People, Actors, and the Humanizing of Institutional Theory

• Published date: 01 June 2020
• Author: Klaus Weber,Maxim Voronov
• Date: 01 June 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12559

© 2020 Society for the Advancement of Management Studies and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

People, Actors, and the Humanizing of Institutional

Theory

Maxim Voronova and Klaus Weberb

aYork University; bNorthwestern University

ABSTRACT In much contemporary institutional scholarship, the term ‘actor’ is used as a short-

hand for any entity imbued with agency. Talking about actors in institutions thus serves the

necessity of allocating agency before returning to the analysis of institutional structures and

processes. We find this approach to actorhood limiting, conceptually and normatively. Grounded

in the perspective of pragmatist phenomenology, we assert the need for distinguishing between

persons and actors, and the value of integrating the person into institutional analysis. We

conceive of persons as humans with a reflective capacity and sense of self, who engage with

multiple institutions through the performance of institutional roles. People may acquire actor-

hood by temporarily aligning their self with what is expected from a particular actor-role in

an institutional order. Conversely, institutions enter people’s lifeworld as they are personified in

people’s social performances. We outline this perspective and examine conceptual and norma-

tive implications that arise from the integration of human experience in institutional analysis.

Keywords: actor, inhabited institutions, institutional theory, person, phenomenology, self

INTRODUCTION

Institutional scholars have used the notion of the actor to carry the conce ptual bur-

den of addressing agency in contemporary institutional analysis – as an(y) entity that

is endowed with agency. Consequently, scholars have identified organizations, persons

and other collective constructions, such as nation-states, as actors, and have taken the

notion of actorhood to mean that those entities are recognized and have standing within

an institutional order of interlocking actor-roles1

(Lok, 2018; Meyer, 2010). This con-

ception of actorhood is elegant in its simplicity and scope. It allows for an extension

of the actor concept to non-human objects as actants (Curchod et al., in press; Latour,

1990). It is unproblematic, as long as institutional analysis is primarily concerned with

Journal of Man agement Studi es 57:4 June 2020

doi:10. 1111/jo ms .12 559

Address for reprints: Maxim Voronov, Schulich School of Business, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto,

Ontario, M3J 1P3, Canada (mvoronov@schulich.yorku.ca).