Surviving the Peace

Introduction

In October 2007, leaders of two opposing sides of the conflict in Northern Ireland, the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin, shook hands and agreed to share power in government. Locally and internationally, newspaper headlines captured the dramatic turnaround of this historic moment. The strong and well-funded peacebuilding industry, which had preceded and had continued to thrive following the Belfast Agreement in 1998, greeted this development with cautious optimism. During the ensuing celebrations, an elected member of the new power-sharing government said to the leader of a prominent peacebuilding organization (PBO), “Well, we won’t need to come to the peace center anymore.” And with that, organized peacebuilding started to look more historic than current. This globally recognized political settlement triggered questioning of the continued need for PBOs as their raison d’être was fundamentally challenged. Yet, how are these organizations continuing to survive several years after the taken-for-granted legitimacy of their entire field was so shaken?

Over the past 40 years, Irish PBOs have been founded, have developed into institutions of international repute, and now struggle to respond to a changing context so as to secure sufficient support to survive. The peace process has ended decades of violence. Public perception is that peacebuilding is no longer needed (Never, 2011; Pollack, 2012). In addition, PBOs are affected by economic recession, charity sector formalization in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland, and privatization of public services in Northern Ireland (Acheson, 2010). Earlier analyses of this field have been largely restricted to peacebuilding activities and political developments, with limited attention paid to the organization as focus of study (exceptions are Cochrane & Dunn, 2002; Donnelly-Cox & Cannon, 2010; Hemmer, 2009; Never, 2010; O’Regan, 2001). In this article, we redirect the spotlight to the organizations and to the factors that influence their current trajectory. Neo-institutional theory is used to explain the processes we observe as it is well suited to the study of profound change processes when taken-for-granted legitimacy is called into question (Dacin, Goodstein, & Scott, 2002). This analysis of a core organizational population of PBOs provides insight into how organizations can respond to the deinstitutionalization of their primary activity.

This study explores how a population of organizations responds and adapts to deinstitutionalization. There is a growing literature on why and how institutions change (Dacin et al., 2002; Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006) at multiple levels of analysis, such as field, population, and organization (Scott, Ruef, Mendel, & Caronna, 2000; Wright & Zammuto, 2013). However, researchers have paid more attention to the processes of structuration and diffusion of inter-organizational fields (e.g., Lounsbury & Crumley, 2007), than of deinstitutionalization and re-institutionalization (Dacin & Dacin, 2008; Dacin et al., 2002; Oliver, 1992; Scott, 2008). Furthermore, even though institutional processes are best examined through field-level studies (Scott, 2008), the concept of field is still in flux and is operationalized in many different ways (Greenwood, Hinings, & Suddaby, 2002; Mazza & Pedersen, 2004; Wooten & Hoffman, 2008). This study addresses these gaps by clearly and rigorously operationalizing the concepts of field and population, and subsequently exploring organizational responses to field-level disruptions in a context of deinstitutionalization.

We introduce the key concepts employed in this article and the gaps in existing literature. We then present the methodology adopted for identifying the field of peacebuilding and the core organizational population of PBOs within it. We expect that all PBOs are facing similar institutional pressures (Greenwood & Hinings, 1996; Heugens & Lander, 2009) due to declining support for formalized peacebuilding activities. Furthermore, we assume that these pressures are particularly pronounced for PBOs as their primary, sometimes exclusive, purpose is peacebuilding. In the discussion and conclusion, we explore how PBOs are both adapting to and resisting changes brought about by deinstitutionalization. We argue that barriers to and drivers of organizational change originate from structure and individual agency. Finally, the population acts as custodian (Dacin & Dacin, 2008), defending the legitimacy of the declining institution. The implication for nonprofit organizations (NPOs) is that while they are embedded in multiple institutions that change and shift in significance, deinstitutionalization does not necessarily lead to organizational demise, even when it relates to the organizations’ primary purpose. This research suggests that while organizational adaptation is important, defensive institutional work (Maguire & Hardy, 2009) in response to deinstitutionalization also contributes to organizational survival.

