Individual Responses to Institutional Demands in Practice: The Case of Transparency

Abstract

Scholars are increasingly interested in individual responses to institutional demands. Much attention has been paid to the role of gradual changes in the field position of organizations. However, we know little about how individual responses to institutional demands are affected by a radical change of field position. We address this gap by examining the institutional demands of transparency, an ambiguous institution that permeates ever more sectors of contemporary society. Taking a practice-theory lens, we studied the Pirate Party Germany, a political organization dedicated to maximum transparency that experienced a radical field position change after being elected into four German state parliaments. We found three practices that individual actors developed in response to this change, aiming at reducing transparency in their day-to-day operations: rerouting the time and place of actions, reclassifying the ground of actions, and recalling the monitoring of actions. These findings contribute to a better und...