2018 Conference: What of Macro-Foundations? Rediscovering the Power of Institutions
June 7-9, 2018
Westin Hotel Edmonton
Over the past couple of decades, organizational institutionalists have redirected attention from isomorphism and the effects of wider environmental forces, toward the efforts of skilled, strategic actors, institutional entrepreneurship, inhabited institutions, work, change, and the microsociology of logics. This line of inquiry has been fruitful, but we believe it is time to take stock of where we have been, and where we are headed. In our effort to account for meaningful cognition and agency, have we begun to lose sight of the constitutive power of institutions, and their influence on the emergence and unfolding of interactions, organizations, and fields? In this installment of the triennial Alberta Institutions Conference, we call for renewed attention to the macro-foundations of social and organizational life.
To ask, "what of macrofoundations?" is to remind ourselves of the power of institutions to shape the contexts for individual and organizational action; and their limits in so doing. We encourage a re-engagement with classic texts dedicated to these questions. Phenomenologists, such as Berger and Luckmann, have pointed to the role of institutions in furnishing us with social facts that aid in decision-making and social interaction. Mary Douglas reminds us that institutions (classifications) shape the very means by which we think about the nature of the world. Goffman and Garfinkel, in turn, tell us that the macro-foundational context is at stake during interaction: that just a few words or gestures could transform an academic discussion into a partisan debate, a personal attack, an ivory-tower indulgence, or harassment. Such traditions, and their tensions, provide us with powerful tools to think through the interweaving of the institutional and interactional, the macro and micro-providing substantial scope for generative debate, and cross-fertilization. So too do our home-grown traditions: including the institutional logics perspective, world society institutionalism, Scandinavian institutionalism, the old and new institutionalism, social movement theory, and the like. We have assembled a very exciting program. As usual, we will be bringing together diverse institutional scholars from all career stages, including PhD students, to discuss these topics. We are also delighted that Mary Ann Glynn (Joseph F. Cotter Professor, Carroll School of Management, Boston College; current Academy of Management President) will provide the keynote address.