Theoretical Background

Neo-institutionalism has primarily focused on institutional formation and development, emphasizing the stabilizing effect that institutions have on organizations. Early analyses emphasized how institutionalism helps explain organizational inertia under the weight of field-level pressures, such as legitimacy needs and isomorphism (Powell & DiMaggio, 1991). Organizations grow to look like each other, by coercive, mimetic, or normative means, to gain and maintain legitimacy, attract vital resources and thereby increase their chances of survival (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). These early neo-institutional approaches viewed organizations as resistant to change. Institutionalism, however, is not equivalent to stagnation and can usefully inform analyses of change (Dacin et al., 2002; Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006). Institutions can change by dissipating and disappearing due to deinstitutionalization, a process of shifting regulative, normative, and cultural factors (Scott, 2008), which is a neglected area of research (Ahmadjian & Robinson, 2001; Dacin & Dacin, 2008; Dacin et al., 2002; Oliver, 1992; Scott, 2008).

Deinstitutionalization within an organizational field is “the process by which the legitimacy of an established or institutionalized organizational practice erodes or discontinues” (Oliver, 1992, p. 564). This involves multiple factors over a long period of time, often including a field configuring event (Delacour & Leca, 2011). Deinstitutionalization can explain why organizations abandon legitimated or institutionalized practices (Oliver, 1992). Oliver (1992) includes both agency and structure in her conception: “the failure of organizations to accept what was once a shared understanding of legitimate organizational conduct or by a discontinuity in the willingness or ability of organizations to take for granted and continually re-create an institutionalized organizational activity” (p. 564). From an agency-oriented perspective, deinstitutionalization is the deliberate abandonment of previously institutionalized practices (Davis, Diekmann, & Tinsley, 1994) and strategies (Greve, 1995) in an organizational population. From a structural angle, deinstitutionalization takes place when taken-for-granted legitimacy erodes at the field level, pressurizing organizations to adapt (Ahmadjian & Robinson, 2001). Wright and Zammuto (2013) combine agency and structure such that society-level change creates resource pressures on organizations causing central, intermediary, and peripheral field actors to adapt through interactions over time. The more organizations in a population that reject previously institutionalized practices, the more other organizations are also willing to take the risk of other “illegitimate” activities, thus feeding the process of deinstitutionalization (Ahmadjian & Robinson, 2001). “Illegitimate actions” are risky as they are not part of the legitimated set of actions, beliefs, and values of the existing institution (Kraatz & Zajac, 1996). Few empirical studies of deinstitutionalization are available to clarify how and why organizations will abandon institutionalized practices, thus losing legitimacy and support, and risk undertaking illegitimate practices. The extant studies imply changes for organizations, but do not actually threaten its existence. We contribute to the literature by providing an example of deinstitutionalization of the mission of PBOs, an institutional-level shift that undermines PBOs’ very existence.

Oliver (1992) identifies the antecedents of deinstitutionalization as political, functional, and social, originating from the environment or from the organization itself. Political factors refer to power relations and include organizational factors such as performance crises and environmental factors such as changing external dependencies. Functional pressures refer to the instrumentality of practices and include changing economic utility and emerging events and data. Social pressures involve loss of consensus around meanings and interpretations and include increasing social fragmentation and changing rules and values (Oliver, 1992). Furthermore, entropy pressures accelerate deinstitutionalization, whereas organizational inertia impedes it (Oliver, 1992).

Organizational inertia is overcome when a new set of practices, beliefs, and patterns of action replace old ones, in the process of re-institutionalization (Jepperson, 1991; Scott, 2008). Empirical examples demonstrate how one institution disappears when replaced by another (Rao, Monin, & Durand, 2003), how parts of a declining institution can morph into something else, rather than completely disappearing (Dacin & Dacin, 2008), and how one type of firm can be replaced by another (Davis et al., 1994). These studies show how one institution fades when it is replaced by another, but do not explain how the deinstitutionalization process can take place without being replaced by a new institution. These are important starting points. In this case, a set of practices and beliefs is eroding, but not being replaced by an obvious alternative. In the context of this institutional change that undermines the very raison d’être of PBOs, how can these organizations respond? Our question in this research setting goes to the heart of the agency–structure divide.

