upon the field (institutional change). For example, thus far the literature has suggested that changes in strategies and structures may be used to address institutional complexity—in particular, emphasis has been given to the ideas of ambidexterity and organizational hybrids, which translate well into field-level changes such as logics’ hybridization (Smets et al., 2012; York et al., 2016). Nonetheless, research is starting to show a wider array of responses that organizations can develop in order to address complexity. There is, therefore, an opportunity to more systematically examine: (f2) “Which organizational responses to complexity feedback to the field and are conducive to transformational change, and which are more likely to remain ‘local’?”