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Article
When Institutional Work Backfires: Organizational Control Of Professional Work In The Pharmaceutical Industry
Journal of Management Studies
  • Jagdip Singh, Case Western Reserve University
  • Rama K. Jayanti, Cleveland State University
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-1-2013
Keywords
  • institutional change; institutional work; logics; organization; pharmaceutical marketing; professional work; role enactment
Abstract

Integrating institutional and role theories, this paper develops a Logics–Roles– Action (LRA) framework for understanding how for-profit organizations structure institutional work to managerially control the work of professionals they employ. Structurally, this institutional work involves three elements: (1) internalizing pluralistic logics (logics); (2) institutionalizing distinct roles embedded in these logics (roles); and (3) scripting goal-oriented role enactment plans (action). An empirical examination of the LRA framework in the pharmaceutical industry evidences four distinct organizational strategies that script role enactments of sales professionals in their interactions with physicians. Each strategy is intended to reaffirm prevailing institutional logics, but eventually backfires by disrupting the very institutional structures that it seeks to maintain and replicate. We show that this disruptive effect is mediated by changes in the social knowledge of institutional work. We close with theoretical and managerial implications for organizational structuring of institutional work and dynamics of institutional change.

DOI
10.1111/joms.12022
Version
Postprint
Citation Information
Singh, J & Jayanti, R.K. (2013). When institutional work backfires: Organizational control of professional work in the pharmaceutical industry. Journal of Management Studies, 50(5), 900-929. doi: 10.1111/joms.12022