Remaking Worth: A Process Study of Transformation of Institutional Logics

Abstract

Institutional logics are the materials, symbols, values and practices undergirding action within particular social worlds. Extant empirical examinations of logics have explained how actors are guided by cognitive or emotive mechanisms as particular logics are made salient. Yet we still lack a theory of utility formation across transrational orders capable of explaining the constitution of institutional logics themselves. Here, we conduct a longitudinal, inductive study of the transformation of the oil and gas sector in Alberta, Canada between 1938 and 2019. We theorize utility formation as involving a process of remaking worth, characterized by the erosion of existing and the construction of new bases of worth, which we define as criteria for justifying and demonstrating utility that provide a legitimate basis for value and constitute a logic’s substance (Friedland, 2013). A core process constituting our theory of remaking worth entails continuous evaluations of worth through problematization and justification. A key contribution of our study is the observation that institutional logics are inherently undergirded by bases of worth, a core aspect of the value-laden nature of logics that has been overlooked in the literature.