Faculty
Professor Renate Meyer, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Associate Professor Eva Boxenbaum, Department of Organization, CBS, Professor Jesper Strandgaard, Department of Organization, CBS, Professor Ann Westenholz, Department of Organization, CBS

Course Coordinator
Professor Jesper Strandgaard, Department of Organization, CBS

The PhD student must be working on a research project involving the institutional sociological approach or – if this is not the case – be willing to explore, if the approach could be applied. Naturally, the idea is not to push students into becoming institutional theorists, but to make them reflect upon their projects from this theoretical perspective.

The PhD student is required to present a five-pages (maximum) written presentation, in which she/he relates the curriculum literature in the course to his/her project. The presentation must include specific references to the literature applied. Deadline for submission of presentations is Thursday 22 April, 2010.

The student presentation should provide material for discussion in minor groups during the course, and the student must be willing to participate in discussions of other presentations.

It is a precondition for receiving the course diploma that the student attends the entire course.

In the last decade, institutional theory has revolutionised the social sciences, and there is no doubt that the institutional revolution will achieve significance equal to that of the behavioural revolution in the 1950s and the 1960s. At the same time, the social constructionist approach has achieved significant status within anthropology and sociology, and it is currently spreading to a number of other disciplines.

The goal of the course is to give participants a broad overview of organisational neo-institutionalism and develop their capacity to use the approach in their own work.

The course focuses on the school within institutional theory that is rooted in sociology. Within this boundary, we first concern ourselves with the provocative foundational works of organisational neo-institutionalism. We will review institutional contributions, exploring the unique, social constructionist approach used by organisational sociologists. Next, we will turn to some of the more recent advances in institutional analysis. Neo-institutionalists are distinctive in that they are both historical and interpretive in orientation, exploring historical change and transformations in the meaning of organisational structures and practices. We analyse how institutions are constructed and diffused; how institutional elements are incorporated into and translated in organisations as well as how institutional change and institutional entrepreneurship is taking place within specific organisation fields. We discuss diverse methodological approaches to the study of institutionalisation processes – macro- as well as micro- approaches. In addition, we will explore the applicability of neo-institutional theory and methods to the empirical project courses that participants are currently working on.

Participants get insights into the historical development of institutional organisational theory and the latest development within this approach understanding organisational stability, change and transformation. The participants also get insights in how to use the theory on empirical work, especially their own projects.

Lectures with workshops, dialogues and student discussions.

Scott, W.R. (2008) Institutions and Organizations. (Third edition.) Sage.

Powell, W.W. & P.J. DiMaggio (eds.) (1991): The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. The University of Chicago Press.

Course compendium.

A list will be available in due time before the course.