Why Do Individuals Perceive and Respond to the Same Institutional Demands Differently? On the Cognitive Structural Underpinnings of Institutional Complexity
Microfoundations of Institutions
ISBN: 978-1-78769-124-7, eISBN: 978-1-78769-123-0
Publication date: 25 November 2019
Abstract
Research has begun to explore how individuals perceive and respond to institutional complexity differently. The authors extend such efforts and theorize how the complexity of individuals’ cognitive representations of the institutional logics (based on their perceived differentiation and integration of the external environment) and of their role identities (based on the pluralism and unity of their self-representations) can predict such variation. The authors argue that the former explains whether individuals are capable of enacting norms and beliefs from different logics and of envisioning possibilities to reconcile their contradictory demands, whereas the latter explains whether they are motivated to implement a given response.
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Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
We are grateful for the helpful comments from the OTREG community, and the participants of the sub-theme “Rethinking Responses to Institutional Complexity” at the European Group of Organization Studies meeting in 2014. We also wish to extend our deep gratitude to Royston Greenwood and Ivano Cardinale for their feedback, advice and engagement with earlier versions of our work.
Citation
Cholakova, M. and Ravasi, D. (2019), "Why Do Individuals Perceive and Respond to the Same Institutional Demands Differently? On the Cognitive Structural Underpinnings of Institutional Complexity", Haack, P., Sieweke, J. and Wessel, L. (Ed.) Microfoundations of Institutions (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 65A), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 99-118. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X2019000065A011
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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