Meaning at the Source: The Dynamics of Field Formation in Institutional Research

Abstract

Organizational fields are a central construct in institutional theory and the notion of shared meaning is integral to the definition of “field.” In this review, we discuss how institutional scholars have examined discourse, rhetoric, and framing as mechanisms through which meanings form, change, and coalesce in institutional fields. We assess the important contributions of this literature, but we also argue that what scholars identify as discourse, rhetoric, and frames are the residues or echoes of prior social interactions. When scholars miss the opportunity to examine interactions as a key mechanism and source of these meanings, a fundamental dynamic of fields becomes obscured and the accounts become, ironically, static. A focus on interactions enables researchers to observe how institutional fields are understood and tethered to local activity, as actors layer their multiple meanings in ways that may result in unexpected outcomes. As a way to incorporate discourse, rhetoric, and frames into a dynamic approach that features social interaction as an important source of meaning, we examine possibilities evident in the growing line of research on “inhabited institutions,” and we chart productive avenues for future research on the dynamics of fields.