A Contingency Theory of Institutional Entrepreneurship

This paper proposes a contingency theory of institutional entrepreneurship. Institutional entrepreneurship has emerged to explain how agency can be incorporated within institutional theory. Following existiting literature on the “paradox of embedded agency”, we build on the definition of the conditions that enable actors to pursue their best interests by creating, modifying or disrupting existing institutions, namely the position in the organizational field, in the organizational hierarchy and in the intraorganizational network. We discuss the existance of different kinds of institutions, each requiring for individuals a specific amount of resources (ability) and interest (willingness) for change. We build on the classification of institutions into private, social and state ordering mechanisms and we propose for each kind of institution the enabling conditions that, by providing for both the ability and willingness, make an individual more likely to promote divergent changes within it.