When organizations change logics: The power of rhetoric

1. When organizations change logics: The power of rhetoric Amanda Hinojosa

2. Outline

3. Institutional Logic: A definition • An institutional logic is “the socially constructed, historical pattern of material practices, assumptions, values, beliefs, and rules by which individuals produce and reproduce their material subsistence, organize time and space, and provide meaning to their social reality” (Thornton & Ocasio, 1999: 803).

4. As such, logics are powerful frames for action in significant arenas of social life. • Changes in institutional logics thus represent the type of change that can upset social orders, power structures, and even basic meaning systems that guide people in their day-to-day material practices.

5. Thornton and Ocasio (1999) showed how the editorial logic that dominated textbook publishing was replaced by a market logic, shifting the mission of publishing firms away from building prestige within a craft to building corporate positions and focusing on profits. • Shifts in logic have occurred in fields as disparate as accounting (Thornton, Jones, & Kury, 2005), architecture (Jones & Livne-Tarandach, 2008), and health care (Scott, Ruef, Mendel, and Caronna, 2000).

6. Higher Education • Typically organized anarchy form • Historically apply an academic professional logic characterized by:

7. Current Changes in Higher Education • Funding decline • Some schools have introduced new budgetary and management systems that are based on a market logic • These organizations are introducing a market logic into a field dominated by the academic professional logic

8. Logics • Market vs. Professional logic

9. Rhetoric and Change

10. Study 1 Proposal

11. Study 2 Proposal

12. Next Steps