Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Science Studies

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Department of Social Sciences | Science Studies | Research | DFG-Network: Sociological New Institutionalism and its idle potentials: theoretical challenges and empirical research perspectives

DFG-Network: Sociological New Institutionalism and its idle potentials: theoretical challenges and empirical research perspectives


Applicants: Dr. Uli Meyer (TU Berlin), Dr. Stefan Kirchner (Hamburg), Dr. Anne K. Krüger (BBAW), Dr. Frank Meier (Bremen)

Funding: German Research Foundation (DFG)      

Running: 2014-2017

 

New Institutionalism (NI) is one of the most prominent theoretical approaches in interdisciplinary organizational research. Set out to tackle empirical problems, NI has been conducive to our understanding of organizations by and large. Currently, NI is dealing with three main topics (1): The conflicting relations between heterogeneous institutional logics, (2) the relevance of meso-level social orders, e.g. organizational fields, and (3) the micro-foundations of institutionalization processes and institutional change. However, besides a subsequent substantial broadening of this approach, NI’s focus on these issues has furthermore led to a loss in theoretical coherence. In this respect, we need to engage in a discussion about theoretical premises, not least to hedge the practical relevance of NI in a sustainable way. Therefore, the DFG-network aims at (i) analyzing current explanatory approaches in terms of their theoretical foundations, their deficits and their practical applications, (ii) exploring how concepts of NI contemporarily in use can be grounded in established social theories and (iii), based on the afore-mentioned aims, advancing NI’s concepts with regard to the micro, meso and macro levels of observation.