Institutions and Actorhood as Co‐Constitutive and Co‐Constructed: The Argument and Areas for Future Research

• Author: Renate E. Meyer,Eero Vaara
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12561
• Published date: 01 June 2020
• Date: 01 June 2020

© 2020 The Authors. Journal of Management Studies published by Society for the Advancement of Management

Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Institutions and Actorhood as Co-Constitutive and

Co-Constructed: The Argument and Areas for Future

Research

Renate E. Meyera,b and Eero Vaarac,d

aWU Wirtschaftsuniversität Vienna; bCopenhagen Business School; cOxford University Saïd Business

School; dAalto University School of Business

ABSTRACT We argue that in order to overcome the reductionism and essentialism in institutional

theory there is a need to acknowledge that institutions and social actors are co-constitutive and

co-constructed in processes of communication. We elaborate this argument by drawing on the

phenomenological foundation of institutional theor y and point to promising areas of future re-

search: the multimodal nature of institutions, the mediated and mediatized character of modern

communication, and the contestedness of all social orders and their legitimation.

Keywords: actorhood, co-constitution, communication, discourse, institutional theory,

legitimacy, multimodality

INTRODUCTION

In our counterpoint, we challenge the two perspectives presented by Voronov and Weber

(2020) and Bitektine et al. (2020) by arguing that people do not simply inhabit institu-

tions nor vice versa, but that institutions and social actors are co-constitutive and that

they are co-constructed in communication. Recent advances in institutional theory have

brought actorhood and agency back to the centre stage (Battilana et al., 2009; Hallett

and Ventresca, 2006; Lawrence et al., 2009; but see Hwang et al., 2019). Although these

efforts are well appreciated, they entail a danger of leading towards individualism and

reductionism that goes against one of the cornerstones of institutional theory: that in-

stitutions and actorhood are social constructions that are inextricably tied to each other.

Journal of Man agement Studi es 57:4 June 2020

doi:10. 1111/j om s.1 25 61

Address for reprints: Renate E. Meyer, WU Wirtschaftsuniversität Vienna, Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna,

Austria (renate.meyer@wu.ac.at).

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which per-

mits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.