Explanations of institutional change have been divided between structure and agency (Heugens & Lander, 2009; Suddaby, 2010). Structural explanations emphasize isomorphism. Institutional pressures lead to homogeneity of form, resulting in increased legitimacy regardless of the functional benefits of adopting that form (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Agency approaches look at how organizations’ responses to institutional contexts vary from passive acquiescence to proactive manipulation (Oliver, 1991). Recent research has reconciled this divide by providing explanations of institutional change that account for both structure and agency (Alexander, 1998; Binder, 2007; S. Dixon & Day, 2010; Donnelly-Cox & Cannon, 2010; Hallett & Ventresca, 2006; Mellahi & Wilkinson, 2004; Mone, McKinley, & Barker, 1998; Wollebaek, 2009). None of these studies look at the process of deinstitutionalization, whether and how organizations are able to influence or respond to institutional decline. In the context of peacebuilding, therefore, we explore the extent to which the core population is able to respond to deinstitutionalization.

Empirical research shows that organizations can respond at least defensively to institutional decline. Internal actors engage in “defensive institutional work”—intentional attempts to defend existing institutional practices (Desai, 2011; Lawrence, Suddaby, & Leca, 2009; Maguire & Hardy, 2009) that can be directed at external and internal threats (Lefsrud & Meyer, 2012). Furthermore, Dacin and Dacin (2008) describe how traditions are sustained by “custodians” who defend their value in the face of threat. These studies show how institutions resist change and how actors can intentionally prevent change in response to deinstitutionalization (Dacin & Dacin, 2008; Maguire & Hardy, 2009). These studies, however, focus on traditions (Dacin & Dacin, 2008) and external threats to a practice (Maguire & Hardy, 2009) without examining how formal organizations can cope with such threats.

The literature reviewed above suggests that there is very little information about the process of deinstitutionalization and how organizations respond. We explore population responses to an ongoing process of deinstitutionalization, which provides interesting insight on the agency–structure divide, contributing to knowledge on how institutions change. We analyze the extent to which organizations can act to determine their own fate in the context of significant external threats from institutional change.

Method

This study incorporates two iterations of data gathering and analysis: (a) identifying the organizational field and core population by defining the categories and mapping the actors, and (b) examining how a population of organizations is impacted by, interprets and responds to field-level disruptions. To explore change in inter-organizational fields, we must identify the field’s key actors and groups, the core population of PBOs. The boundaries around this field and population are so ambiguous as to make mapping a necessary first step.

Findings

The findings are divided into two sections, field-level disruptions and population responses. The field-level disruptions consist of the content of the disruption, and the political, functional, and social pressures that those disruptions reflect. Population responses correspond with those institutional changes. We find that deinstitutionalization is both driving and inhibiting change in the population.

Field-Level Disruptions and Institutional Pressures

We interpreted PBOs’ environmental changes as field-level disruptions, which reflect pressures of institutional change that correspond with Oliver’s (1992) three categories: functional, social, and political, the antecedents of deinstitutionalization.

The functional pressures reflect a weakening of economic viability of peacebuilding activities. Financial changes, primarily economic recession, have resulted in a reduction in public and private funding available for PBOs, leading to closure of PBO programs, facilities and, in one case, the organization itself. Available funding demands more accounting and reporting for expenses. Revenue generated from services, such as overnight accommodation and training courses, has reduced. The major peacebuilding donors are reviewing their funding programs, some of which have been running for 25 years as they are reluctant to continue funding the same work. Accounting procedures for public grants have become more rigorous, described as the most challenging environmental constraint for PBOs. These financial field-level disruptions reflect a functional institutional change such that peacebuilding is no longer a viable activity.

