Which Came First? Institutions or Action: Provisional Institutions in the Transforming Cannabis Industry Field

• In Event: 1567 - Section on Sociology of Law Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 3: Organizations and Institutions

Abstract

An enduring question remains in institutional theory: how do people change institutions that are simultaneously guiding their actions? Two dominant sociological perspectives, institution work and inhabited institutionalism, attempt to answer this question arguing that people operate in a recursive cycle of institutional change. However, neither perspective has detailed a mechanism that bridges both sides of the cycle remaining focused on either micro- or macro-determinants of action. This paper remedies this oversight through a study of how the commercial cannabis industry has both shaped and been shaped by key laws determining the trajectory of the field across three institutional eras. I find that temporary or “provisional institutions” operate to provide guidance at both the individual and field-level, offering a way to scale between these analytical levels and providing an opportunity to integrate institution work and inhabited institutionalism.

Author

• Alexander Kinney