Between Contestation and Convergence: The Proto-Institutionalization of Nonprofit Performance Metrics

• In Event: 307 - Regular Session. Economic Sociology: Markets, Movements, Metrics of Evaluation

Abstract

How can we examine social processes in a period after the unraveling of an established order and before the dawn of a new one? Although we have a rich understanding of the practices used to contest an established regime as well as deep insight into the mechanisms that structure and reproduce existing ones, we lack both conceptual and research tools to understand transitional periods in between contestation and convergence on a scale larger than a small set of actors. To fill this gap, we describe crucial mechanisms of proto-institutionalization that occur in an interregnum, or transitional period. Such passages are characterized by extensive interactions across multiple communities, which we term an interface. To apply this framework, we propose a novel methodology to capture an analytical snapshot or x-ray of such an interface, which illuminates processes of proto-institutionalization. Using our framework and method, we analyze the hesitant embrace of performance metrics in the social sector, a development that brings together disparate civic, scientific, and managerial communities to an unprecedented extent. The new theorization and methods contribute to a richer processual view of institutionalization.

Author

• Walter W. Powell, Stanford University