Caracterización del centro de ETECSA de Encrucijada

Institutional work focuses on “the purposive action of individuals and organizations aimed at creating, maintaining and disrupting institutions” (Lawrence and Suddaby, 2006 p.215). It highlights the deliberate actions performed in relation to institutions. This includes dramatic and visible changes shown in studies of institutional entrepreneurship (Lawrence et al., 2009). However, institutional work focuses more on the “almost invisible”, and most-of- the-time mundane adjustments of actors intending to create, maintain or disrupt institutional arrangements (Lawrence et al., 2009).

The concept of institutional work is useful to analyze the purposive actions of individuals and organizations adopting the UNGC. It helps to analyze if the UNGC over time is internalized and become “taken-for-granted”, turning into the habitual way of doing things (Boons and Strannegard, 2000). This is called “sedimentation” in the institutionalization process. It happens when an innovation is perpetuated and becomes embedded in routines, forms and documents (Scott, 2008).

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In order for the concept of institutional work to advance, detailed case studies are important. They allow a better understanding of the practical actions performed by individuals and organizations in their attempts to create maintain and disrupt institutional arrangements (Lawrence et al., 2009). This research project is based on four case studies. This allows the analysis of the fine-grained activities performed by both individuals and organizations adopting the UNGC.

The main objective of the concept of institutional work is to establish a wider view of the relationship between agency and institutions. “Direction” is a central part of the institutional work concept (Lawrence et al., 2009). Institutions and actors interact in a “recursive relationship” (Barley and Tolbert, 1997). Institutions provide templates and regulative mechanisms to reinforce them. Actions shape these templates and regulative instruments (Lawrence et al., 2009). Exhibit 1 presents this relationship.

Exhibit 1: “Recursive Relationship” Between Institutions and Action

Source: Lawrence, Suddaby and Leca 2009 p. 7

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Institutional work focuses on the lower arrow in exhibit 1. Its concern is on how actors affect institutions, without denying the effects of institutions on actors. These effects are crucial in understanding the nature of institutional work (Lawrence et al., 2009). According to Lawrence and Suddaby (2006), when studying institutional work it is essential to: highlight actors’ awareness skill and reflexivity, understand institutions as constituted in actors’ conscious actions, and recognize that is not possible to “step outside of action as practice”. Every action, even the one that aims to change the institutional order, happens within a set of institutional rules (Lawrence et al. 2009; p.7).

According to Lawrence et al. (2009), there are three key elements in the study of institutional work: accomplishment, intentionality and effort. When studying institutional work it is important to establish a distinction between “creating institutions” and “the creation of institutions”. Institutional work can include in its study the factors which lead to the successful “creation” of new institutions. However the interest of institutional work is broader. It includes other issues like understanding which actors are more likely to get involved in “creating” institutions and what factors can support or hinder their work, without focusing on their success or failure (Lawrence et al., 2009).

This research project can be considered part of institutional work, as it focuses on the activities performed by actors and organizations to adopt the UNGC. The focus is not on the results they obtain, but on how they have achieved those results. And on which practices have helped or hindered the adoption of the UNGC. This is an important change in the study of organizations from an

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institutional perspective, because little is known of the concrete practices used by actors when working to institutionalize a new practice within the organization. Institutional work aims to move from a linear view of the institutionalization processes to taking into account resistance and transformation. In this way, the concept of institutional work contributes to move beyond a successful and heroic conception of agency (Lawrence et al., 2009).

The second key element of institutional work is intentionality. The definition of institutional work includes the phrase “purposive action” which implies “conscious intentionality” (Lawrence et al., 2009). The objective of including intentionality in the definition of institutional work is to broaden our approach to studying institutions and organizations. The literature on institutional work aims to focus on institutional work per se as the object of analysis. This contrasts with most studies of institutional entrepreneurship. They focus on explaining institutional change, making human action their main explanatory factor. The main interest of institutional work is on the actions individuals and organizations perform. The difference is that institutional work analyzes these actions as interesting phenomena in themselves. It studies how and why action takes place and “its potential impact or lack of impact” (Lawrence et al., 2009) p. 14. This research project focuses on individuals and organizations adopting the UNGC. The focus is on the actions they perform per se. Its recent adoption makes it difficult to focus on the adoption’s success or failure. The four organizations are in the process of adopting the UNGC. Moreover, the adoption of the UNGC is a recursive process in which some aspects of the initiatives are just starting, when

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others are already institutionalized within the organization. Some are successfully implemented; others are dropped.

The last key element of institutional work is effort. It provides a useful dimension to the study of institutions and organizations from an institutional work perspective. Usually studies on institutions and organizations focus on action, which has a different connotation from work (Lawrence et al., 2009). Work is strongly connected to effort. Work can be defined as: “activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a result” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2013). This definition relates the idea of effort to gaining a result. Hence institutional work can be understood as the mental or physical effort performed in order to affect institutions (Lawrence et al., 2009).