Theorizing Repair in Service to Analysis and Action: An institutionalization perspective

• In Event: 50220 - Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 7: States and Institutions

Abstract

A legacy of work in institutional theory and beyond has focused on the complex processes of institutional persistence and change. In many domains this work has emphasized greater engagement with pressing problems in organizations and society, from global systems to fields or sectors; from populations of organizations to individual entities themselves. And yet a burgeoning literature has noted the absence of, and need for, engagement with the concept of repair. And consistent with much of the very abundant concepts in institutional theory and the social sciences, we are witnessing a proliferation of the term. This paper compliments the growing literature on repair and institutional healing by placing focus on the problem of theorizing repair with a specification that moves beyond precision in a particular analytic or empirical context and facilitates three features: 1.) comparison and contrast with the growing body of scholarship (including those that use terms that at are similar, synonymous, or otherwise conceptually related to repair and healing); 2.) the assessment of the quality of the actual theorization of the repair concept, independent of that of the empirical analysis itself; and 3.) causal intervention in service to repair processes and outcomes in real world settings. We contend that these three features are integral to any project of theory building, especially in the context of institutional theory where there has been a broadly recognized “family resemblance” style of concept recognition, which defines category membership in terms of a loose configuration of similarities that overlap, rather than specific, essential attributes that are shared.

Authors

• Jeannette Anastasia Colyvas, Northwestern University

• Hokyu Hwang, UNSW Sydney