Political pressures reflect changing external dependencies, and while the financial changes might carry the most urgency, the changing role of civil society in the peace process poses a more fundamental challenge to PBOs. The role and need for PBOs is changing, but how it is changing is disputed and unclear. One theme is that politicians are now taking more responsibility for the peace process and there is less of a need for civil society actors. However, another theme is that responsibility has transferred from politicians to civil society; politicians have created a power-sharing agreement and have done their bit, and now civil society needs to play a bigger role in maintaining the peace. Politicians need civil society to help translate public policy into real and meaningful actions in communities. As with functional pressures, political pressures reflect the weakening of institutionalized belief in the importance and need for PBOs, which we interpret as evidence for deinstitutionalization.

Social pressures consist of changing rules and values that present a major field-level shift. The very need for PBOs is being called into question, both within and outside the population. One interviewee referred to PBOs as dinosaurs, reflecting a breakdown in consensus on the need for PBOs even within the population. We interpret this as a clear indication of deinstitutionalization. Local community groups, which have participated in peacebuilding training for over three decades, are able and willing to conduct peacebuilding work themselves, without the support of PBOs.

As summarized in Table 1, PBOs describe significant changes in their environments, which we interpret as field-level disruptions corresponding with institutional pressures that are evidence of deinstitutionalization. The pressures most referenced by PBOs are functional: shifts in available resources, both related to the global recession and cyclical changes in donor interests. Other changes, less frequently mentioned in interviews, but perhaps more indicative of deinstitutionalization, are social and political: The need for PBOs is shifting and fundamentally called into question, partly due to the evolving peace process.

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Table 1.

Field-Level Change.

PBO perspective on changes in organizational environment	Field-level disruptions	Evidence of deinstitutionalization
Impact of global recession: Fewer public grants due to general cut-backs; Fewer donations from private sector; Fundraising efforts less successful.	Economic change: Reduced resources.	Functional pressures: Instrumentality of practices. Peacebuilding activities become difficult to conduct as funding dries up.
Life-cycle change: Government funding is being reviewed after 25 years of funding the same thing; Accounting procedures are more stringent.
Less of a need for PBOs—Local groups can do their own peacebuilding work and no longer need intermediaries; changing social needs.	Changing perceived need for PBOs.	Social pressures: Changing rules and values. Peacebuilding no longer has taken-for-granted legitimacy.
Peace process is evolving such that elected government claims they have achieved successful peace.	Shifting roles of organizations in peacebuilding field.	Political: Changing external dependencies. Politicians not engaging with PBOs.

Population Response

PBOs described their strategic adaptations to the changing environment, illustrating the agency that drives PBO changes. The most striking aspect of their adaptations was the number and diversity of different and new activities, which we interpret as multiple “illegitimate” actions (Ahmadjian & Robinson, 2001; Kraatz & Zajac, 1996) that PBOs are undertaking with the explicit intention of surviving as organizations. These include hosting weddings, planting trees, and facilitating workshops on personal development in economically disadvantaged areas unrelated to the inter-ethnic conflict. They are not “legitimate” peacebuilding actions because they are not part of the PBOs’ institutionalized understanding of what peacebuilding includes. The illegitimate actions are PBOs’ deliberate strategic responses that are attempts to adapt to the pressures of deinstitutionalization to survive as organizations. Although these changes reflect PBO agency, they are driven by functional, social, and political institutional pressures.

New “illegitimate” activities include program work addressing social issues of equality, such as race, sexual orientation, gender, and religion. PBOs are seen as out-dated because the language has changed. People no longer talk about “peace”; rather current buzz words include “cohesion strategies” and “community integration.” PBOs are adapting to the changing language and social needs by including “cohesion” and “integration” in their projects and in how they describe their work in line with policy trends. Program workers can use their facilitation skills and expertise to address current issues, such as racism, especially in economically disadvantaged areas. Part of this shift is due to changes in donor preferences.

