Different Paths for Institutional Theory: Foundational Dichotomies and Theoretical Framing (original) (raw)
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In everyday life we witness different phenomena. They are of a social, political, organizational, economic, and other nature. Over time, researchers have come up with different theories in order to explain these phenomena. In this way, institutionalism appeared as a theory meant to help us understand reality. The institutionalist theory focuses on the impact of the institutions over the human behavior and the behavioral outcomes they generate. The main actor of the institutionalist theory, the institutions, is defined as a set of formal and informal rules that guide the behavior of its members (Steinmo, 2001). In general, the definitions brought to institutions are complex. For example, Bell's definition highlights that the institutions are "formal rules, compliance procedures and standard operating practices that structure the relationship between individuals in various units in the polity and economy" (Bell, 2002). As we can see from the above definition, the institutions are something more than we think they are; we will call institutions not only the obvious ones such as the state institutions (parliament, government), or profile institutions (economic and research institutions) but also those constructions that operate based on formal or informal rules, procedures and practices, like the family institution, the institution of marriage, etc. Now that we have understood what the institutions are about, we will focus on the ideas that this theory promotes.