Showing papers by "Walter W. Powell published in 2019"

Institutions on the Ground

Abstract: Knowledge of how institutions “work on the ground” is central to understanding how macro-pressures shape organizations and their participants. Four examples of the interplay between micro and macro are provided to give a richer account of institutions, both as process and outcome. One, as wider trends diffuse, they are pulled down locally, but the scripts are utilized in divergent ways. Two, as organizations make sense of social forces, these movements are received differentially, with micro-practices and macro-influences becoming entangled. Three, trends can be opaque to those who seek to follow them, resulting in unintended forms of implementation. Four, sociological miniaturism illustrates how the micro captures the macro as lived experience.

Amphibious Entrepreneurs and the Origins of Invention

Abstract: This chapter examines entrepreneurs who carry ideas, technologies, values, and assumptions between previously unrelated spheres of economic or cultural activity and, in the process, change the existing order of things. The chapter labels such individuals amphibious entrepreneurs and explores their characteristics via four case studies. Their stories suggest a distinct species within the genus of entrepreneur: more pragmatic than heroic, and as likely to invent by not knowing any better as by calculative creation. The chapter discusses their role in creating interstitial spaces, contrasts them with other boundary-spanning actors, and identifies directions for future research at the intersection of social history and entrepreneurship.