A frequently mentioned rationale for many of these new alternative activities is the need to become more business-like and to prioritize efficiency, effectiveness, and strategic planning. PBOs have adopted more managerialist approaches (Maier & Meyer, 2011), reducing their running costs and spending more time justifying and accounting for expenses. PBOs are finding alternative revenue streams to fund peacebuilding work, such as “selling” their services and facilities more deliberately. For example, the PBOs with residential facilities are functioning like hotels in that any outside group can hire the venue for conferences or events. Some stakeholders resist the changes, and PBOs struggle to communicate the changes effectively to their communities of members, donors, and volunteers. There are numerous examples of tension and internal conflict arising from disagreement as to whether a more managerialist logic is appropriate for PBOs. Interviewees reported a sense that managers are not sympathetic to the delivery of peacebuilding programs and need to listen more to those who deliver the program work. From the managers’ perspective, the program work needs to have a strong business case to survive.

Another rationale for a different set of responses is community valuing loyalty and commitment, emphasizing contribution to the collective, rather than formal roles (Knutsen, 2012; Maier & Meyer, 2011). PBOs are embedded in communities of members, donors, volunteers, staff, and beneficiaries. In three cases, these are Christian communities, so include a religious-based rationale. Some PBOs, in response to field-level disruptions, are turning inward to their communities for direction and support, sometimes as part of a process of long-term consultation and voluntary participation. PBOs offer the promise of a close community with shared values, which takes a huge amount of energy, effort, and resources to maintain. If the promise is broken, or cannot be fulfilled, bitter feelings arise. PBOs perceive community focused activities as important to organizational survival and success.

Throughout the data, we found a recurring theme that PBOs defend the continued need for peacebuilding, which we call a custodian role (Dacin & Dacin, 2008). The defense of the need for PBOs is sometimes described as a conundrum as there is an increasing need for PBOs work, yet less funding available to do it. The argument given for the continued need for PBOs is that peacebuilding work can take place most effectively only after the violence has ended. Bringing people together across the conflict divide is often impossible while the bombs are still exploding. This increased need and simultaneous reduction in funds is also seen by some as an argument for increased managerialism, which would enable PBOs to be more efficient.

At the population level, PBOs are adapting and responding to field-level shifts. The first column in Table 2 represents deinstitutionalization, the structural drivers of and barriers to population-level change that include functional, social, and political changes. The second column describes how PBOs are deliberately and strategically responding to these changes by adjusting existing activities, taking on new activities and defending the continued need for peacebuilding. The PBO responses, however, result in specific barriers to change and re-institutionalization: a lack of resources, multiple possible conflicting activities, and the custodian role. The population responses to deinstitutionalization, searching for alternative activities that are more economically viable, are seen as their route to survival, but herein lie the perils too. No consensus on which alternative activities are appropriate leads to division and conflict.

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Table 2.

PBO Population Responses to Deinstitutionalization: Drivers and Barriers of Change.

Pressures of deinstitutionalization (structure)	Population responses (agency)
Functional pressure:
Driver: Lack of funding to continue peacebuilding work.	Response to functional pressure: PBOs take on managerialist logic:Adapting activities to be more profitable: International peacebuilding work; charging community and school groups for services.Taking on profitable work outside PBOs’ definition of peacebuilding: Running a café, planting trees, hosting weddings.
Barrier: Lack of resources prevents change.	Barrier: Inability to properly resource new strategic direction
Social pressure
Driver: Peacebuilding no longer needed.	Response to social pressure: PBOs turn to their communities and stakeholders for guidance. They adapt activities to fit better with current social trends/needs: Cohesion, integration, conflict resolution in economically disadvantaged areas.
Barrier: Lack of consensus on which other activities are appropriate.	Barrier: Conflict arises between multiple competing “illegitimate” actions with no consensus on new activities; lack of communication with stakeholders.
Political pressure
Driver: No longer a role for PBOs.	Response to political pressure: Custodian role—PBOs continue to defend need for peacebuilding.
Barrier: PBOs’ reputation as actors in the Peace Process inhibits support for other activities.	Barrier: Paralysis—Inability to continue old role, but lack new role.

