Entrepreneurial Rhetoric for Institutional Transformation

Abstract

Organizational scholars use the concept of institutional logics to define and distinguish between multiple co-existing institutions that constitute the diverse cultural landscapes of contemporary societies. Research on institutional logics has devoted considerable attention to understanding how actors use rhetoric associated with distinct institutional logics as tools of institutional transformation. However, prior research has not typically examined rhetoric aimed at transforming institutions with broad societal impact, such as public or governmental institutions, which limits the generalizability of empirical findings. This dissertation renews the logics literature’s original emphasis on societal institutions and offers necessary clarification on how the central logics of two major societal institutions, the state and the market, may change in relation to each another through the rhetorical agency of state actors. In two studies, the dissertation examines the dynamics between the state logic and the market logic embedded in the rhetoric of the Clinton administration on its high-profile federal management reform, known as “Reinventing Government,” and related discussions in the United States Congress over a seven-year period (1993-2000). Study 1 focuses on how the administration constructed and revised rhetoric to justify replacing the prevailing state logic with the market logic to key stakeholders. Study 2 focuses on how the rhetoric of congressional lawmakers expressed heterogeneous legitimacy criteria that differed in priority given to the state logic versus the market logic. The studies provide convergent findings that suggest logic replacement is an unlikely form of institutional change at the societal level of analysis; however, the state logic may change by combining with elements of the market logic to form new layers of content over time.