How Do Institutions Matter

in Creating, Maintaining and Disrupting

KLAUS WEBERKellogg School of ManagementNorthwestern University

MARY ANN GLYNNCarroll School of ManagementBoston College

MAXIM VORONOVGoodman School of BusinessBrock University

Social Inequalities?

Central Argument

Inequality is inherent in institutional processes.

An understanding of institutions in maintaining social inequalities requires a relational account of institutional processes (Emirbayer, 1997).

We focus on both the structural and interactional bases of institutional inequality.

A Relational Perspective on Institutions

Neo-institutionalism unintentionally resulted in the defocalization of people who inhabit organizations.

We focus on the institutional reproduction of inequality in spite of the agency often afforded to people, acknowledging that breakdowns in reproduction can also occur.

Incorporates concerns with systemic power.

An institution furnishes particular roles that are associated with prescribed subjectivities and motivations, as well as with different relational models and corresponding treatments for different types of others.

From a relational perspective, inequality is more than difference or distinctiveness.

Relational Structure and Relational Practice

A Relational Perspective on Institutions

1) The Structural Relationality of Institutions

Typification of action for particular typified situations and actors

Frame(typified situation)

Ritual(typified performance)

Identity(typified actor)

See e.g.: Douglas, Bourdieu, Goffman

Framework - care

Ritualstrategize - implement

Identityowner - employee

Examples: Inequalities Are Encoded In Types

• System of social categories• Status and domination rights attached to

some• Focus of most institutional research: Social

inequality from access to valued roles (e.g., income distribution)

• System of institutional domains• Unequal worth within an inter-institutional

system• Limited incorporation in institutional

research: Social inequality from access to valued situations (e.g., pay for gendered work categories)• System of typified activities

• Privilege based on valued public ritual• Mostly ignored (ritual <> ceremony): Social

inequality from access to rituals

Neo-institutionalism unintentionally resulted in the defocalization of people who inhabit organizations.

We focus on the institutional reproduction of inequality in spite of the agency often afforded to people, acknowledging that breakdowns in reproduction can also occur.

The macro-foundations of institutional processes cannot be understood fully without uncovering the micro-foundations.

A Relational Perspective on Institutions

Institutions’ relational

structure

“puts people in place”

while relational practices

between role takers

“hold in place” this

structure.

A Relational Perspective on Institutions

Institutions’ relational

structure

“puts people in place”

while relational practices

between role takers

“hold in place” this

structure.

The Production of Inequality

We believe that a largely neglected set of mechanisms are critically important for institutional inequality.

These are relational practices that would be ill described as work, since they entail more intuitive and less effortful behaviors.

Relational Practices Maintaining Institutional Inequality

- Occupants of Under-Privileged Typified Roles

Habituation Adjustment Rejection

Thinking, and feeling about oneself in a manner consistent with the expectations of their typified role

Modifying one’s thoughts, feelings, and actions to better align with the expectations of the typified role

Attempting to retaliate or abandon the typified role one is supposed to occupy

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Relational Practices Maintaining Institutional Inequality

Figure 1

• Unintentional deviations from typified role that are not initially detected by self or others; institution becomes temporarily “uninhabited”

• Retrospective normalization fixes the altered relational structure and reinforces “new” relational practices

Institutional drift and gradual transformation

ImplicationsThe personhood of institutional actors

Shift of focus to inequality as an outcome in its own right

Insight into how the pragmatic life is the foundation of institutional maintenance.