Discussion

We have used an organizational lens to identify the field of peacebuilding and the core population of PBOs. We have explored trends at the field level corresponding with the antecedents of deinstitutionalization, and how those trends are affecting the population. We have demonstrated how clearly defining and mapping the units of analysis, organizational field and core population, is valuable and challenging. Drawing clear boundaries around the focal population in this context was challenging, in contrast to existing studies that present core and peripheral populations as fairly distinct (Rao et al., 2003; Wright & Zammuto, 2013). We have found that there is a core population central to the field of peacebuilding. The ambiguous cases, like organizations that seem to fit the definition of PBO but focus on and represent a specific neighborhood, indicate that there is a spectrum rather than a clear discontinuity between core and periphery (Hannan & Freeman, 1986), supporting a model for mapping nonprofits based not on distinct breaks between categories of activity, but rather on a continuum of practice (Crossan, Ibbotson, & Bell, 2011). We have delineated a theoretically constructed category: PBOs that are a core organizational population in the field of peacebuilding. The value of mapping this population is that we have been able to shed light on the complex, drawn-out process of deinstitutionalization.

The context of deinstitutionalization demands that the population change or perish. We have observed that the core population’s adaptation efforts correspond to the deinstitutionalization process. Functional, social, and political pressures act as drivers of change and also as barriers to change in the population. The barriers to successful adaptation come from the population’s own response as well as from the institutional context. As PBOs are taking on numerous new activities, they do not have the resources to fund a focused re-orientation around one new set of activities. PBOs turn to their stakeholder communities and try to explain all the changes, resulting in conflict and tension. Similarly, in response to political change, PBOs take on a custodian role and defend the need for peacebuilding, which leaves them paralyzed by the inability to continue their old role, but a lack of clarity on a new role.

When institutionalized practices and beliefs dissipate, organizations pick up multiple possible alternative activities, some of which fit with their mission and values, while others seem to clash. “Illegitimate actions” are alternative practices that are outside and sometimes conflicting with the waning institutionalized practices and beliefs (Ahmadjian & Robinson, 2001; Kraatz & Zajac, 1996). Without a new normative framework to help eliminate or select alternative actions, there is no consensus on which of the many different activities are appropriate or worth pursuing and the result is internal conflict. This move toward chaos, or entropic pressure, drives deinstitutionalization (Oliver, 1992). The multiple new actions also provide a new set of activities and beliefs from which a new institutional framework could emerge, and through which, new activities could be legitimated.

Applying Dacin and Dacin’s (2008) “custodian” concept, we found that many PBO actors serve as custodians of peacebuilding, defending its continued importance. The custodian role could be interpreted as an attempt to preserve out-dated organizations due to self-interest, as in “permanently failing organizations” (Meyer & Zucker, 1989). In the case of peacebuilding, interviewees differentiated between the lack of interest in peacebuilding, and the real continued need for it. The need to defend the legitimacy of peacebuilding, as it has lost its taken-for-granted status, inhibits PBOs from championing any of the other activities, such as international peacebuilding, or social cohesion. Instead, they dabble in several of them in an attempt to keep peacebuilding in Ireland going, either because they know there is a real need or due to an organizational survival imperative. We interpret this population response as evidence that the process of deinstitutionalization is ongoing and inconclusive in the absence of one convincing alternative set of beliefs or practices to replace the waning ones.

Conclusion

This research provides theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions through a qualitative description and analysis of changes in the organizational field of peacebuilding and how these changes impact the population of PBOs. Identifying the field and population has allowed us to analyze the impact of deinstitutionalization on a population of organizations, resulting in several contributions.

In accordance with extant literature (Heugens & Lander, 2009; Suddaby, 2010), this research supports reconciliation within the structure versus agency debate. We argue that an interaction between structural pressures and organizational responses are necessary to understand the messy reality of organizations adapting to their environments. Deinstitutionalization has provided a context in which to analyze that interaction.

