Management consultants have long been recognized as carriers of management knowledge and disseminators of management fashions. While it is well understood how they promote the acceptance of their concepts, surprisingly little has been said about their strategies to promote the acceptability of...

The role of interest and agency in the creation and transformation of institutions, in particular the “paradox of embedded agency” (Seo & Creed, 2002) have long puzzled institutional scholars. Most recently, Lawrence and Suddaby (2006) coined the term “institutional work” to describe...

This paper develops a model of practice-driven institutional change; that is, change that originates in the everyday work of individuals, but results in a shift in field-level logic. In demonstrating how improvisations at work can generate institutional change, we attend to the earliest moments...

In this paper, we empirically examine how professional service firms are adapting their promotion and career models to new market and institutional pressures, without losing the benefits of the traditional up-or-out tournament. Based on an in-depth qualitative study of 10 large UK based law...

This article develops a relational model of institutional work and complexity. This model advances current institutional debates on institutional complexity and institutional work in three ways: First, it provides a relational and dynamic perspective on institutional complexity by explaining how...

This chapter develops a practice approach to institutional ambidexterity. In doing so it first explores the ‘promise’ of institutional ambidexterity as a concept to address shortcomings within the institutional theory treatment of complexity. However, we argue that this is an empty promise...