A notable contribution is that deinstitutionalization catalyzes a defensive response in the core population, which stalls potential re-institutionalization. The role of custodian (Dacin & Dacin, 2008) of an outgoing institutionalized practice involves defensive institutional work as actors seek to defend the legitimacy of the falling institution (Desai, 2011; Maguire & Hardy, 2009). Institutional work is “the purposive action of individuals and organizations aimed at creating, maintaining and disrupting institutions” (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006, p. 215). Here, a population of organizations engaged in institutional work to maintain a dying institution. While defensive institutional work may help preserve institutions, in this case actors spend their energy defending an outgoing institution, rather than reorienting around an alternative more viable set of activities. Deinstitutionalization is a structural pressure from the field against the wishes and interests of PBOs. It may be that the custodian role slows the pace of deinstitutionalization, acting as an inertial pressure, even inhibiting a re-institutionalization process. For NPOs, this study has important implications. Our findings suggest that one way that NPOs respond to institutional change is to become custodians of fading traditions and practices, while not rejecting new adaptive activities. Defending the continued need for a particular area of work, such as peacebuilding, or advocacy of a cause, may even help organizational survival as stakeholders turn to their communities and strengthen their belief in the cause and reiterate their shared values.

A longitudinal study could provide interesting insight on organizational survival, asking how PBOs manage to survive at all when material and symbolic resources for their primary activity are evaporating. Our findings suggest that two factors contribute to survival against all odds. First, PBO stakeholders’ belief in the value of peacebuilding and the defensive institutional work in which they engage contributes to their continued survival. PBOs serve as advocates for peacebuilding, maintaining some, albeit a low level, of interest in their cause. Ironically, their commitment to the cause, the custodian role that they play, helps to keep them alive, but inhibits their ability to re-orient around a new direction. It seems that organizational inertia, which delays deinstitutionalization (Oliver, 1991), might have survival benefits for individual organizations (R. D. Dixon, Boal, & Hoffman, 2003), but those benefits may be short term and hard to sustain as deinstitutionalization progresses, leaving PBOs behind. Second, PBO stakeholders consider that the community rationale assists in their survival and success. Further research could explore that proposition by comparing whether those PBOs that prioritize the community rationale are more likely to survive and succeed.

One limitation to this research is that 5 of the 15 PBOs were only researched via their websites. For 10 of the PBOs, interviewees spoke of firsthand experience and several documents for these organizations were included in the data. This imbalance weighted findings toward those PBOs that were better represented. Furthermore, neither of the PBOs in Great Britain were interviewed directly, and these organizations which are both in a different legal jurisdiction may face quite different field-level disruptions. It is important to note that we investigated how the population is responding, and did not highlight the differences within the population of organizational responses. While all PBOs that we investigated are trying out several new areas of activity, not all are using the same combinations of new actions. For example, some PBOs are not focusing on religion, while others are also talking about environmentalism. This study does not capture the differences between individual organizational responses. In addition, this study does not document all of the possible responses to deinstitutionalization within the field, which are numerous, and further research could explore the range of different responses within the field. We have captured one set of responses by the core population, which is significant, we argue, because it is the group of organizations most affected by deinstitutionalization of peacebuilding, their primary activity.

By taking an organizational perspective to the field of peacebuilding, we have highlighted the deinstitutionalization process in real time. The macro-level change process of deinstitutionalization involves numerous actors, has fuzzy boundaries, and has no clear beginning and end. By transparently delineating the population of organizations most affected by the deinstitutionalization of peacebuilding, their primary activity, we have illuminated the deinstitutionalization process and population responses to it. Have PBOs become dinosaurs, not needed and about to be made extinct by deinstitutionalization? Or will they emerge as players in a new area of work, such as integration or international peacebuilding? The PBO story is not over and, assuming that deinstitutionalization progresses, only further observation will reveal whether PBOs can overcome external and internal barriers and be part of a new institutionalized set of practices and beliefs.